The new exhibition organized by Antonio Colombo’s gallery brings yet another wave of fresh energy and vitality to the space. Starting on 2 December, the gallery in Milan will come alive with paintings, sculptures and more by the visionary artist Anthony Ausgang, one of the leading figures of American Pop Surrealism (a/k/a Lowbrow) at him first solo show in Italy entitled AAA Attention Ausgang! (Mondo gatto).

Ausgang’s works are expressions of a very timely and successful artistic code that has risen from below, from the world of skateboards, custom cars and rock, especially on the West Coast, and entered the art system, starting with alternative galleries and then spreading to important private and public collections.

Contamination, the mixing of different worlds – art, music, drawing, cartoons – is a distinctive trait of these works, especially of those included in the show: paintings, limited editions and sculpture multiples.

Ausgang’s characters – true antagonists of the lovable Disney subjects, and led by the “evil” psychedelic cat – burst onto the canvas in rocambolesque acts, diabolical but also ironic gestures.

The world of comics is never far away; the protagonists are always shown in motion, in a quick, lively narrative situation, with the aim – as the artist explains – of attempting to explain the human condition through cartoon portrayal.

The colours contribute to made the scenes dynamic and psychedelic: fields of reds and oranges stand out against intense blue skies, spirals of bright hues – greens, yellows, violet – form the contours of paradoxical figures.

His resume also includes gigs for companies and the world of advertising – mostly designs for concept stores – as well as today’s music scene: Ausgang has created the cover for the new album by the New York band MGMT, Congratulations, where the legendary feline is terrified, riding its surfboard in a huge, menacing wave.

Recently a new subject has found its way into his works: a high-heel shoe on wheels, seen in Ausgang’s paintings, or transformed into colossal sculpture.

His expressive research is based – as he explains in the Manifesto at his website (www.ausgangart.com) – on television and, in particular, the cartoons of the 1960s he remembers watching as a kid in the living room with his family. And he adds: “Like young Butch in Pulp Fiction, all of us were set down in front of the TV to watch cartoons, and ever since Pop Art kicked the Abstract Expressionists out of Peggy Guggenheim's living room, that TV Guide went psychedelic and true hallucinations hit the widescreens of Middle America”.

In parallel with the exhibition an exceptional event will take place in the heart of Milan.

During the entire holiday season the shop windows of the Rinascente department store facing Piazza del Duomo will be livened up by the explosive creativity of Anthony Ausgang. The artist will make different installations on the “Christmas cat” theme, freely interpreting the theme “What I Want for Christmas”.

Big cats coping with ribbons and gift packages, sly pusses driving a shoe-car, catwomen bent on acquiring the latest handbags and heels, felines greedy for cakes amidst Christmas trees and stroboscopic spheres will be the protagonists of the imaginative installations the American artist will make to celebrate and kick off, with irony and fun, the Milanese holiday season of the famous department store. (Art Direction by Independent Ideas)

For the exhibition, a bilingual (Italian/English) catalogue will be published, with an essay by Luca Beatrice.