Doug and Mike Starn (b. identical twins, New Jersey, 1961) have long embraced music and popular culture. Among their visual explorations is a series of pixilated portraits painted on record covers. The record covers are hung with magnets on metal blacking plates, so that the individual record covers can be removed from the composition and the record within each cover can be removed to play the original album stashed inside. The magnets also allow each album to be flipped as the viewer choses, so that the composition may vary on a whim. In Nuff said, the central image is occupied by a dramatic image of Little Richard, in full performance mode, mouth wide singing, with arms and legs spread across the composition. Little Richard, the stage name of Richard Wayne Penniman, was known for his energetic performances of such popular 1950s rock-and-roll hits as Tutti Fruitti and Long Tall Sally. About this use of pop culture, the Starn’s note that “Modernism is a very intellectual movement, and beauty’s been out of fashion in the art world for quite a whileit’s seen as corny. We don’t feel that way at all. We rework the Old Masters because they inspire us--and this is where we differ from Appropriationism. That movement is rooted in cynicism, but we truly love the images we rework.”
