If you visit the artist Wes Lang at his studio, we’ve heard, you might get “sucked into the porn hole.” He’s apparently got a lot of porn magazines lying around. The artist said so himself in a Vice video from a few years back. Thursday night, the artist has a new show, “Here Comes Sunshine,” opening at Half Gallery, Bill Powers’s enterprise on the Lower East Side, at which the artist will unveil 10 new works, including drawings and paintings using color pencil, airbrush and automotive paint on steel. Of the work we’ve seen in the show, it seems Mr. Lang is still kind of loitering in the porn hole. And his work still takes its cues from “tattoo flash” and other Americana—the artist’s own body is covered in tattoos. Yet, while Mr. Lang’s work has been known to push the envelope—he got booted from a group show at Deitch Projects in 2007 for including works that had images of African-American stereotypes—his latest work seems pretty tame.
His stated influences these days are a little more high brow: Mike Kelley’s 13 Seasons and Basquiat’s oil stick works. While you can pick up a simple pencil drawing on paper for $2000, Mr. Lang’s larger paintings, some run as large as 96 x 72 inches, could set you back $40,000. If you’re in town, the opening is sure to be a shit show as we could hardly get through the door at the last opening at Half Gallery (never mind the ‘private’ back room). If you can’t make it in, though, here’s a preview of the show.
