Planet
Issue 2
Pig Portraits is talking excitedly, and with a sizable Brit accent, about the subject of his works-in-progress: Italian housewives, transvestite personals, cowboys. His current series of large, mostly brightly colored silkscreens on canvas of notables like Charles Manson, Juliette Lewis and Patty Hearst deck the walls of his Brooklyn studio. Derived from mug shots, he jeeringly calls them "Pig Portraits".
Blurring the line between artist and obsessed collector, Young has spent the past two years acquiring the mug shots from police departments, eBay, the U.S. government and occaisionally the subjects themselves. The source image goes through an intricate process that involves a common neighborhood photocopy machine and, eventually, a 4x5-foot film positive and silkscreening. The results are gritty, ultra pop iconic works that will inevitably have critics referencing Warhol when Young first exhibits the portraits this fall. For Young, though, mug shots are beautiful in their naked simplicity and what's more, the medium is like a social equalizer: common crooks and stars alike are subjected to the same bare aesthetics. Add to this his artistic process, not to mention the crime-tinged stories behind these "anti-celebrity" portraits, and you get a body of work as sensational as it is innovative.