All Photos by Geoffrey Dicker

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: art is awesome. And when you can combine art with rebellion, stuff that rocks, free food and booze, and throw it all together in a happening party space that used to be a den of iniquity where people took crazy drugs, had aberrant sex with strangers and danced to throbbing music, well, it just does not get much better than that for my money. Last week I had just such an experience when I attended The Art of Rebellion, a New York art show featuring works by ten assorted artists in both the music and art worlds including Art Chantry, Brian Ewing, Derek Hess, Dirty Donny, Frank Kozik, Harpoon, John Van Hamersveld, Lindsey Kuhn, Tara McPherson and some dude who calls himself “the Pizz.” Sadly, the exhibit was only open for two evenings, the VIP Press event held last Friday (which I attended) and an open to the pubic reception on Saturday the 18th (which my pal Geoffrey attended, thus affording us this lovely accompanying photography – thank you G!), so if you weren’t there you, will have to live through me/us.

Bullet-Riddled, White Enamel Gas Tank With Red Bulb

The party went down at LA.Venue, (formerly home to one of the ’80s most notorious nightclubs, The Tunnel) located way the fuck over on West 28th street in Chelsea. So there was no way you were going to accidentally stumble upon this shindig unless you were “working the Avenue” as they say. Since the event was sponsored by Harley-Davidson, each artist displayed his or her own custom painted/modified Harley-Davidson Iron 883 gas tank, along with two examples of their signature rock art posters, at the show. This made for a diverse yet cohesive collection of very hip, visual and inspiring art! All posters as well as gas tanks were for sale (tanks ranged in price from about $1500 to $4000 each), with a portion of the proceeds from tank sales being donated to the CUE Art Foundation. Charity!

The Art Of Rebellion exhibit travels from city to city, with featured artists always rotating, so you can find out when and where the next event will be, meet the various artists and view more of their work at Harley-Davidson.

These Works By Artist John Van Hamersveld