Michael Lotenero (born March 31, 1967) is an American artist, graphic designer, illustrator, and musician who emerged from the Pittsburgh art scene. He is known for his figurative abstracts, sculptures, and iconic heads. [1]
Michael Lotenero (born March 31, 1967) is an American artist, graphic designer, illustrator, and musician who emerged from the Pittsburgh art scene. He is known for his figurative abstracts, sculptures, and iconic heads. [1]
Michael Lotenero was born in Cleveland, Ohio and was raised there and Miami, Florida. In 1985 he graduated from Kirtland High School in Ohio. In 1988 he graduated from The Art Institute of Pittsburgh where he majored in Graphic Design and Illustration. It is in Pittsburgh where Lotenero became immersed in the post-punk scene, a period that would come to influence much of his later work.
Upon graduation, from the Art Institute, Lotenero started the boutique design firm, 96 Eyes Design, with Rick Bach and David Zimmerly. The firm was the recipient of several Addy awards, and was recognized by Print Magazine Regional Design Annual. [2] Rick Bach, David Zimmerly, and Michael Lotenero were also the members of cow punk band The Cavemen from Oklahoma, playing shows at The Electric Banana, Art Without Walls, [3] and the Carnegie Museum of Arts Hall of Architecture. [4]
After the firm and group disbanded in 1993, Lotenero went on to form Michael Lotenero Art + Design.
Michael Lotenero’s first exhibition was at the Mendelson Gallery [5] in Pittsburgh, Pa in 1989. This was followed by a solo show at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art [6] in 1993, and shows at The Carnegie Museum of Art, and other galleries in Pittsburgh and around the country. During this time in his career he was represented by the LaFond Gallery [7] [8] and James Gallery. [9] [10]
Lotenero was the creator and producer of "Transmission" a quarterly fine art collection of Pittsburgh artists. [11] Each edition featured 50 pieces of original art and was sold through local bookstores. Editions are currently on file at The Carnegie Library.
Influenced by early Dadaist, Marcel Duchamp and The Situationist's International Guy Debord, Michael Lotenero spent several years, starting in 1992, producing art under the assumed identity "Monsignor Impala". [12] [13] During this time he created works from repurposed or modified thrift store paintings and objects.
In 2001 Lotenero collaborated on the film installation project “Navarro” with Jose Muniain. [14] It debuted at Pittsburgh Filmmakers and was a finalist in the D.C. Independent Film Festival. It also appeared at The Austin Museum of Digital Art, The Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, [15] and The Mattress Factory.
In 2012 Michael Lotenero moved into a studio in Pittsburgh's Historic Strip District in a storefront space that was originally a speakeasy and brothel. [16] He is represented by Craighead Green Gallery in Dallas, the Bill Lowe Gallery in Atlanta, [17] The Morrison Gallery in Connecticut, [18] The Marshall Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona [19] and Farmboy Fine Arts in Vancouver, [20] and exhibits his work throughout the country.
Lotenero's graphic design and illustration work appeared in Time , The Wall Street Journal , HOW , Graphis , London's Computer Arts, Big, Pittsburgh , Surfing , and Pitt Med. [21] He worked with art directors David Carson and Martin Venezky of Appetite Engineers, [22] with pieces appearing in David Carson's Trek, [23] Marshall Mcluhan's The Book of Probes, [24] Ray Gun , and Speak. Lotenero has created graphics for The New York Pro Show in New York City, The Quiksilver ProFrance Surf Competition, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. He is the illustrator for Eva Nagorski's The Down and Dirty Dish on Revenge, [25] and Eva Christina's The Book of Kink. [26]
In 2010, the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh commissioned Lotenero to create several large scale murals.
Lotenero divides his time between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Brooklyn, New York. He has two children.
Lotenero is on the board of Sunflower Power, a Pittsburgh organization for women in recovery, and helps organize their charity art event. [27] [28]
He is also the vocalist for Chupacabra, a Pittsburgh art rock band that has performed in such venues as The Rex Theater, The Heinz History Center, and The Gibson Guitar Showroom/CMJ Music Marathon/NYC.
Sunflowers is the title of two series of still life paintings by the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh. The first series, executed in Paris in 1887, depicts the flowers lying on the ground, while the second set, made a year later in Arles, shows a bouquet of sunflowers in a vase. In the artist's mind, both sets were linked by the name of his friend Paul Gauguin, who acquired two of the Paris versions. About eight months later van Gogh hoped to welcome and impress Gauguin again with Sunflowers, now part of the painted Décoration for the Yellow House that he prepared for the guestroom of his home in Arles, where Gauguin was supposed to stay. After Gauguin's departure, van Gogh imagined the two major versions as wings of the Berceuse Triptych, and finally, he included them in his Les XX in Bruxelles exhibit.
The Carnegie Museum of Art, abbreviated CMOA, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The museum was founded in 1895 by the Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie. It was the first museum in the United States with a primary focus on contemporary art. As instructed by its founder at the inception of the Carnegie International in 1896, the museum has been organizing many contemporary exhibitions that showcase the "Old Masters of tomorrow".
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh are four museums that are operated by the Carnegie Institute headquartered in the Carnegie Institute complex in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Carnegie Institute complex, which includes the original museum, recital hall, and library, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 1979.
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The Children's Museum of Pittsburgh is a hands-on interactive children's museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is in the Allegheny Center neighborhood in Pittsburgh's Northside.
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The American Jewish Museum, or AJM, is a contemporary Jewish art museum located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A department of the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Greater Pittsburgh, the museum is located in the Squirrel Hill JCC at the corner Forbes Avenue and Murray Avenue, in the heart of Pittsburgh's historically Jewish neighborhood. The museum was founded in 1998, and though it does not have a permanent collection, it hosts several original and traveling exhibitions each year. The AJM aims to explore contemporary Jewish issues through art and related programs that facilitate intercultural dialogue.
Eva & Adele are an artistic couple who claim to have "landed their time machines" in Berlin after the Wall fell in 1989, claiming to be "hermaphrodite twins from the future". Both refuse to tell their real name or age. They are famous mainly for sharing an invented gender, which is neither male nor female.
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