Sandow Birk

Sandow Birk is an American artist from Southern California. He has an extensive history of exhibitions both national and international, and has received many prestigious grants and awards. Five books have been published on his works and he has made two films. The majority of his work has dealt with contemporary American life. With an emphasis on social issues, his frequent themes have included inner city violence, graffiti, various political issues, travel, prisons, surfing and skateboarding, and most recently a series on "Death in America" and the war in Iraq.

Career

Birk is a graduate of Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design (now Otis College of Art and Design) in Los Angeles.

In 2000, Birk exhibited an epic, pseudo-historical series entitled "In Smog and Thunder”, describing a "Great War of the Californias" in which Los Angeles and San Francisco wage all-out war for control of California, at the Laguna Art Museum. The series included such titles as "The Great Battle of Los Angeles". His "mockumentary" film of the same name has won numerous awards at film festivals across the country.

His series of idyllic landscape paintings of every one of California's 33 state prisons was exhibited at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum in 2001. A book has been published on the project, entitled Incarcerated: Visions of California in the 21st Century. In 2002, Birk expanded this project by depicting all of New York State's maximum security prisons in the style of Hudson River School artists from the 19th century. The project was exhibited in New York at Debs and Co. Gallery and works from the series are included in the collection of the New York Historical Society.

In 2005, Birk collaborated with writer Marcus Sanders on a rewriting and illustrating of the entirety of Dante's Divine Comedy, in which Dante and Virgil wander among the souls of the afterworld and discuss faith and philosophy with historical figures. The 13th century poem was translated into contemporary American English by Sanders, while Birk provided illustrations that adapt Gustave Dore's classic illustrations into 21st century imagery. Birk's illustrations were exhibited at the San Jose Museum of Art in 2005 and traveled to several institutions. The work was later published in three volumes.

A feature film adaptation of the Dante project, entitled Dante's Inferno was made by Birk and Sanders in collaboration with Paul Zaloom, Sean Meredith, and Elyse Pignolet. Starring the voices of Dermot Mulroney and James Cromwell as Dante and Virgil respectively, the film was featured at film festivals across the United States in 2007, garnering awards for "Best Director" at the Silverlake Film Festival and "Audience Favorite" at the San Francisco Film Festival.

Themes and style

Birk often takes stylistic inspiration from historic works. For example, the book commemorating his monumental exhibition, In Smog and Thunder: Historical works from The Great War of the Californias "documents" a fictional war between northern and southern California. The battles are defined as "Smogtown versus Fogtown", describing Los Angeles and San Francisco respectively. The style of paintings partly follows paintings depicting the U.S. Revolutionary War.

There is also pervasive California-related humor. In one "Fogtown" battle scene, Rendezvous at Twin Peaks (1996, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 inches) a "roach coach" lunch truck is part of a scene including people on horseback and tanks on a hill. Many battles feature armored vehicles with Ralph's grocery store logos, submarines with the CBS eye, and comic mixtures of medieval and modern armaments and vehicles.

Some work is ink on paper. There are a number of works which include the Getty Center, (usually under attack). These include The End of the Siege of the Getty (1998, ink on paper, 17 x 14 inches), Midnight Assault on the Getty, (1998, ink on paper, 17 x 14 inches), and The Heaving of Major Applicances During the Assault on the Getty, (1998, ink on paper, 17 x 14 inches). In The Heaving, several people struggle to load a clothes dryer on to a trebuchet aimed at the Getty while others stand around with their hands in their pockets.

Images have the overtones of serious documentary works with visual elements that make for a humorous twist. There is a mixture of modern landmarks like Sutro Tower and the Transamerica Pyramid while soldiers ride horses or Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Stereotypes about San Francisco's gayness and the brutality of L.A. police officers is often part of a work.

Awards

Birk was a recipient of an NEA International Travel Grant to Mexico City in 1995, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996, and a Fulbright Fellowship to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for 1997. In 1999 he was awarded a Getty Fellowship for painting, followed by a City of Los Angeles (COLA) Fellowship in 2001.

In 2007 Sandow Birk was awarded an Artist in Residence Fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. While there, he researched and worked on an upcoming project of the "Illustrated Constitution of the United States", scheduled for exhibition at PPOW Gallery in New York City in 2008.

Representation

Birk is represented by the Koplin del Rio Gallery in Los Angeles, Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, and P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York City.

Published titles

Published works including Birk's art:

• Sandow Birk's "In Smog and Thunder : Historical works from The Great War of the Californias" / curated by Tyler Stallings, (Laguna Beach, Calif.: Laguna Art Museum, c2000). ISBN 0-86719-497-9
• Incarcerated : visions of California in the 21st century: paintings and prints from the Prisonation series / by Sandow Birk, (Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum ; San Francisco, CA : Last Gasp, c2001). ISBN 0-86719-534-7 (pbk.)
• Dante’s Paradiso / illustrated by Sandow Birk ; text adapted by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders ; preface by Peter S. Hawkins ; foreword by Mary Campbell ; introduction by Michael F. Meister, (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, c2005). ISBN 0-8118-4720-9
• Dante’s Purgatorio / illustrated by Sandow Birk ; text adapted by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders ; preface by Marcia Tanner ; introduction by Michael F. Meister, (San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, c2005). ISBN 0-8118-4719-5 (pbk.)
• Dante’s Inferno / illustrated by Sandow Birk ; text adapted by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders. Inferno. English, (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, c2004). ISBN 0-8118-4213-4 (pbk.)

External links

• The artist's own web site.
• "Dante's Inferno" (the movie). The website for the feature film based on Birk's art project on the Inferno. The film will premiere in 2007.
• "In Smog and Thunder" (2003) The mockumentary film based on Birk's California Civil War paintings.
• 2001 show in Santa Barbara.
• Marcia Landow and Sandow Birk, "Be All That You Can Be: An Interview with Sandow Birk", Cabinet, Summer 2003.