The American artist Wes Lang (b. 1972), who lives and works in Los Angeles devotes his art to icons that form part of the American biker culture’s visual universe, including pin-up girls, motorcycles and tattoos. In everything from sketches for paintings, for motorbikes and for Rolex watches, he blends his own personality and manner of life with the mythology of “the American way of life”. He draws on iconic references to rock ‘n roll, the aesthetics of the tattoo, life on the road and American history – and uses them in a both personal and national identity project.

The exhibition will present just under 60 works, some recent and some rather older, including seven very large paintings specially made for the ARoS exhibition. In addition, there will also be a presentation of some of Wes Lang’s more commercial collaborative ventures in which, for example, the artist has specially made motorbikes for Harley Davidson and designed Rolex watches, cups, carpets, jewellery and the like. Lang’s links with the world of music are also represented, for instance through his collaboration with the musician Kanye West and his visual products and merchandise and also through the comprehensive boxed set that Wes Lang created for the rock band Grateful Dead’s great comprehensive release.

An important feature of the exhibition is the fact that Wes Lang’s entire studio is being moved from the USA to ARoS. The walls in the huge factory building that Wes Lang uses as his studio in L.A. are plastered all over with drawings and objects, teeming from floor to ceiling with tableaux, some big and some small, stuck together with remains of paint. The walls and the room are thus transformed into gigantic collages in which splashes on the floor, stacks of playboy magazines and pieces of patinated leather furniture merge with drawings of cowled skeletons, paintings of Indians, horsehair, flags, pin-ups, bunches of flowers and cows’ horns. Wes Lang will himself be present in the museum while the exhibition is being prepared and he will help to install the huge number of large works and to re-create his studio. This exhibition will provide the public with a unique opportunity to look into the artist’s studio his “private space”. A studio has always been shrouded in ideas and myths. In addition to its art-historical role as a particularly magical cradle for art, it is the space which – even today – can in many ways be said to reflect the artist’s role and identity. A visit to a studio will by many people be experienced as a personal encounter in which it will be possible to get a closer understanding of both the art and the artist. The Studio at ARoS is just such a personal and artistic meeting with Wes Lang.

ARoS Museum
Aros Allé 2
8000 Aarhus
Denmark

-text and visuals via aros.dk