Miripolsky + Miripolsky By: Stacy Davies

The IE gets superstar artistic treatment once again when world-renowned art provocateur Andre Miripolsky comes to town for a wildly colorful exhibit that’s unofficially being billed as “Viva Pomona.” The title is in reference to the artist’s famous 2005 Viva LA 3-D wallscape that was so well received that it now serves as the slogan for the revitalizing downtown.

Miripolsky is best known to the public for his Absolut Vodka bottle art that ran on billboards during the ’90s, as well as for painting the entire UCLA basketball floor for MTV’s Rock and Jock B-Ball Jam exhibitions. A favorite of celebrities, Miripolsky designed Elton John’s famous “piano keyboard” suit for his 1997 tour, album covers for Bette Midler and the performance stage on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, to name a few of his more famous endeavors.

With a style that somewhat recalls Keith Haring mixed with graffiti street art, Miripolsky strives to express not only the electrifying beauty of people and spaces, but also to illuminate causes and ideas that serve to propel us toward all things good: from large-scale AIDS awareness, Pro-Peace, Artists for Disarmament and “save the salmon” activism to his mantra “Fear no Art,” Miripolsky’s range of expression spans all creative mediums. In another stroke of dA genius, at this show Miripolsky’s artwork will be coupled with that of his father Bert, a vibrant abstract artist in his own right. A father and son show with dad’s day right around the corner? Just another one of those art imitating life mysteries. (Stacy Davies)

Miripolsky + Miripolsky at the dA Center for the Arts, 252 S Main Street, Pomona Arts Colony, Pomona, (909) 397-9716; www.dacenter.org. June 4–28. Grand Opening Reception June 14