You're going to need a 10-gallon bucket of colada and at least three pallets of cocaine to keep up with Aholsniffsglue's Art Basel Week. He's launching a show called "Snipers" at the Gregg Shienbaum Gallery in the heart of Wynwood. The show opens November 29, and features tons of peluches, plush, hand sewn toys emblazoned with graphics made entirely on a cell phone, and assembled in an iconographic language of meticulously disassembled, and repurposed images from the city of Miami streets he represents. (In other words, he takes pictures of funny shit he sees, and "fotochops" it).
"I like the name Snipers cause it's a cool, concise name. It felt right. I'm taking this glassed in room in the gallery and making it into like a creepy arcade/club. It's like when you used to go to Blockbuster with your parents, it would be all bright and nice, but then you can also walk through these curtains into the creep spot, full of porno. So I'm making a creep haven full of sounds and jams from the Ghost Of Jose El Rey, and unreleased tracks from his archives."
"Peluches is a Spanish or Cuban word for plushies. It's what you would call a stuffed toy. I try not to do a regular shape on these. Some are harder to make, but they all have their own character. I'm not somebody who sews, so I try to embrace the fuckups. Once you accept it, it becomes character."
"See, because it's rough, I call it Fotochopping instead of Photoshopping. I have friends who are actual graphic designers, and they're like 'what you're doing isn't right.' They don't realize it's all on the go, that some of them are made between two bus stops. That I'm just having fun. I try to make them clever, and some of them are gems."
"These are coming from the soul, dawg."
"It's weird cause I gutted all my pillows to do this."
"I can't wait to see people's reactions."
"It's been a mission doing this. I'd rather be out partying, drinking beer in the streets with my friends, but it's like I have to do this."
"When I see these, it's like a photo album. I know exactly where I was when I took each pic that's in each part of each peluche."
"This shit is mad weird bro, but I'm having fun doing it."
"I found this Polaroid a long time ago in the Cutler Ridge Mall's parking lot."
"I've always jumped from medium to medium, and maybe I never do sewing again. But at least I know I did this, that I sewed these all myself."
"My friend Desi from Eek Bouteek schooled me on the sewing machine. She and Mxytsplyk are very special people who have helped me out a lot."
"During the day and night I go out hunting and making the pictures. If it makes the cut, if it's a strong image, I fuckin' make it into a pillow. A peluche."
"It's a challenge goin' out everyday, tryin' to make something new."
"For this nigga Gregg Shienbaum to be letting me do this shit in his fancy gallery is an honor."
"I used an old ShamWow that I found downtown as the back of the one of the guy shitting croquetas. Then this other guy, I made his body out of the fat of his double chins."
"I try to do five or more a night. Last night, I didn't do any, but I did 10 the night before. Any time I feel like I haven't held down the creativity to life, I come home and do some of these and I feel better."
"The mystery of what's next is what kind of pushes me to keep doing this weird shit. Like, where's it gonna go?"
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