Alexis Peskine
Cloué: Bound By History, Class and Color
September 20 through October 14, 2007
Hartford, CT— Real Art Ways
presents Alexis Peskine's Cloué:
Bound By History, Class and Color,
opening Thursday, September 20 during Creative Cocktail
Hour, from 6-10pm. Creative Cocktail Hour is $10 for the
general public, and free for Real Art Ways members.
Alexis
Peskine's work investigates the absurdity of racism, nationalism,
anti-Semitism — anything that’s unjust or hypocritical — by
re-contextualizing iconic symbol in odd pairings and unexpected environments.
Using a variety of media, these juxtapositions address the viewer's
own preconceptions of race and nationality,
Peskine's own Franco-Brazillian identity, as well as international
understandings of ethnicity.
Peskine's work is appreciated and owned by numerous performers
and musicians, including Common, Donald Byrd, and Talib Kweli.
About the Artist
Alexis Aliocha Peskine was born in Paris, France, on September 29,
1979. He is a 2004 Fulbright Scholar who holds a B.F.A. from Howard
University an M.A. and M.F.A. from the Maryland Institute College
of Art (MICA). Peskine’s use of graphic and commercial images
in fine art is informed by his early start in graphic design. At
age 15, he was the youngest student to enter the Apprentice Center
of Formation for the Graphic Art in Paris; he subsequently worked
for Crayures as an industrial designer for clients such as Roland
Garros, Malterre and Fly. He also served a stint as Creative Director
for Burrell Communications in Chicago. Peskine bridges the gap
between graphic design and fine art by using the same design aesthetic
to appeal to the masses, as his work often touches on the ideology
of consumerism and mass consumption.
As a junior at Howard University in 2002, Peskine was the first winner
of the Verizon HBCU Student Art Competition; the following year,
he won second place in the same competition. His work has attracted
the attention of Chrissie Iles of the Whitney Museum and Yukie Kamaya
of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. Burrell Communications’ Chairman
Emeritus Tom Burrell and musicians Donald Byrd, Talib Kweli and Common
all own Peskine’s work.
Drawing inspiration from his paternal grandfather who survived a
German concentration camp, to his maternal grandfather who lived
in the favelas of Salvador, Bahia, to the loving marriage of his
own Franco-Russian father and Afro-Brazilian mother, Peskine challenges
his audience with provocative, cynical and sometimes earnest takes
on serious subjects. Much of his work also celebrates family, friends
and the beauty and humor of solitary inanimate objects.
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