Stuff I’ve done or made:

ART DIRECTOR: NEW YORK MAGAZINE (1986-1996)

Winner of awards from Society of Publication Designers, Communication Arts, print magazine, and many others.  

COVER ARTIST, POSTER MAKER & ILLUSTRATOR (1988 to now)

Covers for the New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek. Scores of record covers, book covers, film posters and illustrations in Vogue, Rolling Stone etc. Advertisements, murals and art for Levi’s, Starbucks, Supreme, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and others. Awards from American Illustration, Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, Society of Publication Designers and others.

FINE ART

Numerous shows of paintings in America and Europe. Info to come soon. See partial gallery here.

PROJECTS:

THE ATLAS OF EMOTIONS: 2024

A 28 page custom made, limited edition zine created while artist in residence at the School of Visual Arts RISO Lab. Featured in Print Magazine’s The Daily Heller and on WNYC’s the Brian Lehrer show: Josh Gosfield’s The Atlas of Emotions. See gallery Here.

SOLIDARITY FOREVER: 2022

Jig Saw puzzle for the Amazon Labor Union and Nation Magazine.

Featured in the Print Magazine, the Daily Heller and on The Brian Lehrer Show, WNYC. Support the Amazon Labor Union and buy it here.

PUBLIC EYE MAGAZINE: 2021

Publisher of a collective magazine by, for and about artists, “to give great artists an opportunity to publish great art on a theme, alongside the work of other great artists." as featured in Air Mail. The first issue is on Heroes. Buy it here.

POLITICAL & CULTURAL COMMENTATOR: 2020 to Now.

Political art for Airmail Weekly, Nation magazine and social media. “The pandemic was everywhere, out there in the world and inside your head, and ideas for images, cartoons and visual metaphors invaded my mind. We were living through mythological times, illness, death, lockdowns, economic collapse, George Floyd’s murder, mass protests and madness in the White House. I got into the daily habit of tuning into a special frequency. It’s the ‘what-people-need-to-hear’ frequency. Depending on what was going on in the world, sometimes it seemed that people needed the comfort of knowing they weren’t alone in their despair, other times they needed to lighten up and laugh at the absurdity of pandemical life and on some days to get mad, really mad.” —interview in Print Magazine’s the Daily Heller ‘Josh Gosfield’s Corona Commentaries.”

“I SAW IT ON ATLANTIC,” BANNERS: 2014

A series of banners in Brooklyn celebrating Atlantic Avenue. “What Toulouse-Lautrec did for posters in Montmartre in Paris, Gosfield is doing for street banners in Brooklyn.” —the Daily News

FATHOM BUTTERFLY; TWITTER FICTION FESTIVAL: 2013

When X was Twitter (and still trying to be experimental and pro-social) they invited the fictitious celebrity I created, Fathom Butterfly, to join this cool thing called The Twitter Fiction Festival. Hop in here to read the fictional tweets of Fathom Butterfly

GIGI GASTON, The BLACK FLOWER

See Gallery Here.

THE SAINT OF THE MONTH CLUB: 2000 - 2010

A pre-social media, subscription-based digital, animated art project. “Gosfield brings visual sophistication to his project. He combines references to the kitschy, high-gloss work of the French photographers Pierre et Gilles, Barbara Kruger's text-based collages, Russian constructivist collages, and the Latin-American religious iconography that so inspired him.”—The New York Times

MUSIC VIDEO ART DIRECTION

Maxell: ‘Matrimony,’ 2010, Tricky: ‘For Real’: 2010. Angie Stone: ‘No More Rain (In This Cloud),’ 2012. Yousou N’Dour & Wyclef Jean ‘Birima’ 2012

THE BASEMENT TAPES: 2004

A short film that combines heartbreak and terrorism, shown in numerous film festivals. “Paolo, a wild-eyed idealist, has been bitch slapped by life. When his crazy, motor-mouthed friend Mickey comes to cheer him up, Paolo's twisted descent is revealed. In a single blow, Paolo has lost everything that matters. Paolo's determined to wreak his fantastic revenge and only Mickey can stop him.” —IMBD

BARNEY’S WINDOW DESIGNER and other INSTALLATION ART: 1996-2010

Barney’s in-residence Window Designer, uptown and downtown, Father’s Day and Christmas. 1996-1997. ““Neurotic Yule’ sends up Sigmund Freud, ‘Glorious Yule’ is a tribute to Martin Luther King, ‘Cool Yule’ celebrates the Beat poets and ‘Blue-Eyed Yule,’ is an homage to Frank as a king of style.” - WWD “[Gosfield’s window] relied heavily on loaned articles from fab blondes- Courtney Love's guitar and Madonna's ‘Evita’ ensemble being the most valuable. In the mirror on the right, passersby could check themselves out and see how they looked as a blonde.” - Simon Doonan’s “Confessions of a Window Dresser.”

Installations for the Smithsonian and ESPN.

CENSORSHIP IS UNAMERICAN: 1990

Poster commissioned by Virgin Records and Rock the Vote, licensed for the MTV music awards, in the collection of the Smithsonian and used as the cover of Steven Heller’s book, “Angry Graphics.”

TEACHER/AUTHOR/SPEAKER/EDUCATOR/WORKSHOP LEADER:

ILLUSTRATION PROFESSOR: 1996-2000 

Parsons School of Design

“The ART of DOING: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well”: 2013

Co-author of bestselling Penguin Random House non-fiction book. “This is really a perfect book… What’s wonderful about this book is these inspirational interviews about how to keep your focus, follow your dream and your vision, don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, and keep your vision ahead of you.” —NBC. Buy here.

JOURNALIST: 2013-now

Covering the strategies of people who have found work they love. A New York Times most emailed story, “Secret Ingredient for Success,” and numerous articles for Fast Company, Psychology Today, etc.

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS: 2014-Now

“The Secret of Success” Symposia, 2014 Harvard University, 

“Illustrated Talk on the Art of Doing,” NYPL, Main branch 2014

“An Artful Deception,” Cleveland Museum of Art. 2015. “In this talk and demonstration that accompanies his artwork showing in the museum, artist Josh Gosfield tells the tale of how he commandeered the tools of identity assembly to fabricate the life story of Gigi Gaston, the Black Flower, a 60's French Pop Star who never existed.”

“The Power of Failure: The Surprising Side of Success,” SXSW Interactive 2016

“Creativity: From a Pile of Rocks to a Work of Art” SXSW 2013

WORKSHOP LEADER

Lacandón Children's Art Workshops. 2009. An art workshop held in the Lacandón jungle communities of Nahá, Lacanjá and Metzabok, and the Central Highlands town of San Cristóbal de las Casas with indigenous Mayan children in Chiapas, Mexico.  Gallery of work by the kids that will blow your mind

Future Me Workshop: 2018 to now. An innovative, personalized career prep program for students from middle to grad school, based on the proven systems used by 1000's of people who found work they love that supports them. “Great energy, thoughtful insights, actionable strategies and a thoroughly fresh perspective for our students to further their  professional development.” Director of Career Development, SUNY

Creativity Boot Camp, 2018 to now. A fun, fast and eye-opening workshop equipping companies, teams and individuals with creative practices. Clients include American Express, the United Nations, SXSW, and more. "Part-entertainment, part-education, pure genius! Creativity Boot Camp was a highlight of our employee development plan." — American Express 

RISO lab

UPCOMING PROJECTS:

“JACK, An Opera About Politics, Power and Love.” 

An epic, operatic, Shakespearean tale of ambition and arrogance, overbearing parents and sibling rivalry, poetry and politics, altruism and corruption, striving, failure and destiny, illness, stillbirths and near death experiences, fear, loathing, adultery and ultimately love. Lyrics by Josh, music by Stewart D'Arrietta

“21 RULES TO BECOME A (F*cking) GREAT ARTIST (Or at least the greatest artist you can possibly be)”

An Art-O-Biography that spells out the principles of what it takes to Make-Great-Art based on a lifetime of curious mistakes, Quixotic dead ends and good old fashioned trial and error. Designed to help the Aspiring Artist get on the road to greatness and the Established Artist get 1000x better.

“Jim Davey, Jim Davey, Wherefore Art Thou Jim Davey?”

A Rock 'n' Roll Romeo and Juliet. A rollicking musical novel that takes you from the bayous of New Orleans to the revival-meetings of Arkansas and from the bluesy juke joints of Chicago to New York City’s exploding 60’s music scene and then back again, starring Jim Davey, a Preacher’s boy whose very life depends on becoming a Rock ’n’ Roll hero and having true love with his true love, Clover, but who can only have one or the other.

“SMOKE THIS BOOK!” 101 Insane, Inane and Useless Things You Never Knew You Needed to Know About Weed

A book of surprising facts, uproarious anecdotes and smoky stories about every stoner’s BFF—Miss Marijuana—paired with trippy illustrations designed to lift high the blitz of the already blitzed out.

“RADICAL JEWS”

A lavishly illustrated book of Jews with ingenious minds and radical souls who revolutionized science, art, politics and culture and went on to change the world. A small list of the cast of fictional and flesh and blood Hebrews: Jacob, Trotsky, Anne Frank, Moses, Dylan, Einstein, Lenny Bruce, Leopold Bloom, Jesus, Barbara Streisand, Susan Sontag, Judah Maccabee, Gershwin, Freud, Karl Marx, Yahweh and Mel Brooks.

“THE STORY OF STORIES” From the Big Bang to TikTok

A humorous graphic novel that traces the epic history of storytelling; Illustrating how animals told stories with their animal noises because animals needed those stories for survival and how we humans evolved into the ultimate tricksterized storytelling creature with our hyper-clever brains, musical vocal chords, expressive hands and sensitively naked faces so we could tell better and more complex stories, that not only and bonded us together into tribes but explained to us who we were and then, how from there, great kingdoms, religions, cultures, mythologies and nation states were built upon stories and how every technological leap — the papyrus, the alphabet, the tablet, the scroll, the codex, musical instruments, radio, film, TV and the internet— supersized the power of the story to move humanity into the future. With cameos from Cave men, Gilgamesh, Hebrew scribes, Ancient Greeks, Jesus, Gospel writers, Gutenberg, Edgar Allan Poe and Marvel Comics just to name a few.