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John Ahearn with Rigoberto Torres
Peter John, 2005
acrylic on plaster
Courtesy Alexander Bonin Gallery

In 2002, Ahearn and Torres were in a Caguas, Puerto Rico preparing a major public art commission. They met Peter John Ramos playing basketball and asked him to participate in their sculpture project. This life-cast of Ramos was made before he went on to play in the 2004 Olympics and joined the NBA's Washington Wizards last fall.

John Ahearn
Maria, 1988
acrylic on plaster
Courtesy John and Dede Brough

John Ahearn
Ricky, 1983
acrylic on plaster
Courtesy John and Dede Brough

Sanford Biggers
Mandala of the B-Bodhisattva, #3, 2000
84" x 84"
Courtesy Aaron Burt
Biggers has created a break-dance floor in the form of a mandala, a geometric design motif used in Hinduism and Buddhism to symbolize the universe and to aide meditation, thereby bonding the ritual intensity- both physical and spiritual- of both practices. In other artworks Biggers has melting down hip-hop jewelry to make a meditation bell and created sand-paintings using graffiti imagery.

Iona Rozeal Brown
a3 #13… libertationed, 2004
acrylic on paper
50" x 38"
Private collection
Iona Rozeal Brown delights in hip-hop styling, especially as it reverberates across the globe. Her first major body of work focused on a phenomenon called ganguro- referring to Japanese youth who darken their skin and perm their hair into afros. Brown blends hip-hop with the Japanese art form known as Ukioy-e (pictures from the floating world). Ukioy-e flourished in Japan's Edo period (1603-1867), a time of both refinement and decadence, featuring new art forms, high fashion, geisha, samurai-codes, honorifics, passages, accoutrements, not unlike the style-flossing, bling, rhymes, beats, scratching, fresh gear, dope ropes, b-boy stances, and sampling of today's hip-hip. In more recent work Brown considers the further spread of hip-hop to the Muslim world, depicting burqa-clad women flashing gang signs and Persian carpet designs incorporating images of tanks and bombs. Brown's art leads us to realize that all people are mirror images of each other and have the capacity for reciprocal relationship.

Iona Rozeal Brown
liberations of a b-girl repping the east #1, 2004
acrylic on paper
50" x 38"
Courtesy G Fine Art

a3 w.o.i.m.s. #14, 2004
acrylic on paper
50" x 38"
w.o.i.m.s.: weapons of incoherent mass spending
Courtesy G Fine Art
Iona Rozeal Brown delights in hip-hop styling, especially as it reverberates across the globe. Her first major body of work focused on a phenomenon called ganguro- referring to Japanese youth who darken their skin and perm their hair into afros. Brown blends hip-hop with the Japanese art form known as Ukioy-e (pictures from the floating world). Ukioy-e flourished in Japan's Edo period (1603-1867), a time of both refinement and decadence, featuring new art forms, high fashion, geisha, samurai-codes, honorifics, passages, accoutrements, not unlike the style-flossing, bling, rhymes, beats, scratching, fresh gear, dope ropes, b-boy stances, and sampling of today's hip-hip. In more recent work Brown considers the further spread of hip-hop to the Muslim world, depicting burqa-clad women flashing gang signs and Persian carpet designs incorporating images of tanks and bombs. Brown's art leads us to realize that all people are mirror images of each other and have the capacity for reciprocal relationship.

Brett Cook
Untitled (break-dancer), 2003
60" x 60"
Courtesy P.P.O.W Gallery
For over ten years, Cook has worked in marginalized communities on projects ranging from murals and graffiti to oral history and street festivals. For Cook, art-making is a democratic and collaborative process amplifying and empowering individual voices and values embedded in communities. This piece is a break-dance floor that would typically be used as part of a street celebration.

Keith Haring
untitled, ca. 1984
sumi ink on paper
24" x 32"
Courtesy Leigh Connor
Haring, a leading artist and AIDS-activist in the 1980s, was also a pioneer in the graffiti movement that overtook New York City's subway system. Using simple but extremely distinctive figure drawings, Haring's art illustrates universal experiences of birth, death, love, sex and war. Haring's imagery has become a signature visual language of the 20th century.

Packard Jennings
Fallen Rapper PEZ Prototypes, 2001
molded polyurethane
8" x 17.5" x 3"
Private Collection
Jennings (aka Michael Durham) creates artworks that revel in exploiting America's obsession with pop culture and commodification. His humorous approach lowers the viewer's guard, setting us up for the delivery of a finely crafted prank. His proposal to make Fallen Rapper Pez candy dispensers goes to the core of what histories and topics are acceptable for corporate exploitation.

Jose Ruiz
Go Signatures in Minimalist Graffiti, 2005
2-channel video, DVD edition of 5
Music: White Lines, by GrandMaster Flash and Melle Mel
Courtesy G Fine Art
Jose Ruiz, originally from Lima, Peru, is known for his mixed-media artworks. For this two-channel video Ruiz, with his friend Kelly Towles whose work is also in this exhibition, makes a study of the process of creating and obliterating graffiti. Ruiz pulls the audience into this narrative piece, igniting internal self-conflicts and allowing the viewer to create his or her own analysis and interpretation. Is graffiti good or bad? Is it art or non-art? Who is the artist? Who is permitted to make art or erase it? And under what circumstances? The video installation makes an oblique reference to a famous incident in 1953 when Robert Rauschenberg, then a young artist, erased a drawing by master Abstract-Expressionist Willem DeKooning.

Kelly Towles
Candy of Your Life, 2004
Digital pigment print
16" x 12", Edition of 15
Courtesy Adamson Gallery

These Days Are Better, 2004
Digital pigment print
16" x 12", Edition of 15
Courtesy Adamson Gallery

On the Razor's Edge, 2004
Digital pigment print
12" x 16", Edition of 15
Courtesy Adamson Gallery

Crush Me Twice, 2004
Digital pigment print
16" x 12", Edition of 15
Courtesy Adamson Gallery

A Written Statement, 2004
Digital pigment print
14"x 10.5", Edition of 25
Courtesy Adamson Gallery
Towles's art concerns the violations of contemporary living, the rawness of social isolation and the desperation of emotional captivity. His comic book icons seem to hum stoically while expressing their anger, loneliness, degradation, disenchantment, disenfranchisement, and despair. Yet they are also very lovable, engaging us with their skillful designs, quirky humor, and absurd predicaments. One feels them striving to transcend their lot.

Kehinde Wiley
St. Laurence,(from a statue on the Colonnades in Vatican City) 2005
oil and enamel on canvas
72" x 60"
Private collection

Investiture of Bishop Harold (study), 2005
pencil, ink, and gouache on paper
15" x 22" (unframed)
Private collection
Creating anonymous, heroically scaled portraits of contemporary African-American males, Kehinde Wiley explores many grand precedents of European painting, while offering a wry critique of today's media version of black masculinity.

B-Girl Be, 2005
Rachel Raimist, director
DVD, (60 minutes)
In cooperation with Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, MN

Back to Exhibits

PHOTOS
See images from the Change Methods Opening reception

SLIDE SHOW
Works featured in the Change Methods Exhibition