LUSHSUX: BRING CASH
Public response to LUSHSUX’s work tends to teeter on the knife-edge of cramp-inducing hilarity and horror, depending on how the viewer feels about bodily excretions, offensive language, nudity…and Hillary Clinton in a bathing suit.
Invited to a backdoor preview of LUSHSUX’s latest, limited and top secret exhibition – BRING CASH – our own responses to the Melbourne street artist’s creations were put to the test in an immersive experience like no other. Stripped of all recording devices, blindfolded and hustled into an erratically driven vehicle, we were deposited at an unknown location, where we were confronted with nine pieces of art awash with LUSHSUX’s trademark shock value. After the strict 30-minute viewing period was up, we were returned, in the same blacked-out van, to the original location – in one piece, might we add.
BRING CASH is the culmination and closing statement in what has been a particularly controversial year for the visual provocateur or “graffiti troll” as LUSH is often, a little less favorably, described. This year, has seen the U.S. election, celebrity culture, freedom of speech, media bias and other famed artists, like scene supremo Banksy, all come under fire in a series of works that are at the roots of the city’s Memeist art movement. Nothing is off limits, not least when you consider that LUSHSUX’s latest practice involves painting images of alt-right meme Pepe the Frog on women’s buttcheeks. It might be obscure, it might be obscene, but it is simultaneously, seriously comical.
His fearlessness in saying, and spraying, things that push the limits of social acceptance makes LUSH’s art the kind that continually strikes a nerve with its audiences. BRING CASH is an exacerbation of this, marking a new phase in LUSHSUX’s artistic provocation as he invites “patricians and plebs alike” to descend into a 30-minute experience cloaked in secrecy.
We spoke to LUSH about the exhibit and his world.
fluoro. Is Lush a real person? Or a character?
LUSHSUX. I’m like Anne Frank.
f. How have you evolved as an artist since you started expressing that Lushsux across the suburbs of Melbourne?
LS. I’m still Jenny from the Bronx.
f. What are your motivations for the creation of your work?
LS. It’s all for kek.
f. Relating to street art – in your eyes is there a difference between art and the destruction of property?
LS. I didn’t waste forty thousand dollars on a philosophy degree so I’m not going to try and tackle the ethics of putting paint on walls.
f. Why do you use up to the minute pop icon references in your work? For exposure?
LS. It’s the monarch programming.
f. Do you wish you were sitting in bed with Kimyeswift?
LS. Rather be fishing.
f. Why did you choose to focus on the U.S election for some of your pieces?
LS. It’s fun to troll with it. The tears and butthurt. Delicious.
f. Pop culture – are you a part of it?
LS. I have gotten a lot of attention in Woman’s Weekly this year so…
f. For those that won’t have the opportunity to be blindfolded, exposed to nudity and offensive themes (by the way thanks), experiencing BRING CASH, what can they look forward to next?
LS. This show is for people who actually care about the work, no filthy casuals allowed.
f. Why BRING CASH?
LS. Have you heard of these things called rent, gas bills, car insurance?
f. Are you west-side for life?
PM Dawn – Gotta be…. Movin on up.mp3
f. What’s on the go for 2017?
LS. My meme war tour of duty has not ended.
For an artist brazen enough to make a topless mural of Melania Trump at the height of the U.S. candidacy furore, it’s a battle hard-fought and one which, for the main part, seems to have set LUSH SUX on a serious winning streak.
BRING CASH is strictly by ticket only, and is open from Friday 25 – Sunday 27 November 2016. Tickets can be purchased here.
Guests must reserve a time slot and be willing to sign a consent form that gives the gallery permission to confiscate all recording devices and blindfold, restrain and transport them to and from the exhibition.
—
