Tim Rollins and K.O.S.

Since the mid-1980s, artist Tim Rollins has been collaborating with a group of urban youths from the South Bronx dubbed Kids of Survival (K.O.S.). They create paintings in which all of the pages of a book—usually a familiar classic—are laid out on a grid across the canvas to serve as literal text to Rollins & Co.'s subtextual commentary—served up as images and collage elements. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny all get the Survivalist treatment here.