Alan Shields - My Roller Derby Queen, 1974

Alan Shields - My Roller Derby Queen, 1974

Cheesecloth-on-cardboard marked with a grid of red and green velcro squares

The piece was printed as a highly tactile, experimental mixed-media edition of 34, using screenprinting over unusual fabrics and materials on board.

Shields was famous for assigning whimsical, pop-culture-infused, or completely humorous titles to abstract pieces. He frequently selected titles to counter the rigid, over-serious academic language commonly associated with late-Modernism and Minimalism.

This work was based on a song written the year before: "Roller Derby Queen" is a classic folk/country-rock song written and recorded by American singer-songwriter Jim Croce
, released on his 1973 album Life and Times. The song tells a humorous, tongue-in-cheek story about falling in love with a tough, larger-than-life roller derby skater. (“The meanest hunk of woman that anybody has ever seen…a bleached blond bomber”)  Croce shared during live performances that he wrote the tune after meeting a former roller derby skater in a country-and-western bar whose husband was a state trooper
In a 2018 New Yorker review of a group show featuring the artist, the writer declares that can Shields "steals the show. His “My Roller Derby Queen,” a cheesecloth-on-cardboard semi-abstraction marked with a grid of red and green velcro squares, confounds any attempt to distinguish color from texture, or substance from form."
This work has been elegantly framed in a museum quality wood frame under UV plexiglass. There is also a die-cut window on the back to reveal the artist's signature and edition number.
Measurements:
Framed
21.25 inches (vertical) by 21.5 inches (horizontal) by 2 inches
Artwork:
17.25 inches (vertical) by 17.5 inches (horizontal)