the Novakz

I’ve never wished that I was near Pittsburgh before, but this Vader Project is cool enough to make me want to visit the place. Apparently a couple of years back, 100 pop artists were challenged to re-imagine the Iconic Darth Vader helmet in any way they saw fit. They were each given a scale replica of the mask and allowed to do virtually anything they liked. The end result was “The Vader Project”. Fittingly the collection is currently being displayed at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh (Feb 28 – May 3, 2009). I’m quite certain that Andy himself would have loved to contribute an entry were he still around.

Unfortunately I’m not going to be near Pennsylvania anytime soon and the show ends in a week so I’m hoping that once it’s run it’s course, it’ll will make it’s way out to Southern California. Being a complete Star Wars dork who owns a Vader mask of his own (as well as a Force F/X, Lightsaber) I’d love to see this collection in person. I think even Phia who’s not all that into Star Wars would appreciate it on an artistic level. The most amazing thing about the collection is that you can give so many people the same exact blank slate and have such varied and creative results. I was able to find a flickr set that had several up close pictures of a great many of the helmets so be sure you check it out and take a look at each of them.

click here to see the flickr set of the Vader Project

click here to visit the official site of The Vader Project

If anyone has any information about the collection traveling to SoCal, please share it with me, I’d love to know. Here are a couple of group shots of the collection being displayed at the Warhol Museum.