WHITE IS DIRTY WHEN UGLY is the first collaborative solo show at Envoy by Slava Mogutin and Brian Kenny, a.k.a. SUPERM. The show presents a new series of works on canvas, revealing an organic, spontaneous way of art-making: decoupages of drawings, text, newspaper clippings, found images and objects, Internet porn, fetish gear, and the artists’ hair and body fluids.

Personal, political and unapologetically queer, SUPERM’s work is a response to the world of material values and obsession with celebrity, shameless war propaganda, media brainwashing, corporate censorship, state-induced paranoia, and shrinking personal freedoms.

The themes of alienation, disaffection and discontent in our corporate culture find an ironic interpretation in a series of Wigger Sex Positions—obsessive, pornographic drawings of homo thugs in durags and jockstraps, collaged on top of The Village Voice pages with personal ads together with cut-up newspaper headlines that bring a whole new twist to current political events.

The recent global economic meltdown along with the bankruptcy of so-called “free market” capitalism are reflected in another series entitled Stock Boyz—inkjet prints depicting anonymous nude figures on falling stock charts from The New York Times. According to Mogutin and Kenny, at the time when no government or bank can guarantee financial security, a young libidinal body remains the only solid asset and commodity—besides the organic artwork containing artists’ DNA.

Several pieces in the show have been created in collaboration with fellow artists Gio Black Peter and Dominic Johnson.