Wes Lang

Rough and ready iconography including skulls, flags and motorcycle culture meets classical pencil drawings of flowers and pinup girls in this series of works by Wes Lang. The New Jersey-born, Brooklyn-based creative has collected his 10-year oeuvre in a new monograph, Wes Lang, published by Picturebox Books. Featuring such references as Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Michel Basquiat and the Grim Reaper, the book provides a fittingly disparate portrait of America. Through his decade-long career, Lang has taken up residency at LA’s storied Chateau Marmont, and found his niche within pop and fashion with commissions from Kanye West, Playboy and Marc Jacobs. A self-described collector of “weird imagery”, Lang spent time working in a tattoo parlor after high school, and has since covered himself in dizzying renderings of American Indians, crosses and raindrops.

The artists Donald Baechler and Wes Lang have maintained a dialogue for many years built on mutual curiosity, respect and even mild competition. The contrast in their work is apparent, but their individual meditations on a single image—the skull—provides a bridge between two distinct minds separated by a generation.