A portrait of Civil War General Grant, dressed in a green uniform. Written on the poster is "Grant Hart," an American rock musician, perhaps intended to be a cheeky play on words for this painting of a very different Grant.

Called the "Assembly-Line Picasso" by Time magazine, artist Steve Keene has made it his mission to democratize the contemporary art world, one mass-produced, hand-painted painting at at a time. Keene started his art career by working collaboratively with rock bands, designing album covers, stage sets, and posters for bands like Pavement, Silver Jews, Dave Matthews Band, Soul Coughing, and many others. Keene has said, "I want buying my paintings to be like buying a CD: it's cheap, it's art, and it changes your life, but the object has no status. Musicians create something for the moment, something with no boundaries and that kind of expansiveness is what I want to come across in my work." Keene takes his art of the moment message seriously and will oftentimes move in and start painting on site when invited to show his work at museums and galleries. In this way, despite its mass-produced ethos, each Keene painting is one of a kind, a souvenir of the moment of production, of Keene's tireless efforts to redefine who does and doesn't get to participate in the art world.

Artist: Steve Keene

Material: Acrylic on plywood

SK-#49