Winston Smith Collages
by Katie, November.14.2008
It all began in 1981 with a song and a dream. Collage artist Winston Smith heard California Uber Alles by a little-known political punk band called the Dead Kennedys. The song, which expresses the fascist leanings of California’s government, caught Smith’s attention. He wanted to meet the band’s singer, Jello Biafra. He wrote Biafra a letter, and Biafra agreed to meet with him.
Smith’s iconic piece is a crucifix with U.S. currency wound tightly around it, and nailed to the surface is a gilded Jesus. This was the piece Smith brought with him when he met Biafra. The result of this collaboration was displayed on the Dead Kennedys’ album In God We Trust, which features the Jesus on a cash-covered cross. This was the piece that inspired a life-long relationship between Smith’s art and Biafra’s music.
To this day, Smith designs album covers for Alternative Tentacles Records, the label of Biafra and the Dead Kennedys. He’s responsible for the haunting Plastic Surgery Disasters image and Green Day’s Insomniac album cover. He’s published several books and has work in magazines as broad in content as Playboy to Architectural Digest. As stated in the Alternative Tentacles website, “The work of mischievous art-criminal Winston Smith is finally being brought to full-color justice.”
[via Alternative Tenticles and Winston Smith]
