“The driving principle of Subliminal Projects is that art should be accessible to everyone and that art can come from many different perspectives and cultural niches. Good art is good art, whether it’s done on an album cover, a skateboard, canvas, or found cardboard.” – Shepard Fairey
(Image by Jon Furlong)
Subliminal Projects is a multi-functional project space and gallery established by Shepard Fairey and Blaize Blouin in 1995 as a way to introduce skateboard culture and design to the art world. The concept grew and found roots later in Los Angeles, at a time when many artists found themselves shut out by the “art scene.” Subliminal Projects emerged as a gallery that championed emerging and marginalized artists, built out of cultural importance to serve as a center for the community to openly express and spark dialogue about art, music and activism. Now located in the historic neighborhood of Echo Park, Subliminal Projects continues to offer a platform for artistic exploration and innovation.
Subliminal Projects is pleased to present These Five Kings, by Denver-based artist Ravi Zupa. For his second solo exhibition at Subliminal Projects, Zupa will utilize the entirety of the gallery presenting four different bodies of work that highlight his multidisciplinary practice. The exhibition will feature a site-specific installation of his ongoing typewriter machine gun series titled Mightier Than, a new series of sculptures, as well as new print-based originals, drawings, and paintings.
The exhibition title, These Five Kings, was lifted from a line in the poem The Hand That Signed the Paper, by Dylan Thomas published in 1935. The poem examines the dangers of power and the written word, a concept that plays an integral role in the exhibition through a contemporary lens. With the arrival of A.I. language models, the autonomy of more cognitive tasks, such as writing, has now been usurped, and our competitive advantage is now contingent on our empathy and dexterity.
“Our hands are only made more precious and more invaluable by this strange turn of history. We usually think of the power of words as a positive thing, how it beats the power of violence, but this poem keenly illustrates the dangerous side of that power. How the written word can be a weapon of mass destruction. What we make with our hands and who we share it with becomes more beautiful and more profound.” –Ravi Zupa
Ravi Zupa considers books the best way to experience art. He has spent decades studying books about the art, mythology, religion, and history of cultures from across geography and time. With a distaste for ironic art or the thoughtless appropriation of culture, he integrates seemingly unrelated images in search of something universal. Zupa does not create any of his art digitally; everything comes from his own hand.
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Subliminal Project Presents: “These Five Kings” Featuring Art By Ravi Zupa
