Eli Russell Linnetz: Monuments
Eli Russell Linnetz is one of the preeminent contemporary interpreters of American nostalgia. Through his ground-breaking music videos, sculptural projects, photography, live events, and critically acclaimed fashion, he has reinvigorated the exploration of the American past and present for a new generation. For his debut solo fine art exhibition, Linnetz will take over Jeffrey Deitch with a colorful, wide ranging and galvanizing look into the symbols of the American iconographic landscape.
The exhibition will feature Linnetz’s irreverent versions of famous American monuments. The principal work in the show will be unlike anything that has ever been presented in an art gallery. We prefer to preserve the astonishment that visitors are likely to experience when entering the gallery so we will not be more specific until the opening. We can reveal that visitors will not just see the work, they will taste it.
Jeffrey Deitch has a history of expanding the definition of art and the artist with exhibitions by innovators who come to art through other creative fields like film, music and fashion. Eli Russell Linnetz approaches all his creative endeavors like an artist. With his embrace of multiple platforms and his original fusion of art and commerce, Linnetz is creating a new definition of what it means to be an artist.
Eli Russell Linnetz is an American artist, designer, writer and director, born in Venice Beach, California.
His work has previously been featured twice at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute (with one piece later joining the Museum’s permanent collection), Galerie Crone in Vienna alongside Sterling Ruby, and Blum & Poe in Los Angeles.
Linnetz graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Screenwriting and Narrative Design. It was at USC where Linnetz learned to sew, creating costumes for the opera department in order to pay for his tuition.
After graduating, he shifted his focus to art direction, music videos, and photography, working with the industry’s top musical artists.
Linnetz directed and designed Lady Gaga’s Las Vegas residency “Enigma”, among numerous live productions including the Saint Pablo Tour and several musical performances for SNL. He has photographed covers for Vogue Italia, Interview Magazine, and GQ to name a few.
In 2020, Linnetz launched his fashion brand ERL which offers colorful and unique luxury takes on all-American staples. ERL has since expanded to include suiting, accessories, and fragrances. All ERL photography, casting, and campaigns are created in-house by Eli Russell Linnetz at his studio in Venice Beach. ERL products are currently available in over three hundred global retailers including all Comme des Garçons stores.
ERL’s Fall Winter 2021 Menswear collection was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute In America: A Lexicon of Fashion– along with the up-cycled ERL quilt and custom tuxedo worn by A$AP Rocky at the 2021 Costume Institute Gala, which is now part of The Met’s permanent collection.
In 2022, he was Dior’s first guest designer, with the ERL x Dior collection presented live in his native Venice Beach, California. In 2023, he was the Guest Designer for the 104th edition of Pitti Uomo in Florence, Italy.
Linnetz has received multiple international awards for his fashion designs, including GQ’s Breakthrough Designer of the Year in 2021, and LVMH’s Karl Lagerfeld Prize in 2022.