July 14, 2020
Randy Burman | BIO
At various times and concurrently I have described my practice(s) as conceptual, graphic design, cultural intervention and activist. I have been referred to as a text-based artist despite many of my works not containing text.
In an effort to limit the need for additional storage spaces required to warehouse large works, video has purposely taken on a more prominent role in my practice. Previously I have intentionally created works where the spatial relationship to the environment they are exhibited in and of the observers’ experience of the work was primary. The first time encountering the 21 foot high interior of The Projects in FatVillage for an exhibition that Lisa Rockford was curating I immediately exclaimed, “whatever I create for this will have to reach the ceiling”. All the elements of that work, “fever in the funk house” have been in storage since the closing of that exhibition.
Moreover, I’m philosophically conflicted about the need for more physical anything – seriously questioning, “how much more ‘stuff’ do I want to be responsible for bringing into an already overcrowded world?” Pretty much resigned myself (with notable exceptions) that performance art captured on video may be a workable compromise. Another, related question to round out this equation is this investigation to my artist self: “Does the democratization, and corresponding increased quantity of artistic expression in the age of social media and iPhones affect my understanding of the purpose of my creative output?”
I’m presently working on a video project, ’Most Racist Presidents Funeral’ which may be appropriate for this exhibition. Using 3D-printed, marble-like busts of the eleven most racist Presidents. I’m sorry to say, among them are some who, other than their racism, I highly respect for their substantial achievements. None-the-less, the effects of their racist transgressions have placed them in this unfortunate category. The video will document the ceremonial burial of these bust statues. Current working plan includes a soundtrack of me singing an original dirge (Racist Presidents Burial Blues) accompanying myself on guitar – the lyrics lamenting why each President is included in this ceremonial funeral procession.
Other recent (2020) activist work includes poster-like Political Stickers – a series of 5” x 7” self-adhesive stickers posted to Instagram and printed with the intention that they would be guerrilla installed. All are printed on white pressure-sensitive adhesive stock, with patriotic red and blue background overlaid with black high-contrast images. The red right hand side of each sticker has the same recognizable half portrait of Trump’s shouting face, juxtaposed on the left blue side by a historical or present autocrat or icon of evil. Each sticker includes, knocked-out in white bold display font, a unique two to four word phrase expressing a meme-like shared trait, such as: Castro/Trump: TRUST AN AUTOCRAT; Kim Jong-Un/Trump: DEAR LEADER; Capone/Trump: MOB BOSS; Cornavirus/Trump: DEADLY PLAGUE; The Devil/Trump: THE DEVIL WEARS GOP.
For the Dance to Fascism performance art project with Kunstwaffen 1918 at the Miami Performance International Festival, at Edge Zones, in June of 2018, while standing center stage, on a patriotic colored bunting wrapped platform, I fed hundreds of 3’ x 1’ red, white and blue paper banners with words like “Truth”, Justice”, “Clean Water”, “Public Education”, “Human Rights” and other endangered values into a shredder mounted on top of a 4 foot tall, clear plastic receptacle – handed to me by enthusiastically strutting dancers all sporting brown shirts, red “LIES ARE TRUTH” hats and sinister armbands, accompanied by a traditional fanfare of military music, flags producing a Broadway-like MAGA rally.
The Dance to Fascism Rally at the Ripped from the Headlines exhibition in April thru June of 2019 at The Projects in FatVillage featured a looping 11 minute 44 second projected video of the Dance to Fascism performance edited to include news clips related to the words being shredded. The purposely diminutive mini-rally included four 6 ft. tall torches, red carpets, rows of chairs, American flags, 10’ tall sinister looking red banners emblazoned with Trump-swastika logos and the phrase LIES ARE TRUTH. Red LIES ARE TRUTH hats, small American flags and tiki torches were made available to participants. I had three actors waving signs and yelling “Tyranny is Freedom!”, “Ignorance is Knowledge”, “Lock her up”, “lock him up”, “lock the children up”, “lock everyone up!” Also there were hidden speakers underneath some of the chairs chanting the same. During the “rally”, I handed-out free 2” round red buttons with the phrase “LIES ARE TRUTH” to “rally attendees” and exhibition visitors.
For the 2018 midterm election I created the Political Yard Sign Project where I printed and gave away free, about 300 quantity 24” x 18” yard signs with wire lawn stands including free shipping in the U.S. to anyone who would agree to legally display the sign(s), take and post a picture of the sign on social media with the hashtag #savedemocracy.
The political action yard signs were intended to activate voters in the mid-term 2018 election to save democracy by voting for Democratic candidates. Each of the signs asked the same question in bold black type,”How Are You Voting This Year?” (on some signs in Spanish) followed by a rectangular blue box containing a white checkbox and to the right of the checkbox, in white letters, the word “Democrat”. Directly below the blue box, an identical red box also containing a white checkbox and to the right of it, in white letters (and sometimes emojis or other graphics) were words and phrases gleaned from the news and articles describing, associated with or advocated by Republican and Conservative ideologues, such as white supremacy, bigotry, theocracy, racism, xenophobia, patriarcharchy, environmental and science denial.
Many people on social media took me up on my offer, and after receiving the signs, posted and sent photos of the signs all over the United States. I made a video of the images which is posted on my Vimeo page with a link to my website. Several of the posts went viral and received thousands of shares and reposts.
Thrown Thrones – included in the Art Gallery at Palm Beach College exhibition Waste Not in October 2017 and in the Armory Art Center in the 2nd Biennial Artists of the Salon exhibition in 2018 (where the only two created were purchased by collector Elayne Mordes). Thrift shop armchairs reupholstered in dye-sublimation printed grid pattern of 40 iPhone photographs taken of discarded chairs discovered on walks and while driving photographed in square crop format only and posted to IG with the hashtag #thrownthrones. The found compositions of random chairs unceremoniously tossed on trash piles or abandoned on the edge of their former owners’ properties speak to me sculpturally and evoke questions concerning what transpired to bring them to such an inglorious end. What stories do these ordinary objects tell about not-so-ordinary lives? What weighty decisions were made while seated on them? Whose babies were rocked into slumber? Will we too be discarded at a roadside grave for all to see?
Curiosity Boxes was a community engagement project created expressly for the grand opening of the Pembroke Pines City Center and the Frank Art Gallery on April 29, 2017, that consisted of six 18” x 18” x 30” chests with a large question mark on each side. The six chests were set up in a circle on the new plaza. Each chest had something “Florida” in it. One was filled with fresh oranges, one with 6” plastic alligators, one with plastic pink flamingos, one with Carl Hiaasen books, etc. I and an assistant stood in the middle of the circle and asked (Florida related) questions and when someone was able to answer a question correctly, they got to open one of the hinged chests and take one of the items inside. The project was funded (in part) by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Created four projects with O, Miami Poetry Foundation beginning in 2014 with The Department of Poetry Works, where we held an open call for poems, selected the ten best, silkscreened 20 of each and guerilla-installed in Miami-Dade County neighborhoods. In 2015 Poetry Pops, where again we had an open call for poems, selected the best 50 poems, printed the poems on frozen pop wrappers which we put on either strawberry or mango flavored frozen pops and gave away for free at local cultural events. In 2016 Poems to the Sky, which consisted of huge poems written by urban elementary school kids, painted on Miami rooftops within flight paths for window seat passengers to discover if they happened to look down when flying in or out of Miami International Airport. And in 2017, the Kerouac Bukowski Drinking, Poetry and Drinking Club Open Mic Night for Depressing Poetry.
The Vent-o-matic, a “cathARTic public health service”, was in the exhibition ‘Wrestling the Snake: Open Season in Political Art’ at The Projects in Ft. Lauderdale’s FAT Village in May thru August of 2016 and in Political Sideshow 2016: From “Bitch” to “(Big) Nuts” and Beyond at the University Galleries, FAU. The premise, for art patrons to relieve their frustrations by throwing shoes at the 52 painted portraits of right-wing American politicians and religious ideologues.
The 60’ long Internatsyonale Fonschlong Zikherhayt Aperatus, was created in 2016 for the ‘Aesthetics and Values Exhibition’ at the Frost Art Museum, curated by the Honors College, was an intentionally outsized portrayal of the culture of surveillance by the corporate-surveillance state that listens, watches and gathers massive amounts of information and acculturates the public into accepting the intrusion of surveillance technologies and privatized commodified values into all aspects of our lives.
Earlier history
My first installation work in 1965 featured live ducks. In 1967, my painting Underneath the Piano, based on notes and drawings made during my first LSD trip, was juried into the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Regional Painting Show. After dropping-out of the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1968, I had my first one-man show of psychedelic influenced drawings and accompanied by the publication of a chapbook of poetry, “We knows who crazy baby” at the University of Maryland Baltimore County Campus. In 1969 became a staff artist on Baltimore’s underground newspaper, Harry. And in 1972 art directed The Fells Point Telegraphé and created movie titles with fellow artist Alan Rose for John Waters’ Pink Flamingos.
I moved to Miami in 1976 and beginning in 1978 worked at a silkscreen workshop at the Lowe Art Museum/City of Miami Cultural Experiences Division. Between 1979 and 1994 partnered in several graphic design studios and since 1995 have been creative director at my own design firm, IKON Communication Marketing Design.
In 2005 returned to fine art practice and in 2010 became a member of the Artformz Collective. I have participated in exhibitions including the three-person show Alternate Realities at 12345 Gallery Space; four shows with Artformz including the project room installation The Art of Destruction where 8000 copies of masterpieces were available to shred to make new art; the New Art Exhibition at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach; Seder as Art at the Art Center of South Florida; Humoratorium: Art of Whimsy and Appropriated Gender at 1310 Gallery in Fort Lauderdale; Rough & Tumble at The Projects in Fort Lauderdale’s FAT Village Arts District, and internationally at Artista Invita Artista in Valencia, Spain.
Whether a work of art or a graphic design project, the processes are most often exercises in identifying how communication will be perceived and the simplifying of concepts and gestures to amplify the essence.
Awarded the Miami New Times Mastermind Award in 2015.
Profiled by Brett Sokol in Ocean Drive Magazine, May 2016
BIOGRAPHY August 2016
Conceptual artist, graphic designer and cultural interventionist Randy Burman recently completed his two largest works to date. Called Poems to the Sky, the work, commissioned by O, Miami’s Poetry Festival, consists of huge poems painted on Miami rooftops within flight paths for window seat passengers to discover if they happen to look down when flying in or out of Miami International Airport. Previous collaborations with O, Miami included Poetry Pops, poems printed on frozen pop wrappers and given away for free at local cultural events, and the Department of Poetry Works, where poetry street signs were fabricated and guerilla-installed in Miami-Dade County neighborhoods.
A recent controversial work, The Vent-o-matic, a “cathARTic public health service”, was in the exhibition ‘Wrestling the Snake: Open Season in Political Art’ at The Projects in Ft. Lauderdale’s FAT Village. The premise, for art patrons to relieve their frustrations by throwing shoes at the 52 painted portraits of right-wing American politicians and religious ideologues.
The 60’ long Internatsyonale Fonschlong Zikherhayt Aperatus, was created in 2016 for the ‘Aesthetics and Values Exhibition’ at the Frost Art Museum, curated by the Honors College, was an intentionally outsized portrayal of the culture of surveillance by the corporate-surveillance state that listens, watches and gathers massive amounts of information and acculturates the public into accepting the intrusion of surveillance technologies and privatized commodified values into all aspects of our lives.
Whether graphic design or a work of art, the processes are most often exercises in identifying how communication will be perceived and the simplifying of concepts and gestures to amplify the metaphorical essence.
Awarded the Miami New Times Mastermind Award in 2015.
Profiled by Brett Sokol in Ocean Drive Magazine, May 2016
BIOGRAPHY SHORT
My first installation work in 1965 featured live ducks. In 1967, my painting Underneath the Piano was selected to be in the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Regional Painting Show. After dropping-out of the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1968, I had my first one-man show at University of Maryland Baltimore County. In 1969 became a staff artist on Baltimore’s underground newspaper, Harry. And in 1972 art directed The Fells Point Telegraphé and created movie titles with fellow artist Alan Rose for John Waters’ Pink Flamingos.
I moved to Miami in 1976 and beginning in 1978 worked at a silkscreen workshop at the Lowe Art Museum/City of Miami Cultural Experiences Division. Between 1979 and 1994 partnered in several graphic design studios and since 1995 have been creative director at my own design firm, IKON Communication Marketing Design.
In 2005 returned to fine art practice and in 2010 became a member of the Artformz Collective. I have participated in exhibitions including the three-person show Alternate Realities; four shows with Artformz including the project room installation The Art of Destruction where 8000 copies of masterpieces were available to shred to make new art; the New Art Exhibition at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach; Seder as Art at the Art Center of South Florida; Humoratorium: Art of Whimsy and Appropriated Gender at 1310 Gallery in Fort Lauderdale; Rough & Tumble at The Projects in Fort Lauderdale’s FAT Village Arts District, and internationally at Artista Invita Artista in Valencia, Spain.
I’m currently working on an interactive installation where visitors will throw shoes at 60 painted portraits of right-wing politicians.
BIOGRAPHY LONG
I was born and raised in Baltimore in 1947 and considered myself an artist from as early as I can remember. This was discouraged at the Hebrew parochial school I attended as “making graven images”, which prompted and reinforced my rebellious nature. My first conceptual installation work featured live ducks in a fenced-in two-foot high plywood pen adorned with poetry. In 1967, my painting Underneath the Piano was selected to be in the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Annual Regional Painting Show. In 1968 I dropped out of the Maryland Institute College of Art in my Junior year, had my first one-man show, and published a book of drawn poetry entitled, We Knows Who’s Crazy Baby. I was a staff artist on Baltimore’s underground newspaper, Harry; opened Randy’s Discount Food City; published The Fells Point Telegraphe, which I also edited, art directed and organized contributing artists, writers and photographers to support a community lawsuit opposing the Department of Transportation’s plans to demolish the historic 18th century Baltimore waterfront neighborhood of Fells Point; performed in and created movie titles with friend and fellow artist Alan Rose for John Waters’ Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble; worked at the National Lampoon; and became a father and a farmer.
Moved to Miami in 1976, worked as a dishwasher, window washer, carpenter, silkscreen artist, sign painter, and graphic designer. In 1983 was part of a CETA Title IV grant funded silkscreen workshop program administered by the Lowe Art Museum and the City of Miami Cultural Experiences Division. Partnered in several graphic design studios, and since 1995, have been creative director at my own design firm, IKON Communication. In 2005, I made a focused return to the making of fine art. In 2010, with gallery invitations to show my work, I accelerated my construction of assemblages and installation work.
Participated in first three-person show in 2010 at 12345 West Dixie Gallery. That same year became a member of the Artformz Collective in Wynwood where I exhibited in four group shows. For the Artformz project room installation I presented The Art of Destruction, where visitors were able to select from copies of 16 of the world’s great art masterpieces and then shred them to make new art. Also participated in Artista Invita Artista a cultural exchange in Valencia, Spain, and had two works selected for the New Art Exhibition at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach. In 2011 I participated The Open Tent’s Seder as Art project, exhibiting 18 Contemporary Plagues at the Art Center of South Florida. Also in 2011, three works were selected for Humoratorium: Art of Whimsy and an installation in the Appropriated Gender exhibition at 1310 Gallery in Fort Lauderdale. In August of 2013 was among 29 artists whose work was selected for the Rough & Tumble exhibition at The Projects in Fort Lauderdale’s FAT Village Arts District. I’m currently working on an installation entitled Vent-o-matic, in which sixty painted portraits will be hung in a grid for visitors to have the opportunity to interact with the installation by throwing shoes at the portraits.
Randy Burman | BIO
At various times and concurrently I have described my practice(s) as conceptual, graphic design, cultural intervention and activist. I have been referred to as a text-based artist despite many of my works not containing text.
In an effort to limit the need for additional storage spaces required to warehouse large works, video has purposely taken on a more prominent role in my practice. Previously I have intentionally created works where the spatial relationship to the environment they are exhibited in and of the observers’ experience of the work was primary. The first time encountering the 21 foot high interior of The Projects in FatVillage for an exhibition that Lisa Rockford was curating I immediately exclaimed, “whatever I create for this will have to reach the ceiling”. All the elements of that work, “fever in the funk house” have been in storage since the closing of that exhibition.
Moreover, I’m philosophically conflicted about the need for more physical anything – seriously questioning, “how much more ‘stuff’ do I want to be responsible for bringing into an already overcrowded world?” Pretty much resigned myself (with notable exceptions) that performance art captured on video may be a workable compromise. Another, related question to round out this equation is this investigation to my artist self: “Does the democratization, and corresponding increased quantity of artistic expression in the age of social media and iPhones affect my understanding of the purpose of my creative output?”
I’m presently working on a video project, ’Most Racist Presidents Funeral’ which may be appropriate for this exhibition. Using 3D-printed, marble-like busts of the eleven most racist Presidents. I’m sorry to say, among them are some who, other than their racism, I highly respect for their substantial achievements. None-the-less, the effects of their racist transgressions have placed them in this unfortunate category. The video will document the ceremonial burial of these bust statues. Current working plan includes a soundtrack of me singing an original dirge (Racist Presidents Burial Blues) accompanying myself on guitar – the lyrics lamenting why each President is included in this ceremonial funeral procession.
Other recent (2020) activist work includes poster-like Political Stickers – a series of 5” x 7” self-adhesive stickers posted to Instagram and printed with the intention that they would be guerrilla installed. All are printed on white pressure-sensitive adhesive stock, with patriotic red and blue background overlaid with black high-contrast images. The red right hand side of each sticker has the same recognizable half portrait of Trump’s shouting face, juxtaposed on the left blue side by a historical or present autocrat or icon of evil. Each sticker includes, knocked-out in white bold display font, a unique two to four word phrase expressing a meme-like shared trait, such as: Castro/Trump: TRUST AN AUTOCRAT; Kim Jong-Un/Trump: DEAR LEADER; Capone/Trump: MOB BOSS; Cornavirus/Trump: DEADLY PLAGUE; The Devil/Trump: THE DEVIL WEARS GOP.
For the Dance to Fascism performance art project with Kunstwaffen 1918 at the Miami Performance International Festival, at Edge Zones, in June of 2018, while standing center stage, on a patriotic colored bunting wrapped platform, I fed hundreds of 3’ x 1’ red, white and blue paper banners with words like “Truth”, Justice”, “Clean Water”, “Public Education”, “Human Rights” and other endangered values into a shredder mounted on top of a 4 foot tall, clear plastic receptacle – handed to me by enthusiastically strutting dancers all sporting brown shirts, red “LIES ARE TRUTH” hats and sinister armbands, accompanied by a traditional fanfare of military music, flags producing a Broadway-like MAGA rally.
The Dance to Fascism Rally at the Ripped from the Headlines exhibition in April thru June of 2019 at The Projects in FatVillage featured a looping 11 minute 44 second projected video of the Dance to Fascism performance edited to include news clips related to the words being shredded. The purposely diminutive mini-rally included four 6 ft. tall torches, red carpets, rows of chairs, American flags, 10’ tall sinister looking red banners emblazoned with Trump-swastika logos and the phrase LIES ARE TRUTH. Red LIES ARE TRUTH hats, small American flags and tiki torches were made available to participants. I had three actors waving signs and yelling “Tyranny is Freedom!”, “Ignorance is Knowledge”, “Lock her up”, “lock him up”, “lock the children up”, “lock everyone up!” Also there were hidden speakers underneath some of the chairs chanting the same. During the “rally”, I handed-out free 2” round red buttons with the phrase “LIES ARE TRUTH” to “rally attendees” and exhibition visitors.
For the 2018 midterm election I created the Political Yard Sign Project where I printed and gave away free, about 300 quantity 24” x 18” yard signs with wire lawn stands including free shipping in the U.S. to anyone who would agree to legally display the sign(s), take and post a picture of the sign on social media with the hashtag #savedemocracy.
The political action yard signs were intended to activate voters in the mid-term 2018 election to save democracy by voting for Democratic candidates. Each of the signs asked the same question in bold black type,”How Are You Voting This Year?” (on some signs in Spanish) followed by a rectangular blue box containing a white checkbox and to the right of the checkbox, in white letters, the word “Democrat”. Directly below the blue box, an identical red box also containing a white checkbox and to the right of it, in white letters (and sometimes emojis or other graphics) were words and phrases gleaned from the news and articles describing, associated with or advocated by Republican and Conservative ideologues, such as white supremacy, bigotry, theocracy, racism, xenophobia, patriarcharchy, environmental and science denial.
Many people on social media took me up on my offer, and after receiving the signs, posted and sent photos of the signs all over the United States. I made a video of the images which is posted on my Vimeo page with a link to my website. Several of the posts went viral and received thousands of shares and reposts.
Thrown Thrones – included in the Art Gallery at Palm Beach College exhibition Waste Not in October 2017 and in the Armory Art Center in the 2nd Biennial Artists of the Salon exhibition in 2018 (where the only two created were purchased by collector Elayne Mordes). Thrift shop armchairs reupholstered in dye-sublimation printed grid pattern of 40 iPhone photographs taken of discarded chairs discovered on walks and while driving photographed in square crop format only and posted to IG with the hashtag #thrownthrones. The found compositions of random chairs unceremoniously tossed on trash piles or abandoned on the edge of their former owners’ properties speak to me sculpturally and evoke questions concerning what transpired to bring them to such an inglorious end. What stories do these ordinary objects tell about not-so-ordinary lives? What weighty decisions were made while seated on them? Whose babies were rocked into slumber? Will we too be discarded at a roadside grave for all to see?
Curiosity Boxes was a community engagement project created expressly for the grand opening of the Pembroke Pines City Center and the Frank Art Gallery on April 29, 2017, that consisted of six 18” x 18” x 30” chests with a large question mark on each side. The six chests were set up in a circle on the new plaza. Each chest had something “Florida” in it. One was filled with fresh oranges, one with 6” plastic alligators, one with plastic pink flamingos, one with Carl Hiaasen books, etc. I and an assistant stood in the middle of the circle and asked (Florida related) questions and when someone was able to answer a question correctly, they got to open one of the hinged chests and take one of the items inside. The project was funded (in part) by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Created four projects with O, Miami Poetry Foundation beginning in 2014 with The Department of Poetry Works, where we held an open call for poems, selected the ten best, silkscreened 20 of each and guerilla-installed in Miami-Dade County neighborhoods. In 2015 Poetry Pops, where again we had an open call for poems, selected the best 50 poems, printed the poems on frozen pop wrappers which we put on either strawberry or mango flavored frozen pops and gave away for free at local cultural events. In 2016 Poems to the Sky, which consisted of huge poems written by urban elementary school kids, painted on Miami rooftops within flight paths for window seat passengers to discover if they happened to look down when flying in or out of Miami International Airport. And in 2017, the Kerouac Bukowski Drinking, Poetry and Drinking Club Open Mic Night for Depressing Poetry.
The Vent-o-matic, a “cathARTic public health service”, was in the exhibition ‘Wrestling the Snake: Open Season in Political Art’ at The Projects in Ft. Lauderdale’s FAT Village in May thru August of 2016 and in Political Sideshow 2016: From “Bitch” to “(Big) Nuts” and Beyond at the University Galleries, FAU. The premise, for art patrons to relieve their frustrations by throwing shoes at the 52 painted portraits of right-wing American politicians and religious ideologues.
The 60’ long Internatsyonale Fonschlong Zikherhayt Aperatus, was created in 2016 for the ‘Aesthetics and Values Exhibition’ at the Frost Art Museum, curated by the Honors College, was an intentionally outsized portrayal of the culture of surveillance by the corporate-surveillance state that listens, watches and gathers massive amounts of information and acculturates the public into accepting the intrusion of surveillance technologies and privatized commodified values into all aspects of our lives.
Earlier history
My first installation work in 1965 featured live ducks. In 1967, my painting Underneath the Piano, based on notes and drawings made during my first LSD trip, was juried into the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Regional Painting Show. After dropping-out of the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1968, I had my first one-man show of psychedelic influenced drawings and accompanied by the publication of a chapbook of poetry, “We knows who crazy baby” at the University of Maryland Baltimore County Campus. In 1969 became a staff artist on Baltimore’s underground newspaper, Harry. And in 1972 art directed The Fells Point Telegraphé and created movie titles with fellow artist Alan Rose for John Waters’ Pink Flamingos.
I moved to Miami in 1976 and beginning in 1978 worked at a silkscreen workshop at the Lowe Art Museum/City of Miami Cultural Experiences Division. Between 1979 and 1994 partnered in several graphic design studios and since 1995 have been creative director at my own design firm, IKON Communication Marketing Design.
In 2005 returned to fine art practice and in 2010 became a member of the Artformz Collective. I have participated in exhibitions including the three-person show Alternate Realities at 12345 Gallery Space; four shows with Artformz including the project room installation The Art of Destruction where 8000 copies of masterpieces were available to shred to make new art; the New Art Exhibition at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach; Seder as Art at the Art Center of South Florida; Humoratorium: Art of Whimsy and Appropriated Gender at 1310 Gallery in Fort Lauderdale; Rough & Tumble at The Projects in Fort Lauderdale’s FAT Village Arts District, and internationally at Artista Invita Artista in Valencia, Spain.
Whether a work of art or a graphic design project, the processes are most often exercises in identifying how communication will be perceived and the simplifying of concepts and gestures to amplify the essence.
Awarded the Miami New Times Mastermind Award in 2015.
Profiled by Brett Sokol in Ocean Drive Magazine, May 2016
BIOGRAPHY August 2016
Conceptual artist, graphic designer and cultural interventionist Randy Burman recently completed his two largest works to date. Called Poems to the Sky, the work, commissioned by O, Miami’s Poetry Festival, consists of huge poems painted on Miami rooftops within flight paths for window seat passengers to discover if they happen to look down when flying in or out of Miami International Airport. Previous collaborations with O, Miami included Poetry Pops, poems printed on frozen pop wrappers and given away for free at local cultural events, and the Department of Poetry Works, where poetry street signs were fabricated and guerilla-installed in Miami-Dade County neighborhoods.
A recent controversial work, The Vent-o-matic, a “cathARTic public health service”, was in the exhibition ‘Wrestling the Snake: Open Season in Political Art’ at The Projects in Ft. Lauderdale’s FAT Village. The premise, for art patrons to relieve their frustrations by throwing shoes at the 52 painted portraits of right-wing American politicians and religious ideologues.
The 60’ long Internatsyonale Fonschlong Zikherhayt Aperatus, was created in 2016 for the ‘Aesthetics and Values Exhibition’ at the Frost Art Museum, curated by the Honors College, was an intentionally outsized portrayal of the culture of surveillance by the corporate-surveillance state that listens, watches and gathers massive amounts of information and acculturates the public into accepting the intrusion of surveillance technologies and privatized commodified values into all aspects of our lives.
Whether graphic design or a work of art, the processes are most often exercises in identifying how communication will be perceived and the simplifying of concepts and gestures to amplify the metaphorical essence.
Awarded the Miami New Times Mastermind Award in 2015.
Profiled by Brett Sokol in Ocean Drive Magazine, May 2016
BIOGRAPHY SHORT
My first installation work in 1965 featured live ducks. In 1967, my painting Underneath the Piano was selected to be in the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Regional Painting Show. After dropping-out of the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1968, I had my first one-man show at University of Maryland Baltimore County. In 1969 became a staff artist on Baltimore’s underground newspaper, Harry. And in 1972 art directed The Fells Point Telegraphé and created movie titles with fellow artist Alan Rose for John Waters’ Pink Flamingos.
I moved to Miami in 1976 and beginning in 1978 worked at a silkscreen workshop at the Lowe Art Museum/City of Miami Cultural Experiences Division. Between 1979 and 1994 partnered in several graphic design studios and since 1995 have been creative director at my own design firm, IKON Communication Marketing Design.
In 2005 returned to fine art practice and in 2010 became a member of the Artformz Collective. I have participated in exhibitions including the three-person show Alternate Realities; four shows with Artformz including the project room installation The Art of Destruction where 8000 copies of masterpieces were available to shred to make new art; the New Art Exhibition at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach; Seder as Art at the Art Center of South Florida; Humoratorium: Art of Whimsy and Appropriated Gender at 1310 Gallery in Fort Lauderdale; Rough & Tumble at The Projects in Fort Lauderdale’s FAT Village Arts District, and internationally at Artista Invita Artista in Valencia, Spain.
I’m currently working on an interactive installation where visitors will throw shoes at 60 painted portraits of right-wing politicians.
BIOGRAPHY LONG
I was born and raised in Baltimore in 1947 and considered myself an artist from as early as I can remember. This was discouraged at the Hebrew parochial school I attended as “making graven images”, which prompted and reinforced my rebellious nature. My first conceptual installation work featured live ducks in a fenced-in two-foot high plywood pen adorned with poetry. In 1967, my painting Underneath the Piano was selected to be in the Baltimore Museum of Art’s Annual Regional Painting Show. In 1968 I dropped out of the Maryland Institute College of Art in my Junior year, had my first one-man show, and published a book of drawn poetry entitled, We Knows Who’s Crazy Baby. I was a staff artist on Baltimore’s underground newspaper, Harry; opened Randy’s Discount Food City; published The Fells Point Telegraphe, which I also edited, art directed and organized contributing artists, writers and photographers to support a community lawsuit opposing the Department of Transportation’s plans to demolish the historic 18th century Baltimore waterfront neighborhood of Fells Point; performed in and created movie titles with friend and fellow artist Alan Rose for John Waters’ Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble; worked at the National Lampoon; and became a father and a farmer.
Moved to Miami in 1976, worked as a dishwasher, window washer, carpenter, silkscreen artist, sign painter, and graphic designer. In 1983 was part of a CETA Title IV grant funded silkscreen workshop program administered by the Lowe Art Museum and the City of Miami Cultural Experiences Division. Partnered in several graphic design studios, and since 1995, have been creative director at my own design firm, IKON Communication. In 2005, I made a focused return to the making of fine art. In 2010, with gallery invitations to show my work, I accelerated my construction of assemblages and installation work.
Participated in first three-person show in 2010 at 12345 West Dixie Gallery. That same year became a member of the Artformz Collective in Wynwood where I exhibited in four group shows. For the Artformz project room installation I presented The Art of Destruction, where visitors were able to select from copies of 16 of the world’s great art masterpieces and then shred them to make new art. Also participated in Artista Invita Artista a cultural exchange in Valencia, Spain, and had two works selected for the New Art Exhibition at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach. In 2011 I participated The Open Tent’s Seder as Art project, exhibiting 18 Contemporary Plagues at the Art Center of South Florida. Also in 2011, three works were selected for Humoratorium: Art of Whimsy and an installation in the Appropriated Gender exhibition at 1310 Gallery in Fort Lauderdale. In August of 2013 was among 29 artists whose work was selected for the Rough & Tumble exhibition at The Projects in Fort Lauderdale’s FAT Village Arts District. I’m currently working on an installation entitled Vent-o-matic, in which sixty painted portraits will be hung in a grid for visitors to have the opportunity to interact with the installation by throwing shoes at the portraits.