Apoc­a­lypse Wow!

by Sarah Coleman

“If Dr. Franken­stein had worked with paper instead of body parts, he’d have been a col­lage artist.” So says Win­ston Smith, a self-confessed “art crim­i­nal” best known for his anar­chic slash-and-paste album cov­ers for the Dead Kennedys and Green Day.

A glee­ful image ban­dit, Smith culls pic­tures from vin­tage mag­a­zines and children’s books, reassem­bling them to cre­ate dystopic visions in which apple-pie Amer­i­cana gives way to chaos and disorder.

In this “instant sur­re­al­ism,” perky ‘50s house­wives feed bottle-shaped missles to their babies and Nead­nerthal men over­run bat­tle­ships. But if Smith’s vision is apoc­a­lyp­tic, his humor is infec­tious: in Pax Amer­i­cana a smug, muscle-chested sol­dier pre­sides over a scene of Bosch-like deca­dence, and the image’s manic energy (not to men­tion its polit­i­cal satire) is exhilarating.

Another source of fun is Smith’s titles, which pack their own sur­real Punch — God Told Me to Skin You Alive and What a Friend We Have in Cheeses are two appeal­ing exam­ples. A vet­eran of under­ground art, Smith is get­ty­ing pretty main­stream these days: the show at Hult­berg fol­lows a ret­ro­spec­tive (on view until Sun/13) of his rock-related art at 111 Minna, and his brand-new book Art­crime is due out soon. At Hult­berg, the newer works have been trans­ferred onto water­color paper and can­vas via Iris prit­ning, and although this detracts from their grass­roots nature, the results are handsome.

A recep­tion and book sign­ing will be held at the gallery Thurs­day from 7 to 10 pm

Tues­day — Sat­ur­day, 11 am — 7 pm; Sun­day, noon — 6 pm
544 Hayes, San Fran­cisco, CA
(415) 861‑8251