Total Obsession
View Similar Items
Robert MarsTotal Obsession2017
2017
About the Item
- Creator:Robert Mars (1969, American)
- Creation Year:2017
- Dimensions:Height: 46 in (116.84 cm)Width: 46 in (116.84 cm)Depth: 4 in (10.16 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Boston, MA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2377450542
Robert Mars
Juxtaposing the faces of iconic celebrities with patterns reminiscent of quilting and folk art, Robert Mars (b. 1969) considers the many facets of American popular culture through the lens of advertising.
In Mars’s mixed-media works, brand names are collaged beneath the visages of mid-century stars such as Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy, with neon lighting and shiny coats of resin on wood panels lending each piece the allure of a covetable consumer object.
Born in New Jersey, Mars studied at the Parsons School of Design and worked for a time as a graphic designer. His cultural mash-ups draw on imagery from his collection of vintage magazines. Combining enlarged Xerox transfers and boldly painted colors in several built-up layers, his works recall the messy remixing of everyday objects by Robert Rauschenberg as well as the explorations of mass reproduction and fame by Andy Warhol. The shape of a Chanel No. 5 bottle, a Louis Vuitton logo and a photograph of Audrey Hepburn are all plucked from mass media as relics of Americana and the obsession with luxury. Distressing the surfaces of the pieces, Mars gives them a timeworn texture, like an old advertisement that might be found on the wall of a roadside gas station, but with a surreal quality in their recontextualized subjects.
The stars and mass-media material in Mars’s work mostly have origins in the 1950s and ’60s, an age that saw the rise of celebrity endorsements during a postwar economic boom in which there were plenty of novel new products to promote. An image of Jackie Kennedy is overlaid with ad copy for Dior; a photograph of a victorious Muhammad Ali is joined with Champion Spark Plugs typography. The nostalgia here is for commerce as much as it is for people who became a brand. In the artist’s dynamic collages, the lines between what, or who, is being packaged and sold are blurred.
Mars has produced commissions for Coca-Cola, was a featured artist for a project with Kari Whitman Interiors and was chosen in 2015 for the cover of Neiman Marcus’s May Book. He has exhibited at the Evansville Museum of Art, Coral Springs Museum of Art and elsewhere.
Find Robert Mars mixed-media works, paintings and other art on 1stDibs.
- DomingoLocated in Boston, MAArtist: Reijnders, Bram (Dutch, 1974- ) Title: Domingo Edition: Unique Medium: Mixed Media Dim.: 51" x 67" (unframed) Year: 2022 Provenance: Bram Reijnders StudioCategory
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsMixed Media
Price Upon Request - Untitled (Print with Paint 186)By Marc QuinnLocated in Boston, MAArtist: Quinn, Marc Title: Untitled (Print with Paint 186) Series: Small Inverse Flowers Date: 2012 Medium: Unique Mixed Media, Color Pigment, with Oil and Acrylic Paint, Metal...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsMixed Media
- UntitledBy Marc QuinnLocated in Boston, MAArtist: Quinn, Marc Title: Untitled Series: Stardust Series Date: 2012 Medium: Mixed Media archival pigment print with paint and metallic dust Unframed Dimensions: 8.267" x 1...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsMixed Media
$8,900 - UntitledBy Marc QuinnLocated in Boston, MAArtist: Quinn, Marc Title: Untitled Series: Stardust Series Date: 2012 Medium: Mixed Media archival pigment print with paint and metallic dust Unframed Dimensions: 8.070" x 1...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsMixed Media
$8,900 - UntitledBy Marc QuinnLocated in Boston, MAArtist: Quinn, Marc Title: Untitled Series: Stardust Series Date: 2012 Medium: Mixed Media archival pigment print with paint and metallic dust Unframed Dimensions: 8.267" x 1...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsMixed Media
$7,000 Sale Price21% Off - UntitledBy Marc QuinnLocated in Boston, MAArtist: Quinn, Marc Title: Untitled Series: Stardust Series Date: 2012 Medium: Mixed Media archival pigment print with paint Unframed Dimensions: 7.874" x 15.354" Framed Dimen...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsMixed Media
$8,900
- Sex on the BeachBy Rock TherrienLocated in Los Angeles, CARock Therrien Sex On The Beach Signed by the artist Mixed media on canvas with neon 60 x 60 inches This piece is unique This piece is currently on display at Art Angels in Los Angel...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsNeon Light, Mixed Media
Price Upon Request - Coup de foudre (Love at first sight)By Esmeralda KosmatopoulosLocated in New York, NYCoup de foudre 2016 Neon, wire, transformers, flasher 36 x 64 x 5 in (91 x 163 x 3 cm) Edition of 5 Coup de foudre hints to the new emotional r...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsMixed Media, Neon Light
Price Upon Request - Based on a True Story, 2022Located in New York, NYArdan Özmenoğlu draws from her own experiences as a Turkish woman to explore ideas about history, popular culture, and the formation of a national and cultural identity. Known for he...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsMixed Media, Screen, Glass, Plexiglass, Adhesive, Plate Glass, Lights, N...
Price Upon Request - One Light - immersive infinite perceptual ambient light wall sculptureBy Raymond GraberLocated in San Francisco, CARaymond Graber‘s celestial light sculptures transform the sense of perception, challenging the human eye’s sense for scale and time with a transcendenta...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Abstract Sculptures
MaterialsWood, Lights, LED Light, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Neon Light
- Conte de Fée!By Rock TherrienLocated in Los Angeles, CAROCK THERRIEN Conte de Fée!, 2023 Signed by the artist Mixed media on canvas with neon 48 x 48 inches This piece is unique. This piece is currently on display at Art Angels Los Ang...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsNeon Light, Mixed Media
Price Upon Request - Peace LoveBy Rock TherrienLocated in Los Angeles, CASOLD Rock Therrien Peace Love, 2023 Signed by the artist Mixed media on canvas with neon 48 x 48 inches This piece is unique. This piece is currently on display at Art Angels Los ...Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media
MaterialsNeon Light, Mixed Media
Price Upon Request