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VIZARTS: | OUTSIDE THE LINES 01.05.06 ONE DAY, Fahamu Pecou got tired of designing publicity material to make other people famous. He set out to make himself famous for being famous, or more accurately, for being "the s**t." "Worldwide he known for that," the card promoting his Web site (www.fahamupecouart.com) claims. Shortly after Ty Stokes Gallery first sold Pecou's large paintings depicting fictional art magazine covers with himself as the main subject, this Castleberry artist had his New York debut last summer. Now he has his first major solo show at Ty Stokes, "NeoPop Goes the World." Pecou, who attended the Atlanta College of Art and showed works in "Arts Beats + Lyrics" at the High, blends hip-hop and art-world insider humor. Both appear in a painting of the fictional cover for Art Journal (the scholarly magazine of the College Art Association). It shows Pecou as a boxer, swaggering and saying, "Say my name! Say it with me: Fuh-ha-moo Pay-coo." Graffiti on the cover asserts "Cindy Sherman wuz not here" and "Kehinde Wiley wuz not here," two artists famous for exploring the culture of celebrity. Sherman does it with self-portraits; Wiley mixes hip-hop with Renaissance art styles. The entire show is like that. The improbable cover of Art + Auction has Pecou in a "Paint Or Die!" T-shirt, asserting "Fahamu Pecou is here to stay." The imaginary cover for Interview, the historic magazine of celebrity culture founded by Andy Warhol, sums it up. The Interview-esque headline "respect due*Fahamu Pecou" is accompanied by a line (from a 1962 symposium on Pop Art) that should have been the title of the show: "instant art history immediately." Pecou's out to put himself on the cover of every art magazine on Earth, and at this rate he may not have to make up the covers to accomplish it. "Worldwide he known for that" may come true. |
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