Paramount to Host Second Annual Steve Keene Art Swap

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

May 15, 2008

Continuing the theater’s participation in First Fridays, The Paramount is hosting their second annual Steve Keene Art Swap on Friday, June 6. The event invites the public to bring their Steve Keene artwork from home or the office to swap with other members of the community. The event will begin at 5 pm, leaving plenty of time to browse other First Friday exhibitions downtown after dropping off art at the theater. Swapping will start at 6:30 pm.

Created as multiples, each Steve Keene paintings is one-of-a-kind.  He works constantly, producing walls full of work every day. The concept of his art developed around 1993 and grew in part from Keene’s friendship with and admiration of musicians. He spent a few years as a DJ on a radio station where, surrounded by thousands of records, it was harder to find something he didn’t like than something he did. He says, “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.”

In the past few years, he has collaborated with the Silver Jews, Pavement, The Apples in Stereo, Soul Coughing, Dave Matthews Band, and Merzbow to create album art, video sets, stage sets and posters. Currently Keene has sold more than 140,000 paintings.

For more details, call The Paramount’s Box Office at 434.979.1333. For more about Steve Keene, please visit www.stevekeene.com.