We're resurrecting an old series: Weird Art in Bars, in which we explore the wacky adornments on the walls of the city's favorite and under-the-radar watering holes.
Rob Reger, the creator of adolescent social outcast hero Emily Strange, is currently staging a solo show at one of our favorite art bars, 111 Minna. It's a series of zany collage collaborations with legendary punk art-surrealist Winston Smith (the guy who made the Dead Kennedys' logo and album artwork for Green Day).
Collage art is all about giving new life, meaning and context to found images, "frankensteining" them together to create characters and settings. They're born again through Reger, who views them as in a childlike state. Reger says of the art:
That childlike existence is then captured and brought into adulthood when I create a second life as these “characters” are re-imagined and printed and painted on wood.
Since the early days of his artistic career, Reger has been influenced by Smith, so this is a particularly poignant joining of forces that extends the art's meaning and longevity, thanks to the reinterpretation of the collage art by separate minds. Reger continues:
Over the years, Winston has become a good friend, and continues to inspire me through his own work. I invited him to join with me to “play” God, and give new life to imagery we find worthy of the cause.”
Read more about the awesome artworks (some of which require a magnifying glass!) here.Photography by Joseph Schell.
111 Minna Street, 415-974-1719