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OUT
$5 masterpieces en masse
Music inspires artist's performance and assembly-like production by Charissa Young
KIT LEFFLER
Like a maestro feverishly waving his baton to direct the music, Steve Keene orchestrates his own art with a quick paintbrush and gallons upon gallons of Utrecht house paint.
Keene, a 48-year-old painter from New York, is living in Lawrence as an artist-in-residence at the University, painting live Monday through Friday in the Kansas Union art gallery until February 14.
Images of the '70s rock band Blondie appear in thickly brush-stroked paintings in Keene's portfolio. Interwoven throughout his collection is album art he created for cult-favorite band Pavement, underlining a strong influence in Keene's work music. His vibrant, exuberant paintings, like music, travel to the farthest corners of the globe — from the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany.
While attending Yale University to study printmaking, Keene worked as a radio DJ
and met guitarist and singer Steven Malmus of Pavement. Keene began collaborating with Malmus and other musicians, including Dave Matthews Band, painting album art, video and stage sets and posters.
In 1998, Andy Dierks, then a KU student but now KJHK general manager, attended a Pavement and Apples in Stereo show at Liberty Hall where he purchased his first work by Keene. Later, Dierks purchased three more paintings for $45 on Keene's Web site, www.stvekeene.com, and was pleasantly surprised when nine paintings arrived at his doorstep instead."I could even smell the fresh paint as soon as I opened the package," Dierks says. Four of these paintings are proudly displayed in Dierks' office where Megan Wesley, last year's Student Union Activities Cultural Arts Coordinator, initially noticed them and got the ball rolling to bring Keene to campus.
David Cateforis, professor
of art history, says that Keene's involvement with rock music seems consistent with his effort to reach the masses. "Keene is playing partly to the insider's art-world elite. On the other hand, his art is very populist in orientation, so it's more like street art being made for the masses."
The day after Keene arrived in Kansas, he purchased 100 sheets of thin plywood, the equivalent of an 8-by-400-foot painting.
Keene churns out 100 paintings a day and admits that the 8- to 10-hour workdays are stressful, but he doesn't worry if the product is bad or good. "It's like playing a game you can't redo. You just do another," Keene says.
To make his art, Keene cuts the plywood to make smaller panels. He creates multiples of the same image, though each is unique because it is hand-painted. The panels combined create his envisioned large-scale piece.
Though Keene doesn't have the rock star ego, he certainly lives the lifestyle, traveling around the world performing. And for Keene, the performance is as important to his art as the end product he creates. "It's as if I'm a musician performing for an audience. There's a craft in traveling around and adapting to different situations. You think about how you can animate different spaces," Keene says. "But I don't talk to people while I'm working. I'm polite, but it's like I'm working on stage playing an instrument. You don't talk to the audience while you're creating your art."
Even more remarkable than the scale and spontaneity of his art is the cost to purchase it. Keene is selling his original works for $5 per painting. Smaller pieces brought from his Brooklyn studio run even cheaper: 3 for $5. Keene said that because his art is so cheap, people think of them as informal trading cards. "You buy a few, and if you move, you may leave
them, take them with you, or give them to a friend. My art is dispersed to the world in many different ways,"Keene says.
Michelle Tran, current SUA Cultural Arts Coordinator and Derby junior, says, "Sometimes you go to a gallery to see a beautiful piece of artwork, but it's too expensive to purchase. With Keene, you can take a little bit of his art home with you like a souvenir from a show."
Keene has created at least 175,000 paintings over the past 14 years. His philosophy echoes that magnitude of energy.
"How do you make big art in the world?" Keene asks. "You just stop."
SEE STEVE KEENE PAINT LIVE
9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Monday through
until February 14,
Kansas Union Gallery,
fourth floor
STEVE KEENE ON
CRITICISM: "People try to read too much into my art. Accept what it is – a different way to think. It's product-like. I make it like I was making hamburgers or worked in a bakery. It's done at that moment, fresh for your purchase."
iPODS:"I'm a big fan of radio. I'll get an iPod one day, but I'm leery of only listening to my own music choices. I like the spontaneity of radio."
TODAY'S MUSIC: "I know a lot of critics don't like them, but I really like the Darkness's new album. It's funny because it's a spoof of the era of music I used to be forced to listen to as a kid."
02.02.2008 JAYPLAY <15