Mixed Media on Canvas
60″ x 50″
In hues of yellow, gold and blue, this portrait of Muhammad Ali riffs on Ali’s celebrity, prestige and stature. Horvath depicts his subiect – “An Olympic gold medalist and the first fighter to capture the heavyweight title three times…” – with bloodied lip and giant AL & M letters, sided with an image of a Hasselblad camera (alluding to Ali constantly being photographed).
Appropriated street posters torn in an abstracted and elongated African continent shape (referencing the famous “Rumble In The Jungle” fight with George Foreman) are used along with multiple boxing references, and the collaged words WORLD in the upper middle left, and CHAMP in the bottom right.