Born in 1955, Leonard Hilton McGurr, or Futura (also known as Futura 2000), is a pioneering graffiti artist who has been part of the American street art scene since the early 1970s. After serving in the US Navy in the 80s, he started to exhibit his work at the prestigious Fun Gallery in New York City, alongside artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, and Keith Haring. Combining vivid, bold colours, aerosol strokes and written text, his style has long been informed by computer technology and science fiction. Futura is now one of the most established names in the international contemporary art scene.
In 1988, the artist was asked to design the cover art for the British band UNKLE, as a result, conceived his signature Pointman sculpture. Throughout his long and prolific career, Futura has created numerous versions of the Pointman prototype. The present lot Pointman FL-002 is one of the fifteen limited edition statues released in 2019, showing a recent, artistically mature rendition of this iconic series of the artist.
Futura’s most recent exhibitions include the solo show Abstract Compass at Danysz Hong Kong (26 – 31 March 2019) and Generation Z at The Mass in Tokyo, his first solo exhibition in Japan in 20 years (16 November – 15 December 2019). In 2021, the artist’s brand Futura Laboratories teamed up with AllRightsReserved for FUTURALAND, his largest public installation to date, held at BELOWGROUND in Hong Kong (3 – 16 June 2021).