Alben Mixed Media

Cheeky references to pop culture and the societal context. Grounded in a postmodern vernacular, Alben’s paintings and sculptures are a pastiche of art historical moments including Pop and Classical art. Interested in street art, the self-taught artist references an array of cultural touchstones in his densely layered, often stencil-sprayed paintings; his allusions include corporate mascots, historical figures, actors, comic book characters, and artists. His sculpture similarly embraces popular culture, though it is also directly influenced by the work of the French artist Arman, who exhibited commercial objects as sculpture in the 1960s. Similarly insisting that popular culture and aesthetic production are linked, Alben inverts Arman’s structure by reimagining touchstones of art history such as the Venus de Milo as a configuration of crushed Coke cans