Lucky is pleased to present Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer, an exhibition of Larry Krone’s altered mirrors and reverse glass paintings.

Since 1993, Krone has taken inspiration from bar culture and the American vernacular, using country song lyrics, home crafts, and found mirrors to create work that incorporates personal materials, such as strands of his own hair, using extremely labor intensive processes.

With Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer, Krone’s work returns to its source, the bar. Not coincidentally, Lucky’s owner, Abby Ehmann and Larry Krone share a history of drinking together in the East Village. Ehmann and Krone met on Krone’s 21st birthday at the now-closed East Village bar Downtown Beirut. A friendship developed, and Ehmann introduced Krone to The Village Idiot, the bar that was next-door to Downtown Beirut and the place that spurred Krone’s love for country music and started him on the path to making the work we see today. 

Though Krone grew up in St. Louis, Missouri performing in rock bands, going to punk and hardcore shows, and listening to anything BUT country music, once he discovered country, he saw himself in it more than in any other art form. Country music’s men maintained a strong, masculine identity while at the same time being sensitive, self-effacing, and drunk. Using parts of songs and pieces of the world that surrounded them, Krone began exploring his own masculine identity through art and performance.

In a bar setting, rather than in a traditional gallery, Krone’s mirrors and reverse glass paintings become art in disguise. For example, It Gets Better seems like a typical boudoir painting but is surprisingly of a male model (Krone’s self-portrait) striking a Marilyn Monroe pose while wearing patchwork briefs. Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer is a seemingly benign decorative mirror that at closer inspection shows five translations of the word “Beer,” as found on the Budweiser Beer label, written in cursive out of strands of Krone’s hair.

In Beer Beer Beer Beer Beer, Krone’s pieces are interspersed with the existing art and décor of Lucky. All works are for sale.  Prices are available by request. 25% of all art sales will be donated to Gays Against Guns.

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Larry Krone is a visual and performing artist whose exhibition history includes solo shows at Pierogi Gallery (NYC), and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. His work is in the collection of the RISD Museum as well as in many private collections. Larry has performed at art and music venues including Joe's Pub, The Whitney Museum, and PS122 in New York.  He can be seen performing his song “It's Hard to Live” in the independent feature film “The Purple Onion.” As House of Larréon, Larry is the exclusive designer of gowns and stage costumes for Bridget Everett. “Look Book,” Larry’s self-published art book, documents his costume work since 1997 with photographs by Todd Oldham and Kevin Yatarola. Larry’s recent theatrical design work include designing sets for Portland, Oregon’s Hand2Mouth Theatre Company’s “Psychic Utopia” and sets and costumes for Neal Medlyn’s In the Champagne Room presented at NYLA, New York.  Larry is a 2018, 2012 and 2011 MacDowell Colony Fellow, a 2017 Yaddo Fellow, a 2015 recipient of the NYFA fellowship in Interdisciplinary Arts, a 2014/15 Artist in Residence at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater, a 2013 Millay Colony Fellow, a 2009 recipient of the NYFA fellowship in Craft, and was awarded the Peter S. Reed grant in 2006. www.larrykrone.com

This show will be up from April 12 until June 12, 2018.