Logopop – a Sickboy show

Photo by Viktor Vauthier
Photo by Viktor Vauthier

Sickboy has a new solo show coming up in London in a few days. Here’s the hype:

Acclaimed UK street artist, Sickboy presents ‘Logopop’, a special ‘one night only’ solo exhibition of new limited edition work and site-specific installations in east London this December 16.

Following the success of his major solo exhibition, ‘Stay Free’ last year, which saw Sickboy transform a Victorian building into a themed playground, the artist returns with this one-off extravaganza, inviting art fans to dive once again into the extraordinary depths of his imagination.

With ‘Logopop,’ Sickboy recreates the lysergic symbolism that underpins much of his work, and delivers it in his characteristically unexpected way.  Launching an eye-watering visual assault on audiences using installations and digital technology, Sickboy introduces a series of dynamic and surprising show features which have become a hallmark of this artist.

The new collection of work for ‘Logopop’ has been developed throughout 2009 and aims to unravel the relationship between the artist’s complex and imaginatively-detailed artworks and his signature simple, bold and raw urban interventions. In addition to original artworks, the artist introduces his innovative concept of Logopops – artworks sold in various sizes which can be connected together, giving fans the opportunity to create their own bespoke compositions and own a truly original piece of Sickboy art. The artist says: “Logopops are my visual bullet to the mind. They sidestep the layered meanings within my art and simplify the message into something tangible and understandable at the glance of an eye.”

‘Logopop’ is the pinnacle of 2009, which has been the artist’s most successful year to date, and the perfect interlude before his second major solo show in spring 2010.

While this does sound interesting, my very first though about these ‘logopops’ was that they sound a lot like Barry McGee clusters. Still, Sickboy can do some cool things, and McGee wasn’t the first artist to do clusters, it’s just a bit irritating that Sickboy (or his PR people) want to make these things sound so epically unique when really they aren’t (Know Hope sold pieces like this at Carmichael Gallery over the summer, but he didn’t claim that it was an ‘innovative’ practice).

But enough dissing Sickboy. He knows how to paint and he tends to paint cool things, so what more can you ask for?

Photo by Viktor Vauthier
Photo by Viktor Vauthier

Logopop takes place at The Rag Factory, 16-18 Heneage Street, London on December 16th. Register for an invite at thesickboy.com.