Option-G and Cole Gerst - T-Shirts to Perfect Life’s Imperfections.

Option-G Apparel is an extension of the design firm Option-G based in Los Angeles and headed by artist extraordinaire Cole Gerst. You may have heard of him already, or seen one of his many designs on posters, paintings or prints. He has been particularly successful in the music world, where you’ll most likely recognize his works. Gerst even produces his own monthly comic strip in the LA Weekly called “LaLa Land” which features his two dogs roaming the streets of Hollywood.

Gerst has a prestigious arts background with a string of successful art shows behind him, having shown his work across had shows all over the USA as well as a retrospective show in Glasgow, Scotland of his rock posters. The t-shirt line was started as a mere sideline, simply another medium to explore his unique view of the world, and experiment with different ideas, whilst having fun with his audience. The instant feedback provided by t-shirt fans helps many creative minds in their quest to hone their skills and find perfection in their art. Option-G’s started selling to the public 4 years and since expanded into a variety of products, even wallpaper would you believe? Cole has a truly unique style, I’d describe him as the Jasper Johns of the T-Shirt World, take this design as a clear example:-

Ghetto Signage

Ghetto Signage reminds me of the whole ‘Outsider Art’ craze that hit the gallery system a few years back, although this is miles away from what you might normally associate with that scene, I still think the choice of subject matter and the application of design fits well with my own low-art ideals. From Marcel Duchamp to Andy Warhol to Jeff Koons to Banksy and beyond, I have always had a deep affiliation with artists who can drag street iconography screaming through the doors of any respectable gallery.

I personally chose to begin designing t-shirts in an attempt to do the same, but from a rather different direction. Paint, canvases, exhibition space, agents, you name it, if it’s part of the cycle of an artist’s professional career, it will either be expensive, exclusive, or both. T-Shirts allowed me a foot in the door of the art industry, I’d always had artistic pretensions, but the path to a successful artist’s career is a long and hard slog.

I was kicked out at the first year of my Fine Arts Degree course for daring to argue that kitsch, television, cartoons, comics, design, architecture, mass-media imagery were all as valid as any work by the Conceptual artists of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Somehow I must have eventually won the argument because I did in fact return the next year and finally graduated. The course was called ‘Alternative Practice’ - the reading list included Foucault, Eco, Baudrillard and other weighty writers. Everything I read seemed to back up my argument. Now my instincts have been proven right, art cannot escape mass-culture and vice-versa.

99 Cent Shopping Spree

A retro masterpiece! 99 Cent Shopping Spree has been executed with aplomb in the truest 1960’s vintage styles and colours, and even the faux-naive drawing style I’d expect from an old supermarket poster or plastic wipe-free kitchen apron at that time. This is the sort of talk that had me temporarily booted from my degree course, because it’s the sort of detail that only a design obsessive; a low-art fanatic, and a sucker for junked commercial imagery can truly appreciate. I love it, I wouldn’t wear it, I lean a little later on towards the late 1960s for that same retro buzz, but I can totally feel the Stepford Wives vibe from this t-shirt from here.

YouTube

This is a classic, YouTube, the words are written in ‘tube-form’ as it were, I have to admit I always have adored wordplay, ever since I first found myself trawling through books of Surrealist Art as a kid I knew they were on to something, although I have to let the ‘Dadaists’ take some of the credit. Essentially I’m a collage artist at heart, or as some prefer ‘photo-montage’ - the thing is (yes I will commence to show my age) - when I first started my Art ‘A’ Level there was one computer at the Sixth Form College and it was mainly used by administration for keep accounts, teachers’ pay, student maintenance grants (don’t get excited- even then it was never more than a few hundred quid). I was attracted to Gerst’s work by the painterly quality of his work, something I find difficult to replicate in digital media. It’s a little like the rise and fall of dance music, at first it was amateurish and fun, and then it professionalism brought a sterility to the sound, until a few bright mavericks began to experiment to the degree that imperfection became the watchword and led to more and more DJs replacing decks and software with drummers and musicians, and finding themselves in a band again. In other words, art rocks!

My Space

In one word hilarious. I love the anti-lifestyle pitch here. Life isn’t clean and highly organised, and a lot of social networkers are finding it more and more difficult to live up to their online reputations, both good and bad. I know people who spend their lives on MySpace and Facebook, tracking down old friends, uploading photos of their last drunk gathering at the local pub, reading biographies that would put the most exaggerative curriculum vitae to shame, and adding comments that are guaranteed to show bias in one direction or the other. You’re the greatest, you’re the worst, you’re amazing, you’re awful. Real friends don’t keep in touch this much, for the most part they’ve had their fill of full-on in-your-face friendship and time it for the right mood, or at least the weekend. Friends are great, but it’s partly because they’re awful. They’re messy, or they have an affinity with O.C.D, they care too much or very little, they’re funny or deep, they have their uses, but then again they can hog time and all function therein. Can’t live with them, but can take them in large and small doses. Imagine a mate knocking on your door every half hour and sticking a Post-it note on your face whilst singing a line from their other mate’s song he just wrote that completely rocks, honest.

Cole Gerst has vision, it’s nice to see he’s paying as much due care and attention to his t-shirt creations as he does with the rest of his artwork, I’m sure you have to agree, Coles’ brain is a damn sight more interesting space than MySpace. I relish reviewing work of this quality, a fellow cerebral in the t-shirt world is a rare find, if you’re looking for the wild side, then this is it. Take the Option, G.