“The Big Oil Splash” at Lazarides in London is an exhibition of new works by the notorious French street artist Zevs (pronounced Zeus), otherwise known as Aguirre Schwarz. Blurring the boundaries between the genres of “street” and “Pop,” Zevs takes inspiration from his interest in comics, Pop art, and film noir to create graphically rich, subversive critiques of today’s consumer-driven culture.Best known for his signature “liquidation” technique of destabilizing solid images so that they appear to be dripping, Zevs made headlines in 2002 when he “visually kidnapped” a 10 meter-tall model from a Lavazza advertising billboard, and again in 2009 when he was arrested in Hong Kong for spray-painting a “liquidated” Chanel logo onto a Giorgio Armani store.The paintings, monochromes, and sculptures in “The Big Oil Splash” explore the connection between the oil industry and the worlds of banking, finance, tourism, shipping, foreign policy, and the arts. Borrowing from David Hockney’s 1967 painting “A Bigger Splash” and the logos of major oil companies, Zevs takes on the oil spill theme with his usual critical and anti-authoritarian spirit.According to Lazarides, the “The Big Oil Splash” is an attack on globalization that suggests that the globally powerful oil companies may not be as stable as they seem. “Ecology is at the heart of this new work. But it was paint, not politics,” Zevs explained. “The work of man on earth extends here in a work of painting on canvas.”“The Big Oil Splash” runs through September 1 at Lazarides in London.
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