Michael Caine played secret agent Harry Palmer in a series of 1960’s spy movies, and in doing so created the image of the “thinking man’s James Bond.”
Here the renowned New York street artist Bäst has used Caine’s image from the movies to create a quartet of posters, in effect an homage to the brainy spy, in the East Village.
Bäst often appropriates images from pop culture and the news media and, as gallery directors and curators like to say, re-contextualizes these images within the urban landscape.
The artist has also used images of Burt Lancaster, Saddam Hussein, and Peter Sellars in his collection of posters, which are usually black-and-white and repeated in a series along walls.
According to U.K.-based designer Tristan Manco in his excellent book “Street Logos,” Bäst started “bombing” with a graffiti crew in Brooklyn during the early 1980’s.
In the late 90’s he re-surfaced in the street art scene with his iconic posters.
Ivan “Van” Corsa Photo
GLOBAL GRAPHICA 