X Marks the Spot
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| Skeleton // XXIII/II |
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| Skateboard decks |
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| Drella / II / 10.22 |
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| Frank Sinatra // XXI |
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| Exploding Star // XXIII - X |
By Tom Wachunas
“Follow your inner moonlight, don’t hide the madness”
- Allen Ginsberg
"In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15
minutes." -Andy Warhol
“Billy Ludwig’s mixed media pieces are meant to look as
though they were just cut off a downtown wall covered in guerrilla marketing
and/or artwork that was once hanging in an establishment like a museum that has
been abandoned — the structure set to be torn down after years of it and its
contents being vandalized, these pieces have been rescued from demolition.
Along with signature accents, each piece is embellished with various
information about the subject - significant numbers, latitude/longitudes,
quotes and more. The devil really is in the details…” - from Billy Ludwig, at
https://billyludwig.net/mixed-media
EXHIBIT: SKULL & BONES -The Artwork of Billy Ludwig / THROUGH SEPTEMBER 7th at Cyrus Custom Framing and Art Gallery, 2645 Cleveland Ave. NW, Canton, Ohio / Viewing hours: Monday - Friday 10am ish – 6pm / Saturday 11am - 3pm /Closed first Saturday of the month and Closed on Sundays / (330) 452-9787 / CLOSING RECEPTION FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, at 6:30 p.m.
What does the name
of this monotonal exhibit – “Skull and Bones” – suggest to you? Pirate flags
and plundered booty? Mortality? Decay? Aaargh,
me mateys…
The entire gallery
space is saturated in a somber palette. Collectively, Billy Ludwig’s black-and-white
mixed media works on wood or canvas exude a palpable solemnity and, perhaps, a
funereal pallor. The visual un-glitziness of these pieces, given the nature of
their subject matter, is weirdly ironic, yet somehow still intriguing and provocative.
That subject matter
is largely built upon appropriated photos of famous people and characters. Celebrities.
Here are artists/entertainers, influencers, real as well as fictional, who have
become (for better or worse) luminous pop-culture icons. Treasured objects of
our worldly attention, affection, admiration. Presences now or once so bright
we call them… stars.
Yet their light, as
rendered here, often feels faded. Their likenesses are printed in glib shades
of grey. Sometimes they’re engaging, like a magazine glamour pic. And sometimes
they’re also quite mundane, like photos on a driver’s license, a passport, a
mug shot.
Fame and celebrity
can be fickle, feckless and fleeting - a dazzling, death-defying skateboard
trick against inevitable gravity before the wheels fall off. Exhibited in this
context, a few of Ludwig’s dramatically stark abstract paintings might be
metaphorical reminders that fame and celebrity, like stars, explode. They end,
leaving behind only scribbles, splotches and shadows of their former glory.
To what
degree are all of us pirates, insatiable consumers, ever searching for and
seizing the latest greatest biggest bestest pleasure treasure the world has to
offer?
To the devil in the
details, here’s a tasty tidbit of ancient wisdom, from Ecclesiastes 1:8-9: All
things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of
seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has
been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
Aaargh, me
mateys.
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