Death and the Eternal Forever is a subversive pop-culture art book that includes more than 170 reproductions of Ron English’s paintings, sculptures and vinyl figures.
Fine artist and street-art legend Ron English is the creator of POPaganda, a mash-up of high art and pop culture that explores and subverts consumerism and corporate culture. This surreal art book examines English’s belief that all art is a futile attempt to cheat death — and that death gives all art meaning. It brings together his visually astonishing and bitingly funny work, which teems with fantastically twisted imagery, from three-eyed rabbits and udderly delicious cowgirls to grinning skulls.
About the artist
Ron English has bombed the global landscape with unforgettable images: on the street, in museums, in films, in books and on television. English coined the term POPaganda to describe his signature mash-up of high and low cultural touchstones. From superhero mythology to totems of art history, his work is populated with a vast and constantly growing arsenal of original characters.
English appeared in the hit films Super Size Me and Exit Through the Gift Shop and hosted Britain’s The Other America series on Sky TV; he has also made numerous television appearances worldwide. He is the subject of the award-winning 2006 documentary POPaganda: The Art and Crimes of Ron English and the 2009 documentary Abraham Obama. His work is held in the permanent collections of Rome’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MACRO), Paris’s Museum of Modern Art and others. He has published several art books and continues to create art that pushes familiar cultural norms beyond the bounds of comfort into a realm both hilarious and terrifying.
Afterword by Mike McGee
Mike McGee is an American curator, art writer and educator. He was director of the Nicholas and Lee Begovich Gallery at California State University, Fullerton, and has worked as a curator and arts administrator since 1982. He has organised and written essays for more than two hundred exhibitions, working with artists such as Mark Ryden, Kenny Scharf and Ron English.
Praise for Ron English
“…the brilliant guerrilla artist notorious for replacing corporate billboards and advertisements with satirical and pointed attacks on consumer culture.” — New York Magazine
“…a latter-day American hero, a Robin Hood who does not so much steal from the rich as steal the rich’s thunder by making their products seem wicked or idiotic.” — The Guardian
“…one of the art world’s most effective and visually candid critics of this or any troubled time.” — Juxtapoz
Read our interview with Ron English.
