Dan Witz (Chicago, 1957) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
The artist boasts extensive formal training that includes studying the Fine Art as well as Design; influenced by Punk culture, he began his career in 1979 and quickly became one of the major pioneers of Urban Art. Challenging the more traditional canons of the art world, Dan Witz art chose to focus on urban environment, creating installations on the streets of various international cities and succeeding at expressing his ideas freely and directly.
Dan Witz art
His artistic commitment earned him numerous scholarships and prizes, as well as special recognitions from institutions such as the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, with important exhibitions in the foremost galleries around the world. At the beginning of his career Dan Witz street art is concentrated on hyperrealism, which he explored through painting. His method later evolved towards street installations, which had to be created in a very short amount of time. As a result, Witz often works with digital images which he later paints over because, as even the artist notes, with painting he is able to obtain certain lighting contrasts that accent the realistic appearance of the figures depicted. The artist is inspired by the social changes of his time when producing art; his interventions in the street are related to political and economic issues.
Most important exhibitions and collaborations
Dan Witz has exhibited in galleries and museums world-wide and participated in several festivals and art projects. In 2017 we can see Dan Witz-Dior collaborations and among his latest projects there are “Project M/6” Urban Nation, Berlin, Germany and The Bushwick Collective Art Show, Brooklyn, NY in 2014 as well as Wailing Wall, a collaboration with Amnesty International, in Frankfurt, Germany (2012), WHAT THE %$#@? (WTF), White Walls, in San Francisco (2011) and the festival NuART, in Stavenger, Norway (2011).
In 2017 Kris Van Assche in his fall/winter collection for Dior Homme during Paris Men’s Fashion Week unveiled his collection over whom he collaborated with Dan Witz. Witz’s hyperrealistic paintings were printed on outerwear, suiting, bottoms, and accessories.
