It's a fine Klein between kitsch and critique
Artists love paying lip service to being democratic and creating art for the common man, but in truth insiders are incredibly snobby about preserving the line between fine art that appears in museums and galleries, and commercial art everywhere else.
This is why Dutch artist Micha Klein rubs purists up the wrong way. Since the late 1980s, he's used his slick, digitally manipulated images for museum and gallery shows, nightclub gigs as a VJ, lucrative Coca-Cola ads and even the animation for Jackie Chan's Around the World in 80 Days.
It doesn't help that Klein is happy to mix his two worlds, and rub his commercial success in the art world's face. When Klein graduated from Amsterdam's Rietveld Art Academy as the first artist to receive a BA in computer graphics, he felt the art establishment's welcome was less than warm. So, he took his works to dance clubs, where some of his first 'exhibitions' took place.
Like Warhol before him, Klein takes pop images to the extreme, mostly using inspiration from urban nightlife. His videos and still photography are filled with scantily clad, impossibly gorgeous models. They frolic through surreal, rainbow-hued backdrops decorated with giant flowers, smiley faces and rivers flowing with Ecstasy pills drawn to look as tempting as candy.
Klein's Tuesday night opening at BoHo's Art Statements gallery drew more than 100 people. On Thursday and Friday night gigs at the Edge, he mixed video images in real time to the music.
The lines between Klein's VJ-ing and video art are blurred. Walking into Klein's latest solo show is like stepping into a real-life Diesel ad, or perhaps a 1990s rave. On one wall is a flat-screen TV playing an endless loop of the video Artificial Beauty. For this piece, Klein took 10 of Amsterdam's top models, including his girlfriend Afke Reijenga, and employed the same morphing software Michael Jackson used for his Black or White video to create a constantly changing visage. On the wall beside the TV are large still photos of his digitally created faces, decorated with purple hair and strange futuristic backdrops.