I’m at a point in my life where I’m beginning to see the world differently; I see that the world is equally beautiful as it is fucked up. I’ve loved music since birth and it has been my only real dapple into “Art”. At 18 I saw an Andy Warhol exhibition, this moved me, especially one particular work named ‘The Electric Chair’ which is a screen-print and acrylic paint on canvas of an Electric Chair, but displayed in a number of colours, allowing death to be seen in a number of lights. Since then I’ve gone off art almost completely, I still enjoy a good album art, but I don’t think I’ve ever been able to appreciate art fully. Sure, when I go to a gallery and I see an amazing portrait, I go fuck that is amazing, but when its next to a piece “art” that is a blank white canvas with 3 black symmetrical lines, I think to myself, fuck I could to that. That’s how I see most art, people drawing like a 3 year old and calling it impressionism or some other art name that best describes 3 blue dots and 1 green dot on a wall.
It wasn’t until the past 6 months I decided to get more involved with the world around me, and not conform to getting my news from the traditional media, and Karl Stefanovic on the occasional viewing of the today show (although there is nothing wrong with Karl). I began to explore the world of VICE in great detail, and after watching the first episode of their HBO series I was hooked, I subscribed to all the YouTube channels, followed their official pages and their journalist on social media, so I felt up to date with world around me, it has been a great decision on my part.
After watching countless documentaries from Weediquette to understanding who the fuck ISIS and what sick views they stand for, I stumbled across this personality called David Choe. He had his own mini series called “Thumbs Up” where he traveled from LA to Miami using any means of transport but not paying for it. So this entailed hitch hiking, hoping on freight trains and calling in favours. In the series he’s crude, funny and downright doesn’t give a fuck, and I like that. Throughout the series he graffiti’d any wall he could find with his signature David Choe images which includes he is closely identifiable bucktoothed whale, which he has been spray-painting on the streets since he was in his teens. The whale’s name is “Munko” and first appeared in the Los Angeles graffiti scene, randomly popping up on pavements, concrete walls, over passes and freeways with quotes and food for thought.
After watching the series and the two that followed I began to take interest in David’s art, so I went trolling. I found a number of cool shit online, including a doco on his life called ‘Dirty Hands’, filmed by his partner in crime, Harry Kim. He was born and raised in Korea Town in Los Angeles; started doing art in high school and went from there. Through hard work and a small stint in a Japanese prison, he began to make a name for himself, so much so Sean Parker of the then “The Facebook” asked him to paint their first office, they offered him 50K to do it. But, Choe, a degenerate gambler, asked Sean Parker and Mark Zuckerberg to not pay him cash, but pay him in shares in this little start-up company. Years later, Facebook grows to be the monster it is and goes public on the stock-exchange, Choe becomes an overnight Millionaire.
But, before his Facebook coin, he released a number of self-published books which are of limited print, (which I’m currently searching the net for to find some decent copies) and a couple of weeks ago released his latest book – SNOWMAN MONKEY BBQ. (which, as of last week I am the proud owner of!) Although, his books are hard to come across, it’s his art which is even harder to obtain let alone afford. I believe it was in his doco – ‘Dirty Hands’ where Choe said that he won’t be able to do art forever because every piece of art he has done is taking a little part of him, and eventually it will run out. This is why he is in such high demand, even so, during the 2008 presidential race, Choe painted a portrait of then-Senator Barack Obama for use in a grassroots street art campaign, the original was later displayed in the White House.
Other notable and more ‘mainstream’ art included him doing the album artwork for the Jay Z x Linkin Park’s Collision Course EP released a few years back.
There’s no denying that this dude is crazy and has issues, but that’s what makes him such a great artist, he makes ART for people who hate ART, and I’m now one of those people. This is truly just scratching the surface of this dude, I could go on, but I’ll leave it up to you to just Google him and check out his shit, whether it’s his art, his story or his VICE contributions, you’ll hate him and love him all at once.
Once SNOWMAN MONKEY BBQ has landed in my hands, I’ll spend hours going through it and reconvene in an ART for people who hate ART PT2 – stay tuned.
-TR
