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Renaissance man Paul Pope is at it again, with a new window design at the Diesel store in Soho for Fashion Week, including drawings that showcase Diesel threads in drawings instead of on mannequins. Pope has also been working on a museum quality 10-color silk-screen print. We have some pictures of the printmaking process here. (If you’ve evee done silk screen you know 10 passes is quite an undertaking.) Pope will be down at the Baltimore Comic-Con to promote his new PULPHOPE art books from AdHouse, which will include reproductions of the print.

September 10-17 is Fashion Week in NYC, the time when all the major designers debut their Fall/Winter lines of clothes.

This year, to kick-off their CHELSEA HOTEL line of rock’n’roll inspired clothing, Italian fashion label DIESEL INDUSTRIES has asked Eisner-Award-Winning American cartoonist PAUL POPE (THB, 100%, Batman Year 100) to interpret their latest designs with a special NYC store installation and massive 10 color silkscreen print, both to debut in Diesel’s SoHo store @ 135 Spring Street on Saturday, September 9.

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Rather than simply showcase the clothes on store-front mannequins or paste up sexy advertising photos, Diesel USA’s creative director Jonas Hjertberg asked Paul Pope to create life-sized comics-influenced drawings featuring characters wearing Diesel’s latest designs. Pope has created a baffling larger-than-life diorama / shadowbox for the front window of the SoHo Diesel store– complete with Pope-designed neon signs and a 15 ft. wide skyline representing NYC at night.



Pope’s SoHo installation for Diesel’s CHELSEA HOTEL line comes directly after his smaller-scale installation for the Diesel-sponsored Bloomingdale’s shop window on 5th ave, which was up July and August this year.

Pope’s fall 2005 exhibition at the Diesel Denim Gallery, entitled simply PULPHOPE, was regarded as a big hit, rivaling even Japanese eroticist Araki’s show. Due to overwhelming response, Diesel left Pope’s framed comics and drawings and wall-sized prints up asn additional month.

In conjunction with SoHo CHELSEA HOTEL store installation, Pope is also doing a special museum quality 10 color silkscreen print with Axelle Arts. Axelle Editions, Brooklyn New York, is a fine art print atelier specializing in screen printing, intaglio, and hot-stamping. Run by Master Printer Luther Davis, Axelle Editions collaborates with over a hundred artists a year and prints over 300 editions a year. Some of the artists Axelle Editions has worked with include Matthew Barney, Kaz, Swoon, Kiki Smith, and Alexander Ross.

The print is nominally commissioned as a birthday gift for Diesel owner Renzo Rosso (51 on Sept. 15th), but there will also be a retail edition available online and at NYC area Diesel stores. The print features a sexy “Pope girl” dressed in Diesel’s provocative dark denim catsuit, complete with silver studs, a Dracula collar, and a zipper up the front. The 10 color print measures 44 inches by 56 inches– about the size of a subway billboard.

“I love the whole tradition of 60s Euro cartoonists like Guy Peelart (who also did album covers for the Rolling Stones {It’s Only Rock And Roll} and David Bowie {Diamond Dogs}), Pichard, and Barbarella’s Jean-Claude Forrest,” says Pope. “And the Italians have a healthy tradition of sexy comics all their own. Guido Crepax and Attilio Michelluzi are among my artist-heroes, and I hoped to channel some of that sexy energy in this piece.”

Axelle’s Pop Art credentials are rock solid. In keeping with the pop-rock tradition, Axelle is employing screens once owned and used by Andy Warhol. Additionally, Master Printer Luther Davis has the distinction of having printed Roy Lichtenstein’s final silkscreen edition. “Pop Art has been stealing from comics for decades,” says Pope. “What we’re doing is Pop Art…It’s time comics stole Pop back.”

The art Pope is generating for the Diesel SoHo installation as well as the 10 color silkscreen will be featured in the forthcoming PULPHOPE: THE ART OF PAUL POPE artbook from AdHouse Press.

4 COMMENTS

  1. Saw this amazing print hanging in the front of the Diesel SoHo store today. My mouth dropped…it was hot…and at 44″ x 57″, it makes a statement. Pope printed the 10 color image on heavy museum-grade paper stock and carefully packed in a tube. I ended up buying #89/125. If you are a Paul Pope fan – or just a lover of graphic book art / illustration, this is well worth the $500.

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