SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS is pleased to announce its inaugural exhibition with legendary photographer Glen E. Friedman. The most highly anticipated event of Subliminal Projects’ season, Friedman’s Idealist Propaganda encompasses the artist’s first major retrospective to date, featuring a rare selection of Friedman’s oeuvre, including twenty-five never-before exhibited photographs from his celebrated iconic photos of the pioneering skate, punk and hip-hop subcultures to his equally political and polarized subject matter of the natural world. Idealist Propaganda is a transcendent exhibition and ultimately Friedman’s most definitive creative andphilosophical statement. It is Subliminal Projects’ first solo exhibition of photography by a represented artist.
Glen E. Friedman. the Idealist. 1991. Color Photograph. Collection: The Idealist-In My Eyes- 25 Years (1976 – 2001). 2nd Ed. Burning Flags Press, 2003.
For Idealist Propaganda, Friedman exhibits his prolific collection in salon style, sampling seminal, never before seen photos from hisFuck You All collection, in addition to previously shown works in his The Idealist solo exhibition of 2004 and Fuck You Allinternational touring exhibition, which include his Fuck You Heroes and Fuck You Too series. On display for the first time ever are images from his Recognize monograph, a dramatic and overt manifesto of aesthetic idealism, compressed and recontextualized through the singular, yet challenging and amorphous nature of clouds. Through these uninhibited photographs, brilliantly captured mostly from within the clouds themselves, Friedman seeks to reintroduce a raw, beautiful, and vital way of seeing the world.
Stemming from his The Idealist fine art series, Friedman’s show is a cornucopia of measured decisions, “every piece is purely there for aesthetic, and to excite.” Radical, charismatic and unapologetic, Friedman’s photographs are an extension of his beliefs, social and political; “The work speaks for itself for those tuned in or not.” Through his own personal propaganda, Friedman’s goal has always been to inspire people. “I feel a personal responsibility to inspire rebellion – to be inspired,” he says. As a 13 year old just beginning to explore the world through his simple Pentax camera lens, he believed being a participant was “really important and wanted to change what people did and thought.” Drawing inspiration from the Renaissance artists he admired, Friedman challenged himself to become a master craftsman in his own right. His radicalized photography is saturated with deep color, rich texture, and intricate composition, producing a pulsing political energy that is undeniable, “Like a punch in the face!” Whether it’s from the skateboarders of Dogtown, Run DMC and Public Enemy, or Minor Threat and Black Flag, Glen E. Friedman’s work captures his subjects as the recognized and respected artistic zeitgeists inherent to their being.
On display and never before exhibited will also be a selection of some of the twenty-five images added to the second, updated edition of The Idealist book, ten photographic images of Friedman’s Recognize cloud series in traditional frames, and two oversized images from the same collection mounted on aluminum. On loan from Shepard Fairey’s personal collection will be one of the original window display signs and photograph from the “Liberty Street Protest,” a large-scale provocative anti-war installation created by Friedman in 2004, with the assistance of artists Chris Habib and Shepard Fairey. On the property of Friedman’s long-time friend Russell Simmons, located across the street from 9-11 Ground Zero in New York City at the World Trade Center before the Republican National Convention, the site-specific public art project ignited international awareness which continues to resonate.
Glen E. Friedman will be attending the opening reception and signing edition copies of his books: Fuck You Heroes, Fuck You Too,The Idealist, Dogtown – The Legend of the Z-Boys, Recognize, and Keep Your Eyes Open. Signed copies of Recognize, unavailable instores and only available from the artists’ publishing company Burning Flags Press, will be available through Subliminal Projects as part of the exhibition. Visit www.subliminalprojects.com for more information about the gallery and Glen E. Friedman’s exhibition. For further information on Glen E. Friedman, visit his official site at www.BurningFlags.com.
About Glen E. Friedman
Glen E. Friedman is the most significant photographer of his generation. His images of the early Dogtown skateboarders in the late 1970s along with the burgeoning hip-hop and punk rock scenes of the 80s and 90s have made him one of the most important photographers today. With the uncanny ability to capture images of people whose subculture was about to change the world, his subjects range from Jay Adams and Tony Alva to Run DMC, Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys to Minor Threat and Black Flag, among many others. Over the years, Friedman has been able to define the moments of the movements that defined an era. This has cemented his place in history as an uncompromising, extremely gifted artist.
Friedman’s touring exhibition Fuck You All premiered in 1997 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, England. Since then it has been exhibited overseas in Sydney, Australia, Harajuku and Shibuya, in Tokyo Japan, Florence, Milan, Sicily, and Rome in Italy, Berlin, Germany, Stockholm, Sweden, Antwerp, Belgium, and most recently as one of the headliners at Photomonth in Krakow, Poland. Stateside, shows have been in Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Friedman has had books of his work published including Fuck You Heroes, Fuck You Too,The Idealist, Dogtown – The Legend of Z-Boys (with mentor C.R. Stecyk III – it was inspiration to the award winning documentary film Dogtown and Z-Boys that Friedman co-produced); all of which are in multiple editions and pressings. And most recently the books Recognize and Keep Your Eyes Open. Friedman!s The Idealistexhibition premiered at sixspace in 2004, marking the introduction to his fine art images and acting as the release of The Idealist – In My Eyes – 25 Years (1976 – 2001), his second, and updated, version of the original 1998 The Idealist book, an artistic summation of his photography. His Idealist Propaganda retrospective at Subliminal Projects marks the first time this all-encompassing photographic collection is exhibited. Glen E.Friedman lives in New York, NY.
About Subliminal Projects
SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS is a multifunctional gallery space promoting diverse forms of art while providing a forum for contemporary dialogue. SUBLIMINAL was originally created by Shepard Fairey and Blaze Blouin as an artist collective in 1995. The group played an integral part in introducing skateboarding culture and design to the art world, showcasing artists such as Phil Frost, Thomas Campbell, Mike Mills, Dave Aaron, and Mark Gonzales. Shepard and Amanda Fairey continued to host and curate exhibitions that have featured artists such as Ryan McGinness, HunterGatherer, David Ellis, Doze Green, Aesthetic Apparatus, Space Invader, Jim Houser and Andrew Jeffery Wright. In 2003, the SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS gallery was officially opened in the Los Angeles offices of Studio Number One. The scope of the gallery remained true to its roots while embracing new forms of graphic art, illustration, photography and time based media. Now located in the historic Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park, Subliminal Projects continues to offer a platform for artistic exploration and innovation. The 2008 schedule includes art exhibitions by established and emerging artists, as well as a lecture series, workshops and artist publications.
