Futura 2000 is a living legend of the graffiti movement, illustrator, photographer, sculptor, fashion and graphic designer from New York City. He is one of the major players on the current international urban art scene. The contemporary of Keith Haring, Richard Hambleton and Cope2, Futura helped define the graffiti movement of the early 1970s by moving it away from lettering and towards the more painterly, abstract style.
Background
Ethnicity:
Leonard's father was a white Irish Catholic and mother was African-American.
Futura 2000 is the pseudonym of Lenny McGurr born on November 17, 1955 in New York. Growing up on 103rd Street in Brooklyn during the boom years of train bombing, McGurr was introduced to graffiti in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s while he was traveling to school. After his adoptive mother died in 1975, his adoptive father had a mental break-down and trashed “anything that meant anything to him from childhood.” The apartment was sold, “everything wiped out.” His father eventually died in 1982, and Futura has never found out who his real parents were.
Career
Inspired by his favorite movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" from Kubrick and a book "Future Shock" written by the futurist Alvin Toffler, the young artist settled on the superhero pseudonym Futura 2000. He started to paint illegally on New York subway trains and city walls in the early seventies becoming widely known for his radically distinct approach to graffiti art. He introduced abstraction into a previously letter-based art form by covering whole cars of the city’s subway trains with his expressive paintings. Futura can be seen as the follower of some of the most prominent Abstract Expressionist ideas.
Growing up in the era of the civil rights movement, anti-war, and anti-draft protests had a great influence on Futura. In 1975, he joined the Navy and spent four years in Kenya, Pakistan, Australia, the Philippines, and all over Asia. When he came back to New York in the late 1970s, he realized that graffiti evolved and that street creatives were doing amazing artworks on the walls. Upon his return to the Big Apple, he met Keith Harring and Jean-Michel Basquiat and befriended with them. Futura emerged as the first artist who covered an entire wagon in abstract graffiti. Based on more graphic rules, in the beginning, his expressions developed into complex geometry, to achieve a more liberated form today, where a freer composition and colors are the base.
In the early 1980s, Futura began painting “legally” while he toured Europe with the punk band the Clash. He was painting banners for their stage show and taking an occasional cameo on the microphone. When the Clash went to New York in the 80’s they fell in love with the new culture of Hip-Hop that was emerging in lower-Manhattan’s art district and asked Futura to go on a tour with them and paint while they performed. The Clash’s song "Overpowered by Funk" from their fifth album Combat Rock features rapping vocals by Futura 2000. This collaboration didn’t end there, though. In 1983, Futura collaborated with Mike Jones of the Clash writing and singing the lyrics to "The Escapades of Futura 2000", a track that articulated his artistic manifesto at the time, proclaiming: “I guess I must admire — the need to set things on fire.” Futura has been active ever since, probing perceptions of public and private space, and blurring the line between street, commercial and fine art.
A signature figure throughout the artist’s oeuvre has been the Pointman, a robotic figure with an extended head, giving it the form of a Spaceship. Created in 1988, when Futura designed the cover art for the musical duo UNKLE’s debut album, "Psyence Fiction", the Pointman has been one of the artist’s most recognizable motifs. With the success of the music album, came the success for the Pointman. Japanese toy manufacturer Medicom produced collectible toys. Bathing Ape, Nike and Levi’s were collaborators. The ventures gave Futura the opportunity to create his own brand: Futura Laboratories.
One of the founding fathers of street art, this widely recognized and multitalented artist is still very active. Highly respected by both his colleagues and art collectors, he has exhibited his works at such notable art spaces as the MoMA PS1 in New York, the Boymans Museum in Rotterdam, and the Gallery Du Jour in Paris. With a career that spans more than 45 years, he continues to create the cutting edge pieces which still seem fresh and influence young creatives throughout the globe. In 2012, Futura designed the special edition Hennessy V.S. bottle. Futura lives and works in New York.
McGurr’s major contribution to graffiti art was his use of abstraction, adopting a style of painting characterized by its blending of text and imagery.
Quotations:
“When I first started making paintings in 1979 - 1981, people were comparing me to Kandinsky and making references to other artists throughout art history whom I had never heard of!”
"Personally, my work is not political – I don’t want to address anything that may be sensitive to people. There is photography and other forms of media nowadays that one can use to express or relay certain messaging and that’s where I think I can do stuff. Nothing political, but to understand current events and generally be aware of things. I think it’s easy for the younger generation to dismiss a lot of things that are not directly connected to their lives. This is like the toy department of life — collaborate with brands and be part of a lifestyle-slash-digital phenomenon. So it’s great to not be so serious despite the world being quite harsh at times. There should be time for laughter, play, comedy, and a bit of self-deprecation too."
Membership
Futura 2000 is a member of the United Graffiti Artists.
Interests
His favorite movie is "2001: A Space Odyssey" from Kubrick.
