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Artist Statement: Fahamu Pecou“Success
in the post-Warhol art world meant not just feverish acclaim
at
high prices, but also a fame so pervasive that one’s
name appears in the gossip columns, fashion magazines and game shows.” – David Bourdon, WarholNeoPop
is a contemporary host of visual responses to
popular culture. In the first major solo exhibition of painter/performance
artist Fahamu Pecou, NeoPop
explores society’s fascination with media and celebrity.
Within the conventions of Pop Art, NeoPop examines
the current authority of popular culture, and challenges the
notion of Fine Arts position in commercialization.
The impact of celebrity is steadily communicated through means
of societal affiliation and mass reaction.
This recognition is often endorsed by reputation, status,
and accessibility. In NeoPop the series, Pecou explores what builds celebrity and status. By utilizing the
front covers and celebrity sighting pages of significant
publications, He creates large-scale self-portraits and digital
prints that accurately account the details of the
publication referenced.
“By employing my proficiency as a graphic designer,
I choose to “art direct” each painting. I focus
on the
fundamentals of design, composition, color, and line to create
the “desirability” often found in successful
marketing strategies.” The images and words converge
to create messages, both overt and subliminal, that
caption social and political issues in iconography. By doing
this, Pecou exposes his own associations with celebrity, media, displacement, racism and fine art. “The
objective is to begin a dialogue with the viewer that
challenges our ideas about pop culture, media and celebrity
while simultaneously empowering myself as
an artist”. |
