CRASH (B. 1961)

The present lot is a study for a major work within the artist’s oeuvre, Moderneer (1988). The work on paper anticipates its future painted counterpart, monumental in scale at ninety-six inches tall and one hundred and forty-four inches wide. Across four sheets of paper, the brush strokes dance fluidly, animating the rich, vibrant colors. While the red paint is arresting in the study, Crash’s Moderneer would later re-equip the same pipe-toting figure with a grey suit jacket and tie instead, working in an iconographic mode as dollar signs abound beneath the figure’s extended fist. Thus, Study for “Moderneer” becomes a powerful example of the graffiti artist’s long-standing contemplations around the interrelations of bourgeois society and street life.