A special collaboration between Mondo and Shepard Fairey celebrating icon David Bowie and his role in Moonage Daydream.
Dimensions: 18 x 24 Inches
Medium: 5-color screenprint on thick cream Speckletone paper
Provenance: Hand-numbered. Comes with gallery certificate of authenticity.
Edition: Limited Edition of 1910 (#1320/1910)
Year: 2023
Condition: Excellent
ABOUT THE ART
"David Bowie is one of my favorite musicians not only because so many of his songs possess magic, but also because he was creatively fearless and perpetually collaborative.
"I first discovered David Bowie in 1983 when his LET'S DANCE album came out, and its hits like "Let's Dance," "China Girl," and "Modern Love" were getting radio play. I became a die-hard Bowie fan once I picked up ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS at a flea market a few years later. ZIGGY STARDUST is one of my favorite albums ever. It makes sense that it was Bowie's breakthrough album, not just because his newly adopted androgynous glam image was provocative and mesmerizing, but because the songs on the album are incredible! At first, my favorites were obvious rockers like "Suffragette City" and "Ziggy Stardust," but over the years, folkier songs like "Soul Love" and "Starman" really grew on me.
"It's almost impossible to pick a favorite Bowie song from that album, much less Bowie's entire catalog, but if I had to, I'd pick "Moonage Daydream". It has Mick Ronson's rocking guitar and also features unexpected instrumentation, including piano, strings, sax, and flute, which makes it both tough and pretty. I love the lyric, "don't fake it baby… lay the real thing on me," and all the lyrics have a sci-fi hipster coolness to them. "Moonage Daydream" is powerful, beautiful, hypnotic, hip, and a great indication of Bowie's vision to push boundaries with his art.
"For this MOONAGE DAYDREAM print image, I was able to reference outtakes from the ZIGGY cover shoot, one of which I thought, with a few artistic liberties taken, could become a great portrait illustration. Bowie was incredibly photogenic, which yielded so many glorious images of him, and makes it a challenge to create a new visage that stands with the rest of his most iconic portraits. It is very meaningful for me to have the opportunity to craft my articulation of one of my favorite artists ever, from possibly the era of his peak creative genius.
"It is an honor to contribute in a small way to David Bowie's visual legacy."
-Shepard Fairey
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary graphic designer, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (…OBEY…) sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His work became more widely known in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, specifically his Barack Obama "Hope" poster.
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston calls him one of today's best known and most influential street artists. His work is included in the collections at The Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
