PREVIEW: BENJAMIN ALEJANDRO’S “THE TROUBLE IS, YOU THINK YOU HAVE TIME”

This Saturday, self-taught slash self-proclaimed vandal turned street artist Benjamin Alejandro hosts his latest art installment at the Amanda Harris Gallery of Contemporary Art in none other than Sin City, Las Vegas.

Known for his philosophical and iconographic approach to his art, Benjamin’s newest body of work builds upon the famous mug-shot portrait series that featured the likes of Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Lindsay Lohan – simply because of course, you can’t not mention Lindsay Lohan and ‘mug shot’ in the same sentence – and even his own.

By taking moments of past failures – as exemplified by the mug shots – and transforming them into pieces of art that teeter between disturbing and funny, Benjamin has developed a penchant on taking his concepts and ideas on societal worship of celebrities and flips it in an attempt to reveal to viewers just how obsessed we can be.

His latest body of work, “The trouble is, you think you have time,” Benjamin continues to toy with the idea of taking the celebrity off of the pedestal, to reaffirm that they too are also human, which is easy to forget – hell, we saw Adrian Grenier at Harvard & Stone last week, and he looked pretty human ordering a measly PBR.

For you lucky folks that are in Las Vegas anytime between now and January 18 of next year – and you can definitely count us in for a Sin City visit before the year is over – check out Benjamin’s take on his favorite human beings and maybe take a leaf out of his book: “Some of our giant culture icons were and are human and people just like me and you. We are all human and yet quite capable of great level of influence.”

Go get ’em, tiger.