Billy's Apple has crumbled

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TheGreenGoblin
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Billy's Apple has crumbled

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Sep 06, 2021 5:17 am

Ground-breaking’ New Zealand artist Billy Apple dies aged 85

Country’s ‘foremost conceptual artist’ exhibited alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein in pop art’s heyday


Pioneering New Zealand artist Billy Apple has died overnight, aged 85.

The irreverent Auckland-raised artist, born Barrie Bates, was a major contributor to the pop art and conceptual art movements.

Apple was based in New York during pop art’s 1960s heyday, exhibiting alongside icons Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein.

Auckland Art Gallery director Rhana Davenport described Apple as “New Zealand’s foremost conceptual artist” and his work as “ground-breaking”.

“Apple’s unique art investigations have crossed over into the realms of design, advertising, collecting, science, mathematics and economics, philanthropy, consumerism and more,” she said at the opening of a major 2015 exhibition of his works

As a young man, Bates moved to London to study at the Royal College of Art, befriending David Hockney.

Upon graduating, he opted for the Billy Apple moniker, a name he would later trademark.

He then moved to New York, opening an art space and exhibiting widely in the alternative art scene.

London’s Serpentine gallery hosted a major survey of Apple’s works in 1974 and he continued to work in New York until 1990, when he returned to Auckland.

His works have been exhibited in the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Wellington’s Te Papa.

Robert Leonard, a contemporary art curator and writer, said Apple “had a slogan for every occasion”.

“Many decades ago, he told me what he wanted written on his gravestone: Apple Crumble.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... es-aged-85


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Apple

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Re: Billy's Apple has crumbled

#2 Post by G-CPTN » Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:02 am

I was worried that this was about Billy the Kid(ney).

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Re: Billy's Apple has crumbled

#3 Post by Rwy in Sight » Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:59 am

G-CPTN wrote:
Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:02 am
I was worried that this was about Billy the Kid(ney).
I shared the concern and I had to look up carefully the name of the thread starter.

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Re: Billy's Apple has crumbled

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Sep 06, 2021 7:44 am

Billy Apple was into the the history of motor racing, and as a Kiwi, he focussed on Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme...
Billy Apple’s passions are motor racing and art and in The Bruce and Denny Show, he mixes art with life. In a tribute to racing greats Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme, he draws on real events from one of the most glamorous eras in our motor sports history.

In the late 1960s, the Can-Am (Canadian American Challenge Cup) series became known as ‘The Bruce and Denny Show’ because it was dominated by McLaren cars - the phrase was a favourite for newspaper reporters of the day. Between them, Bruce and Denny won every race in the 1969 season in their huge orange Group 7 sports-racing cars. In The Bruce and Denny Show, Billy Apple presents footage from the races (Players 200, Mosport Park, Canada, September 1967) and, in a double branding manoeuvre typical of his practice, showcases text based portraits of the Can-Am cars and their champion drivers.

Our most well-known self-branded artist, Billy Apple™ is a trademarked art brand. As one of the original pop generation, he established his brand in London, circa 1962, changed his name and claimed everyday objects (like apples) and life activities (like cleaning and vacuuming) as art. This self-branding exercise sought to resolve for him the question of where art stops and life starts.

Billy Apple’s fascination with branding forms part of his attraction to the glamour of Formula One. When Bruce McLaren launched his ‘McLaren orange’ on the M5 at Formula One’s 1967 South African Grand Prix, Italian cars were predominantly shades of red and British, BRG (British Racing Green) with no advertising. Then came the Canadian American Challenge Cup series with cars described by Billy as,

“Moving billboards with sponsorship from companies like Reynolds Aluminum and Gulf Oil.”

In The Bruce and Denny Show, he has personalised his works with McLaren’s racing colours, while conforming to the Billy Apple brand of graphics and composition using the golden ratio format and Futura font.

“Just as Apple is to be identified through the symbolic currency of his art, so McLaren and Hulme are represented by him through the symbolic currency of their profession. Talking to Billy about the work, he described the car and driver paintings and prints as ‘portraits’ of each. McLaren is identified by the number (4) and colour of the car he drove, by his achievement: 1967 Can-Am Champion and ‘the speedy kiwi’ symbol, Hulme similarly by his number (5) and colour of his car, by his achievement: 1968 Can-Am Champion.” Wystan Curnow, ‘Billy Apple Pays Tribute’.
https://www.thebigidea.nz/stories/the-b ... denny-show

Still a work of art...

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Re: Billy's Apple has crumbled

#5 Post by Pontius Navigator » Mon Sep 06, 2021 5:07 pm

G CPTN and RiS, I was about to upbraid TGG for creating unnecessary......

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Re: Billy's Apple has crumbled

#6 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:04 pm

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Mon Sep 06, 2021 5:07 pm
G CPTN and RiS, I was about to upbraid TGG for creating unnecessary......
Upbraid away if you must, but while I am a callous bastard, I am not that bad, and trust you will see that the title related to the death of the artist known as Billy Apple, and was in no way intended to imply a connection, in any shape of form, with our good friend handsfree and his newly acquired organ.

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Re: Billy's Apple has crumbled

#7 Post by Boac » Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:12 pm

What a load of snowflakes you all are! All you needed to do was open the topic and read the first line! Bunch of wussies.

Apart from which, what has an apple to do with a kidney?

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Re: Billy's Apple has crumbled

#8 Post by Pontius Navigator » Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:19 pm

Same as the Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumcise the world solo

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Re: Billy's Apple has crumbled

#9 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:23 pm

Pontius Navigator wrote:
Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:19 pm
Same as the Re: Young Anglo Belgian girl looks to circumcise the world solo
;)))

And to think I was going to post on TRABB on the subject of the old Puffin Billy water heaters so beloved of the army back in the day...

How bad would the ruckus over this have been? =))

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Re: Billy's Apple has crumbled

#10 Post by Boac » Mon Sep 06, 2021 6:28 pm

OOH! There would have been tears and sleepless nights (and BM and 'is mate Piers leading street rallies...)

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