Art: Giant tape paintings of disgraced billionaires from Kuhl and Leyton

Date
29 October 2013

Kuhl and Leyton are Brad Kuhl and Monique Leyton, two graduates from Miami who began collaborating while studying at Cornell University, Ithaca. Their fine art practice deals predominantly with illuminating the darker side of contemporary culture, creating pieces that act as a social commentary and a critique of capitalism. In this series, Elite Deviance, the pair explore the fraudulent crimes of the United States’ super-rich, creating a day-glo visual indictment of their extraordinary crimes.

Impressively these Martha Stewarts and Bernie Madoffs have been rendered in an unusual set of materials; Kuhl and Leyton favour acrylic and bookbinding tape over paint and canvas. The results hang together like vast synthetic tapestries tied together with a narrative as bloody as the Bayeux. Kuhl!

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Kuhl and Leyton: I just want to focus on my salad’ Martha Stewart

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Kuhl and Leyton: Bernie and Ruth Madoff

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Kuhl and Leyton: Enron

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Kuhl and Leyton: Stanford and Davis Blood Oath

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Kuhl and Leyton: Jack Abramoff

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About the Author

James Cartwright

James started out as an intern in 2011 and came back in summer of 2012 to work online and latterly as Print Editor, before leaving in May 2015.

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