The Art Guys • Biography • Resume • Photos • Articles • Books

The Art Guys®

Biography, Press, Publications, Interviews

"...a cross between Dada, David Letterman, John Cage and the Smothers Brothers." - The New York Times
·"The Art Guys make very funny work that straddles the boundaries between art and life, esthetics and commercialism,the rational and the absurd." - ArtNews
·"...delightful conceptual craziness." - Art in America
·"...a mad swirl!" - CBS News Sunday Morning
·"...those impudent Pimpernals of post-conceptual performance art...always memorable and articulate." - Dave Hickey
·"...a free flowing plurality of ideas." - Walter Hopps
·"...the kings of artentainment." - Houston Chronicle
·"...hilarious and visually stunning work." - Houston Press
·"...Texas' most outrageous artist team" - San Antonio Express News

Biography
narrative (PDF)

Resume/CV
exhibtion history, list of lectures, workshops, residencies, awards, collections, education (PDF)

Press photo
Click on the image below for a high resolution press photo of The Art Guys [JPEG, 300dpi, 2.2 meg] PLEASE GIVE PROPER PHOTO CREDIT AS FOLLOWS: photo courtesy of George Krause

The Art Guys studio

selected book and publications

The Art Guys: Think Twice

This is the definitive tome on The Art Guys early work. "The Art Guys: Think Twice" was published in conjunction with their overview exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston in 1995 which set attendance records. Included are essays by curator Lynn Herbert, MacArthur Fellow Dave Hickey, Prix de Rome writer David Levi Strauss, and famed curator Walter Hopps.

Order from The Art Guys. (Price $20 - does not include $5 handling fee and postage)

Also vailable through
Amazon
Art Supply Warehouse

SUITS: The Clothes Make The Man

The Art Guys explore the connection between fashion, art, and commerce in this landmark conceptual piece. The two Houston-based artists spent a year crisscrossing the country wearing suits by designer Todd Oldham on which they had sold advertising space to 56 American companies. Suits captures-through photographs, essays, and an interview with The Art Guys-the story of their often hilarious experiences in their guise as human billboards. Includes essays by Dave Hickey, Shaila Dewan and a discussion between The Art Guys and Todd Oldham.

Order from The Art Guys. (Price $20 - does not include $5 handling fee and postage)

Also vailable through
Amazon
Alibris

The Art Guys: Cloud Cuckoo Land
Selections from 25 Years of Drawings, Proposals, Pipe Dreams and Failed Schemes

Published by the Galveston Arts Center in 2007 in conjunction with the exhibition of the same title, this catalog offers a side of The Art Guys rarely seen with many works exhibited for the first time. Includes an introductory essay by Lynn Herbert, Adjunct Curator of the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston.

Order from The Art Guys. (Price $20 - does not include $5 handling fee and postage)

The Art Guys: Home On The Range
Two DVD box set
produced and distrubuted by Microcinema International

Best known for their numerous staged performances and public spectacles, The Art Guys have presented their work in grocery stores, movie theaters, airports, restaurants, sports arenas, and other non-traditional venues for experiencing art while also exploiting mass media and entertainment to explore contemporary society and issues.

The Art Guys: Home on the Range is the new two-DVD box set anthology of their work from 1983 through 2008 produced by Microcinema International. The set includes live stage performances, conceptual events in public, video works, and the ZenFilm documentary, Nothing To It: The Art Guys in Concert.

Available through Microcinema.

art & laughter

"This is the first book to take seriously (though not too seriously) the surprisingly neglected role of humour in art. Art and Laughter looks back to comic masters such as Hogarth and Daumier and to Dada, Surrealism and Pop Art, asking what makes us laugh and why, and exploring the use of comedy in art from satire and irony to pun, parody and black and bawdy humor. Encouraging laughter in the hallowed space of the gallery, Klein takes us on a tour of the comic work of Red Grooms, Cary Leibowitz, William Wegman, The Chigaco Hairy Who, Richard Prince, Bruce Nauman, Jeff Koons, William Wegman, Vik Muniz and many more. [Sherrie Klein] looks too at the smile in art and at the cute, the camp and the downright kitsch." - art & laughter

Available through Amazon

Lifting: Theft In Art

Lifting is a publication and a travelling exhibition of work from the 1970s onwards by artists who have—or claim to have—crossed a legal or moral line and committed theft in the name of art. Their motivations are diverse, from the frivolously mischievous to the critique of cultural structures.
Borrowing and appropriation have long since had a presence within the creative process. However, the artists within this exhibition have deliberately made the act of theft a fundamental part of the process. The resulting work tests the boundaries of what is morally and ethically acceptable within society, and engages with the ways in which legal and cultural significance are attributed to property.

Artists in the exhibition include The Art Guys,Kelly Baum, Miguel Calderon and osua Okon, David M Meurer and Rosemary J. Coombe, Tom Friedman, Kenneth Goldsmith, Dan Griffiths, Paul Groot, Jeff Ferrell, Mark Jefrey, Janice Kerbel, Micah Lexier, Luis o Miguel, Ann Messner, Ivan Moudov, Scott Myles, Dennis Oppenheim, Joel Ross, Jon Routson, Savage, Rhys Southan, Diana Stigter, Ulay, Timm Ulrichs, Frazier Ward and Allison Wiese.

Available through Atopia Projects.