POP Life Entertainment will stage “East Meets West”, a solo exhibition by the “Godfather of Street Art”, Ron English. Launching in Hong Kong at The Qube, PMQ, on May 6, the weeklong exhibition explores the pop prankster’s billboards from the early years of the New York street-art movement as well as the in-depth world of POPaganda, then and now, with a few surprises. “East Meets West” aims to show how the art form began in the streets of New York in the early 1980s for English, whose creations irrevocably shifted the boundaries between popular culture and fine art. Featuring new works in his solo art exhibition, new figure releases, an exciting merchandise store, plus so much more, the show promises a fresh take on the American artist’s iconic signature playful style as well as an updated pop-art experience to an influential movement long-celebrated by collectors and galleries alike. English, one of the world’s most important pop artists today and recognized as one of the leaders of the “Low Brow Art Movement”, will tour Asia in May 2017 — with highly anticipated pop-up stops in Seoul, Manila, Bangkok and Jakarta; as well as a big return to Hong Kong and Shanghai. The solo exhibition features the artist’s signature mash-up of high and low cultural touchstones, and presents a visual language of evolution with unique works that speak to the future as it records, distorts, reviles and reveres the past. English is best known for his brazen style, which fuses street art with pop surrealism. He has produced seven art books, more than 50 designer toys and sabotaged more than a 1,000 billboard ads (yet has been arrested only once). One subversion, “Jihad Is Over (If You Want It)”, with no apologies to John Lennon, was written up in the New York Times, attributed to an anonymous artist. Fusing art and activism, with a healthy disdain for corporate advertising, his art was also utilized in the 2004 documentary-film “Supersize Me”, in which he also appeared. The “East Meets West” exhibition brings his signature MC Supersized character to Asia and the streets of Hong Kong.