PRINT & ONLINE MAGAZINE
PRESENTS
The Inimitable
! Michael Albert ! Artist, Entrepreneur, Educator
! CREATOR OF CEREALISM TEXT BY VICTOR BENNETT FORBES, EDITOR-In-CHIEF SunStorm/Fine Art Magazine Fine Art Magazine • November 20212 • Page 1
Michael Albert: “You Are What You crEATe” Michael Albert is Rather than sit in traffic changing the world during rush hour, one cereal box at a he stayed at the time. The creator office and slowly of what he calls found his niche. “ C e r e a l i s m” “As I got busier is a gifted, in my career, dedicated I knew that if and exuberant I didn’t take proponent time in the of Abraham day to create, I Lincoln’s would just be a The professed desire to be known as juice salesman. So I decided that at the 23rd Birth of someone who was “worthy of the end of each day, I would lock the doors, Psalm, Cerealism Collage esteem of his fellow man.” Albert adds crank up the music and make art.” Collage 2006 that it wasn’t purely for his ego, but for the At first, Albert was working with junk 1996 idea that he desired to accomplish something mail and stickers that he came across in his truly worthwhile. “I thought art could possibly business. “What a waste of energy and resources be that for me but in the beginning I had no idea that somebody paid and created for me to look at what that meant. I did know that I really enjoyed and throw right in the trash,” he thought. Rather than spending my time making art and I had a real sense add to the ecological mess, he would take the back of a of accomplishment after creating something. There was writing pad, cut and paste the “garbage” and create. Those always the chance that it could possibly be great, but only time quirky, detailed, one-of-a-kind pieces evolved over time into an tells about such things. Art has continued artistic expression of museum quality work, to hold that interest and promise for me or yet are so simple that Albert has taken his I wouldn’t have kept doing it.” scissors and glue pots to classrooms across When Albert was 19 and studying the country, opening the doors of making business at NYU he decided that whatever art to literally thousands of young people he ended up doing, he want it to somehow and making a career for himself. be of value to society. “I didn’t want to just make money, although I “It is a simple process,” continues the artist. “Cutting and pasting did want to make money, too, but when you consider someone like is a primal human thing. I think I’ve just taken it to another level.” van Gogh, who achieved greatness as a person who created things By incorporating great lyrics, Lincoln, Shakespeare, King David et that are priceless but didn’t see many sales during his lifetime…that al, it is a way for Albert to take all the things he has learned and inspired me to think maybe art could be my way. van Gogh didn’t cares about into a visual form. “I listen and look at things so that get to see how great he was, but probably felt he was on the right when I see or hear something that really strikes me as worthwhile, track to have kept creating and evolving as I can really express it. I don’t like elitist he did or he wouldn’t have spent all that time things. I like the idea that somebody who and energy drawing, painting and writing doesn’t have any money to spend can create about it in his letters. Through art I hoped a masterpiece that can hang in a museum to achieve greatness. van Gogh achieved or be paid a lot of money for it. With a pair greatness after his death. He wasn’t being of scissors, a little glue and with your own honored or taking long lunches at Maxim’s. time and creativity, it is something that can He spent his time creating. The honor came be there for everybody. You don’t need oil after his life. paints, canvasses or brushes. Thousands and “There are many people who make thousands of kids are doing this now as a boatloads of money that no one wants to result of seeing what I’ve done and who is to study or are really cared about a century after say that one of them won’t become the next they’re gone, but in van Gogh’s case they do, great artist in history.” we all do. Who can buy Starry Night? Is there “I always liked George Carlin’s piece a price on it? Is it for sale?” ‘These words have never been said by anybody As a young entrepreneur, Michael else in this order.’ and the random things started a distribution company with his that I had collected all put together were a brother which was the cog in launching Tazo completely unique and random creation. I Teas out into the world. Then Starbucks was using things that would have otherwise came along and took over and he found gone into the trash.” that he was in no position to benefit in the Creating things that were interesting long run for his efforts of helping to pioneer was icing on the cake for Albert who then the brand in the greater NY Metro area.” moved on to cutting up photographs and From that rude awakening, they started Sir repositioning them as collages. With four On the road with Michael Albert Real, a “state of the art fruit juice company.” young children, he took a lot of pictures of Michael did not let the ebbs and flows of the business world impact the family. “We used to get doubles at the drug store and had double his creativity. In fact, he honed his artistic skills every day after work. the amount of bad photographs.”
“- and not just in an artistic sense.”
Page 2 •Art Fine A Magazine • November 2023 2 • Fine Magazine • Spring 2012
“I listen and look at things so that when I see or hear something that really strikes me as worthwhile, I can really express it.”
Fine Art Magazine • November 20212 • Page 3
Sir Real Lemon Man, wax oil drawing, 1995 God Bless America, collage, 2004
Combining images with type was a natural progression and his she was interested in. Then he found my phone number on the artistic career began in earnest. Albert started with “found objects” website and said why don’t we call him, ask him questions about his in his New York City apartment building where he came upon the technique and see if we can get any advice. He made the call and she now famous Frosted Flakes cereal box that started it all laying next took it upon herself to create a collage out of a cereal box at home. to the incinerator chute. The The teacher was very glad that ensuing “mash-up” will one she became interested enough day be headed to the Museum to do something on her own. of Modern Art, with the Then we had a conference call Smithsonian, he hopes, hosting and she came up with all kinds his Lincoln’s Gettysburgh Address. of questions which she typed “I created art in the up and asked me. Now she is beginning because I thought in the process of a creating a art was really important, and self-portrait. I sent a tube full Gratitude Bookmark, collage, 2008 was something I could do even of my posters for the students though I was working and and offered to do a free visit DESIGN & TEXT BY VICTOR BENNETT FORBES getting my career going in the business world. to the school which will probably happen this fall. I will also visit “More people know who Ben and Jerry are than some of the libraries and museums in Pittsburgh. That type of thing makes me most famous artists in history. I also think there are feel like I am on the right track somehow. It gives only six artists in history who anybody has heard not just my art but my life a deeper meaning. of —I’m talking about people who know nothing One of the things that make me think I am about art—Michelangelo, DaVinci, Rembrandt, on the right track is that a lot of art teachers are van Gogh, Picasso, maybe Andy Warhol.” teaching my work in their classes. They’re using Being a business student, with great real-life what I do and then have the kids bring in boxes acumen, Albert knows he doesn’t have to part with from home and create their own collages in their his masterworks just yet. Rather than sell and be in own style. The idea of using the creative side of the the gallery world, he travels the nation to schools brain to learn about subjects like Lincoln, or quotes and libraries, often gratis, demonstrating, teaching about subjects they are working on is different. I and encouraging young people to bring in their don’t see that happening with a lot of other artists. cereal boxes and other similar items and make Only a handful are being taught in the schools. their own collages. “Being kind to another human being that “A teacher called me from Pittsburgh and nobody else knows about, is as great as this and told me the project the students had was to do a is something we all can do. Nothing is truly self-portrait based on some other artist’s work. He worthwhile that you can’t take with you after this life. told me that a girl in his class, who up until then There are levels of happiness—some people find it had not been too engaged in art, found my work on a beach. I am happy standing in front of a library online and told the teacher she wanted to try to create something in class in Alabama for the love of it. That gives me a deeper meaning my style. First, he was really happy that she had found something for every thing that I do, that I am really doing something special. — VICTOR FORBES Page 4 • Fine A Magazine • November 2023
Fine Art Magazine • Spring 2012 • 3
From Sir Real To Cerealism MICHAEL ALBERT TEACHES THE CHILDREN
Just the other day, in the midst of a very rainy Adirondack message ranging from the 23rd Psalm to an obscure Grateful summer season, a group of children were seated around a Dead song lyric and 3) the technical perfection of mixing the table in the mountain community of Keene Valley in the High letters and backgrounds into an art form with nary a sliver Peaks region of New York State. Enthralled by the speaker, of space between the combined elements. These works are Michael Albert, the youths, ranging in age from four to about as stunning as anything created with a paintbrush, hammer fourteen, with a few parents sitting in, listened and watched and chisel or nearly any known form of art-making. He intently as the artist (who made a name for himself exhibiting continues to scour locales where such materials can be found with the likes of Ronnie Cutrone and others from Andy and rescued for arts sake as well as the environment’s. Warhol’s factory and by stationing himself many weekends Born in 1966, Albert has been holding fast to his on the steps of the Museum of Modern Art, where he gave motto, “You are what you create”, an amplified version of away thousands of beautifully printed posters from his the hippie era adage “You are what you eat,” by making art vast volume of work), since his college days at spoke about his life and New York University in times. The highlight, the halcyon whirl of the to this observer, was New York City Soho/ his explanation of a East Village scene of collage of “Pi” that the 80s. His major in included a portion of business still serves him the individual numbers as to this day, he runs a of the hundreds of the company he created, Sir trillions counted by Real, which produces a Google that comprise variety of organic and this famous irrational delicious f ruit juices number. The children and jams which are were awestruck and at staples in supermarkets the conclusion of his and specialty stores introductory remarks, across the country. Michael — an affable Packed in his trusty Lindenhurst Memorial Library workshop and enthusiastic father art-mobile, Albert has four from White Plains — passed out his tools of the taken his wares and his seminars to 47 states and conducted trade: scissors, Elmer glue and blank board with which his workshops — actually “play-shops” — at hundreds of audience could make their own works of art. Tools that have libraries and classrooms where thousands of children learned created a remarkable body of work first hand how to be an artist. Michael that is not only original, colorful and began his own artistic pursuits seriously entertaining, but educational. Tools and professionally upon graduating that Michael suggests will one day be college in 1988 after visiting many in the Smithsonian and The Louvre. of the great museums in NYC and And why not? His groundviewing some of the world’s greatest breaking highly constructed works masterpieces. His art has evolved made from salvaged cereal boxes and from doodles and Pen & Ink to serious other printed cardboard packaging wax oil drawings, to the cubist mosaic destined for the recycling bin, Cereal box collages (Cerealism) he or perhaps even landfills, are not has become known for. In the past two simply cut out letters pasted into an decades, he has been creating large-scale almost literary form. Rather, they are “Epic” collage works on various themes mosaics made in the true mode of including History, Literature, Religion the artisans of yore. Perhaps the most & Philosophy, Music, Poetry & Lyrics, amazing elements of the afternoon, Botany, Logo Montages, Color Studies, aside from the beautiful work, are Mathematics & Geography..... Since the painstaking and time-consuming the publishing of his book, “An Artist’s complexities of 1) gathering the America” (Henry Holt, 2008) Albert pieces 2) setting them to relate his has developed a traveling Pop Art Fine Art Magazine • November 20212 • Page 5
Michael (center) with Ronnie Cutrone & Billy Name, circa 1998, Gershwin Hotel, NYC
Enrichment Program & Hands-On Collage Workshop for kids (school age & up), teens, adults & as a multigenerational event called the “Modern Pop Art Experience” which he has brought to more than 1,000 schools, libraries, museums, art festivals & special events in most of the United States & in Europe. Holding fast to his motto, may I expand it further by proposing this: “You are what you generate” — be it love, kindness, compassion, education and (self-) esteem via creativity. Being good at what you do and making what you do be for good. That, dear readers, is how I see Michael Albert. A true friend of the arts, a true friend of the human race and the Creator thereof.
k
Flag Silkscreen 1999 Page 6 • Fine A Magazine • November 2023
John Lennon, from his Toronto bed-in with Yoko, opened “Give Peace A Chance” with these classic lines: “Ev'rybody's talking ’bout Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m… All we are saying is Give Peace A Chance” So I hope he doesn’t object to my adding this couplet: “Everybody’s talkin ’bout Realism, Futurism, Cubism, Symbolism, Surrealism, Dadaism This-ism, that-ism,” but nobody’s talking ’bout Cerealism All we are saying, is give it a chance.” Which brings us to modern times, today’s world and a question I was recently asked: “How do you know a Michael Albert artwork when you see it?” To some, it may be a stretch to include collage amongst the art movements mentioned above, but to this observer, Albert, a very youthful mid-career talent, deserves a position of importance in the annals of art history. Coming out of an era in which the popular art of the day branched off in to directions heretofore unimagined, Albert who came of age as an artist in the burgeoning, somewhat crazed world of New York City’s Soho and Alphabet City scene in pre-internet days when you had to BE there, created works numbering in the hundreds (easily in the thousands by now), that incorporated elements of history, spirituality, humor, mass-market packaging and even typography that to this observer are timeless recordings that defy categorization, other than perhaps as “Albertism". His intricate layouts are technically more akin to the mosaics of yore than anything his contemporaries produced and are producing — sparkling combinations of individual letters, sometimes with disassembled photographs, that convey messages of importance
MA at work Bradford Exempted Village School District Ohio, 2019
and impact as well as pop culture in sizes ranging from postage stamp to large works on paper, suitable for framing and hanging as they have been displayed everywhere from supermarkets to elementary schools to the sidewalk in front of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. He has conducted workshops in all 50 states with thousands of children participating in the process. This is no command X/command C/command V cut and paste. These collages are hand-made with glue, scissors and cardboard. Ron English conducted a show at Stendhahl Gallery entitled “My Kid Could Do That.” Albert, in his workshops, proves this. Often bringing in their own cardboard boxes — everything from Frosted Flakes to every day household items rescued from recyling bins (or worse, landfills) — Albert has brilliantly created a name for himself among the youth who have the know-how to follow in his footsteps and make their own art, and down the line collect his work. What a genius! Not only is he the hardest working artist in the land, he is a superb marketer. Over the course of thosands of years, there have been almost as many eras in the area of art, movements that have been studied forever in art history courses at universities, written about by scholars and pundits alike. Movements have been dissected, resurrected, “Flagelatted and regulated,” "Norman Mailered and Maxwell Taylored" (see Paul Simon’s “Simple Desultory Philippic”). Some have been in favor and in the junkyard (and back again) and have had their monikers described as everything from Contemporary to Baroque to Pop to Art Deco (and so many more) that aptly related to their moments over the course of the cultural
compendium. From cave paintings to Arificial Intelligence, the human race has been well-motivated to document their lives and times via modes of expression that for better or worse are termed Art. From Michelangelo to Basquiat, CoBraAs to Fauves, and millions in-between, humans have been describing their hopes, dreams and circumstance on everything from pre-historic caves to subway walls to computer screens. Today you can Google “Art Movements and Styles,” and discover a plethora of information, overwhelming yet so very interesting, but in my research I had to look deep and hard online before coming upon the Museum of Modern Art’s definition of the Collage: "Derived from the French verb coller, meaning “to glue,” collage refers to both the technique and the resulting work of art in which fragments of paper and other materials are arranged and glued or otherwise affixed to a supporting surface.” And on this vaunted museum’s website, there are only nine – NINE! – examples of this art form including works by Picasso, Bruce Nauman, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp and none by the most famous and dare I say important coallagist of modern times, Romare Bearden whose works knifed together seamless cutouts to create imagery deep and dark, celebratory and poignant to reflect real images of African American life. Michael Albert’s collages, to answer the question posed earlier, are instantly dentifiable — like a Warhol, Picasso, Basquiat or Bearden. He possesses a style all his own, a work ethic beyond compare and wisdom to akin to a musician who puts words and music together to make a song, or a hit record. No subject matter escapes Albertism, for example lyrics from the Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star” pasted over cut sections of shattered mirrors perfectly capture not only the song, but the tone of the lyrical message. Famous speches, Biblical passages, mathematics, important documents (i.e. Preamble to the US Constitution, etc.) are all portrayed in a style that immediately lets you know it’s a Michael Albert the moment you see. It is indeed “Albert to the ism.” Fine Art Magazine • November 20212 • Page 7
By VICTOR B. FORBES
S
Grateful Dead 2007 Dark Star photos 1977
ome years ago I had occasion to visit Michael Albert’s studio in White Plains, New York. I remember it as being on the dark and dank side for an artist’s studio, but it may have just been a dark and dank East Coast spring day. Either way, as the saying goes, I was impressed—flooredactually—by the sheer volume of activity going on in the place even though there was only one there doing anything. Just Michael and myself, walking into the room. But as someone who co-owned a printing plant for a couple of decades and was accustomed to thousands of sheets of paper and off cuts from the guillotine cutter floating around, I’ll say it again: I was floored and had to sit down at the long work station upon which the most memorable—dare I say “object”—was a cut up box of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes with the inimitable picture of Tony The Tiger and the world-known Kellogg’s logo. Michael’s studio reminded me of the recycling room in my apartment building in Riverdale, The Bronx, New York City. Stack upon stack of printed box board rescued from a destination to go somewhere to be recycled or shipped out of the country. Michael’s room was a place that will never be duplicated. Te energy of a million scissor cuts of letters — yes LETTERS — from the myriad collection of box board adorning the huge table to scratch out, literally cut and paste before anyone imagined “Command X”, were constructed with a dab or two of special pH neutral glue to hold them down. The next element that has me totally enthralled were the type faces. Each collage has to be put together letter-by-letter. It is almost as if he stepped back into Page 8 • Fine A Magazine • November 2023
Gutenberg days when printers started cutting wood blocks into letters. Of course, that has evolved over the years with the advent of Linotype, then photo type, various IBM Electronic Selectrics and now the great Apple/Adobe collaboration with opened up millions of fonts. Yet, Albert works as if it were medieval times - to put his words together, he has to find letter of the right font and size to accommodate his design. He is a one man type foundry and his designs behind and around the letters are also something to behold. With nary a point of blank paper separating each cutout, they are as much mosaics with paper as they are collages. Fine-tuned and coherent, all elements play well together like his favorite band, The Grateful Dead. Like a talented typographer from a bygone era, he follows all paths that lead to capturing the eye, indeed becoming a joy to the eye with much respect for typography, setting type with heart, harmony and dignity. Every element is perfection. In the complete category of composition, speed, to Albert, is last. He has created several thousand, perhaps upwards of ten thousand over the past nearly 30 years of collage making in this manner, all the while running a very happening natural foods manufacturing and distributing company. He hasn’t paused in creating new original works since he began his artistic pursuits in his third year at NYU where he was studying Business. His first seven years of art making consisted mainly of drawing and now in his 38th year of creating art. Where does this Dead Head get this energy? Could it be from above?
Of all the posters I was gifted with after our visit, the one that is my favorite…the one that hangs in the control room of my studio…is the 23rd Psalm. It was my father’s favorite scripture and as he as one of the 13 Jews in a Marist College (all Pharmacy majors at Fordham University) he was well versed in Catechisms and other elements of the Bible. He had a wallet sized card of said Psalm in his possession and this poster of Michael’s struck a cord in my being. Looking at it helped me in my spiritual journey, memorizing that Psalm. There’s a lot to it yet it is barely a three minute song. But it is so good to know by heart. His other posters (all made from his original collages and printed beautifully on a modern press) range from Dead lyrics (“Mirror Shatters” f rom “Dark Star”) to the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution to Lincoln’s famous inaugural address (“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right..”) These are not only brilliant works, they are important. Even so, if you hold almost any of them sideways, or upside down without being able to discern the words, they still work as colorful, properly composed and unified in structure. Over the years, I have observed, written about and printed art by the greats of the past, many of whom I have interviewed. Erté, Will Barnet, Romare Bearden, Michael Albert in his studio, 2020. Photo by John Albert Warhol, Haring, Ron English…. so many and I see there is a certain In the midst of a career spanning over four decades, a deep world order—or ladder—an artist must climb to attain recognition dive into an analysis of the self-described Pop Cerealist (as in which has, for centuries, been judged solely by one factor: How breakfast food) Michael Albert, I contend that he is worthy of do they do at auction? That is a sad commentary on the ways of consideration. You don’t have to work big, or be self destructive or the world. paint NSW imagery to be deserving of such words. He is in it, of The basis of his originality is a trademark of his good taste. course, for gain, but he’d be in it just the same if the rewards were Michael has that and employs it in his works. Sometimes the lean and far between. As an example, I present his collages of the biggest thrill could be in the smallest job as in the postage stamp letter Pi, whose numerical value, we learned in elementary school, sized piece he commemorated “US Blues” as a tip of the hat to is 3.14. But we learn from Michael it is an infinite number and his the Grateful Dead. One Amazon reviewer wrote that Michael collages continue that number pasted down one-by-one with no Albert is “the most amazing artist of our time… creating large- space separating them. It’s a circle, he maintains, that never ends. scale ‘Epic’ collage works on various themes including History, Well, who would argue with that? There are times when originality Literature, Religion & Philosophy, Music, Poetry & Lyrics, Botany, is all an artist has. Michael knows that in order to realize the ideal, Logo Montages, Color Studies, Mathematics & Geography.” An you must idealize the real. That must be pre-eminent in doing interesting point of view. I can see him on Mt. Rushmore with anything by hand. Your heart must go into it or life goes out of it. Andy, Basquiait and Haring, can you? I have witnessed this first hand and attest to it here. Fine Art Magazine • November 20212 • Page 9
Pi 777
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
Mount Rushmore, 2004 Page 10 • Fine A Magazine • November 2023
In His Own Write By Michael Albert
“There are a few other things in my work that make them identifiable as mine such as the fact that my initials M.A. appear ‘hidden’ in almost all of my collages a la Al Hirshfeld’s Ninas’ om which he put his daughter’s name Nina somewhere in his caricatures and often more than once. Next to his signature there was a number of how many Ninas there were in the drawing to give the viewer something more to look for. In mine, they have my MA to look for and when I run my workshops, I suggest the students put or hide their initials in their works which ties in with my suggestion that an artist signs their work. Also, my packaging collages are made from cardboard consumer brand packages and I feel like over time I have taken to dissecting the elements of these packages by color, font, logo, character and all the other markings one finds on packages if they look carefully and using them to serve my own artistic purposes which includes assigning deeper meaning to the work as well as using them to achieve a balance of design, color, form, etc. For example, in my God Bless America I have included various things which tie into the idea of the message. The American Flag (one of my themes I’ve developed and incorporated into many of my works for over 25 years), the cow, the classic composition book (which I found on a back-to-school edition of an Apple Jacks cereal box!), the red and white checkered pattern reminiscent of the classic picnic tablecloth, the Nabisco logo in the corner which intimates how almost everything in our modern consumer world has become a product, and my initials. Vic, I love how you explained the connection between the Dead lyric & the way the deconstructed photographs connect with that idea Mirror Shatters! Regarding my scissors & glue bottle. Many people ask me what I use to cut my pieces. They wonder if I use an Exacto knife, etc. I’ve used the same orange handled scissors & pH neutral glue
MA with his famous scissors & glue bottle circa 2015
(Lineco brand) for over 25 years now (the scissors for 30 years almost). One of my dreams is that they end up in a glass case in the Smithsonian Museum next to the Ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz and that one of my young students who I’ve worked with at their local school or library sees them one day when they bring their child or grandchild to the Smithsonian and tells them how they met me when I visited their school when they were their age. This is one of my many dreams! We must first have a dream & then work hard our entire lifetime to achieve it & the ultimate goal is to thoroughly enjoy the process, the journey. Also in the God Bless America piece is the music symbol from Sweet & Low which represents my love of music. When people ask me if I make my art on the computer I tell them, “No I never use computer generated or digital files and that I’m a scissors and glue kind of guy.”
MA making presentation West End Arts 2011 Fine Art Magazine • November 20212 • Page 11
Page 12 • Fine A Magazine • November 2023