Rizzi Creates Artwork for Memorial Concert

Art Business News, July, 2001

NEW YORK--Artist James Rizzi recently created the artwork for a May memorial concert honoring recently deceased punk rock musician Joey Ramone.

Rizzi, a long-time friend of the rocker and his family, made a series of drawings of Ramone which were projected as a backdrop on the stage for the musicians appearing in concert.

In addition to the stage designs, the images Rizzi created for this event were reproduced on limited-edition t-shirts, the sale of which will benefit a charity selected by the Ramone family.

Ramone, who passed away April 15 after a seven-year battle with lymphoma, had been looking forward to the landmark occasion of his 50th birthday. Since his passing, the members of the world's music community have expressed their sadness over Ramone's death and voiced their love and affection for the man credited with having "changed rock and roll." A host of globally renowned musicians have come forward to praise Ramone's public and private talents and gentle characteristics, crediting him and his band for influencing a whole generation of musicians to form their own groups and create new music.

The concert, "Life's a Gas--Joey Ramone's Birthday Bash," was held on May 19, which would have been Ramone's 50th birthday, at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. It was organized by the musician's mother, Charlotte Lesher, and his brother, Mickey Leigh, also a musician.

This is not the first such large-scale project for Rizzi. In 1997, Rizzi was commissioned by Lufthansa Airlines to design the artwork for the exterior of one of its Boeing 747 aircraft. He was also commissioned by Volkswagen in 1999, to create artwork for three unique Beetle models. The artist's most recent large-scale commission was his design for a building complex in Braunschweig, Germany for the World's Fair, due for completion this year.