by Susan Cheng
excerpt
“The Only Way Is Up”
Location: Hasted Kraeutler, 537 West 24th Street, New York 10011
Dates: Jun 19 - Aug. 15, 2014
The press release for Awol Erizku's new show calls him a “cultural collagist.” It's a fitting title, since he’s the king of merging the highbrow tastes of the elite art world with the imagery and energy from the streets of New York. Erizku scours his daily surroundings for discarded items, turning used records and trash bags filled with recycled soda cans into his own works of art. His installation Oh, what a feeling, fuck it, I want a Billion (which also gets its title from Jay Z's “Picasso Baby”), for instance, consists simply of stacked basketball hoops, yet it resembles something Marcel Duchamp might have made.