Thug Bear

Thug Bear - Retouched

Thug Bear - Retouched by Angelo Accardi, retouched print on paper in a limited edition of 25 copies, depicts an ostrich crossing an interior with a checkerboard floor, while a red teddy bear armed with a spray can defaces the face of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring with a drawn outline.

The composition layers different figurative registers: the photograph of a classical setting, with the copy of the seventeenth-century painting hung in a gilded frame and a sculpture on a pedestal, mixes with comic and pop imagery characters, such as little Charlie Brown sitting next to the sculptural letters that spell out the word HOPE. The margin of the sheet, left white, is invaded by splashes of color, drips and pencil marks that emphasize the character of direct intervention on the surface.

This juxtaposition of heterogeneous icons, held together by quick painterly gestures and a hand-retouched print, is consistent with a body of work that proceeds through accumulation and contamination of images drawn from distant contexts, from art history to contemporary visual culture. The retouched print allows each copy of the edition to present individual pictorial interventions, so that the base print becomes the support for an ever-changing reworking.

The work stands within this path as an example of the artist's ability to let scholarly citation and popular iconography coexist on a single surface, without hierarchy between the two registers.

Angelo Accardi & Gianpiero - Thug Bear - Retouched - Paper - 70x70 cm

Angelo Accardi - Artist Biography

Angelo Accardi was born in Sapri, in the province of Salerno, in 1964. He made his debut as an artist with works strongly characterised by the figure and the pictorial dimension, with a strong symbolism.

He began his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples but interrupted them after a short time. Immediately after abandoning his studies, Accardi fell into a profound artistic identity crisis that led him to embrace abstractionism.

This crisis stayed with him for a few years until he opened his own studio in Sapri in the early 1990s. Here Accardi began to produce works focused on the study of man with a social background.

This led to the creation of the Human Collection cycle of works that consecrated Accardi as an artist.

This collection marks an important step in the artistic career of Accardi: in fact, the artist starts a production with deep tones that he will develop over the years, arriving at the works that make him one of the most famous and valued artists in contemporary art nowadays.

In this period the countless solo exhibitions dedicated to painter Angelo Accardi begun, in important galleries, both in Italy and abroad.

From this moment onwards, the artist's fame continues to grow. In fact, for about a year, the prices of his artworks have doubled, confirming Accardi's position of relevance in the contemporary art market.

Angelo Accardi still lives and works in Sapri, his hometown.

Artworks of Angelo Accardi: Misplaced (with Ostriches)

One of the most famous and recognizable subject of Angelo Accardi Misplaced artworks are the ostriches. The artist places these animals in environments that have nothing to do with their natural habitat. He places them in rooms, museums and even around the streets of cities.

The presence of the animals in uncommon environments creates an initial alienating effect that leads the viewer to wonder why the artist has decided to place an animal in a place that does not belong to him.

This is where the heart of Angelo Accardi’s art lies: to represent the “Misplaced”, the out of context. While doing so, the artist takes this term literally and portrays it by inserting a foreign object into an everyday environment.

With Misplaced Angelo Accardi deletes completely the human figure, which, somehow though, is still involved: the ostriches replace the human being to move a critique on a double level.

The first one is related to the art world. In the artworks in which the Ostriches are depicted in interior spaces (such as homes and museums), on the walls of the rooms Angelo Accardi reproduces works by other contemporary artists such as Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, and Tomoko Nagao, as well as artists from the Renaissance period.

In front of these masterpieces, the Ostriches stand in a state of almost enchantment to admire them and they often interact with the paintings by touching them with their beaks, becoming an active part of the painting.

Contrary to expectations, Ostriches seem to fit right into these contexts. Hence Accardi's fine but effective criticism of the inability of many humans to interact with art, which instead succeeds perfectly in the case of not particularly intelligent animals such as ostriches.

The second level of Accardi's criticism refers to everyday life. When the artist places ostriches in city streets, the first effect is one of ambiguity.

However, the more you observe the artwork, the more the presence of the animals wandering around the city seems normal. In this case, Angelo Accardi wants to be sharply ironic about the ease with which people can be replaced in environments that have actually always belonged to them.

Misplaced - Accardi Angelo’s Subjects: The Theme of Fear

In addition to ostriches, the artist inserts other subjects, always out of context, into the same environments: Rhinoceroses, Ships, Planes, Minions and Simpsons characters.

The objective is always the same, which is to depict the out of place.

However, according to some opinions, more disturbing and sometimes catastrophic meanings can be discovered in Accardi's works.

The presence of these characters in Angelo Accardi's Artworks, depicted on a large scale, in places that are part of our everyday life is a symbol of a looming threat, a fear that all men share.

Hence the clarification that the animals, as well as the ships and planes that populate Angelo Accardi's artworks, are not present in the environments in which the spectator is involved.

On the contrary, the artworks function as a sort of mental projection of a fear, of an apprehension that is owned by the artist himself.

Painting these scenarios is a way through which Accardi try to share this sense of threat that constantly frightens him, almost searching for solace from the viewer, whom he tries to confide these fears to.

Artworks by Angelo Accardi for sale on Deodato Arte

Deodato Arte has been dealing in modern and contemporary art for years, including the artworks of Angelo Accardi.

On our website, the most comprehensive in Italy, you can find works of art for sale by the artist Accardi with the guarantee of support from professionals.

Find out for Angelo Accardi, prices and value by clicking "Show Price" on the work of your choice.

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