WTF?
The British contemporary artist known as Chemical X has been at the heart of the subcultures that helped create the world we inhabit today.
You are unlikely to have even heard of him.
The Observer described him as a ‘cult’ artist but that only tells half the story. Chemical X was part of the era that first created the parties that became the raves that became the clubs that became the super clubs that reinvented dance culture.
He designed many brand identities including the iconic Ministry of Sound logo, he worked with Banksy on a Greenpeace campaign, then brought him in with Damien Hirst, Jamie Hewlett, Aphex Twin and a bunch of others to create an art collection that raised money for Surfers Against Sewage. Olympus Cameras tasked him with helping to introduce digital photography to youth culture, he worked with MTV to create the identities for a string of live music events, helped to re-establish a skate park in Ladbroke Grove in West London and generally worked alongside everyone from the legendary Junior Boys Own record label to Snoop Dogg and Vans Footwear.
In 2011, after a conversation with Banksy’s manager Steve Lazarides, he started to develop The Ecstasy Collection, his first series of artworks as a solo artist. Soon afterwards he sold his first piece entitled ‘Taste The Rainbow’. Bought via a Twitter post for £75,000. He tested the water and contributed a piece to group show The Ark in London and when the church crypt where the show was taking place got raided by the Metropolitan police, he knew he was heading in the right direction. Once he had built up enough works to exhibit he started planning his first show.
Chemical X never intended the collection to appear in the cold, sterile environs of a traditional art gallery.
His view has always been that the experience of engaging with the work should reflect the subject matter and the culture which it referenced. So he created CX300, a one-night-only event to which only 300 specially invited guests could attend and where no art would be for sale. Attendees had to be in London’s Soho half an hour before the door opened yet would only discover its location via text at that point. They then had to take their specially designed metal invites with them to a record store where they would be guided to the back of the shop and ushered down the stairs into the secret warehouse below. Once inside the exclusive venue they viewed the works, drank at the free bar and danced to a DJ set by the legendary Orbital.
After selling the piece I’ll Be Your Friend to a German billionaire for $100,000, Chemical X took the collection to Los Angeles where he put on another wild night entitled CXLA, this time in the vacated building that once housed Tower Records, an infamous location on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Again, no admission without an invitation and, despite a legal capacity of just 300, over a thousand people passed through the doors on the night and were entertained with another free bar and this time it was superstar DJ Fatboy Slim on the decks.
During his time in LA Chemical X also created a whole new piece of work. Entitled ‘Skid Rodeo Drive’ this was an installation in three parts. The first part entitled, ‘The Street Where Luxury & Poverty Meet’ was an installation of 12 tents in the heart of Skid Row, each tent was covered in the livery of a different luxury brand with a store on Rodeo Drive. It caused a sensation. The second phase, a series of tents pitched across the city, entitled ‘From the Row To Rodeo’ followed but the ensuing media coverage brought the attention of the Beverly Hills Police Department. Despite deploying a whole squad of cops to stop him reaching Rodeo Drive, they were powerless to stop his team when they arrived. The third and final part of the work is still yet to come.
Following his shows in London and Los Angeles, and after his Skid Rodeo Drive installations, Chemical X was commissioned by Netflix to create a $150,000 art installation in Berlin to promote their new series of ‘How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast)’.
In early 2021 he was approached by a group of people who had been working with Bitcoin since the early days. Chemical X had been accepting Bitcoin as payment from the start but the innovation around NFTs was just taking off and he was keen to get involved. Chemical X and the team were some of the very first people working on trying to bring NFTs to Bitcoin. They set up ‘This Is Number One’ as their own platform for the creation of the Genesis Collection, a collaboration between Chemical X and Cara Delevingne, Fatboy Slim, Dave Stewart and Orbital creating pieces that explored the possibilities that digital art and storytelling could bring to artists of all backgrounds.
2024 saw his ‘Objective? Subject.’ show in Santa Monica, California run over 6 weeks and establish a new set of works deconstructing the concept of beauty.
Chemical X is currently working on new projects and commissions.
WTF?
The British contemporary artist known as Chemical X has been at the heart of the subcultures that helped create the world we inhabit today.
You are unlikely to have even heard of him.
The Observer described him as a ‘cult’ artist but that only tells half the story. Chemical X was part of the era that first created the parties that became the raves that became the clubs that became the super clubs that reinvented dance culture.
He designed many brand identities including the iconic Ministry of Sound logo, he worked with Banksy on a Greenpeace campaign, then brought him in with Damien Hirst, Jamie Hewlett, Aphex Twin and a bunch of others to create an art collection that raised money for Surfers Against Sewage. Olympus Cameras tasked him with helping to introduce digital photography to youth culture, he worked with MTV to create the identities for a string of live music events, helped to re-establish a skate park in Ladbroke Grove in West London and generally worked alongside everyone from the legendary Junior Boys Own record label to Snoop Dogg and Vans Footwear.
In 2011, after a conversation with Banksy’s manager Steve Lazarides, he started to develop The Ecstasy Collection, his first series of artworks as a solo artist. Soon afterwards he sold his first piece entitled ‘Taste The Rainbow’. Bought via a Twitter post for £75,000. He tested the water and contributed a piece to group show The Ark in London and when the church crypt where the show was taking place got raided by the Metropolitan police, he knew he was heading in the right direction. Once he had built up enough works to exhibit he started planning his first show.
Chemical X never intended the collection to appear in the cold, sterile environs of a traditional art gallery.
His view has always been that the experience of engaging with the work should reflect the subject matter and the culture which it referenced. So he created CX300, a one-night-only event to which only 300 specially invited guests could attend and where no art would be for sale. Attendees had to be in London’s Soho half an hour before the door opened yet would only discover its location via text at that point. They then had to take their specially designed metal invites with them to a record store where they would be guided to the back of the shop and ushered down the stairs into the secret warehouse below. Once inside the exclusive venue they viewed the works, drank at the free bar and danced to a DJ set by the legendary Orbital.
After selling the piece I’ll Be Your Friend to a German billionaire for $100,000, Chemical X took the collection to Los Angeles where he put on another wild night entitled CXLA, this time in the vacated building that once housed Tower Records, an infamous location on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Again, no admission without an invitation and, despite a legal capacity of just 300, over a thousand people passed through the doors on the night and were entertained with another free bar and this time it was superstar DJ Fatboy Slim on the decks.
During his time in LA Chemical X also created a whole new piece of work. Entitled ‘Skid Rodeo Drive’this was an installation in three parts. The first part entitled, ‘The Street Where Luxury & Poverty Meet’ was an installation of 12 tents in the heart of Skid Row, each tent was covered in the livery of a different luxury brand with a store on Rodeo Drive. It caused a sensation. The second phase, a series of tents pitched across the city, entitled ‘From the Row To Rodeo’ followed but the ensuing media coverage brought the attention of the Beverly Hills Police Department. Despite deploying a whole squad of cops to stop him reaching Rodeo Drive, they were powerless to stop his team when they arrived. The third and final part of the work is still yet to come.
Following his shows in London and Los Angeles, and after his Skid Rodeo Drive installations, Chemical X was commissioned by Netflix to create a $150,000 art installation in Berlin to promote their new series of ‘How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast)’.
In early 2021 he was approached by a group of people who had been working with Bitcoin since the early days. Chemical X had been accepting Bitcoin as payment from the start but the innovation around NFTs was just taking off and he was keen to get involved. Chemical X and the team were some of the very first people working on trying to bring NFTs to Bitcoin. They set up ‘This Is Number One’ as their own platform for the creation of the Genesis Collection, a collaboration between Chemical X and Cara Delevingne, Fatboy Slim, Dave Stewart and Orbital creating pieces that explored the possibilities that digital art and storytelling could bring to artists of all backgrounds.
2024 saw his ‘Objective? Subject.’ show in Santa Monica, California run over 6 weeks and establish a new set of works deconstructing the concept of beauty.
Chemical X is currently working on new projects and commissions.