Photo: via Instagram.
Sylvester Stallone is not afraid to show his appreciation of the young contemporary artist Borna Sammak.
He Instagrammed a selfie video in front of an installation by the Philadelphia-born, Brooklyn-based artist yesterday at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The work is in the permanent collection at the museum, and is located in the skyway level of the Wieland Pavilion.
As it happens, some of the artist’s hyperactive video/sculpture hybrids had been on view in New York just the day before, at the Independent art fair, where they earned a spot in artnet News’ top ten booths.
While Sylvester Stallone the artist deals with the subject of Sylvester Stallone the actor and Rocky, the working-class boxer he plays on the silver screen, as a collector he’s reportedly owned works by Francis Bacon, Anselm Kiefer, and Claude Monet.
But now his taste is veering into more experimental work, apparently.
“Living art,” he says in the video, in front of the wall piece. “Fantastic, huh? Nothing’s better than art.”
“By Borna Sammak,” Stallone captions the image. “Interesting right?”
In just nineteen hours, the ten-second video has racked up more than 24,000 likes. Many of Sly’s followers agree with his assessment that the work is, indeed, interesting.
“Yes it is different…but interesting!” says Joe.Lostumbo.
“An extremely interesting piece of art,” opines tides_of_strider.
“Very interesant,” observes eddynice76.
“Really interesting actually….. looks very animated, is it? 😊😊😊😊” asks Crystal_esquivel.
“Interesting…” declares Jay_rambo14.
Sammak, on Facebook, took a skeptical view of his newfound reflected celebrity.
“AAAAAAaAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA,” he said in posting a link to the video.
Asked to elaborate, he declined, telling artnet News in a Facebook message, “Actually, you know what? That’s a pretty good quote.”