David Hammons Bootleg + Book

Jason 

My friend @Terrenceoallen unearthed and gave new life to these tees from the never released UDLI archives.

In 2018, I had been working on a series of bootleg tees for artists that inspired me. The challenge was to make a tee that referenced and artist and their work without using any of their actual imagery, only open sourced images that acted as a nod to specific pieces that I loved.

I made the David Hammons tee in a fit of excitement as I dove into his oeuvre. When I finished printing them, they didn’t sit right with me. It was one of the only times I had referenced a living artist and I didn’t feel it was right to profit or sell a shirt that used a Black man’s work even if only in name, so I put them on shelf where they sat for a few years. Chalked it up to a lesson learned from designing too fast without thinking projects through.

Several months ago, Terrence and I started talking about Hammons’ work and he caught wind of the archived Hammons bootleg. I gave him all the shirts and he painted each shirt individually using his body, another nod to Hammons vast practice. We sourced copies of Elena Filipovic’s classic “David Hammons: Bliz-aard Ball Sale” to accompany each tee in hopes actively spreading knowledge about Hammons.

Each shirt comes with a book and the proceeds will be donated to @blackartistfund

Edition is available through @randomobjectgallery and @Terrenceoallen

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