THE AMERICAN POP EXPRESSIONIST
RICHARD HAMBLETON GODFATHER OF STREET ART
Much of what has been written on Richard Hambleton has focused on the artist’s early “public art.” As a conceptual artist, Hambleton produced work using the urban canvas to evoke public reaction. He was reputed to be an elusive genius. The original Pop Expressionist, Hambleton’s unforgettable images have permeated our collective consciousness for over three decades now. From 1976-1979 Hambleton’s “mass Murder” installation was secretly placed onto streets in over 15 cities, in order to mimic the chalk-body outlines and blood splattered crime scenes of what appeared to be “victims.” Early on, when Hambleton’s works were freshly discovered in major cities, they ignited an anxiety-induced phenomenon as people were unaware of the identity of the artist. Graffiti had long been seen in public spaces. Hambleton, however, was not engaged in random acts, but serious art installations that prompted the general public to observe and accept the fragility of being. The immediate impact of his work gave life to his form of popular expression: a social experiment/ In the early 1980’s, Richard Hambleton began his “Shadowman” series. Each of over 600 dark, ominous, shadowy figures were painted in an unexpected corner, alley, or side street. The powerful blackened “Shadowman” works became legendary guardians in a secret mission to disable the emotional stability of our everyday lives: seen in New York City, London, France and Italy, as well as on the East and West sides of the Berlin Wall. Hambleton has said, “…what makes them exciting is the power of the viewer’s imagination – that split second experience when you see the figures, that matter.” Richard Hambleton was at the flashpoint of the downtown New York art scene; one of the founding contributors of the burgeoning art community. Along with close friends Keith Haring & Jean Michel Basquiat, he created a sensation in the early 9080’s that remains relevant today. Hambleton’s army of shadow silhouettes are potent reminders of the vulnerability and intensity of human life. Hambleton left the USA in the mid-80s, having been personally invited to make his mark in Europe and Asia. He was embraced and celebrated along his travels. Hambleton’s “Shadow” series of night life continued internationally, raising awareness and the critical acclaim of the artist as “The Shadowman.” Back in the U.S., the core circle of artists was changing. Death came early to Warhol, Basquiat and Haring. Each artist had left behind their signature style, while Hambleton survived, eluding death, to continue his path of creativity. In the 1990s, Hambleton conceived to evoke another emotion, this time from work he produced in his studio entitled ‘The Beautiful Paintings’. Contrasting starkly with his earlier work, they were abstract, colourful and beautiful images, with gold and silver leaf. They appeared to represent seascapes, landscapes, or simply escape in general, and his followers were awed by his seemingly fluid transition to the sublime. In the 1990’s, Hambleton conceived to evoke another emotion, this time from work he produced in his studio: ‘The Beautiful Paintings.’ Contrasting about Richard Hambleton has focused on the artist’s early ‘public art’. As a conceptual artist, Hambleton produced work using the urban canvas to evoke public reaction and was reputed to be an elusive genius. The original Pop Expressionist, Hambleton’s unforgettable images have permeated our collective consciousness for over three decades. From 1976 to 1979, Hambleton’s Image Mass Murder installation was s cretly placed onto streets in over 15 cities to mimic the chalk-body outlines and blood-spattered crime scenes ‘victims’. Early on, when Hambleton’s works were freshly discovered in major cities, they ignited an anxiety-induced phenomenon as people were unaware of the identity of the artist, or indeed the project he had initiated. Whilst graffiti had long been seen in public spaces, Hambleton was not eng ged in random ac s, but serious art installations that prompted the g n ral public to observe and accept the fragili y of bei . The immediate impact of his work gave life to his form of popular expression: a social experiment that began in the early 1980s and would eventually become his ‘Shadowman’ series. In total, over 600 dark, ominous, shadowy figures were painted in seemingly random and unassuming corners, alleyways and side streets. The powerful blackened ‘Shadowman’ works, as seen in New York City, L don, France and Italy, s well a on the east and west sides f the Berlin Wall, became l g ndary guardians in a s cret mission to disable the emotional stability of our everyday lives. Hambleton was at the flashpoint of the downtown New York art scene and one of the founding contributors of the burgeoning art community. Along with close friends Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, he created a ensation in the arly 1980s that remains relevant today. Hambleton’s army of shad w silhouettes are potent r minders of the vulnerability and intensity of human life, with the artist commenting: “… hat makes them exciting is the power of the viewer’s imagination – that split second experience when you see the figures that matter.” Hambleton left the USA in the mid-80s, having been personally invited to ake is mark in Europe and Asia. He was embraced and celebrated alo g his travels and, during this time, his ‘Shadow’ series continued internationally, raising awareness and critical acclaim for the artist, who would soon become known as ‘The Shadowman’. Meanwhile, back in the USA, the core circle of artists was changing dramatically, as death came early to Warhol, Basquiat and Haring. Each artist had left behind their signature style, while Hambleton survived, eluding death, to continue his path of cre tivity.
Tim es Squ a re ,NYC 1980 In 1980, 800 life-sized diazo prints of the artist respectably attired in Napoleonic pose, with a crazed sparkle in his eyes, like a stranger intruding on a sidewalk tete-a-tete with his menacing stare, were placed by Hambleton on urban walls in ten cities. From Street Art by Allen Schwartzman, 1985 im s uar , YC 1980. In 1980, 80 life-sized di ri i t - respectably attired in Napoleonic pose, with a crazed sparkle in his eyes, like a stranger intruding on a sidewalk tête-à-tête with his menacing stare - were placed by Hambleton on urban walls in ten cities. From Street Art by Allen Schwartzman, 1985
starkly with his earlier work, abstract, colourful images of beauty, with gold and silver leaf, appeared to represent seascapes, landscapes, or simply escape in general. His followers were awed by Hambleton’s seemingly fluid transition to the sublime. Hambleton does not believe that social recognition is what defines a great artist, and therefore, despite and in spite of the fame that befell many of his peers, he ignored it. He wanted his art to be interprested with reaction. He was submerged in making important, lasting art, not in the critic’s opinion of him personally. Hambleton today remains of the only surviving members of that early cutting-edge downtown art movement. He continues to live and create in the neighborhood to which he has laid claim for over 30 years. Hambleton did not believe that social recognition is what defines a great artist; therefore, both despite and in spite of the fame that befell many of his peers, he ignored it. He wanted any interpretation of his art to be guided by instinctive reaction. His impetus was to create important and lasting ar , not to cultivate followers or sway any critic’s opinion of him. Hambleton has been widely exhibited, both in solo and group shows. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Checkpoint Charlie Museum (The Mauermuseum – Mauer Haus am Checkpoint Charlie) and The Zellermayer Galerie in Berlin, The Andy Warhol Museum, Austin Museum of Art (now called the Contemporary Austin), Milwaukee A t Museum, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum, The Queens Museum, and Harvard University. Hambleton’s work was featured in ArtForum Art in America , The International Herald Tribune , The New York Times , Architectural Digest and LIFE magazine, and he was twice chosen to exhibit at the Venice Biennale (in 1984 and 1988). Richard Hambleton has had many exhibitions, both solo and group. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Check Point Charlie Museum and The Zellermeyer in Berlin, TheAndy Warhol Museum, Austin Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, New Museum of Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum, The Queens Museum, and Harvard University. He was chosen for the Venice Biennale, twice. Hambleton has been featured in ArtForm, Art in America, The International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, Architectural Digest, LIFE magazine and will be chronicled in the forthcoming book from Taschen – Trespass: A History of Uncomissioned Public Art. His latest series of shows – “Richard Hamblerton – Retrospective” – will travel across four continents, curated by Andy Valmorbida and Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld, in collaboration with Giorgio Armani.
Anthony Haden-Guest is an author, art critic, poet and reporter who divides his time between London and New York. Having penned The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco, and the Culture of the Night, a history of New York revelry published in 1997, and written extensively for publications including New York, Vanity Fair, and the Financial Times, his personal recollections about the life and work of Richard Hambleton (as commissioned in 2009) provide remarkable insight.
Through the 80s Richard Hambleton had just been an artist I would glimpse here and there downtown: a kind of well-known unknown. Quite literally, a shadow-man. Then somebody – I no longer remember who – took me to Hambleton’s studio, a cavernous loft on Chrystie Street in that apparently ungentrifiable segment of the Lower East Side which a streetwise girl I knew called “Heroinburg.” I was astonished by the work he was doing, so jewel-like, so very off-the-street. Or so I thought. It was the first of several visits. There was usually a cute, frail girl around. Did the place have two floors? Three? Four? I no longer remember that either. I do remember the mounds of … well, stuff. I also remember quite a large gathering – Banafsheh Zand Zand, then with Threadwaxing Space, was there, as was Marcia Resnick, the terrific Punk photographer, and the critic Thomas McEvilley. Each time, Hambleton, weaving between articulacy and a halting shyness, had fresh, remarkable art on hand. But then, all of a sudden, he was no longer on Chrystie Street. It was as if the shadows had swallowed Richard Hambleton up. Until now. Street art, uncommissioned art, outlaw art, interventionist art has been presences in the art world from the beginning of Modernism, but the history of today’s public art begins … well, where exactly? Perhaps with Christo, shoving up his Iron Curtain of oil-drums with cyclonic energy on a Paris street in 1961? Or with the subversive seductions of the Situationist slogans – “Beneath the paving stones, the beach” – scrawled in the same city in 1968? But it was the Wow! factor of the graffiti writers of New York’s South Bronx – Norman Mailer’s The Faith of Graffiti was published in 1973 – that opened up public art both as a media phenomenon and a rawly exciting arena. Suddenly the streets seemed more available, the white cube galleries less impregnable. Stefan Eins, an artist from Vienna, started Fashion Monda in the Bronx to channel the energies. Fred Brathwaite, aka Fab Five Freddy, had tagged subway trains as a kid and saw the possibilities. “My painting a Soup Can train was a homage to Andy as well as a message that people doing these pieces were not all the scoundrels that we were painted. And from there I began to make moves and meet other artists,” he says. Artists from a non-graffiti background felt the current too. In 1977 the Conceptualist Sherrie Levine saw a multi- facetted diamond shape that Paul McMahon had made in his studio. “There should be one of those in the middle of every traffic intersection in SoHo,” she told him. So, they got a stencil and some white paint and did just that. Christie Rupp painted rats. Dan Witz painted birds, Charles Simonds left small models of buildings around. Daniel Buren painted one of his stripes outside Lawrence Weiner’s wall on Bleecker and Jenny Holzer pasted paper strips, printed with aphorisms. But the art world is deft at sorting through such group manifestations as Cubism, TheAb Exes and Pop and here it swiftly homed in on the three to watch. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Richard Hambleton. Of the three, Hambleton was the first to get lift-off. The art world in which he increasingly made his mark was one of steadily increasing prosperity and one in Through the 80s Richard Hambleton had just been an artist I would glimpse here and there downtown: a kind of well-known unknown. Quite literally, a shadow-man. Then somebody – I no longer remember who – took me to Hambleton’s studio, a cavernous loft on Chrystie Street in that apparently ungentrifiable segment of the Lower East Side which a streetwise girl I knew called “Heroinburg.” I was astonished by the work he was doing, so jew l-like, s very off-the-street. Or so I th ught. It was the first of several visits. There was usually a cute, frail girl around. Did the place have two floors? Three? Four? I no longer remember that either. I do remember the mounds of … well, stuff. I also remember quite a large gathering – Banafsheh Zand Zand, then with Threadwaxing Space, was ther , as was Marcia Resnick, the terrific Punk photographer, and the critic Thomas McEvilley. Each time, Hambleton, weaving bet een articulacy and a halting s yness, had fresh, remarkable rt o han . But then, all of a sudden, he was no longer on Chrystie Street. It was as if the shadows had swallowed Richard Hambleton up. Until now. Street art, uncommissio ed art, outlaw art, interventionist rt have been presences in th art world from the beginning of Mod r ism, but the history of today’s public art begins…well, where ex ctly? Perhaps with Christo, shoving up his Iron Curtain of oil-drums with cyclonic energy on a Paris street in 1961? Or with the subversive seductions of the Situationist slogans – “Beneath the paving stones, the beach” – scrawled in the same city in 1968? But it was the Wow! factor of the graffiti writers of New York’s South Bronx – Norman Mailer’s The Faith of Graffiti was published in 1973 – that opened up public art both as a med a phenomenon and a rawly exciting rena. Suddenly the streets seemed more available, the white cube galleries less impregnable. Stefan Eins, an artist from Vienna, started Fashion Monda in the Bronx to channel the energies. Fred Brathwaite, aka Fab Five Freddy, had tagged subway trains as a kid and saw the possibilities. “My painting a Soup Can train was a homage to Andy as well as a messa e that people doing these pieces were not all the scoundrels hat we were painted. And from there I b gan to make moves and meet other artists,” he says. Artists from a non-graffiti background felt the current too. In 1977 the Conceptualist Sherrie Levine saw a multifaceted diamond shape that Paul McMahon had made in his studio. “There should be one of those in the middl of every traffic intersection in SoHo,” she told him. So, th y got a stencil and some white paint and di j st that. Christie Rupp painted rats. Dan Witz painted birds, Charles Simonds left small models of buildings around. Daniel Buren painted one of his stripes outside Lawrence Weiner’s wall on Bleecker and Jenny Holzer pasted paper strips, printed with aphorisms. But the art world is deft at sorting through such group manifestations as Cubism, The Ab Exes and Pop and here it swiftly homed in on the three to watch. Jean-Michel Basquiat, K ith Haring and Richard Hambleton. Of the three, Hambleton was the first to get lift-off. The art world in which he increasingly made his mark was one of steadily increasing prosperity and one in which being an artist was a serious career.
which being an artist was a serious career. The self-destructive excesses which had been part of art world myth from Caravaggio through the Vie de Boheme to Jackson Pollock seemed suddenly out of date. Indeed “bohemianism” seemed a pretension. It was now a world in which a successful artist could expect to buy a building, perhaps a castle, and to be profiled in up-scale magazines. Well, this pleasant paradigm didn’t fit Basquiat, God knows, nor even Keith Haring. But of The Three, Richard Hambleton, the sole survivor, was born under a peculiarly dark star. Its rays soon engulfed him so that, of his own compulsive volition, he did not so much disappear – at his most crabbed and cagey, Richard Hambleton never ever disappeared – as become an enigma, a rumor, a presence flickering at the edge of vision. But – and this is the anomaly, actually the miracle – Richard Hambleton, unlike most other furious engines of their self-destruction, has not only kept on steadily working but preserved his gift intact, continually finding new places to take it. “If I’ve got nothing else at least I’ve got my art,” he told me that evening in the ramshackle studio. “Which keeps me happy in a way. But it’s not a therapy process. It never has been. Just to be able to do it.” Well, this pleasant paradigm di n’t fit Basqui t, God knows, nor even Keith Haring. But of The Three, Richard Hambleton, was born under a peculiarly dark star. Its rays soon engulfed him so that, of his own compulsive volition, he did not so much disappear – at his most crabbed and cagey, Richard Hambleton never ever disappeared – as became an enigma, a rumour, a presence flickering at the edge of vision. But – and this is the anomaly, actually the miracle – Richard Hambleton, unlike most oth r furious engines of their self-destruction, not only kept on steadily working but preserved his gift intact, continually finding new places to take it. “If I’ve got nothing else at least I’ve got my art,” he told me that evening in the ramshackle studio. “Which keeps me happy in a way. But it’s not a therapy process. It never has been. Just to be able to do it.” I asked if he th ught about the future. I was thinking of the work – for instance, the dis ppearance of the street work – but h mis dersto d. Sometimes he spoke with a shy mumble, but sometimes with a clear articulacy. As then. “I don’t worry about my future,” he said firmly. I said I meant the future of the work. “Yeah! I do. I always have,” he said. “That’s the only thing.” Okay. Back to the beginning. “This is the first piece of public art I ever did,” Hambleton said. We were in his second studio – the entire building i a small w rren of st dios – and what we were looking at was a fragment of mirror. “Really?” I said. “Yeah! I stuck little mirrors up all over Vancouver. They were all about the same size. I was R. Dick Trace It. I had a pocket mirror. And I would say: Have you seen this face before?” I asked if he thought about the future. I was thinking of the work – for instance, the disappearance of the street work – but he misunderstood. Sometimes he speaks with a shy mumble, but sometimes with a clear articulacy. As now. “I don’t worry about my future,” he said firmly. I said I meant the future of the work. “Yeah! I do. I always have,” he said. “That’s the only thing.” Okay. Back to the beginning. “This is the first piece of public art I ever did,” Hambleton said. We were in his second studio – the entire building is a small warren of studios – and what we were looking at was a fragment of mirror. “Really?” I said. “Yeah! I stuck little mirrors up all over Vancouver. They were all about the same size. I was R. Dick Trace It. I had a pocket mirror. And I would say: Have you seen this face before?” Vancouver, Canada was where Hambleton grew up, where he went to art school. He speaks little of his family, except to mention that he hadn’t seen his mother for ten years, but one gathers that they were healthy, outdoorsy folk. In 1975, when he was 21, he founded Pumps, a center for alternative arts, and in 1976 had his first solo show there. He moved to San Francisco later that year. These first R. Dick Trace It pieces already have the doubleness which is key to Hambleton’s work. The main art influences he cites are the painterly Ab Exes and the hard-core 70’s Conceptualists. “I liked the idea of aliases, personas. Performance art. And video art. It made a reference to that,” he says. Indeed, he put up a series of TV screen shaped silver stickers in venues like the Punk holy-of- holies, CBGB. These combinations of aggressive thought processes and attractive materials – the tackiest chain store pocket mirror would have been a precious thing in the ancient world – is predictive of his mature art. “I have a whole history of doing work on mirrors,” he said. Right now, for instance, he is attaching mirrors onto city walls. He gives these pieces the self-explanatory title: “Artholes.” V ncouver, Ca ada was where Hambleton grew up, where he went to art school. He speaks little of his family, except to mention th t he hadn’t seen his mother for ten years, but one gathers t at they were h althy, outdoorsy folk. In 1975, when he was 21, he founded Pumps, a centre for alternative arts, and in 1976 had his first solo show there. He moved to San Francisco later that year. These first R. Dick Trace It pieces already have the doubleness which is key to Hambleton’s work. The main art influences he cited are the painterly Ab Exes nd the hard-core 70’s Con p ualists. “I liked the idea of aliases, personas. Performance art. And video art. It made reference to that,” he said. Ind ed, he put up a series of TV screen shaped silver stickers in venues like the Punk holy- ofholies, CBGB. These combinations of aggressive thought processes and attractive materials – the t ckiest ch in store pocket mirror would have b en a precious thing in the ancient world – is predictive of his mature art. “I h v a w ol history of doing ork on mirr rs,” he said. At that point, for instance, he was attaching mirrors onto city walls. He gave these pieces the self-explanatory title: “Artholes”. The self-destructive excesses which had been part of art world myth from Caravaggio through the Vie de Boheme to Jackson Pollock seemed suddenly out of date. Indeed “bohemianism” seemed a pretension. It was now a world in which a successful artist could expect to buy a building, perhaps a castle, and to be profiled in up-scale magazines.
Hambleton is also making mirror pieces in the studio. The way he recharges by moving between the studio and the street is another of his dualisms. “I’ll do something in the street. Then I’ll do something in the studio,” he says. “And there’ll be a relationship between the two. It won’t be the exact same thing.” So, it was when he made “Image Mass Murder” soon after his arrival in San Francisco. “I had friends that laid down and I traced around them,” he says. Then he would splash red paint, indicating blood. “It seemed like I was a crazy guy in the street. But that was totally orchestrated and organized. I had a studio. An exhausting process!” he says. “It took three days to paint San Francisco red and it made the front page of the San Francisco Examiner.” The paper ran a photograph with the caption: “No one died here. This is the work of a sick jokester.” “So, the media was part of the work. That was an achievement.” He took “Mass Murder” on a crypto-tour of 15 cities in the US and Canada, then put up a show in 1978 which revealed that the whole thing was an artwork and the artist/jokester was himself. Hambleton had been living on New York’s Lower East Side when he launched the “Shadowman” series. This was a breakthrough. “With Mass Murder something had happened. Someone was murdered on the sidewalk,” he says. “But with the Shadow work, you walked around the corner and you saw somebody in a doorway. There was somebody there. It was very direct. Like Richard Serra, in a way. It was very in your face and very immediate.” There had been a sense in the New York art world that there was an otherness about Hambleton, that he wasn’t playing by the ordinary rules. “Jean-Michel and Keith were always cool. The first time I met Keith he was sweeping the floor of Tony Shafrazi’s gallery. He knew exactly where to be,” says Walter Robinson, then a painter, now the editor of ArtNet Magazine. Hambleton, being Pollock-difficult, if in a more cerebral way, had made no attempt to align himself with cool. But “Shadowman” propelled him to the fore. “Those nightmarish creatures were very effective,” Robinson says. “And true to life.” How did Hambleton feel about other people putting up their own tags over the Shadowmen? “That’s nice! I appreciate the input and the interaction. I don’t want them to look like art. The issue in the 70s was if it looked like art, it wasn’t. Carl Andre didn’t look like art. So, if I put a shadow up there would be all these other tags around it or on it. It used my work. But someone who is going to go out and vandalize every one of them I have a problem with.” In 1984 Hambleton went to Europe three times. “I wanted to do something special for 1984. So, I went to about 24 cities. Every major city in Western Europe.” Warhol was taken by Hambleton. “Andy kept begging me to come up. He said, ‘Richard, I want to do your portrait.’ I never did” he paused and added “I don’t want any more opportunities lost.” The nightmares were real. He was leafing through sheets of drawings from his Marlboro Man/Rodeo series when I asked if there was any rodeo life in Canada? “Nothing! Nothing like that at all!” he said. “The cowboy was such an American hero. The white hat! I should have made him into a shadow. Evil!” Evil. The word confronted me with another Richard Hambleton dualism, not street/studio, nor Conceptual/painterly, but deadlier, the way he contrives to make his high-energy art while in the jaws of a horrendous addiction. This of itself would not give his career its folkloric resonance, though, because junkie artists, writers, musicians are ten thousand a penny and tend to burn out quickly. It’s the way that Hambleton consistently produces, continuing to work through thick and thin, and the way that – less explicitly than William Burroughs but with similar resilience – he has found ways to turn these terrible drives into art. Marcia Resnick, herself formerly a heavy user, and a friend of Hambleton, sets a vivid scene. “His life was so inundated in blood. Shooting up all the time. He was a messy junkie. There was no hiding it with him,” she says. She remembers being in a rehab and watching him enter. “I saw him walking in with a suitcase that was painted with gold leaf,” she says. “And two minutes later I saw him running. The suitcase was filled with little packages of heroin. And they wouldn’t find it. Right? In a rehab.” All of which would just be black comedy except for the work that Hambleton was then making. These were the pieces I saw in Chrystie Street: Small square canvases on woodblocks, gold leafed, and overlaid with delicate abstract patterns in dark red. I learned later that Hambleton had painted
The silhouettes being the Shadowmen. “Now I’m doing Standing Shadows. Indoors. I like the way they work indoors. I’m happy doing one after another after another. Each one is an individual. Each one is different.” Well, they weren’t all standing. I indicated a canvas bouncing with splattery energy. What was that? “That’s going to be a Jumping Shadow. Maybe it’s going to be a Painter Painting. But I’m trying not to be too graphic and to say too much.” The “Beautiful Paintings” are just that, beautiful. Which is extraordinary in itself because beauty is normally a by-product of the art-making process and artists who actually set out to make beautiful work usually create either decoration or kitsch. But Hambleton’s works are thrillingly beautiful. It can hardly be irrelevant that he began making these after the “Wave” paintings, so it seems clear to me that it’s a felt conflict between the ugliness of his circumstances and what he is putting on canvas that makes them the radiant things they are. “There was a part of it that was a personal evolution of my way of being,” Hambleton says. “And part of it was conceptual. The recipe is very simple in the subline. You get beyond beauty. You noticed that piece of stainless- steel downstairs? That mirrored stainless steel? The Beautiful Paintings are partly beautiful because of the materials I used. Like gold leaf.” And just what is the relationship between the Beautiful Paintings and the gold squares worked with his blood that I saw way back on Chrystie Street? There was a long pause.
Richard Hambleton doesn’t give any interviews. Up to now he has preferred to remain a phantom: not unlike the ubiquitous shadow figures he has painted on walls, doorways and at vacant lots in every neighbourhood from Tribeca to the Upper East Side. Hambleton lives and paints in a windowless sub-basement SoHo crypt, where water flutes steadily through sewer pipes and a dank mist fills the air. Since January of last year, this underground man has been stealing out into the night, turning the city into his canvas with a can of black paint, amusing some passersby, making others just a little nervous. “The figures are called Nightlife,’” says the wire-haired Hambleton in a gentle, dampened voice, “because in the dark they come alive. They create the illusion of people standing against buildings. The day reveals them as paintings.” The expression of each shadow character is tailored to fit the location. On a large concrete wall, the figures may jump or dance. In dark doorways, they may lurk in or guard dangerous corners. Because his work “fits into” the city, Hambleton feels that it differs from other familiar street icons like Keith Haring’s primitives or the avant group’s squiggly, multicoloured rectangles. “Other artists put their work on the city,” he says, “but what I paint on the walls is only part of the picture. The city psychologically completes the rest. People experience my paintings. They aren’t simply exposed to them.” Hambleton first splashed the streets in his native San Francisco in 1976 with a piece called “Image Mass Murder.” He traced the outline of his friends’ bodies on the pavement, then splashed the images with blood- red paint. He “terrorized” 15American and Canadian cities with the piece, generating a good deal of edgy attention…Two years later, he plastered 750 life-size photo images of himself dressed in a conservative suit across the walls of 33 cities. The psychotic/romantic piece – which had three titles, “I only have Eyes for You,” “Putting Yourself Up for Abuse,” and “Spreading Yourself Thin” was done on blueprint paper designed to fade after three months. Today the only remnants are white ghosts of an evaporated image. The San Francisco Examiner ran a front-page photo with a caption that read: “No one died here. This is the work of a sick jokester.” Finally, in 1978 he held an exhibition revealing himself as the “murderer.” ”, ”, l f ”,
– Anthony Hayden-Guest
ARTIST OF SHADOWS SHEDS ‘LIGHT’ ON NIGHTLIFE. Daily News Feature, 1983.
them with his own blood. “I used to think I’m a Conceptual painter, you know. I felt like I could paint anything,” he says. “When I did the Wave paintings, I had never painted a wave, an oceanscape before. I never studied landscape paintings. But I had this concept. I knew how to create Wave paintings. I romanticized it and did a 24-foot wave painting. And when I did that painting, I thought that’s it! I’ve done a great Wave painting. This is the way I was thinking at the time. This is great. So, what shall I do next?” What he did, not next, but soon enough, was lose his loft on Chrystie. His life went into freefall. “My self-esteem went down so low,” he said. His huge collection of works by Haring and Basquiat – all trades for his own pieces – had been liquidated when he failed to make payments to a storage unit. “I ended up being homeless. Just like that,” he said. “I kept finding a space and I was evicted. I’ve been evicted from like six places. That totally messed me up. Even though I survived on the street in the 90s. There are all these people on the streets of New York surviving. I got pretty good at it. “It was totally frustrating. I kept wanting to get some security. A studio space. That’s what I wanted to do. But, being homeless and stuff, I started existing by giving head.” Hello, Richard? What? “Painting Shadow heads! It was kind of funny The idea of focusing on a subject matter and doing it over and over and over again with something relatively new for me. But doing a hundred Shadow heads became fascinating, doing the same thing over and over and over again. The idea! And a lot of times they don’t work.” He gestured at a “Shadow.” “I’ve maybe painted this canvas ten times. Over and over again.” It seemed the moment to bring up a notion of mine. Perhaps the most famously tormented artists actually need their torments, might perhaps even bring them on their own heads? I asked Hambleton whether the intensity of his work might owe something to the intense circumstances – what Hambleton haltingly calls his “situation” – under which he had to make it. He slapped the idea down. “No! Not at all!” he said. “No! It’s been subsistence painting. It’s the opposite. When I get what I need the work is much better.” It was now Hambleton who proposed the notion of an inherent dualism. “I’m basically two people now. I’m doing these surface silhouettes and I’m doing Beautiful Paintings.” as ”.
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With his September exhibition at the Milliken Gallery, Hambleton identified himself as the author of “Nightlife.” He feels, however, that while his street work has brought attention, it has handicapped his image as a serious painter. “People see my work in the gallery and say: ‘Oh, I liked this on the street, but I’m not sure about it in the gallery.’ But it’s totally different. In painting I work with color, structure and composition. IN the street there’s no progression. Once I’ve said what I want to do it’s done.” Could this mean that Richard Hambleton is finally emerging from the shadows? “When the critics point out the implications of my work it sounds okay. When I say it, it sounds like hype. So, I don’t say too much – except to let a few people know what I’m doing.” “When the critics point out the implications of my work it sounds okay. When I say it, it sounds like hype. So, I don’t say too much – except to let a few people know what I’m doing.” Joseph Do ce, Daily News , 1983 His September 1982 exhibition at the Alexander Milliken Gallery in New York identified Hambleton as the author of ‘Nightlife’. How ver, h worried t at while is street work brought att ntion, it handicapped his imag as a serious painter. H c mmented: ‘People see my work in the gallery and say: “Oh, I liked this on the street, but I’m not sure about it in the gallery.” But it’s totally different. In painting I work with color, structure and composition. In the street there’s no progression. Once I’ve said what I want to do it’s done.’ Could this mean that Richard Hambleton is finally emerging from the shadows?
SHADOWMAN LIMITED EDITION COLLECTION
The story, life and work of Richard Hambleton may well be the art world’s best kept secret. Here begins the - long overdue - global movement to allow Hambleton to emerge from the shadows of our collective consciousness with a posthumous publishing programme and an immersive exhibition; Shadowman .
intimidating to the East Village’s ever-present drug dealers and gang members than they were to innocent passers-by. As such, they could be guardians, watchmen or potential assailants. No one was beyond their reach. Whilst public art was a relatively new concept, Hambleton was already light years ahead of the scene. His installations carried far greater depth than mere visual impact; they came complete with a narrative, characters (a private detective called ‘R. Dick Trace It’ and the murdered ‘Mr Reeee’) and a sense of a murder mystery plot playing out across the country. Far from being abashed by the consternation that his series was causing, Hambleton embraced the controversy and invited artists to draw the likeness of Mr Reeee – a challenge that over 300 artists accepted. For a man who held great cynicism for the ‘art world’ and strived to evade the rule and regulations he felt were little more than constrictive nuisances, this was a welcome opportunity to disrupt the establishment in one of the most conceptually innovative ways ever seen. After only a few years, and with over 400 shadowmen pervading the landscape of Manhattan, Hambleton was soon to take his art to Europe. Following invitations to exhibit at the Venice Biennale and paint on the Berlin Wall, interest in him had never been higher and his innate distrust of gallerists and art dealers catalysed his withdrawal from the art world. He retreated into his studio, away from the spotlight, and began a descent into poor health and substance abuse. The shadowmen’s founding father became little more than a shadow himself. Eventually living in squalor, painting to fund his drug habit and pay for food, it is inconceivable that Hambleton remained able to create such seminal works. Far more inclined to embrace the shadows than bask in the light, never has art imitated life more than Richard Hambleton’s Shadowman series. These iconic limited edition graphics are exclusive to Castle FineArt and mark the first time since his passing that - working with the Hambleton estate - there is a distinct movement to keep alive the undertaking that he started over forty years ago. Castle Fine Art is privileged to bring this cultural revolution from street to canvas. The experience begins.
In 1979 . 3 men met in Club 57
Thus the holy trinity of Richard Hambleton, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring was born. Theirs was a perfect storm of creativity, concept and circumstance, marking a new chapter in art history and changing the face of New York’s now iconic East Village art scene forever. Among the desperate crime and poverty of the district – a world away from the gentrified veneer of style and bonhomie it exudes today – these three pioneers took centre stage in an art revolution. Prior to his arrival in New York, Hambleton had already gained notoriety for his Image Mass Murder series, executed as he worked his way along the West Coast, leaving behind what appeared to be a one-man killing spree in his wake. Belying the chaos was method, planning and perfectionism. Each location was thoroughly researched before Hambleton took to cities under the cover of nightfall to situate his shadowmen in settings chosen to elicit the most startling reactions from those who passed them by. Lurking round corners, down alleyways or seemingly hovering ominously in doorways, they became a newsworthy phenomenon. Indeed, he viewed taunting and manipulating the media as ‘part of the work’. In his own words, ‘I painted the town black’. Such was the realism he painted into his faux crime scenes that he tapped into the zeitgeist and materialised the fear that permeated cities and neighbourhoods; he reduced citizens to victims in waiting. Referring to his work as public art rather than graffiti, or the more modern moniker of street art, he felt keenly that art was entirely dependent on the interactivity with those viewing it. This symbiotic relationship became the ultimate equaliser, with the ‘shadowmen’ proving to be no less
STANDING SHADOWMAN BLACK AND SILVER
STANDING SHADOWMAN BLACK AND WHITE
Twelve Colour Silkscreen on Torn Edged Somerset Satin 410gsm Paper Image Size 18” x 48” | Framed Size 28” x 60” | Edition of 95 | Framed £4,950
Five Colour Silkscreen on Torn Edged Somerset Satin 410gsm Paper Image Size 18” x 48” | Framed Size 28” x 60” | Edition of 95 | Framed £4,950
STANDING SHADOWMAN BLACK AND YELLOW
STANDING SHADOWMAN RED
Seven Colour Silkscreen on Torn Edged Somerset Satin 410gsm Paper Image Size 18” x 48” | Framed Size 28” x 60” | Edition of 95 | Framed £4,950
Nine Colour Silkscreen on Torn Edged Somerset Satin 410gsm Paper Image Size 18” x 48” | Framed Size 28” x 60” | Edition of 95 | Framed £4,950
SHADOWMAN PORTFOLIO SET OF FOUR
Unframed £16,000 | Framed £18,000
RICHARD HAMBLETON: BIO RICHARD HAMBLETON: IO Richard Hambleton earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Emily Carr School of Art in Vancouver, Canada. Hambleton was Founder and Co- Director of Pumps Center for Alternative Art, which was an art gallery, performance and video space in Vancouver. Hambleton went on to graduate from San Francisco Institute of Art in San Francisco, CA. (born June 1952 in Vancouver, Canada) was an artist-painter who lived and worked in the Lower East Side of New York City. He has been called the godfather of street art. Together with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, he was a member of a group who had great success coming out of the New York City art scene during the booming art market of the 1980 . Richard Hambleton earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Emily Carr School of Ar in Vancouver, Canada. Hambl ton was Founder and Co- Director of Pumps Center for Alternative Art, which was an art gallery, performance and video space in Vancouver. Ha bleton went on to graduate from San Francisco Institute of Art in San Francisco, CA. Courtesy of the LANGS DE WALL Gallery Born: June 1954 Vancouver, Canada rn: June 1952 Vancouver, Canada Born: June 1954 Vancouver, Canada i l Much of Hambleton’s work is compared to graffiti art, however, he considered his work to be “public art”. Hambleton is most famous for his ‘Shadowman’ paintings of the early 1980s. Each painting resembles a life-sized silhouetted image of some mysterious person, a “splashy shadow figure”. These ‘shadow paintings’ were splashed and brushed with black paint on hundreds of buildings and other structures across New York City. Locations were believed to be calculated for maximum impact upon unsuspecting pedestrians. Very often, a ‘Shadowman’ could be found in a dark alley or lurking just around a street corner. Hambleton later expanded the scope of his project and painted these ‘shadowmen’ in other cities, including Paris, London and Rome. In 1984 he painted 17 life-sized figures on the east side of the Berlin Wall, returning a year later to paint more figures on the west side. During his career, Hambleton’s works were shown internationally in world-class galleries and museums, including his “shadow” paintings on canvas and paper. Hambleton’s artwork was represented at the Venice Biennale in 1984 and 1988, and is now part of numerous permanent collections, including that of the Museum of Modern Art. New York Times art critic Michael Brenson, when commenting on Hambleton’s exceptional skill at handling paint, wrote: ‘When he throws white or black on the canvas, his waves break, his rodeo rider bucks, a man shot seems blown apart.’ In October 2009, Papermag wrote of Hambleton: ‘Memo to Banksy: You owe Richard Hambleton a small fortune in royalties. You too, KAWS. Hambleton’s early ‘80’s onsite works-dynamic, painted ‘shadowmen’ on street corners and in alleyways - are clear precursors of the early ‘00’s graffiti-art boom, and Hambleton himself, a contemporary of Keith Haring and Jean- Michel Basquiat, one of its unsung godfathers.’ Richard died on October 29th, 2017. Courtesy of the LANGS DE WALL Gallery
“These artists were ambitious. They were using the street as the place to work out their ideas before they took on the galleries. And when they did, they conquired.” “These artists were a bitious. They ere using the street as the place to ork out their ideas before they took on the galleries. And hen they did, they conquered.” A painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. Art comes alive in argument. (1) – Banksy In the summer of 1984 I viewed the Mona Lisa – not in the Louvre, but in SoHo in New York. I walked out of a Brazilian restaurant, looked up, and there she was, high on a wall near the junction of Broome and Broadway. Later, I met the artist, a New Yorker named Stefano Castronovo. He linked his art with an illustrious name, phrasing her image with fauvist touches: green skin, red eyes. This disturbed certain women in the neighborhood. They claimed the artist was cursing them in some strange way. For whatever reason, the painting soon vanished. (2) In the su er of 1984 I viewed the ona Lisa – not in the Louvre, but in SoHo in New Yor . I walked out of Brazilian restaurant, look d up, nd there she was, high on a wall near th junction of Broo e and Broadway. Later, I met the artist, a New Yorker named Stefano Castronovo. He linked his art with an illustrious name, phrasing her image with Fauvist touches: green skin, red eyes. This disturbed certain women in the neighbourhood. They claimed the artist was cursing them in some strange way. For t i ti i . But it was too late. A point had been made. The hip-hop revolution in percussive poetry, b-boy choreography, nd graffiti was encouraging artists to place private musings in public places. I crossed Broome to the other side of the street and promptly got zapped again: there, emblazoned on a side-street wall, loomed one of Richard Hambleton’s powerful “shadow men” figures. That summer they appe red all ver New York. I marvelled at the intensity of the figur , bent rms, b t le s, hallelujah ges ure: both ands up, as if he ere high-fiving he ven. – Robert Farris Thompson But it was too late. A point had been made. The hip-hop revolution in percussive poetry, b-boy choreography, and graffiti was encouraging artists to place private musings in public places. I crossed Broome to the other side of the street and promptly got zapped again: there, emblazoned on a side-street wall, loomed one of Richard Hambleton’s powerful “shadow men” figures (fig. 2). That summer they appeared all over New York. I marveled at the intensity of the figure, bent arms, bent lengs, hallelujah gesture: both hands up, as if he were high-fiving heaven. – Robert Farris Thompson i ’ i y put do n your brush – that’s when it starts. Art comes alive in argument. – Banksy
“Now a new surge of interest has grown around graffiti art. Lovers of graffiti art may have to pay more than $10,000 for a Jean-Michel Basquiat (who was called SAMO in his subway days) or $15,000 for a Keith Haring or a Richard Hambleton.” “Now a new surge of interest has grown around graffiti art. Lovers of graffiti art may have to pay more than $10,000 for a Je n-Michel Basqui t (who w s called SAMO in his subway d ys) or $15,000 for a Keith Haring or a Richard Hambleton.”
- International Herald Tribune, 1983
Images courtesy of The Gagosian
Images courtesy of The Gagosian
Coined the godfather of street art, born from the same 80s street art group as Keith Hring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, hambleton’s uniqueness lies in the fact that he has continued to make art despite the lifestyle and to produce works that inspired some of the world’s most infamous street artists of today such as Banksy. B r from the s m 80s str et art group as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hambleton’s uniqu ness lies in the fact that h continued to make art - despite the destructive lifestyle that afflicted each of m - and to produce works that inspired some of the w rld’s m st infamous street artists of today, including B nksy.
That generation of New York artists – Basquiat, Haring, Scharf, Lenny McGurr aka “Futura 2000,” and Richard Hambleton, as well as somewhat older artist like John Feckner – was certainly inspired by the graffiti scene, but what they were doing was more like unauthorized public art. It wasn’t simply about marking out territory, about individuals saying “I’m here” in a world of corporate signs, it was about making art for the great audience, the people on the streets, art that wasn’t a monument to a war hero, or an abstract sculpture founded by a bank, but post-pop popular art. It often had a message and political dimension, like the May ’68 posters of Atelier Populaire, but first of all it was art. Richard Hambleton’s anthropomorphic black shadows were painted on walls along streets that were still dangerous, and they could throw a chill up the spine as you turned a corner. Keith Haring’s subway chalk drawings provided a non- commercial, populiast form of delight for MTA riders. Basquiat and Haring: A Hurried Generation by Glenn O’Brien CHRISTIE’S t r ti f r rti t asquiat, aring, charf, Lenny McGurr aka ‘Futur 2000’ nd Rich r Hambleton, as well somewhat older artists like John Feckner – was certainly inspired by the graffiti scene, but what they were doing was more like unauthorized public art. It wasn’t simply about marking out territory, about individuals saying “I’m here” in a world of corporate signs, it was about making art for the great audience, the people on the streets - art that wasn’t a monument to a war hero, or an abstract sculpture founded by a bank, but post- pop popular art. It ofte had a me s ge and politic l dimension, like the May ’68 posters of the Atelier Pop laire, but first of ll it was art. Richard H mbleton’s anthropomorphic black shadows were painted on walls along streets that were still dangerous, and they could throw a chill up the spine as you turned a corner. Keith Haring’s subway chalk drawings provided a non-commercial, populist form of delight for MTA riders. Basquiat and Haring: A Hurried Generation by Glenn O’Brien, Christie’s, 2014
Richard Hambleton paints Berlin Wall - 17 Shadow Figures, 1984
From “THE ART SCENE, Far Out’s In,” LIFE Magazine, May 1985, double-page spread 48-49
Painter Richard Hambleton creates sea waves in seconds by tossing paint straight from can to canvas.
“Hambleton can paint,” wrote New York Times art critic Michael Brenson. “When he throws white or black on the canvas, his waves break, his rodeo rider bucks, a man shot seems blown apart.” let i t,’ wrote Ne York i cri c ‘ t r i i , ’ ‘
Graffiti grows up and moves downtown.
New York is not a picturesque city in any traditional sense. It is hectic and fast-paced. That compression extends into homes as well. Since most dwellings are small, life spills out into the streets; public areas become extensions of the home New York street life of the truly homeless, as well as those who choose to “hang out,” imposes itself on the door stoops and sidewalks. Streets are like hallways connecting different interiors. In ghettos, especially (where young artists tend to live,) street equals turf. New York is not a picturesque city in any traditional sense. It is hectic and fast-paced. That compression extends into homes as well. Since most llings are small, life spills out into the streets; public areas become t , New York str et life of the truly hom less, as well t c se to “hang out,” imposes itself on the do r stoops and sidewalks. Streets are like hallways connecting different interiors.
New York is a city of extreme luxury and abject poverty, often separated only by the distance of a block. In 1982, Hambleton painted more than 400 black silhouettes to lurk through the shadows of parking lots, gas stations, and vacant lots. In ghettos, especially (where young artists tend to live), street equals turf. New York is a city of extreme luxury and abject poverty, often separated ly y t ist c f a block. In 1982, Hambleton painted more than 400 black silhouettes to lurk through the shadows of parking lots, gas stations, a d vacant lots.
- People Magazine
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