黑料不打烊

After Pop Life is an exhibition and event series inspired by the late musical genius and cultural force of Prince, whose untimely passing earlier this year marked a moment of tremendous loss, but also appreciation of his gifts to culture. With works by more than thirty contemporary artists, the exhibition honors the pervasiveness of Prince鈥檚 legacy and how his prodigious musical output and indelible personal style seem more alive than ever. The project will activate two galleries in the Minnesota Street Project complex with artworks that are at once thoughtful, playful, and of course, sexy.

Organized by critic and curator Glen Helfand, the exhibition pays tribute to Prince as a multitalented figure who not only wrote, recorded and performed his music, but also made films, fostered and supported other artists, designed clothes, and was a generous, humble philanthropist, particularly in the Bay Area. Less a memorial than a tribute to how many lives Prince touched, how many dance floors he activated, and how his work provided the soundtrack to meaningful moments in so many lives, the show probes how certain pop stars seep deeply into our consciousness鈥攚e each own him in our own way. Those who revere Prince, in a sense, appropriate an aspect of The Artist. The exhibition celebrates and considers his actions and ideas of an astoundingly generous performer, who was also presciently, steadfastly in control of the ownership of his music and visual style.

More than thirty artists will exhibit drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, installation and a karaoke project that riff on all things Prince. The art will express deep familiarity of specific songs, album covers, mediated moments, pure adoration and the less tangible aspects of the Prince aura. The gallery complex鈥檚 media room will be transformed into a karaoke lounge within which visitors can croon their favorite Prince hits to existing and artist-made videos during gallery hours.

The exhibition is a follow-up to a legendary 1993 exhibition titled Pop Life, also organized by Helfand, which was staged at San Francisco鈥檚 New Langton Arts on the eve of Prince鈥檚 San Francisco concerts of that year. The outpouring of interest and emotion that came after Prince鈥檚 death in April was an inspiration to revisit and update the project. After Pop Life includes artists from the original exhibition including Rex Ray, Cliff Hengst, Scott Hewicker, and Wayne Smith.