Zevs
Art Statements Gallery
Take a piece of canvas or metal, stencil a logo or brand motif onto it, along with dribbles of paint, slap a HK$100,000 price tag on it and hope someone buys it. Repeat 67 times.
That's what self-styled French guerilla artist Zevs (aka Christophe Schwarz) is likely to be doing in the coming weeks after a HK$6.7 million claim for criminal damage was brought against him last Wednesday by Giorgio Armani Hong Kong, following his 'liquidation' of a Chanel logo above Armani's Chater House store in Central.
Liquidating logos - dripping paint on them to give them the appearance of melting - is what Zevs does in his show at Art Statements. It's all he does.
Much as he'd probably welcome comparisons with Britain's Banksy, Zevs is a one-trick pony, his daubs showing none of the barbed humour that distinguishes his fellow artist. Zevs' supporters make some big claims for the supposed cleverness of his work: it's a challenge to the pervasive corporate branding and image-making of our times, they say. I suppose if you wish hard enough, it's possible to see a message in anything.