Wes Lang /anglais - Tapa dura

We think of Lang as a black-denim-clad avatar mining the post-pop American landscape. He gathers iconography, stirs it all up, and brings it to a boil to tell his own cryptic stories. The result? Canvases that are layered, Basquiat-like, with vignettes: skulls wearing Native American headdresses, panhead Harley-Davidsons, buxom pimup models, cigarette-smoking Playboys Bunnies.--Devin Friedman "GQ "

Wes Lang's (born 1972) first monograph focuses on his works on paper--complicated arrangements of his typically American iconography, expertly rendered in ink and paint and juxtaposed in riotous combinations. These images, selected from a decade's worth of material, range from the artist's covers for a 2012 Grateful Dead box set chronicling their epic 1990 tour (fulfilling a teenage dream of Lang's) to precise classical drawing reminiscent of a nineteenth-century illustrator, in a dizzying mix of American history, biker culture, tattoo iconography, ornament, Native American art, pin-ups, newspaper headlines and Taoist texts. This book--the only Wes Lang monograph in print--contains an essay by author James Frey and will undoubtedly appeal to both Lang's substantial online following and to fans of Americana.