Joe Ovelman (born 1970 in

West Chester, Pennsylvania West Chester is a borough and the county seat of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Located within the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the borough had a population of 18,461 at the 2010 census. West Chester is the mailing address for most of its neighb ...

) is a US

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

ist and author who works with video, photography, sculpture,

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

, artist's books, and drawing. His work has featured in several

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

street murals. Ovelman currently lives and works in New York City. He has also lived in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Palm Springs, California Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by land a ...

, and São Paulo, Brazil.

Career

Ovelman surveys sexuality, social norms, and marginalized communities in his work. He often invites individuals to participate in projects, whether asking them to don his father's

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

Uniform on 12th Street Beach in

South Beach South Beach, also nicknamed colloquially as SoBe, is a neighborhood in Miami Beach, Florida. It is located east of Miami between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The area encompasses Miami Beach south of Dade Boulevard. This area was the fi ...

Miami, or as recipients of an epic cross-country book-gifting performance, "Boondocking: You I See," 2019. Ovelman's first cited work was an image in

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

whose tagline read simply, "Street Art." Ovelman pasted images along the construction wall surrounding Larry Gagosian's Chelsea Gagosian Gallery in a project titled, "Boys 4 Spring," 2000. The project then re-emerged, reimagined, in Richard Anderson's salon exhibition "Living is Easy," in the summer of 2000. His NYC solo exhibition, "Like A Virgin," named for

Madonna's Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

second LP, was in 2004. Ovelman's 2011 Connersmith exhibition titled, "Coming Home," was a departure from earlier exhibitions in that it was only sculpture. Ovelman is also known for

Sharpie (marker) Sharpie is a brand of writing implements (mainly permanent markers) manufactured by Newell Brands, a public company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Originally designating a single permanent marker, the Sharpie brand has been widely expanded an ...

drawings on

Post-it Note A Post-it Note (or sticky note) is a small piece of paper with a re-adherable strip of glue on its back, made for temporarily attaching notes to documents and other surfaces. A low-tack pressure-sensitive adhesive allows the notes to be easily ...

s. His notes have expanded beyond the Post-it format in works such as "When I grow up," 2003, "12 Drawings," 2007, and as artist's books beginning in 2018. His work is in private collections, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and in Michael Petry's ''The Word is Art'', (Thames and Hudson), 2018. His photographs also appear on the

Arsenal Pulp Press Arsenal Pulp Press is a Canadian independent book publishing company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company publishes a broad range of titles in both fiction and non-fiction, focusing primarily on underrepresented genres such as und ...

covers of

Daniel Allen Cox Daniel Allen Cox (born February 3, 1976) is a Canadian author. Cox's novels ''Shuck and Krakow Melt'' were both finalists for the Lambda Literary Award and the ReLit Award. Life and career Cox was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he was ...

's book, ''Shuck'', and Terry Goldie's, ''queersexlife''.

Artist's books

* Pictures and Words, (Volume 6), (S.T.H. Editions), 2018. * Destination Wedding, (Two Cover Color Options in The Beverly Hills Hotel Green and Pink), 2018. * On Grief, 2019. * You I See, 2019. * Fourteen Schools in Fourteen Days, 2020. * Die Fame Die, 2020. * SEX in the 11206, 2022.

References

External links

* Joe Ovelman - Official site https://www.joeovelman.com * Joe Ovelman - Instagram https://www.instagram.com/joeovelman/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Ovelman, Joe 1970 births Living people American contemporary artists