We often look at art history through photos and paintings by the greats, but one artist and illustrator from Israel named Amit Shimoni offers a different idea: He imagines famous artists as modern day hipsters. His Hipstory Artist Series is a part of his original Hipstory project, where he has inked up and hipster-ized world leaders who would be found perusing Williamsburg, like a bro version of Barack Obama or a funny surfer-esque Kim Jong Un.
Now, he has turned to art history.
“It’s to connect Generation Y to the political and cultural vaisionaries of the past,” he says. “I try to find the most iconic figures possible. Leaders whose actions, as well as physical appearance, are widely known. Then they go through my filter and get a little twist. On the one hand, I try to distance the figure from the personality. But on the other hand, I still stay true to them, so the resemblance is clear. It’s the interplay between these two levels which make the illustrations interesting, I feel.”
The art stars of the past like Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dali and Vincent Van Gogh are reimagined as hipsters. Could this one portrait of Andy Warhol imagine the hipster artist as a street style photographer? Or Dali at a techno nightclub like Berghain?
The artist sells the pop art pieces as passport covers, coasters ald wall prints. “We are too exposed to the constant changes in the world we live in—we can’t even take in one event before another is already happening,” says the artist.
“This, I think, creates an atmosphere in which people are in permanent need for change just to “keep up”. Maybe this is why people are trying so hard to be unique, by concentrating more on what’s cool today and less about tomorrow.”
Photos via hipstoryart.com, artnet
