New Haveners sipped booze and soda out of iconic anthora cups while appreciating the art of Michael Angelis at a pop-up show at 169 East St., the studio where he collaborated with Lunch Money Print to host his latest exhibit, “Disposable Aesthetics.”
The show gained popularity after his anthora cup print sold out in preorders.
The original blue-and-white anthora cup — “the nostalgic coffee cup memory a lot of people have getting a coffee from a bodega or a diner” — was designed by Leslie Buck, a paper cup manufacturer and Holocaust survivor (he was born Laszlo Büch in Czechoslovakia) who in the mid-1960s wanted a cup design to sell to Greek diners across New York City. The name was a play on the word “amphora,” as filtered through Buck’s Czech accent. The design became an iconic success, and Buck sold over 500 million cups. In 2010, Solo bought the rights to the cup and still produces them.
Jake Dressler Photo
Angelis’s take on the anthora cup was one piece in a series of watercolors and woodcut prints that Angelis calls “disposable aesthetics.” Angelis’s concept is to immortalize objects that we are accustomed to trashing: soy sauce packets, plastic bags, chopsticks (Angelis has been eating a lot of takeout Chinese in the past few months).
The show took place Sunday afternoon.
Originally born in Massachusetts, Angelis got his BFA from SUNY Purchase in 2001, and his Masters of Education from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2005. He was living in Westchester County during that time, and relocated to New Haven in 2007 after accepting a teaching position at Joel Barlow High School in Redding, where he currently still teaches. In addition to teaching art to adults and children, Angelis is a professional artist. Most recently he has been working on woodcuts to be transformed into digital prints and sold by Lunch Money Print, started in 2016 by Chris O’Flaherty, a friend of Angelis’s. Lunch Money Print focuses on pop-up shows and digital prints to earn revenue for artists. In doing so, O’Flaherty provides another way for artists to find patrons and customers for their work.
“All of my friends were making art and the gallery system wasn’t working for them,” O’Flaherty said. “Lunch Money Print supports them through pop-up shows and extending the life of that through an online element.” O’Flaherty does all his printing at MakeHaven.
Angelis has been an artist his whole life. His physical situation is merely part of the equation — he works on projects that are accessible in scope and scale to his talents and potential physical limitations.
“This society tends to treat people with disabilities like a sideshow, but I don’t want to taint the integrity of my art, and I want people to judge my art based on it’s essence, not on my disability,” Angelis said.