Book Preview: The Beautiful Struggle: The Art of Dzine

The images and book description are from Gestalten:

The work of Dzine, who was born in Chicago as Carlos Rolon in 1970, alludes to Latin American Kustom Kulture and aesthetics from ghetto to baroque. By combining these influences in a playfully ironic way, he has created a unique visual language that has already found its place in renowned museums, collections, and galleries.

Dzine’s art stems from the place where the conflicting worlds of luxury and the street intersect—where desire, identity, beauty, and meticulousness collide in kaleidoscopic colors. He reworks everyday objects, bicycles, ghetto blasters, or Latino status symbols—including lowrider cars—until his perfected versions subsume their original functions and the visual excess causes those viewing his art to question their own value systems.

The Beautiful Struggle is the first comprehensive collection of the full spectrum of Dzine’s work in the areas of sculpture, painting, and installation. A foreword by filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) as well as texts and quotes by Shepard Fairey, Lance Armstrong, art insiders such as Dallas Contemporary director Peter Doroshenko and Miami’s Bass Museum of Art director Silvia Karman Cubiñá, and others round out this unique monograph.

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