{"id":2448661,"date":"2019-09-12T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=312783"},"modified":"2019-09-12T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T22:00:00","slug":"an-artists-untimely-death-and-a-rebirth-at-gonzo-gallery-in-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/an-artists-untimely-death-and-a-rebirth-at-gonzo-gallery-in-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"An artist\u2019s untimely death and a rebirth at Gonzo Gallery in Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Late artist Brendan Missett\u2019s work hangs in the Gonzo Gallery\u2019s new location in Aspen on Wednesday, September 11, 2019. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The Los Angeles-based artist Brendan Missett didn\u2019t show or sell his work in galleries. The mixed-media artist \u2014 known to fans and friends as @trenchvvave on Instagram \u2014 exhibited his fierce, politically and sexually charged collages online.<\/p>\n

That was set to change this year, when the Aspen-based gallerist Daniel Joseph Watkins bought a Missett painting and convinced him to rattle some capitalist cages with a solo exhibition timed to the Fourth of July holiday here in Aspen.<\/p>\n

The pair met in February and began planning the show, which would play off of Missett\u2019s interest in patriotism and extremism.<\/p>\n

Soon after, the artist \u2014 who had long struggled with substance abuse \u2014 died of a drug overdose. He was 36.<\/p>\n

With the support of Missett\u2019s parents, Watkins has followed through with the exhibition, which opens Friday at the Gonzo Gallery\u2019s temporary home at 601 E. Hyman Ave.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re obviously devastated but they\u2019ve also been saying, \u2018Let\u2019s turn this into something good,\u2019\u201d Watkins said this week while hanging the show.<\/p>\n

Proceeds will benefit the nonprofit Brendan Project, founded in Missett\u2019s honor to support artists suffering from addiction.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s opening is expected to draw Missett\u2019s friends, his family (his mother is Judi Sheppard Missett, founder of the Jazzercize fitness franchise) and the fans he found nationwide through Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lived online and he had all these people from there who were like a family,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n

Watkins, who didn\u2019t know of Missett\u2019s struggles with drugs until the overdose, also heard from Missett\u2019s friends from recovery programs and who the artist mentored.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had this powerful impact on all these people who loved him,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n

Missett\u2019s incendiary works \u2014 all made since 2017 \u2014 take a fierce and fearless look at America in the early Trump era, with pieces themed around fetishized violence, commercialized sex, militarism, cults and political hypocrisy. The charged imagery here includes President Trump kissing a baby bordered by the phrase \u201cAttrition and Terror,\u201d surrounded by pornographic images and a cutout of a sex doll.<\/p>\n

The centerpiece is a large-format collage of hundreds of images crowded around the title \u201cAMERICA NEEDS A FAITH LIFT.\u201d A viewer could spend hours studying it and discovering new things in its sea of guns, fashion models, trucks, status symbols (including a napkin from Mezzaluna in Aspen) and hidden texts (\u201cdress to suppress\u201d).<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are just enough words and just enough of a message to let people come up with their own ideas, too,\u201d said Watkins.<\/p>\n

Some of the work takes on a new poignancy in the wake of the artist\u2019s death, like a small collage featuring the phrase \u201cELEGY FOR A REBEL.\u201d It was the last image Missett posted online before he died.<\/p>\n

Works featuring more graphic pornographic imagery will hang in the bathroom rather than the gallery proper.<\/p>\n

The gallery is exhibiting Missett\u2019s original pieces, but isn\u2019t selling them. Instead, the benefit show will have prints of the originals, made in editions of 25 by Missett himself in anticipation of his Gonzo Gallery show, for sale.<\/p>\n

Watkins recalled how excited Missett was to show with the Gonzo, which has showcased work by and about counterculture icons like Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Tom Benton and Ralph Steadman.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was honored to be aligned with Hunter and Burroughs and Steadman and all these people,\u201d Watkins said.<\/p>\n

The exhibition is the second of three benefit shows that Watkins has planned for his itinerant gallery<\/a>. The first, exhibiting works by the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Sergey Ponomarev last month in Watkins\u2019 Cooper Avenue apartment, sold out and raised $39,000 for the nonprofit Afghanistan Libre.<\/p>\n

Missett\u2019s work will hang in the gallery for two weeks, followed by an exhibition of works by the Aspen-based sculptor Ajax Axe<\/a> benefiting the Nomadic Library.<\/p>\n

The gallery, through the end of this month, is taking over the prime corner space of the Hecht family\u2019s commercial building adjacent to the Aspen Art Museum.<\/p>\n

In the space next door, the artist Richard Carter\u2019s summer-long pop-up gallery<\/a> is hosting its third and final show, \u201cThe Imagined Still Life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter\u2019s gallery, the Gonzo and artist Merrill Steiger\u2019s summer pop-up<\/a> will all close at the end of September as the Hechts sign tenants with long-term leases for the building.<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late artist Brendan Missett\u2019s work hangs in the Gonzo Gallery\u2019s new location in Aspen on Wednesday, September 11, 2019. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times The Los Angeles-based artist Brendan Missett didn\u2019t show or sell his work in galleries. The mixed-media artist \u2014 known to fans and friends as @trenchvvave on Instagram \u2014 exhibited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 14:36:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}