Eat Me: An Interview With Remy Bennett and Anna Del Gaizo On Murder, Cannibals, and Female Empowerment

At SPRING/BREAK Art Show earlier this month, I stumbled upon 1985 Artists’ booth, Glory Hole. Within that space, was a young woman’s bedroom. It seemed a stereotypically normal woman’s bedroom at first: clothes, underwear, makeup, and fashion magazines. Upon further examination, there were some alarming items contained within said room. There was a wall covered in erect male penises. This woman owned an extensive collection of gore horror films. There were knives and other weapons. Perhaps most nerve-wracking of the items was a shrine to the Los Angeles-based Satanist serial killer, Richard Ramirez. But even then, one doesn’t want to judge. In this art world of ours, we probably all know someone like this, obsessed with horror and listening to Norwegian black metal. Doesn’t mean they are crazy right? RIGHT? In this case, not so much, a TV reveals the whole story. The items belong to a predatory web cam girl, who lures men in through her web cam service only to fuck, murder, and cannibalize these men upon their arrival.

The installation was created by filmmaker Remy (yes, granddaughter of Tony) Bennett and Broadly writer Anna del Gaizo based on their short film shown at the installation, entitled ‘Eat Me.’ The film and subsequent installation are not without themes: desensitization, violence, anonymity, and social isolation among them. But Bennett, who gained indie film notoriety for her Lynchian romance ‘Buttercup Bill’ has been a horror obsessive her entire life, and really just wanted to make a gruesome and gory film. She found her story when she learned of her high school friend del Gaizo’s real life exploits in being a web cam girl. Del Gaizo gets to fictionalize her own experience in her performance in the film, and Bennett gets to create the horror scenario that she has dreamed of since childhood. The pair is still looking for funding to increase the length of the film, but I had to take the time to talk with them about this fascinating project. It was a fun conversation.

ADAM LEHRER: Remy, When did you get interested in horror movies?

REMY BENNET: Since the day I was born (laughs). I was looking at our high school yearbook, and my yearbook page is just a picture of Motel Hell. I started making horror films in the seventh grade. I was obsessed with the slasher drama. I would be running up and down the stairs with a camera in one hand and a knife in the other trying to get a POV, and my dad would have to stop me.

ADAM LEHRER: Was “Eat Me” conceived as a film first or an installation?

BENNETT: A film, which is actually something that I’m still working on to make it longer.

LEHRER: So what made you want to live in this world longer with the SPRING/BREAK installation?

BENNETT: Design is a big part of the film. I’m interested in the stories that objects tell, and how much of the story comes from characters surrounding those objects. We thought there was detailed story to tell with her belongings.

LEHRER: It reminded me a bit of what Elmgreen & Dragset do. They set up these sets, and there are all these clues around, so you find out about who the character is.

BENNETT: I’ve always been a fan of that kind of art, like Sophie Calle. You’re being put in the role of this forensic investigator, and you’re collecting these clues.

LEHRER: Was it interesting to see people interacting with your things?

BENNET: It is our personal belongings. It’s weird. You’re talking about yourself while simultaneously talking about a character. It’s fun!

DEL GAIZO: The character’s style is essentially a curated version of my own. Aside from the cannibalistic serial killer aspect, there’s a lot of me.

LEHRER: That was what was so cool about it. When I saw it, first I’m thinking, “I’ve seen girls like this before. She’s a young girl, she’s into sex, she’s into drugs. She’s snorting coke. Maybe she has a problem.” I didn’t find that there was anything out of the ordinary for a woman of a certain age. But then you find out that she’s a murderer. Was that something you were interested in?

BENNETT: I really set out to make a film about sadism and cannibalism. That was the main goal.

LEHRER: Speaking of, I was also curious what you might think of this movement of these artier high-concept horror films: ‘The Witch,’ ‘It Follows,’ ‘The Babadook,’ and all those. Like I thought ‘The Witch’ had some good ideas, with the joining the witches at the end being the good ending.

BENNETT: Well, I like traditional gore movies like ‘Blood Feast’ and ‘Wizard of Gore’ by Herschell Gordon Lewis. That’s what I wanted to do. Do you listen to Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast?

LEHRER: Yeah, he hates those movies.

BENNET: (laughs) Yeah, I liked his podcast with Eli Roth, and I liked what he said when he was like, “if someone has talent, and ideas, that should be nurtured.”

DEL GAIZO: Then again, Bret Easton Ellis did write ‘The Canyons,’ (laughs).

LEHRER: So part of the film is biographical, because Anna did some webcamming?

DEL GAIZO:. I thought I would probably turn it into some long-form essay or some sort of investigative journalism. I’ve always been interested in subtleties of human sexuality. If I’m going to research something, I’d rather just do it. In college, I got stuck in this class that I needed to graduate. It was a class about maids in popular culture, which is the most specific class ever. One week, we studied the eroticization of maids, so I went to work as a fantasy maid.

LEHRER: So you just like to immerse yourself?

DEL GAIZO: Yeah, it was a personal experiment. It’s kind of harrowing and soul-crushing. You have to be kind of a sociopath to be fine with it. I would just take these screenshots once in a while of the dialogue, like the shit these guys would say. It was hilarious and weird. One guy just paid me before I was even naked to give him the finger. Some guys just want to smoke pot with you.

LEHRER: Lonely dudes?

DEL GAIZO: Well, what also surprised me was that there were young, totally normal, cute guys.

LEHRER: I guess I imagine loneliness because if I really wanted to see a naked girl, there is so much pornography I could watch. So the live aspect seems like something else.

DEL GAIZO: Intimacy. That’s part of what’s really intriguing about it. It is virtual and hollow. Ultimately, I would just hang out in my room with a computer. It doesn’t actually feel real. But there is this intimacy. One guy just wanted someone to hang out and talk to. I was like his virtual girlfriend for a while. It wasn’t even overtly sexual. I talked to this kid for three hours because he didn’t know if he was gay or not and wanted to talk to a therapist

BENNETT: There were a lot of sweet people too.

DEL GAIZO: A lot of mega creeps too. A lot of daddy requests and little girl stuff. Things you would expect.

BENNET: I was a little bit tentative at first. I’m a fictional filmmaker. I was like, would you feel comfortable if I adapted your experience into fiction. She was like, of course!

DEL GAIZO: I was excited. It gave me a reason for doing it. I wasn’t just being a deviant anymore.

BENNETT: I always wanted to make a Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer-esque kind of film. It’s a cold portrayal of this guy’s life, when he happens to be a serial killer.

LEHRER: Henry is a stone-cold killer, but the film give him an empathetic portrayal. We’re not exactly seeing an empathetic portrayal in this film, so what was appealing about Richard Ramirez?

BENNETT: She looks up to Ramirez like he’s a rock star. She’s also a Satanist. But I would definitely not compare her to a Dahmer, or even a Bundy. She’s much more like a stone cold psychopath.

LEHRER: Ramirez targeted women, he was sadistic. He would take anyone down.

BENNETT: He had a weird, but horrible, sense of humor. And the Satanist thing is such a statement. It’s such a teenage silliness. It’s like walking around wearing all black and listening to AC/DC like, “If you want blood, come and get it.” He was shameless.

DEL GAIZO: From my perspective, the fact that Richard Ramirez is physically attractive resonates. I saw the character as someone shallow and narcissistic; really into aesthetics and fashion – all that crap. This is terrible to say, but there is a reason why he had fans girls in the courtroom. He has the looks. 

LEHRER: The piece also plays with perception so much. I know certain girls who might be into Black Metal bands like Darkthrone and serial killers who are not psychos. But that’s my age. Maybe a sixty-year-old woman, right when he sees the pot or the coke, is going to think something different about the character even before the sadism.

BENNETT: That was interesting to observe people’s thought processes. People were speaking out loud, which was so interesting. People would see the bloody sneakers and go, “Oh, shit. She’s coming for me!”

LEHRER: My girlfriend thought it was badass. She works in the corporate world. In order to define herself as a woman in that space, she has to go through all these back channels. Whereas this girl is establishing her aggression and herself in this totally overt way.

DEL GAIZO: These webcam customers are inviting this girl over to their homes. And that would happen. When I did this stuff, I was lying. I said I was living in LA. Guys were giving me their addresses in LA and saying, “Why don’t you just come over?” It’s very presumptuous to assume that I’m not a psychopath. That’s what we wanted to toy with. And she is this complete psychopath – this isn’t a rape revenge story.

BENNETT: The guy that we cast is a beautiful person who would express this deep loneliness in such a poignant way. Neither him nor Anna is a professional actor, but they’re really intuitive. He’s expressing so much love for this person because he’s so lonely. It was actually a beautiful thing, and she ends up killing him and eating him.

LEHRER: The killing was crazy enough, but when you see the eating, I was like, what?

DEL GAIZO: She makes protein shakes with the dudes!

BENNETT: Yeah, it has some humor to it. It’s not completely earnest, of course.

LEHRER: How much longer is the movie going to be than what we saw?

BENNETT: I’m going to aim for fifteen minutes. I just need to raise some money to finish it. It’s a total fucking B movie that we just threw together at first. But we’ve cared about it so much and researched it for so long that I just need to finish it. The rest of the film is going to be real emails that Anna has compiled, and we’ll have voiceovers that will be integrated into the film. You see the scenario play out with the voiceover.

LEHRER: I read in an interview before your first film came out with Bedford and Bowery, you said, “I’m not interested in making anything that doesn’t have to do with sex.”

BENNETT: That was taken out of context. It was extracted in a way that was weird. I think sex is such a basic component of art.

LEHRER: Is there anything in culture anymore that doesn’t have to do with sex?

DEL GAIZO: It’s so intertwined with every aspect of human nature. But when we were filming, we weren’t trying to make it sexy.

BENNETT: That wasn’t our goal. It’s about a sexual thing, but there was a conscious effort to resist eroticizing it.

DEL GAIZO: It’s for money, like most sex-related jobs.

LEHRER: It’s almost like it’s in direct opposition to the themes in your first movie, which was more about intimacy and jealousy.

BENNETT: I would say that film was a lot more earnest, in certain ways, about relationships and growing pains and childhood. I am a filmmaker who is much more interested in genre film – specifically horror – and how you can tell a story through those tropes. I like extremes. I think that sex can be like horror – it can be taken to the extreme, dosing it with humor and style.

LEHRER: Technology has entwined sex and violence more than it ever has, simply by the images you’re subjected to, that seems to be a theme explored in the film.

BENNETT: Sex has always been debauched, it’s just on the surface now.

LEHRER: Pornography is great in small doses, but a 13-year-old kid who starts watching hardcore porn is going to be fucked up by the time he’s 18 and has sex with someone.

DEL GAIZO: Definitely. He’s going to be confused that his girlfriend isn’t acting like a porn star. If I was fourteen and watching porn, I’d be like, “I want to deep throat a cock like that. That’s what works? I’ll do that.”

BENNET: Do I have to live up to it, or will I rebel against it?

DEL GAIZO: I feel like most people will try to live up to it rather than rebel.

LEHRER: Did you feel empowered at all doing the webcam stuff?

DEL GAIZO: Totally. You get a lot of compliments. [Laughs.] It’s a dichotomy. Even though no one had physically touched me, I would need to take a shower afterwards.

BENNETT: You’re technically in control, but you still have to navigate the levels of their control over you.

DEL GAIZO: It’s such a trick. I’ve always felt that you could use being objectified into something empowering. That’s always interested me as a concept.

BENNETT: We got so many unsolicited dick pics sent to us. Dudes, what are you thinking?

LEHRER: If you do that, you might end up in an art installation (laughs).

DEL GAIZO: It’s alarming how desensitized I became to seeing them.

BENNETT: Anna is a highly intelligent human being, a writer, a fully formed member of society. The minute this girl is on the webcam, the way that they communicate is so infantilizing.

DEL GAIZO: A lot of the guys would be like, “You’re actually really smart. Why are you doing this?”

LEHRER: Misogyny, much?

DEL GAIZO: People think that someone who willingly objectifies herself doesn’t deserve to get treated with respect. I understand the psychology.

BENNETT: Cops don’t investigate the murders of prostitutes the same way. They’re dehumanized. The character does the opposite. She is in control.

LEHRER: Is murder, in the metaphorical sense, empowering?

BENNETT: Totally.

DEL GAIZO: Do you know how many times I’ve fantasized about murdering guys?

BENNETT: The amount of times you’ve been disrespected, condescended to, dehumanized – you just want to flip out. Making this movie was therapeutic.

Click here to watch Remy Bennett and Anna del Gaizo's EAT ME. Text, interview and photographs by Adam Lehrer. Follow Autre on INSTAGRAM: @AUTREMAGAZINE

A Cartographer's Pastel Dream: An Interview With Artist and Photographer Ward Roberts

The pastel color palette is so unforgiving, because it connotes a sense of false security. It is a palette that is rare in nature, but bathed in artificial nostalgia. It is a painterly color that harkens the horror of the Easter bunny and super market birthday cake. This is where New York-based artist and photographer Ward Roberts, who has two shows of separate series opening concurrently this evening in Los Angeles and Dallas, comes startlingly into the picture with a splash of postmodern angst. In his ‘Courts’ series, muted pastel portraits of lonely and seemingly deserted tennis and basketball courts are like archives of lost civilizations that give the sense of a mass extinction. Not a single soul in sight – just looming apartment blocks, labrynthian stairways, and a beautiful forever, and nowhere, extending miles from the periphery of the photograph’s frame. In his Cartography series, Roberts’ faded pastel chiaroscuro portraits of people seem like the last photographic proof of those lost inhabitants. Perhaps Ward Roberts is trying to tell us something. Ward, who grew up partly in Hong Kong, spent much of early childhood on the very same courts he would photograph later in later in life. And it was on those courts that Autre snapped a few portraits of the artist for this interview. Not only does Ward have two solo shows opening tonight, he is also busy finalizing the second book featuring his Courts series – it is scheduled to debut this June to coincide with the US open. In the following interview, we chat with Roberts about the meaning of life, growing up in Hong Kong and his fondness for synchronized swimming.

Autre: Your work very much deals with the finiteness, ephemerality, loneliness – does this reflect your personality or are making a statement about present existence in general? 

Ward Roberts: I’m simply interested in the state of loneliness - or how reacts to being alone - so I only shoot what feels pure. I’m interested in exploring how increasingly emotionally detached we are and how we experience emotion through technology.

Autre: You use words like excavation and catalyst to describe your cartography series; do you look at photography like a scientific or anthropological experiment rather than an artistic medium? 

Roberts: There are so many components to my process in shooting film. I don’t view myself as a photographer. While the medium itself offers me elements of spontaneity, nothing I create is accidental. I’d say I’m in interested in sociology, human interactions and reactions. 

Autre: What was it like growing up in Hong Kong and how did it inspire your work? 

Roberts: Hong Kong made me curious. Curiosity is at the core of everything I do. I was rushed out of Hong Kong quickly due to a family separation so returning to the courts I loved as a child was somewhat healing. Through reconnecting with that part of my childhood I suddenly found new appreciation for the stillness and aesthetic beauty of them. 

Autre: When you were younger, did you remember wanting to capture the courts you were playing on, or did the concept for the series come later? 

Roberts: I left Hong Kong when I was 8 years old so the desire to capture courts came later in life. I definitely remember the thrill of connecting to the first court I photographed – a court in Hong Kong. It just felt right.

Autre: Who were some of your photographic inspirations – were your parents’ artists and did you have access to art museums or galleries growing up? 

Roberts: Massimo Vitali and Joseph Schulz. My parents are very cultured, well-traveled people. We rarely spoke directly about art.  My father was a pilot and documented his travels with photography extensively and my mother was really open to me trying everything from hockey and tennis to  horse riding, gymnastics and I think she even suggested ballet at one stage. There was a huge emphasis on sport every Saturday.  

Autre: You have traveled all over the world capturing various courts, what country has the most beautiful and for what sport? 

Roberts: Basketball courts in Hong Kong, most definitely.

Autre: Do you play sports or would you consider yourself athletic – an art jock?

Roberts: I don’t play sport as much as I’d like to. In NYC sport is a bit of a luxury - you require a health club pass or to be on a team. I ride everywhere on my bike however so I guess that keeps me fit. 

Autre: Your courts display a sort of a feeling of modern isolation, but the pastel colors and hue are actually quite happy – obviously there are a lot of bland courts out there (typical asphalt and green), do you spend a lot of time seeking the most colorful?  

Roberts: I've been shooting courts since 2007 so at this point I've amassed a tightly curated selection and am currently reviewing a larger archive of unreleased courts with the thought of including some in an upcoming book project and limited-edition poster series launching in June in the U.S.  Some of the unreleased courts aren’t particularly vibrant or happy. I do aesthetically favor the more colorful courts, but I’ve invested a greater amount of time seeking out and capturing more courts that I suppose you could say are somewhat dull.

Autre: Are there any countries you haven’t visited yet, but have heard have beautiful courts – do people tip you off? 

Roberts: Nobody tips me off - yet - but I’ve seen some images of Singapore courts that look incredible.  

Autre: Is there any particular itinerary or preparedness before you venture off to shoot and do you shoot alone or with a team? 

Roberts: In the early days it was always very impromptu: I’d have my camera and literally play MTR (train system) lucky dip in Hong Kong. Over the years I’ve had to become more strategic with my time however so I usually venture out alone to explore or on occasion a friend will accompany me. 

Autre: A lot of artists find their color, but you have sort of found a family of colors under the pastel umbrella – did this journey take you a long time? 

Roberts: All of my work is connected through color and you could say that’s essentially what I’m seeking when I shoot but I wouldn’t say I’ve found anything concrete or a particular color way that is integral to having me photograph a location or space. Courts are public spaces, so there is always an element of no control in some respect. 

On the other hand, with Cartography, a separate body of work I’ve been developing over the past years, I really enjoy creating saturated neon colors for each of the portraits so you could say through that I’m definitely evolving my pastel palette. In a way the Courts palette has transcended to saturated and monochromatic in Cartography. 

Autre: What is your favorite sport?                                 

Synchronized swimming is always interesting to watch. To play however, I like Tennis.

Ward Roberts 'Cartography' series will be debut tonight at Ten Over Six, 8425 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA. His 'Courts' series will be on view for eight weeks starting tonight at Ten Over Six at the Joule Hotel, 1530, Main Street, Dallas, Texas. Roberts will also be a part of the Saatchi Fresh Faces exhibition, which will be on view from March 24 to May 13 at 1655 26th Street, Los Angeles, California. Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. photographs by Jason Capobianco

Dancing With The Devil: An Interview With Conceptual Artist Erika Blair

text and interview by Jill Di Donato

Last February marked conceptual artist Erika Blair’s debut solo show, entitled This Is Only A Test, which took on ideas of surveillance, the art of cruelty, trauma, subjugation, sex, and oppression. Blair, who holds BFA in printmaking from the Maryland Institute College of Art lives in Bushwick, and is the type of artist who’s always making art, even when not directly engaged in the process.

Is she an Instagram girl? I’m not sure I like what that term means, but yes; her Instagram is sexy as fuck. She’s got an artistic and seductive feed, and that’s important because it so seems social media like Instagram help artists and viewers connect on messages of aesthetics. The images in Blair’s feed are morbid, literary, witchy, erotic, nostalgic and give vibes of its curator: part pin-up girl, part tech-nerd, part La Femme Nikita. The type of woman to listen to 1960s California surf on a Hi-Fi and Bad Brains in a cassette player. She calls herself a feminist, but fiction is her favorite “F” word. “This Is Only A Test,” anti-authoritarian work by a female artist isn’t necessarily an outwardly feminist exhibition but rather a statement about more universal schemes of oppression.

Let’s just say Blair likes to dance with the devil.

Jill Di Donato: Since you’re a conceptual artist, what’s the concept behind “This Is Only A Test”?

Erika Blair: “This Is Only A Test” was a site-specific performance at Rope in Baltimore, Maryland. For this solo exhibition, I sat in the unfinished basement beneath the gallery’s floor and watched a live feed of gallery attendants in the space above. The gallery was left barren except for a wireless printer, three surveillance cameras and two large speakers that were blaring audio that I’d ripped from a 1990s Chicago Emergency Broadcast test. I looped this audio for three hours, the duration of the performance. The cameras sent a video feed to my laptop, which I took screenshots of, then printed upstairs every five minutes. The printed images would fall directly onto the gallery floor. In reference to use of LRAD technology against protesters, I asked the gallery for the volume of the audio to reach the highest potential decibel level that we could, “without the cops being called.”

I don’t particularly like authority.

Donato: Immediately, your concept makes me think of Michel Foucault’s idea of panopticism, derived from the late eighteenth century philosopher, Jeremy Benthem, who designed the Panopticon. This was a new type of prison, circular in design, with a “watchman” at the core. Because it was impossible for a guard to check in on all prisoners all of the time, the Panopticon by design, would leave the inmates thinking that at any moment, they could be under surveillance.  Foucault uses the Panopticon as a metaphor to explain social power relations. 

Blair:  And also I think of the architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux who, after the French Revolution built this structure, the Arc-et-Senans for the people as a utopian city, a place to exchange innovative ideas about progressive social economic living. It became known as the Salt Works, though was closed in 1926. Everything can be spun. Decades and decades later, the Nazis used it as a gypsy concentration camp. Ledoux’s structure was constructed with one ideology, and it was used for the complete opposite purpose. The devil is in deception.

Di Donato: Since we’re on the subject, this reminds me of Marx’s statement about capitalism, and that its greatest evil is the mask it wears. But seriously, all of this just seems so relevant given high-profile acts of oppression of late in our world.

Blair: I do have an interest in surveillance capitalism and its potential to strip agency from the complacent user. I wanted to bring the context of current political events—such as the documented police murders of unarmed African American citizens, the work of whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, and the increase in corporate data mining—to a small scale durational performance. My goal was to distill these themes down to a set of temporary artist-made conditions. As a conceptual artist, I used discomfort as a tool in the sterile setting of a gallery. Viewers are aware that there is an end. At any point, the viewer can walk out of the space, flip the record, change the channel. In other settings, in our social world, the participant is not awarded the luxury of choice.

I’m also interested in the coaxing language used by government agencies in emergency situations. Words seeped in Pathos. Phrases that would not seem out of place in the dark between lovers. Control tactics. In order to prepare for this show, I read Maggie Nelson’s, The Art of Cruelty and reread an old favorite of mine, Don DeLillo’s, White Noise.

Di Donato: Nelson seems to dance with the devil, or toe the line between fascination and revulsion with cruelty. Such an interesting read. I see you doing much of the same in your work. There’s a “look/don’t look” tension that makes viewers squirm a bit.

Blair:  Yes. We are both uncomfortable, suspended in pain, and yet we continue in our roles. A symbiotic relationship forms between myself and the viewer. The show must go on.

Di Donato: So let’s talk about a modern-day panopticism. How has the internet and Instagram helped shape your work?

Blair: I’m known for my performative online work and social media presence, which employs varying degrees of the real, pop cultural references, and my physical body. This show also references 1970s performance art, such as Vito Acconci’s, “Seedbed” (1972). When I use my body, I typically use it in formats that are critical of the stereotypical male gaze and male ego in art.

Di Donato: What do you think of the term GIRL GAZE?

Blair: I was unfamiliar with the term until now. I assume it means the resulting work when women are the acting agents in their practice, rather than being tethered to the archetypical role of, “muse.” I like Leah Schrager’s term, “Man Hands.” Can my small, feminine hands have one hand on a knife and one hand seductively on my lower lip? Ask me about the scars covering my hands.

Di Donato: What’s up with the scars on your hands?

Blair: I have tiny scars all over my hands because my twin brother, who has special needs, had motor skill and sensory issues as a child and would scratch the tops of my hands because he couldn’t feel things as well and wanted a reaction.

Di Donato: So it’s fair to say you grew up keenly aware to the sensory awareness of others. I can see that as a through-line through “This Is Only a Test.” There’s also an urgency to the show’s title—even though “only a test” seems to imply we’re on the brink of something apocalyptic, like those horrible emergency broadcasts. This goes back to dancing with the devil. Care to elaborate on the implication of exigency in the show’s title?

Blair: I wanted the experience of the show to be both repulsive and seductive. I watched a lot of viewers stay right in front of the printer for long periods of time. It seemed as if they grew to enjoy being watched. They also seemed interested in who I would “focus on” via the images I chose to print. As if they could take part in the voyeurism, themselves. I got a sense of, “Well, at least the cameras aren’t pointed at me for this run of prints.” I also wanted to invoke a sense of panic, which I think was accomplished with the high volume of the looping emergency broadcast.

Di Donato: Who and what inspires you?

Blair: I’m inspired by fighters, whores, and punks. The type of women that were burned at a stake for their ideas. The very women that I share a bloodline with, and my peers. In the art world, those who don’t fake it. The ones who recognize and comment on repeated trends in our collective history. One long record, continually skipping. People that are unashamed to reveal their frailty. Also, book people, people who feel most comfortable around books. I recently had a one-night stand and grabbed the person’s copy of Salinger’s “Nine Stories” and slept with it next to me on the bedside table, as if it could protect me and make me feel some semblance of intimacy in this stranger’s bed. Short list: Richard Prince, Hannah Wilke, Tracey Emin, Renata Adler, Richard Brautigan, Bettie Page, Martin Kippenberger, Russ Meyer, Sophie Calle, and Elvis Presley. Lenny Bruce was the world’s greatest performance artist. I collect rare books, punk albums, vintage smut, and 1950s Red Scare propaganda.

Di Donato: Free association game: In your mind, what’s one incident that connects sex/death/trauma/art?

Blair: The plane that killed Ricky Nelson remains dangling from a ceiling at a tourist trap somewhere in Texas. He was allegedly overheard reciting lines from, “To Have and Have Not” as the plane went down.

Di Donato: What’s your process?

Blair: It varies by the series that I’m working on but I’m always watching and absorbing cultural information. I’m a receptionist by day, so I’m constantly reading and I watch at least two films every night. I tend to focus on one facet of either my personal history, or American history to delve into per body of work. It usually involves collecting original ephemera from that event, and pairing it with words and images that are already in my mind, or collection. Some results of my note taking are visible on my Instagram. I use that as a marker. When resources and funds are available, I have things fabricated. My running joke is that I’ll keep making unseen solo shows until they overrun my apartment and smother me to death.

Di Donato: What’s next for Blair?

Blair: I’m trying to write every day, and currently working on finding funding to publish an artist book titled, “Miss November Nineteen Sixty-Three.” I have also recently finished a new series titled, “Ursula.” Both projects pair American pop-cultural artifacts with personal mythology and tragedy. I think my next self-portrait should be an image of Jayne Mansfield’s car.

You can stay up to date with Erika Blair's work by visiting her website or following her on Instagram. Text and interview by Jill Di Donato. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Double Layers: An Interview with Ariana Papademetropoulos Before Her Solo Exhibition In Los Angeles

After her solo show opening this weekend at MAMA gallery in Los Angeles, artist Ariana Papademetropoulos might make a film about killer mushrooms that murder young punk kids. This should give you an idea of her creativity – it's a boundless creativity that bursts with schizophrenic, hallucinatory imaginativeness. Her paintings literally split at the imaginary seams, tearing into new images – half hidden sadomasochistic scenes are obscured by foggy veils, and midcentury living rooms peel into wood paneled dens where shadows portend dark and dangerous things. There is a Freudian element - her paintings feel like repressed memories, places where we were abused and aroused, places where we learned about our sexuality; places where past lives lived, made love and died under unknown suns. In her work, the hippocampus unfurls like a beautiful prismatic flower and drips with vibrant eroticism. It's truly electrifying. You can see many new works this weekend at one her first major solo exhibitions in Los Angeles – a small house will be built that will make her paintings come to life. We got a chance to visit Papademetropoulos in her studio to discuss her work, her life growing up in Los Angeles, and her new show, Wonderland Avenue. 

OLIVER KUPPER: Did growing up in Los Angeles inspire your work?

ARIANA PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah, in a way, I guess without me really wanting it to. It kind of seeped in. I’m from here. I kind of grew up in Pasadena. My dad lived in Venice. I moved back and forth between those two worlds.

KUPPER: It’s hard not to be fascinated by Los Angeles

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: There are so many strange things that keep popping up. When I was younger, I was in Pasadena, but then I learned about Jack Parsons and Majorie Cameron and that whole realm. There are always these undertones. Even in upper class neighborhoods, there are always strange things happening.

KUPPER: There’s always something dark going on. Even in Beverly Hills.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Totally. Everywhere.

KUPPER: When did you know that you wanted to become an artist? I read somewhere that your parents encouraged you at an early age. Was there a defining moment?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Not really. I think it was just the only thing I ever did, since I was literally a kid, which sounds cheesy.

KUPPER: Was there a moment when you knew that you were going to do it for the rest of your life, or was it natural?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: That was just the only thing I did.

KUPPER: And your parents encouraged it?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah. My dad is an architect. Everyone on my mom’s side of the family is an architect. I just wasn’t really good at anything else.

KUPPER: So you were around a lot of creativity?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah. It was very natural.

KUPPER: Did you know it was going to be painting, or were you ever working with other mediums?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: I think it was always painting. I would love to do other mediums as well. I would love to move into installation. I’d like the works to get bigger and bigger – to envelop you in a sense.

KUPPER: To take on a life of their own?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah.

KUPPER: And your parents never wanted you to do architecture?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: No. They actually told me not to do architecture. You actually don’t get to be that creative, unless you’re very very very successful. Working for an architecture firm would mean me painting pictures of people’s cats for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t get to do what I want. Unless you get up there. But I would love to do architecture.

KUPPER: You’re part of this really exciting art scene in LA that has started to grow, especially among female artists. Do you find strength in this collective energy?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: No. I feel like most of my friends aren’t artists. Most of my friends are musicians. I don’t feel like I really exist. I don’t have a core group of artist friends.

KUPPER: Do you feel like there’s a creative energy in LA going on that’s stronger than it’s been in the past?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Totally. Everyone is moving here. I just don’t exist in any realm. There’s a lot of cool stuff going on. It’s a good time to be in LA.

KUPPER: When did you start developing your style?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: I’ve been painting in a similar way since I was like fourteen. I was really into the style of vintage clothes. There was this one dress that had airbrushed flowers and patterns on it. One of the backgrounds of my painting, I copied the fabric from the airbrushed dress that I wore. That started off the whole thing. A lot of people think my paintings are airbrushed.

KUPPER: But it is brush work?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah, it’s all brush work.

KUPPER: Amazing. Do you start with the image and work backwards towards obscuring distorting it?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: I create the image first and then distort.

KUPPER: So the image is underneath it the whole time?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah. It’s almost as if it’s collage, in a sense. I’m just photographing them in the in-between state. I work with a lot of these vintage erotic, nude postcards.

KUPPER: I wonder why erotica is not like that anymore. Maybe it was the Internet. Maybe it was the times.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: There’s no mystery. There is, but not really. Everything is kind of disgusting.

KUPPER: What is the symbolism behind the distortion of the work?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: In a sense, I’m interested in creating images that trigger the viewer’s sense of psychology. All images do this. I think when images are in limbo, they can be perceived in more than one way. That, to me, is more interesting to me than giving it to you all at once. I try to make things to inspire the view to use their own imagination.

KUPPER: It seems like an alternate reality. You could peel the surface off to reveal something more.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: I’m really into that. I think most of my paintings have a layer of separation. There’s a double layer. This makes the images seem more tangible to me. The thing on the other side might be real, because there’s a barrier that’s separating our reality from that one.

KUPPER: It brings to mind Magritte’s philosophy of the treachery of the image. Ceci n’est pas une pipe. The image is something else entirely. That deals a lot with psychology. It’s interesting related to the time period of the images you’re working with. In mid-century film, you would have these split images, and your whole perception of things is skewed.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah. When you’re watching a film, you are in the film. Similar things have been coming up a lot in my work.

KUPPER: Do you spend a lot of time sourcing your images? You probably dig deep to find them.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: I do. I think half the time is making the images, and half the time is actually executing it. I do spend a lot of time figuring out what to make first.

KUPPER: How long does this process take?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: It depends on what kind of deadline I’m under. I’ve done this whole show since January, which is kind of nuts. I haven’t left my studio. I work like 16-hour days, just going nuts.

KUPPER: Is that ideal? Do you like that pressure?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: I’d like to have a little bit of room. But this is how I always seem to work, always at the last moment. I’m used to it.

KUPPER: It’s an interesting juxtaposition – to be rushed, but also to have to be so meticulous.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah. That’s something I’ve learned – to never rush. If I rush, it will take me longer, in the end. But if I just zone in and do it right, it’s fine. I never try to rush. I just get lost in it.

KUPPER: Do you apply any practical theory to your work? Classical training?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: No, not really. I just use turpenoid. I don’t know how to use anything else. I’m really into rabbit skin glue. That’s what I put on the canvas. It’s literally pulverized rabbits. You have to get the powder and put it in the pot and boil it. They’ve been doing it since the Middle Ages. The rabbit’s skin glue is clear, but it’s sparkly. It’s magical.

KUPPER: Where do you get rabbit’s skin glue?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Just at the art store. I like the idea that pulverized rabbits make sparkly glue.

KUPPER: Your upcoming show, “Wonderland Avenue,” was the title based off those murders from the 80s?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah, but it embodied all my ideas about Los Angeles, in a sense. I wasn’t super keen about it being about the Laurel Canyon murders. But it made sense in my ideas about spaces, how they change over time. For example, that house where the murders occurred, the Wonderland Gang lived there. But before that, Paul Revere and the Raiders lived there, a psychedelic band. That street was 60s, with the Doors and this band and that band. It was this magical utopia. And the name itself – “Wonderland Avenue.” In Los Angeles, especially in Laurel Canyon, we have all of these street names that are like Disneyland. I’m interested in how Los Angeles becomes itself. The newspaper would say, “Oh, LA, where all the movie stars go!” even though there was nothing here. So people came with this idea, and then it was created. History intertwines itself. Fact and fiction interplay.  

KUPPER: It’s very manufactured. That name sums up a lot. It’s a great title for a show.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: My work is kind of magical, in a sense. I don’t want to say that, but the palette has a magical quality to it. It’s both light and dark.

KUPPER: And you’re creating a fantasy, just as LA is creating a fantasy.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yeah.

KUPPER: There’s an erotic element to your work. Erotica is something that you seem interested in.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: I think it’s a natural thing. Women are the most beautiful things. Of course I’m going to want to paint them. I strayed away from painting people for a long time, because I felt like I had to get away from portrait. But I like putting them in these different situations, like the woman with the plastic on top.

KUPPER: Oh, yeah. I guess it’s erotically charged in the sense that they’re naked.

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: When a woman has panties on, or stockings, how is that more sexy than being completely nude? These accessories that cover you up actually make you sexier. I think my painting do that, in a way. They’re only giving you a little bit. Whether they’re erotic or not, I’m not sure. Like, I have a piece that’s a picture from Poltergeist. When you only get a little bit of something, it draws you in more. I’m using that idea of eroticism with all my paintings.

KUPPER: What’s next after this?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: I don’t know yet. There are a couple of art fairs that I’m supposed to do. I’m probably going to take a break. I’ve been talking about making this film for four years, and I’m finally doing it.

KUPPER: Can you talk about the film at all?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: It’s kind of hilarious. It might not be a film; it might be more like a picture book. The movie is about a killer mushroom who murders all these young punks. It’s all my friends, and everyone has a role that’s exactly for them. One of my friends delivers the boys to the mushroom in exchange for snacks. She doesn’t understand that the mushroom is killing these people. But the mushroom isn’t killing them; she’s just turning them into plants.

KUPPER: Is it going to be a feature or a short?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Short.

KUPPER: Are you shooting it on film?

PAPADEMETROPOULOS: I’m still wanting to make a book out of it instead, a bunch of photographs telling a story. Kind of in the same way of a comic book. It’s like a graphic novel but with photographs. All my friends are like, “You have to make a movie.” I might try to do both. 

Wonderland Avenue opens March 12, 2016 and runs until April 23, at MAMA Gallery in Los Angeles. Click here to see a tour of Ariana Papademetropoulos' studio. Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Searching For Light And Color: An Interview With Tamuna Sirbiladze On The Event Of Her Untimely Passing

During my career interviewing and writing about artists, musicians, and designers, I have come to the understanding that creative people don't always have personalities that match their artistic outputs. Hermann Nitsch, in opposition to the violent imagery he depicts, is a quiet and cerebral old man in conversation. David Lynch infamously projects a mid-western "aw shucks" attitude that seems perfectly out of sync with the nightmarish dreamscapes that define his films. But last summer I ventured to Half Gallery to view the first U.S. solo show of Georgian painter Tamuna Sirbiladze. Unlike the previous examples, when I talked to Sirbiladze I met a woman who seemed exactly like the paintings that she so beautifully rendered: warm, embracing, and emanating a powerful and transfixing spirit. 

I am utterly torn up to hear of Sirbiladze's passing today at the age of 45, due to Cancer-related complications. During the short conversation that I had with her, I already felt connected to her. She had a way of making you feel like you've always known her, and that more than anything, she wanted to be known. She wanted to know the world. She seemed full of curiosity and wonder. Of the many artists I've gotten to know, she was one of the few to drop me a line on Facebook or Instagram. It might sound vain to say, but I can't believe that I will no longer be seeing those notifications.

It seems criminal that Sirbiladze is no longer with us just at the moment that she was starting to gain recognition for her paintings. Her paintings, which veered between the abstract and the figurative, had remarkable beauty to them. They filled me with nostalgia: gazing into those vague figures highlighted by muted shades of bright colors always made me think of my childhood, spent by the beaches of Cape Cod or swimming in ponds buried deep in nature. Her paintings were full of love but never soft. There was pain in them, but also a sense of hope. She seemed to feel life very deeply, and her art will be lasting testament to that fact. 

Adam Lehrer: Have you been to New York before?

Tamuna Sirbiladze: Many times, but this is the first time for my show.

Lehrer: How did you and Bill get together to put the show together?

Sirbiladze: It was when I was here last night. A friend of mine helped make the contact. Bill and I then exchanged emails. And then it just sort of came together.

Lehrer: Is there anything in particular that attracted you to Half Gallery?


Sirbiladze: I loved it because it’s such a domestic feeling place. It’s like home. And my works are so expressive and not at all domestic. It proved to be a nice contrast.

Lehrer: It seems like with a lot of art dealers, business is the bottom line. But with Bill, he’s a real art lover.

"...Searching for color and light is my main engagement." 

Sirbiladze: Yes, he really loves art!

Lehrer: So how has putting together this show compared to others that you’ve been involved with?

Sirbiladze: Well, Bill really knew my work. For example there was this wool painting. Bill was kind of shocked at first, but then he loved. So, I see how he is very in tune with art. Not only with thinking and knowing, but also with intuition. He has strong visual knowledge.

Lehrer: Talking about the art itself, it’s different than much of the art I’ve seen recently. It’s a little abstract. How did you first get involved with art, and when did you start painting?

Sirbiladze: I was 13 when I started.

Lehrer: And you’re from Georgia?

Sirbiladze: Yes, and my father was a painter. And I knew at age 13 that I would be an artist. I started doing still lives. The first time I put a brush in my hand I knew that was what I’d do.

Lehrer: And you studied art in school?

Sirbiladze: Yes, I was fascinated by art. But I had to learn about it through books. In Georgia, there were no museums. But to see original art in books was my favorite thing.

Lehrer: Who were some of the painters that left an early impression on you?

Sirbiladze: I loved Rembrandt, Goya, and the impressionists.

Lehrer: Bill mentioned something to me about pomegranate, and that it’s a symbol used by a film director?

Sirbiladze: Yes, Sergei Parajanov. The pomegranate is a symbol of the country of Georgia, because there are some many pomegranate trees there. Many artists use it as a symbol. I had to sneak it in there.

Lehrer: So it’s like your homage to your country?

Sirbiladze: Yes, it’s like a subject itself. I didn’t want to make it as an art statement; I wanted it to exist as itself.

Lehrer: Does your home country filter much into your ideas?

Sirbiladze: You know, it works itself into the ideas.

Lehrer: Your color palette is quite beautiful, blues and red always on white background. Do you have a special relationship with color?

Sirbiladze: Yes, color is the reason that I started painting. Searching for color and light is my main engagement. 

Tamuna Sirbiladze's work is currently involved in a group exhibition, entitled Imagine, at Brand New Gallery in Milan until April 2. You can also view our coverage of her debut solo show in the United States here. Text, interview and photographs by Adam Lehrer. 

The Allure of The Palimpsest: An Interview With Spring/Break Art Show Curators Gabrielle Jensen and Michael Valinsky

Spring/Break Art Fair, now in its fifth year, offers a decidedly more radical version of the visual onslaught of the Armory Art Fair, also starting this week. Founded by artists and cute married couple Andrew Gori and Ambre Kelly (of creative supergroup The They Co.) in 2015, Spring/Break allows its curators (many of whom are artists themselves) total control. The fair is something of a socialist art wonderland, where the bottom line is truly to inspire its viewers and perhaps even subvert societal capitalist norms. As a result, this fair brings together major but decidedly confrontational artists with exhibitions and works from Barbara Kruger, Anne Spalter (who’s stunning installation will be the first thing you see in the fair’s lobby) Greg Haberny, David Shapiro, and more will be shown alongside equally famous and radical artists from other mediums like filmmakers Jim Jarmusch and Tom DiCillo. Hopefully the big name talent will draw viewers into the booths of the unknowns as well, because this festival has a massive pool of startling untouched talent (I will recount the best of this exhibit throughout the week).

One exhibit I was particularly excited about; Double to Erase is curated by a couple of young poets just out of NYU Gabrielle Jensen and Michael Valinsky. Innately interested in the use of text and the examination of language, these bright young kids centered their Spring/Break offering around “the palimpsest,” a text constituted in the erasure of another, or “creation as violence” as the duo likes to explain it. Being someone whose passion for aesthetics was birthed out of ‘70s horror films and punk rock, violence is always I’m drawn to within art. I had to have Jensen and Valinsky clarify their vision further, so we met up at Café Grumpy in Midtown to discuss some days before the opening of the fair. (Spring Break opens today to the public).

LEHRER: First thing, the title of the shows is interesting - Double to Erase. What is that all about?

GABRIELLE JENSEN: It’s how in creating something there’s also a violence in the concept that we’re working with that empowers us. Like writing over a writing.

LEHRER: What interests you about that concept and what does it mean for you?

MICHAEL VALINSKY: The theme of the fair this year is “copy paste” and our background is in art theory so we were thinking in terms of language and text and different kinds of text that exists. We start to think of the palimpsest as necessary layering that happens in meaning making. In that layering we became aware of a violence that came with erasing the original and the space that opens up for the new work.

 GABRIELLE JENSEN: We were thinking about what a text can be and how the idea of what a text is is changing right now. Especially in art making and how language and text are appearing in art. Double to Erase came from the idea of a palimpsest which is a writing over writing or a making over making. Sometimes what happens is in creating doubles or a second layer of a text or a work of art then the whole thing becomes erased into something else.

LEHRER: What sparked this whole line of thinking and started the conceptual process behind the exhibition? 

MICHAEL VALINSKY: NYU! We met at NYU and we were sort of operating within the same wave length academically. So these conversations are the kind of conversations we’ve been having for a long time. They just kind of came to fruition when the light bulbs lit and we realized that we should apply what we’d been talking about.

LEHRER: That’s what’s cool about Spring Break though, it’s super conceptual. But it’s almost like the people who go and check it out are looking to be challenged conceptually so it becomes a more palatable way to deliver a conceptual idea. 

MICHAEL VALINSKY: Yeah definitely. Spring Break really allows curators to play and take risks and show work that’s not safe. Work that’s going to challenge you, that appeals to a very large spectrum of people. You have people from all ages and industries that come to this fair. They’re interested in the alternative way of addressing art. Amber and Andrew, the directors, do a really good job of creating that space for us.

GABRIELLE JENSEN: We were never asked to play with or change our concept or the language. Because the language that we’re working with is pretty specific. I feel like in other contexts you’d be asked to put it into a more universal language.

LEHRER: For whatever reason, you have other mediums like fashion or music which are constantly seeking for new things. But in art galleries because they have to sell X amount of dollars every single day, you see the same artist doing the same exhibits over and over. So I get super excited when I see a fair like this.

MICHAEL VALINSKY: It’s really cool; you play with a project and once you get approved into the fair then they really let you do your thing. We don’t have the pressure of the white cube and the big gallery environment where everybody has to do something stale.

GABRIELLE JENSEN: A lot of different narratives come out too when you have this freedom. A lot of our artists are more on the emerging side, but one of our artists is represented by a gallery and another has more background in curating. I think it creates a conversation between the works if you have different backgrounds.

LEHRER: Are you guys ever in conversation with the other curators in the fair?

MICHAEL VALINSKY: It’s pretty much like a college orientation when you get there. We arrive and have two days to install our show, and then everybody is in adjacent rooms and we all just kind of get to know each other. We have a week to basically live with each other so we all become friends at the end. It’s really great. Last year I was doing it and I was showing works from relatively emerging artists and across from me were pieces from more established artists and it created a really cool dialogue and I became in touch with the curator.

LEHRER: Were you guys studying to make art too?

 GABRIELLE JENSEN: I do performance, and I want to start doing more instillation and stuff. He’s a poet, I’m a poet.

MICHAEL VALINSKY: I’m on the writer side, which I guess is not exclusive to the term, but I don’t identify as an artist.

LEHRER: It seems like all the artists you guys are using seem to have a relationship with space? Or at least in regards to instillation? 

MICHAEL VALINSKY: So we have one installation and one sculptural element. Ivana Basic is contributing three sculptures and one skin piece. She’s very interested in the way people walk around and interact with the space and attract the artwork; how it’s placed and how they’re shaped.

GABRIELLE JENSEN: With Vanessa Castro, her previous projects have involved installation, especially involving video as a component of instillation. I’d say Ivana’s definitely create an instillation environment because they’re pillows and they’re on the ground. They’re going to be installed in a way that creates an idea of a spatial barrier.

MICHAEL VALINSKY: Francesca is really interested in poetic space, and her work varies but she’s doing a lot of woven work that is really large scale and has been commissioned in public and private spaces. She’s interested in the sort of trope of the women who weaves. A lot of art institutions made women weave and now she’s sort of translating that into a language for herself. She’s concerned with space and how things are presented and how they read.

Tom Butler is the only male artist, and I discovered his work about three years ago. He is interested in the space within and without a photograph and at what point you enter it. So the grid is pretty important in that sense because you’re kind of put into a system.

 LEHRER: Awesome guys thank you so much.

Spring/Break Art Show will be on view from March 2 to March 7, Skylight at Moynihan Station (Main Post Office Entrance) 421 Eighth Avenue, NYC. text and photographs by Adam Lehrer. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE




Through The Peep Hole: An Interview With Vanessa Prager

Vanessa Prager comes from a very talented and creative family. Most people know her sister, Alex Prager, and her larger than life cinematic portraits of people and crowds in surrealistic situations. However, the younger Prager is making a name for herself with her figurative oil paintings that verge on abstract sculptures. Faces, in a swirling, kinetic puzzle of colors and gashes of paint, seem less abstract as you pull away from the canvas. Prager’s work is currently on view as part of her first solo exhibition in New York – or outside of of Los Angeles – the Hole Gallery. The opening night of the exhibition was hosted by actor and comedian Fred Armisen, who counts himself as a fan of Prager’s work. The show, entitled "Voyeur," is interesting in that some of the works can only be viewed through a peep hole. The concept came from the artist’s thoughts about privacy, or lack thereof, in a hyper-digital world. Nonetheless, it is an interesting concept for showing figurative art in a century that has mostly abandoned the canvas as a relic of yesterday’s artists. Last Sunday, we got a chance to visit Prager’s studio in Downtown Los Angeles. As you walk through the door, the smell of oil paint is overwhelming and intoxicating. In the following conversation, we talk about her influences as an artist, her process and how Fred Armisen fits into the picture. 

OLIVER KUPPER: How did you know you wanted to become an artist? Was it partly inspired by your sister’s pursuits?

VANESSA PRAGER: Well, it was weird. I went to boarding school when I was a teenager, for high school. When I was there, I started drawing. Those were the first signs of it. Weirdly, at the same time, she was down here starting to do photography. But you know, coming back to LA after I graduated, that was when I decided I wanted to do something in the arts. There were a few parts of that. One, I realized you had to get a job in LA and have a career, which wasn’t really something I thought about before then. Also, I had learned enough about myself that I was not really conducive to taking orders, doing nine to five. At the same time, my sister started having art shows. I think I went to her first one when I was seventeen. A bunch of our friends around that time were artists and photographers.

KUPPER: There was an energy going on. 

PRAGER: Yeah. It was a really real thing. It wasn’t like we were all in Paris smoking and talking about art. I saw that there was this thing that you could do. It was a job for them. I don’t remember making a conscious decision after one specific thing. Around that time, after school, you wonder, what kind of job am I going to get?

KUPPER: So were your parents artists? Were they creative?

PRAGER: They were creative in their spirit. They’re not professional artists. My mom has been getting more into it. She's starting this vegan chocolate company. I consider a lot of things art. They definitely have the artistic mindset. That was definitely instilled into us. Art was a valuable thing for us growing up, more than objects. We didn’t have a lot of money, but ideas were important. That was one of the better things they could have given to us. It was always encouraged. When I started drawing, my mom was like, “Hey, you could sell these.”

KUPPER: So it seemed like a reality?

PRAGER: Yeah, it seemed like a reality. Alex is five years older than me, so she was already doing stuff when I was seventeen. I’m pretty active; when I get an idea I do something about it. But how you go about doing something like showing art – I know a lot of people wonder and never find out. To me, it was just looking at a lot of other people doing it.

KUPPER: Are there any other painters that you’re inspired by?

PRAGER: It’s hard, because I’m a painter, to view art without a critical eye. I definitely enjoy art, but ever since I was seventeen, I always look at art like – how did they do that? What’s going on there? You’re dissecting the thing. It’s hard for me to just purely enjoy things. Of course, I do. Whenever I see Lucian Freud for example, I’m in awe. I love somebody who can paint well. I love paintings. I’m just drawn into them.

KUPPER: Figurative art is relatively rare these days. It’s more conceptual. People aren’t sitting in front of a canvas as much anymore.

PRAGER: No. For a few years prior to doing this series, I was like, what am I doing? It really was a breakdown. I’m doing a really old-school thing in modern times, but I don’t feel old-school. I feel super modern in my being. I had to think about that. I think that’s how I came about this series. People would pose the question, “Why painting in 2016?” Why paint? Why paint with oil? There are so many things against the medium that don’t work in modern times. But then I realized my real love for it. I really took it apart. There’s something about it that I just love. That’s when I broke into this whole new thing. And I don’t paint in a classical way. I use the figure, which people do time and time again. But I do it in a way in which I feel I’m using it now.

KUPPER: Do you have any rituals before you start working?

PRAGER: I like to clean up and make the space my own. I really liked moving to this studio because it’s containable. I had a really big studio in Glendale that I shared before. It was always kind of hard to get each nook mine. Here, I like to water my plants. I get really bad when I’m in show. Things die. At the end of the month, I re-gather. I like throwing things away and cleaning out. I really like not having crap around. I’m a big fan of the trashcan.

"Life isn’t perfect. Things shouldn’t be perfect. I don’t like perfection. What is perfection anyway? History is a part of life, a part of now. The layering was a change for me to put everything together and have it all still be a part of the thing."

KUPPER: No clutter.

PRAGER: Yeah, no clutter. But there are little nooks. If I’m okay with them, then it’s okay. If I get into certain weird head space, I’ll do certain things. I’ll go walking or hiking. If I obsess over one stroke, and the rest of the painting isn’t working, I have to destroy what I’m attached to. Sometimes, it’ll pin me to a spot. Sometimes I end up making something that I love. But most of the time, I have to roll with it all and destroy it.

KUPPER: So you’ll start over completely if you feel something isn’t going in the direction you want it to go in?

PRAGER: For sure. Or I’ll just change it in a really dramatic way. If a face is going a certain direction and it’s just not working, oftentimes, I’ll turn the canvas over and do it on another thing. I always say that it’s telling me at the same time that I’m telling it what it’s going to be. I think that’s important for this kind of work. I never painted abstract before, but it totally borders on that. I can’t do it alone. It has to be an organic, flowy thing. There has to be something in the pure substances that tell me what needs to be there.

KUPPER: Your work started off much more realistic, and it became more abstract. Was that evolution natural?

PRAGER: Like I said, right before I started doing this series, I sat back and was like, why am I painting? What is that I like about it? How will it fulfill the thing that I want to get out into this world? This world, the one that we live in now, not the 1600s or the 1950s. Will it be able to interact with people? Essentially, that’s the purpose - for it to interact with people. In thinking about all that, it changed. It wasn’t quite there for it before. The style I was painting in before didn't make sense for all of those questions.

KUPPER: Your first solo shows have been happening recently. It looks like you’re just getting ready to explore that.

PRAGER: Totally. Had I gone to college, I probably wouldn’t have shown until last year. I started doing pop ups, little things here and there, in stores for one night only. While I was doing that, everyone got to see it. Good, bad, ugly, whatever - it just was. Had I been in school during that time, people wouldn’t have seen the work.

KUPPER: Or only students would have seen it.

PRAGER: Yeah, and they would have tore it to shreds, and I would have cried. [Laughs.] I equate it to that because that’s what makes sense to me. This is the work that I’m really proud of. There is a difference to me. I was still learning then. It’s a matter of figuring out how to release your feeling. Until you do that, you’re always reaching for that. I think I’ll always be exploring new ways to do stuff. That’s the job of an artist.

KUPPER: Part of that process seems like a layering. That seems to be a distinct style of yours. Is that accidental or is that part of it?

PRAGER: It’s part of it. It’s a big part of it. Life isn’t perfect. Things shouldn’t be perfect. I don’t like perfection. What is perfection anyway? History is a part of life, a part of now. The layering was a chance for me to put everything together and have it all still be a part of the thing. That’s how I see layering. I don’t use it in the classical oil-painting, glazing sense, which I’m sure some painters think is really annoying. I use it more in a sculptural sense. Topography and maps, even looking at mountains and rocks and stuff, is really inspiring to me. I use that a lot in the layering process. I enjoy painting with the skylight because it has those shadows. You see it in different lights, and everything changes.

KUPPER: Do you see yourself getting into sculpture?

PRAGER: I may. I really like sculpture. It’s just a matter of how. It’s learning another medium or hiring out. The way I envision it is kind of big. I think this is a good way of getting into that. I do like sculpture. I like the idea of it coming into three dimensions.

KUPPER: I want to talk about fans of your work. Fred Armisen is a big fan of your work.

PRAGER: He’s a pal. He’s a big fan of painting and art in general. He’s super cool and supportive. When we met, we just hit it off and chatted about art. He came over to my studio. Now, he’s hosting my show. It’s great because I think he’s so cool, and I love crossing over to new areas of art. I’m from LA, so the way that I envision having an art show isn’t necessarily classic. We have the movie industry here. Of course, I think it should be integrated. The art world shouldn’t be a separate, special area. I love anything that crosses over and opens it up to other groups of people.

KUPPER: The Hole is a great place for that. They’re really experimental in how they show their shows. And Kathy [Grayson] is a great curator.

PRAGER: She’s amazing. It was a really good fit. I’ve known her for years. She loves painting - she is a painter - but she tends to show the super conceptual work. She shows the picture of a painting, work that’s based on the pure idea. She shows less of the classic oil paintings. It was going to be interesting to see how that crossed over. But she loves oil painting. I thought it was a really good match, in the end. She brought a lot of conceptual stuff to it. The idea for “Voyeur” - we totally vibed on that.

KUPPER: Talk about that. That’s a really interesting way to present the work. A lot of the work, you can only view through a peep hole, right?

PRAGER: One of them you literally cannot get to. It’s an eight-foot painting behind a wall. You can only see it through the peep hole. Some of them you look through peep holes. Walls are set up. It’s in a maze-like fashion. In the end, you get to a painting. It has a definite flow. The idea of “Voyeur” was seeing things that you shouldn’t see. It’s messing with the fact that we have so much information these days. People can find out everything about other people before they even meet them.

KUPPER: What’s next after this series?

PRAGER: I don’t know. The show is still up. I always take a moment to relax and regroup after an opening. That was my first time showing in New York, so I had no idea what was going to happen. I just put everything into it for months. I’m going to have an empty studio. It will be a good place to start. I’ll just start making stuff. I’ll see where the next vibe takes me.

Vanessa Prager's exhibition Voyeur is on view until February 28, 2016 at The Hole NYC, 312 Bowery, New York. Text and photographs by Oliver Kupper. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Art From The Dark Heart of Europe: An Interview With Harlan Levey

I had the great fortune of meeting Brussels-based curator, Harlan Levey, while he was in Burlington, Vermont last October as part of Burlington City Arts' visiting critic program. The curator of that institution, DJ Hellerman, facilitated a meeting that quickly evolved into a lively discussion, not necessarily about local art, but about contemporary art in general, the nature of the art market, and the rewarding challenges that come with conceptually rigorous exhibitions. I was struck by Levey's genuine passion for the artists who comprise his program at Harlan Levey Projects and the integrity with which he works. And just like that, he was back on a plane to Brussels, having reinvigorated Burlington's quiet contemporary art scene.

Harlan Levey Projects Gallery is located in Brussels at the heart of the European capital's gallery district, representing a small, distinctive roster of international artists including TR Ericsson, Jeroen Jongeleen, Abner Preis, Zoe Strauss, Marcin Dudek, and more. We caught up with Levey last week to discuss the storied path that lead him to found Harlan Levey Projects, one that includes professional soccer and literary studies at the European Graduate School, as well as what guides him as curator and informs both the artists he works with and the exhibitions he organizes. 

Abbey Meaker: You’re an expat from Cleveland living in Brussels and you’ve been there for how long?

Harlan Levey: I’ve been in Brussels since the turn of the century. 15 years longer than I ever imagined.

Meaker: I read that it was soccer that prompted the move?

Levey: Soccer was so important to me growing up. It introduced me to people with all different backgrounds and offered me the opportunity to travel from a young age. I love the game and everything it brought me off the field. After college, I harbored dreams of earning a living playing in the Netherlands, but this didn’t work out at all.  

Meaker: How did you go from sports and literary studies to a career in the arts?

If I go back to the late 90s, I was over here in the Benelux, not getting paid to play and in need of a job. I found one at the Center for European Studies (CES) at the University of Maastricht teaching a comparative literature course to study abroad students.  It was a right place, right time situation, which was great, but not so straightforward, because I had no working papers and the semester was starting. CES found a solution by offering to enroll me in an MA program, pay my housing, expenses and a modest living stipend. I was registered as a student, and as an American was thrilled about the opportunity to study anything and get paid for it. The MA wasn’t in literature. It was in a program called ESST, which stands for European Science, Society and Technology studies. If we skip all that, writing, all kinds of writing, framing and illustrating are things a literature study prepares you for.  To return to your question, sports and literature were part of a life journey. My subsequent studies, jobs, and experiences all had a role in leading me towards working in the arts.

Meaker: Does literature inform your curatorial practice?

Levey: Yes. Absolutely. Literature has always informed my life. I am more of a narrator than a curator and am excited by the potential of curating as a form of expanded literary practice.  The gallery’s program has been dominated with narrative driven exhibitions until now.

When I was writing, I never thought about the audience. With the gallery, building audiences and educating clients is a core task. You need to develop audiences for artists, ideas, and the gallery itself. In considering who this audience is, I find myself nodding along with how Fitzgerald told it when he said: “An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.” Via the work of the gallery, I try to ‘write’ with this same approach. Literature definitely has its role.

Meaker: Did you work for other galleries before starting one?

Levey: No. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I knew little about running a gallery when I started one. I had very limited knowledge of the actual business and nearly no capital. I was a total outsider with a history of working with outsider art, and the learning curve has been huge. I had no idea what I was up against. What I did have was a lot of experience working with artists and communicating their ideas. I’d spent 5 years as the Editor in Chief of Modart magazine and director of a non-profit I co-founded with Ruggero Lala called the No New Enemies network, which assisted artists working in public space. 

Meaker: Does No New Enemies still exist?

Levey: Yes. NNE just won an open call from the city and region of Brussels to develop six installations in the tunnels near the local skatepark over the next four years.

Meaker: Do you recall a particular artist or artwork that inspired you to become a gallerist?

Levey: I opened the gallery when Modart magazine went to ground. Of the artists we were featuring there some clear patterns of professional success. For one, there always seemed to be somebody who innovated, who made rather brave work and was followed by somebody this work had inspired who knew how to cash in. The second artist, the one most people have actually heard of, considered commercial translation from the start. This commercial translation often contradicted the essence of what made a work interesting to begin with. I have a great deal of empathy and interest in artists I thought were doing ground-breaking relevant work and were not able (or not interested) to think about commercial strategies. This included artists like Hans Reuschl, Jeroen Jongeleen and Abner Preis. I come from Cleveland. I’ve always been attracted to hard working underdogs.

Meaker: What is the mission of Harlan Levey Projects?

Levey: David Foster Wallace once said something about his belief that good fiction should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Our mission is to make money for our artists and business by doing exactly that.

Meaker: What has been the most challenging exhibition and why?

Levey: “Saved by an Unseen Crack,” a solo exhibition by Marcin Dudek. It was the first exhibition in our new space and came with unprecedented investment, challenges, and risk. The opportunity to move into a larger venue was unexpected. Everything happened very quickly. We had about two months to plan and build the interior of the new space. At the same time, we were preparing for two art fairs in April. Marcin’s opening was scheduled right between them. Marcin was involved in both of those events and was also preparing for a solo exhibition in London with our partner Edel Assanti Gallery shortly thereafter. We were all overwhelmed with a lot on the line. Everything needed to go perfectly. It was a very tense moment.

Meaker: But it all worked out. You had great success in Dallas.

Levey: Yes. In Dallas we were very fortunate to place all of the works that we brought in excellent collections and develop several new relationships. Then came the opening of Marcin’s show, which was also met with a tremendous response.

"He said that if you want to be an artist or a writer, accept suicide as the only viable pension plan."

Meaker: What did you show in Dallas?

Levey: The unspoken booth concept was the ‘greatest country song never written,’ and it featured works from TR Ericsson and Marcin Dudek. This year, we’ll present new works in a similar format.

Meaker: How did you start working with these guys? In general, how do you find new artists?

Levey: This really varies. For example, I met Abner Preis through mutual friends at a punk concert and exhibition I organized in 2006. Haseeb Ahmed and I were both invited by the European Commission to work on a common project. A high school friend introduced me to a dealer in Cleveland who drove me out to meet Tom. I met Jeroen through Abner though I was already a big fan of his work for several years at that point. Marcin and Amelie got in touch with me when they moved to Brussels after reading an article in the free local culture mag. We had dinner together 5 or 6 times before I ever looked at their work. Emmanuel and I met when I was invited to give a lecture and do studio visits at a post-graduate residency program. That all said, I visit studios on a regular basis, have worked on several selection committees, and continue to write for art oriented publications occasionally. I also get introduced to artists through relationships with other galleries and presence at fairs and other events.

Meaker: I am a big fan of gallery artist TR Ericsson. Can you talk about the exhibition All My Love, Always No Matter What, shown in September and October of last year?

Levey: With pleasure! I’m also a big fan of TR Ericsson. His work stops the music of the market. It flattens the hype. Live. Dream. Die. Loop. That’s how it goes, reinterpreting intimate histories with skillful and considered conceptual, contextual and material interventions. The subject matter isn’t easy, and even when there’s direct aesthetic appeal in the images he makes, there’s usually some troubling element embedded within them. Tom’s the real deal and currently one of the most underrated artists of my generation.  He came over with his wife Rose, daughter Susie, brother Mikey and two assistants, Matthew Rowe and Connor Elder. It was a special moment. At the end of the vernissage, we held the European premiere of his film “Crackle & Drag.” About a quarter of the room was in tears by the time it was over.  We followed that up with a performance from Joy Wellboy who had been given texts and images from Tom’s archives and wrote several songs with this material. By the time they were done, more than a quarter of the Ericsson entourage was wet eyed too. I’ve never seen so many people crying in the gallery. At the same time, the whole event was incredibly joyful.

Meaker: Did this important exhibition influence the direction of HLP thereafter?

Levey: All of our core artists influence our direction. In many ways, they are our direction. We’re maturing our practices together.  Tom has become a big part of this. He didn’t change the programming or attitudes of the gallery, but he fit right in with our team and I’ve learned so much from working with him. I’d say the same for everybody else. Our artists reach out to each other with encouragement, criticism and questions. Everybody who feasibly can, shows up at every opening, and while sometimes there’s a bit of ego jousting and skepticism towards new artists in the program, eventually there’s a great respect and admiration from and for everybody. At HLP we’ve cultivated a great team spirit.

Meaker: What can we expect from you—shows, events, fairs, etc.?

Levey: Up next outside of the gallery are fairs in Rotterdam, Dallas and then Brussels. In the gallery we have upcoming group and solo shows. The first is titled “Do You Speak Synergy” and features two artists we represent, Haseeb Ahmed and Emmanuel Van der Auwera, as well as Ella Littwitz and Benjamin Verhoeven who I met along with Emmanuel when working as a guest lecturer at the HISK in Ghent. This is the first show I’ve worked closely on with our new associate curator Denis Maksimov. Denis is a brilliant and passionate guy. He’s made a very welcome addition to the team and we expect great things from him in the future.

The following show in the gallery is “Eat, Shit, Smile” by Abner Preis. Our last show with Abner was an incredible success on many levels, and for better or worse, there won’t be another show like it during the madness of Art Brussels week. I can’t wait.

Meaker: Is there anywhere outside of Brussels to see the work you’re facilitating?

Levey: Right now there’s Instagram, the Art Fairs I mentioned and all of our artists present work internationally. On our website you can sign up for our newsletter to keep posted on events outside of Brussels. 

Meaker: Do you ever partner with other institutions?

Levey: Absolutely. In soccer you’d say, “Let the ball work for you.” We play a passing game. Our attitude is that when you’re growing a small business, all forms of partnership are important. We can always do more with others than trying to make a one in a million run on our own. Knowledge, resource and competency exchanges have been a big part of how we’ve managed to grow the business.

Meaker: What about Brussels? Recently the NY Times called it the “New Berlin.” Do you think this is accurate?

Levey: Berlin has had the reputation of a creative hotbed and Brussels is happy to rightly be described the same way, but Brussels isn’t the new anything. Brussels is beautiful, dysfunctional and surrealistic Brussels. Not so long ago, Berlin represented cheap studio space and living costs along with a vibrant creative community and arts sector. Brussels has the same offer.

Brussels also has per-capita diversity comparable to New York City, and a history of outstanding artistic production from the Flemish Primitives through Marcel Broodthaers to Michael Borremans, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Walter Van Beirendonck, Stromae or Wim Delvoye.  If we talk about fashion, dance, film, music, architecture, comics, painting, contemporary art, whatever, there has always been high quality here. There’s also a strong appetite for it. Then there’s private and public sector support of it. The city’s location is another perk. 3 hours to Amsterdam. 2.2 to London or Cologne. 1.2 to Paris. Brussels has been a crossroads for centuries.

The reason for the sudden interest in Brussels has to do with other things as well. For example, Belgium has the EU’s highest taxes on income and labor, but inherited wealth isn’t taxed at all. When Francois Hollande became President of France in 2012, something like 30,000 Parisians bought property in Brussels. This led to an influx of Parisian galleries that have added to an already exciting local scene.

Meaker: Are you looking forward to Art Brussels?

Levey: Always. It’s an outstanding fair. Katrina Gregos has done a wonderful job developing it over the last few years and I’m proud to be one of two galleries (together with Super Dakota) from Belgium that’s been selected for the Discovery section this year. The fair’s outstanding reputation has been cemented by a flux of new satellite fairs including Independent, Y.I.A., Unpainted and Poppositions. Brussels can’t handle the dozens of satellite fairs that Miami does, but the emergence of all these new events testifies to the strength of the landscape here. If I wasn’t jamming in my Art Brussels booth, I’d visit every one of them.

Meaker: What advice might you give young artists?

Levey: I wouldn’t, but I do appreciate a piece of advice philosopher Wolfgang Schirmacher once gave me. He said that if you want to be an artist or a writer, accept suicide as the only viable pension plan.  You have to be ready to tighten your belt, committed to staying sharp and true to things you might have forgotten.

Meaker: Young curators?

Levey: Find topics that you are passionate about and go deep instead of broad. Ask yourself what help a curator can provide in every project and whom this service benefits. Art can be useless. A curator has to prove that it isn't.

You can visit Harlan Levey Projects' booth at Art Rotterdam 2016, which features artist Emmanuel Van der Auwera's Video Sculpture series. The VIP opening is tonight and the fair opens to the public on February 11 and runs until February 14. Interview and text by Abbey Meaker, co-director of Overnight Projects in Vermont. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Dreams In Blue: An Interview With Artist and Painter Phillip Mueller

text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Viennese artist Phillip Mueller’s art is mythical, fantastical and deranged. It exists on a plane somewhere between Hieronymus Bosch splashed with modern pop references, Thomas Kinkade on acid and a print out from your brain of a recurring nightmare.  However, there is also something so sweet, alluring and romantic about his work. Mueller, whose solo show opens tonight at Carbon 12 Gallery in Dubai, is a genuine painter and he is studious about his work. In a world devoid of figurative meaning in painting, Mueller uses his paint and brushes almost like a protest, and the depth of his work is a war against contemporary’s artist stodginess.  His current exhibition in Dubai, entitled “Dreams In Blue. The Year Phillip Mueller Didn’t Wake Up,” is described as a “dream-inspired road-movie.” One of my favorite pieces by Mueller is a portrait of Byron holding a pack of cigarettes, wearing camouflage and a pope hat – it is painted on a surfboard, which is a regular platform the artist works on. In fact, the surfboard isn’t just a medium, it is yet another piece of the puzzle and symbolism for the artist’s seemingly voracious desire for freedom and rich excess. Rich, not in the sense of monetary wealth, but rich in the sense of life. There is a distinct vitality in Mueller’s work that spills over the canvas edge like an orgy. We got a chance to speak with Mueller shortly before Christmas, when he was still working on his current exhibiton at Carbon 12 Gallery, to discuss his practice, mythology and his desire to get back in the studio and back to work.

 Oliver Kupper: When did you know you first wanted to become an artist?

Philip Mueller: I never wanted to do anything else. I was painting my whole life. When I was 8-12 years old, all of the other boys went to play soccer, and I had painting lessons at the studio. I had lessons from a Croatian painter.  I was always painting.

OK: Did your parents support you as an artist?

PM: Mostly my father did. My mother didn’t want to see me as an artist.

OK: Why’s that?

PM: She was scared I would always be broke, you know? I wouldn’t be able to feed my child.

OK: Your work deals with a lot of allegory and mythology. Where did your interest in mythology originate? Why does it play so heavily in your work?

PM: It was always interesting for me. It’s an imminent level. There are so many strong stories and strong figures. You can tell these stories for the next ten thousand years, and it won’t get boring. You can see all these stories in our contemporary life too.

OK: You can turn to them to find answers, or to figure stuff out.

PM: They exist because of explaining life and humanity.

OK: I want to talk about some of the mediums you use. You use surfboards, which is really interesting. When did you first start exploring the surfboard as a canvas? Have you ever gone surfing? Vienna is kind of far away from surf culture.

PM: Actually, near Vienna there is a lake that is quite big. It’s a well-known place for windsurfing. About 4 to 5 years ago, I bought a windsurf board and started to paint on that. Since the late 50s and early 60s, the surfboard has stood for absolute freedom. It’s also a myth for freedom. It fits on this narrative level. 

OK: Freedom seems to be a major theme in your work. Would you say that freedom is one specific theme that you’re chasing? Is there any specific theme that you’re chasing in your work?

PM: Not only in my work, in my whole life. I’m looking for freedom in everything.

OK: When you conceptualize a work of art, what is that process like? Do you have visions that come to you? It seems like there’s a lot that goes on in your mind before you put paint to canvas.

PM: There are these stories, and I can talk about them. Then, there is a sketch. The canvas is like a playground. It’s like playing. It has to be playing from the start, in the end. Otherwise, it would get boring. It’s very important to have storytelling, but it doesn’t completely inform what I’m painting. Colors, structures, figures—they all come together during the painting. The longer it takes to finish a painting, the more complex and interesting it gets, for myself.  When I think it’s finished, I sit in front of it. That’s the part when the painting tells me what I have just done. The work reflects when it’s done. It’s a very exciting moment.

"There’s a lot of stuff that has to be done. I get really depressed if I haven’t painted for more than three days. Last week was tough because I barely had time to paint. Christmas is coming and I hate it."

OK: You apprenticed with Hermann Nitsch. We did an interview with him, actually. He’s amazing.

PM: He’s fit at the moment. He’s strong again.

OK: Yeah, he seems like it. I still owe him some California wine. What was it like working with him? What kind of impact did that have on your work?

PM: I was working with him at the Castle in Vienna where he lives and works. Normally, his assistants are working for him for 5 to 8 years. I quit after 1 ½ years because there was no time for my own work. Still, I think that time with him was very important for me. He’s one of the most intentioned and sophisticated artists I know. It was also quite heavy. It was good to see this industrial, factory kind of working. I learned things that I would have never learned at university. Creating exhibitions, dealing with art dealer and collectors. It’s quite romantic. There are lots of animals there. In winter, it’s like a Nazi movie.

OK: It’s like a fairytale.

PM: Yeah. Actually, I met him five days ago. He looks good. I didn’t see him for a while.

OK: He seems reinvigorated by something. Maybe more people are appreciating his work.

PM: Yeah. There was a time when the state of Austria was fucking with him.

OK: A lot of countries were.

PM: Yeah, but especially Austria. Now, they want everything from him.

OK: Exactly. Now he’s a national treasure. As soon as American audiences (or another big audience) appreciate his work, the country where he’s from ignores the past completely. Now, you’re a national treasure, no matter how controversial. You could be in jail for twenty years.

PM: [Laughs.] Once the American market embraces an artist, you’re perfectly right. Everything changes suddenly.

OK: Speaking of reception to your work, has there been a certain perception to your work in Dubai? Is there a controversy? What has the response been to your work in Dubai or the Middle East?

PM: Dubai is so international. People from all over the world come to those exhibitions. They are really happy to have my work there. There was this performance I did at my first solo show, “Eat when you can, sleep when you can.” You can watch it on YouTube. It was quite disturbing for most of the audience, I guess. I’m sure they went home and thought, “Wow, what the fuck, but good to have such things here.”

OK: Is there going to be a performance aspect to this new show?

PM: No. I don’t want to do performances at the moment. For the past two years, I haven’t been doing performances. I really want to be a painter.

OK: Do you think people are coming back to figurative work? It seems figurative painting is coming back as a more appreciated art form.

PM: It will come back. On the other side, I don’t care because it’s the only thing I want to do. I will do it anyways. Maybe it will come back because of me. [Laughs.]

OK: You asked people to watch Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky (another person we interviewed) before seeing your show. Why Holy Mountain?

PM: It’s one of his strongest and most complex works. I’m impressed by the project itself, the grand scale of it. Every thirty seconds, you have an idea that is so unique and great. It leads to the next idea. Jodorowsky is interesting because he’s a logistical genius.

OK: And it’s full of symbolism.

PM: Yeah, of course. That leads to my work. He uses symbols that are already socially visible. Skulls, crosses, all of this occult stuff. he brings his own ideas onto those symbols. When you do that, you can create something really big based on those symbols that are already in our heads.

OK: What’s next? Is there a new body of work? You said you would focus on painting.

PM: Yeah, I will focus on painting. I’m so happy with the new works I will exhibit in Dubai. I already started a new series that is based on the works I did for Dubai. There’s a lot of stuff that has to be done. I get really depressed if I haven’t painted for more than three days. Last week was tough because I barely had time to paint. Christmas is coming and I hate it.

OK: You just want to be in the studio.

PM: Yeah, and there’s so much to be done. 

Phillip Mueller “Dreams In Blue. The Year Phillip Mueller Didn’t Wake Up" opens tonight in Dubai and runs until March 6th, 2016 at Carbon 12 Gallery. Unit 37, Alserkal Avenue, Street 8, Al Quoz 1 - Dubai. Photographs courtesy Carbon 12 Gallery. Text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE



Rotten Sun: An Interview With Belgian Musician and Artist Joris Van de Moortel

Joris Van de Moortel, 31, has intrusive bluish-gray eyes. They are unsettling; despite the subdued kindness that surrounds them. Looking in to them one realizes Moortel doesn’t see the same boundaries most of us do, the boundaries that most of us construct our lives around.

Moortel smashes, sometimes literally, the line between art and music. He is both musician and artist and the two feed off one another. Moortel makes mixed media pieces that often incorporate elements of his musical performances; a guitar he smashed on stage the night before, panels from a stage he played on. Sometimes the work comes after a performance; sometimes it’s made during.

The Belgian artist wriggled his way in to art school at 12 years old when he started following a friend’s father to night classes. Moortel graduated from the Higher Institute of Fine Art in Ghent Belgium in 2009. In his early 20’s Moortel sold his first piece through a gallery in Belgium. From that point on he devoted himself entirely to his work. Most everything in Moortel’s world is about simultaneity. At the same time that he was a child drawing nudes he taught himself to play the harmonica, guitar, bass and keys. At the same time that he began selling artwork he was performing in solo shows and with a variety of bands throughout Europe. At the same time that he became an artist he became a rocker.

Moortel stole the spotlight of the European art scene in 2012 when he had his first solo show at the Le Transpalette art center in Bourges, France. In 2014 he performed in an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris titled “Don’t Know You’re Gonna Mess Up the Carpet,’ in which he stood atop a tube with a drummer inside and conducted a mind-bending rock performance involving video screens and neon lights.  Moortel had his ‘coming out’ in the American art world this December at Art Basel Miami where he had his first solo exhibition in the US through the Denis Gardarin Gallery. Days before he had an exhibition open at the Contemporary Art Center of Wargem in Belgium. Next he is off to Madrid for a solo show at the Galerie Nathalie Obadia. In May he’ll come to New York for Frieze art fair. In between he sneaks back to Antwerp to spend time with his young children and maybe get around to cleaning his studio.

SCOUTMACEACHRON: Tell me about your Art Basel exhibition?

JORIS VAN DE MOORTEL: During the making of this exhibition I was also working on a big museum solo show in Belgium which opened the day before I left for Miami. There’s a lot of overlap between those two exhibitions. Like the installation here [gestures to house-like structure]; the one in Belgium is the size of this area [gestures to entire exhibition space]. It’s huge. The drawings in this exhibition are related to the one in Belgium; one is related to a CD recording I did and the other is related to a solo vinyl I did.

MACEACHRON: When you say related to, what do you mean by that?

MOORTEL: This part of the work is part of the exhibition in Belgium but it’s much bigger with real actual speakers that work. These [Gestures to artwork] are casted speakers in resin. All the works here are muted. Nothing makes any sound anymore. These pieces, the back of this piece [Gestures to artwork] also contains speakers but it’s muted. Most of my pieces come from performances. Like this one is part of a stage from a performance I did in Belgium, Singapore and Paris. It is just one part of twelve panels that made up the whole stage. I sprayed it white with an air press gun. And the last one I did was a collaboration with the designers A.F. Vandevorst for a fashion show in Paris. This piece contains elements of the performance; part of the coat I was wearing, speakers, the effects I’m using, neon which is running through the piece.

MACEACHRON: When and why did you start incorporating these objects that are a part of your life, a part of your performances, in to your work?

MOORTEL: I don’t think about it in that kind of sense. I mean it’s all part of the studio. My studio is on the one hand a music studio but sometimes it’s more. At times I’m busy with music and then it shifts. All my wood, all my materials are there; the welding machines, the steel, the aluminum, the cast materials. It’s all in one studio. The performances play a part also, it really depends. Sometimes [the performances] come first and the sculptures come after. Sometimes it’s a part of it from the beginning. Sometimes the work is made during the performance.

MACEACHRON: Tell me about your musical background?

MOORTEL: It goes from age ten or twelve. That was the first time I really hit music, not only listening to it but that was the moment it really becomes important. Then of course I immediately wanted to play it myself but I never wanted to or didn’t take the time or wasn’t patient enough to take classes. Friends of mine did. I started out with the mouth harp and guitar, bass guitar.

MACEACHRON : Did you teach yourself?

MOORTEL: Yeah and friends taught me things. It took quite a few years. Now I play in quite a few bands. For me it’s hard to say something like or hear, “oh you’re a good guitar player, you’re a good bass player.” I would never consider myself like that because I’m not an academic, I didn’t study it. I collaborate with a lot of other musicians. Now I play guitar, sometimes the keys and sometimes also bass guitar in one specific band.

MACEACHRON: Do you remember what music you listened to when you were ten or twelve years old?

MOORTEL: The Doors.

MACEACHRON: Any particular album?

MOORTEL: All of them on vinyl, all of them on CD. I had t-shirts. I had a vest with Jim Morrison on the back. Had I been allowed to get a tattoo at age of fourteen in Belgium I would have had Jim Morrison on my back. I was completely, completely in to that. Also a lot of sixties and seventies music from San Francisco and LA. Then Velvet Underground, the New York scene. Patti Smith, Ramones. All very sixties and seventies.

MACEACHRON: Wow, advanced for a ten-year-old.

MOORTEL: [Laughs] Yeah, I know.

MACEACHRON: Did you go to art school?

MOORTEL: Yeah, when I think about it that’s why I didn’t want to study music. I started when I was twelve. A friend of mine, her father was going to an art school during the evenings and weekends. He was studying sculpture and had a sculpture studio. I asked, “please, could I join you, could you teach me?” It wasn’t really allowed until you’re eighteen but I said, “I really want to.” So I started drawing nude models for years. It was a lot of clay and plaster. I started welding at that age. I kept doing that until I was fifteen and then I went to an art school. I kept going to the other school as well. So that was my only occupation, drawing a lot of nude models, clay studies and painting.

MACEACHRON: So you weren’t studying normal school subjects at all?

MOORTEL: In Belgium you can go to an art school from when you’re fourteen. You get regular classes like math and language and everything but reduced in a way. Your focus is on art. Then I kept on going to art school for high school. When I went to University it was also art school.

MACEACHRON: The type of work you make now, how did that evolve from drawing nudes?

MOORTEL: Well you have all those study years. The way of working is only a growing thing. When you grow up as a human being it’s the same kind of thing I think. A major shift was around twenty, twenty-two when I started building installations. The first exhibitions were mainly installations, not really focused on sculptures or wall pieces or paintings. And then this took over again, by making sculptures again in to what I’m doing now. But it depends on museum shows and institutions. It’s all part of the same thing but you show a different chapter of something.

MACEACHRON: What’s your process like when you’re creating? What’s your studio like?

MOORTEL: Messy.

MACEACHRON: [Laughs] Do you sit around and think about things or do they just come to you? [Joris walks away and returns with glasses of water for us both.] Do you know something is going to be in your work when you see it?

MOORTEL: Like certain elements or parts?

MACEACHRON : Yeah, how do you get from nothing to that [point to one of his artworks]?

MOORTEL: Most of the, for example the basis of this kind of piece they come from really big installations. So the frame is already there some how. Like this frame was apart of the stage. So the frame is there. And it wasn’t the intent, I mean those frames I didn’t use them for two years after the performance. Also with these [gestures to artwork] they traveled from my show in the Netherlands in a museum then to Berlin then to Paris and then back to studio. I almost wanted to throw them away but I kept them for some reason and then they were the first pieces for a gallery show I was working on at Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Brussels. They got really well received. From one thing comes another. A lot of pieces travel from show to show and don’t get sold and then eventually they end up in another piece. Mostly the moment it gets sold that’s where it leaves me so I can’t redo it or whatever. When pieces come back to the studio they don’t leave out the same way.

MACEACHRON: So everything is constantly evolving, including yourself, I suppose that’s the nature of art. Did you go through a starving artist phase or were you successful from a young age?

MOORTEL: I always had jobs and worked. I was self-employed quite often.

MACEACHRON: What kinds of jobs?

MOORTEL: Record stores, bars. That was only when I was in art school because I didn’t finish it. I did two residencies but I didn’t finish with any degree. At twenty or twenty-four I started working with my first gallery in Belgium. It worked out from the first moment. I did one really huge piece for the gallery show and it was sold. I could make a living off that for almost two years. So then I became self-employed.

MACEACHRON: It sounds like most of your work is much larger than what’s here at Basel.

MOORTEL: Yeah, there’s always a balance with these kinds of things. But this presentation is what the gallery shows look like.

MACEACHRON: Speaking of galleries, how did you connect with the Denis Gardarin gallery?

MOORTEL: It is the first time we’ve worked together but it’s been going very well. They’re really working hard. We’re almost sold out so it’s moving. Also in terms of audience they’re all American collectors. They didn’t know me before so they’re responsive and very… I’m really surprised in a way. I came here thinking, “oh this will go fine.” I wasn’t worried but I also didn’t expect anything. But American collectors are like, ‘oh this is great, I’ll get it.’ That doesn’t happen in Europe. People come back. Even collectors who have five pieces say ‘oh let me think about it, can you put it on hold for a week?’ This doesn’t happen in Europe.

MACEACHRON: Americans just go for it. So you’ve sold some pieces so far, everything?

MOORTEL: Basically everything yeah. I mean there are a few left but most have sold.

MACEACHRON: This is your first solo show in the US right?

MOORTEL: Yeah, I was in the Armory show before but that was five years ago so the work was kinda different. Something like this it’s the first time.

MACEACHRON: This is an incredibly vague question so answer however you like. What differences do you see in the art world in Belgium/Europe and the states?

MOORTEL: I think with all these fairs… it’s the same as shopping for clothes for instance. Ten years ago you didn’t have the shops in Belgium that you had in New York. But now you have H&M, whatever, Zara, that took away the exotic kind of thing. The art fairs took away some of the exotic things. You don’t have to discover in Europe European artists. You’ll have to go to Brussels, Antwerp to discover… well we’re talking about me, to discover me because I’m in a European art fair or gallery. So in a way that generalized and made it easier to go around, which in a way is a good thing because there’s so much going on. You need those art fairs to actually see something because you can’t go all over the world all of the time. A lot of things have changed through the years. The world population has multiplied by three or four. So also the art world is growing. In the sixties and seventies it was way different, there were less artists because there were less people on the planet.

MACEACHRON: This is another vague question but what inspires you? Other artists? A feeling?

MOORTEL:  It depends. It’s come from so many different angles. It’s music, the work itself—looking back at pieces you did years ago or even last year—things you read. I’m always reading multiple things at the same time. I’ve been absorbed by Albert Camus again, his essays on Kafka. George Bataille, his essay “Rotten Sun” is the title of the exhibition. It comes from many different angles. I don’t have a specific sort of… there’s a certain pattern or a wave of making things and then there are times that I go to the studio but don’t do much. I read, I play some music. And then there are times when you don’t have time to because you’re really making work. It’s always in that kind of wave. In times, for me it works to go to the same places over and over. Like next week I will hang out in one coffee bar where I get in to that rhythm of reading, writing, reading, writing, reading, writing. I don’t have time for that when I’m working in the studio. Then the next project is in Madrid so I have to work on that again. It will go in a wave of thinking about what I have to do then doing it.

MACEACHRON: What’s your process like in a physical sense? Are you regimented, do you get up very early, do you stay up all night, do you drink bourbon?

MOORTEL: I have two kids. I’m not really a… I used to drink a lot but I don’t like alcohol anymore.

MACEACHRON: Do you think it changed you at all as an artist?

MOORTEL: Um, you’re dealing differently with time. The concept of time is completely vague when you don’t have kids, when you don’t have a job because as an artist you don’t have a real job. You don’t have limits on time; you don’t have to wake up, you don’t have to go to sleep, you don’t have to do anything you just have to… you have you’re deadlines but it’s really vague. Of course you work a lot but it’s not, you don’t need an alarm clock or anything. With kids you also don’t need an alarm clock because they wake you. It makes you go to bed earlier, it makes you drink a lot more coffee, it makes you drink less alcohol, it makes you go out less—so all the good stuff.

MACEACHRON: What do your children think of their dad being an artist? I know they’re young.

MOORTEL: When I Skype with them they’re more interested in the food I’m getting here than what I’m actually doing out here. But no they really enjoy it when they come in the studio, it’s opposite the house. The six year-old likes to draw, she likes guitar and noisy stuff. Last time she was in the studio she said, “Daddy, there’s so much stuff out here I really need to help you to get some order in here. I really should help you make your stuff.”

MACEACHRON ; My goodness that’s pretty cute.

MOORTEL: Yeah it was really sweet. It was really honest. Like, “there’s so much stuff out here.”

MACEACHRON: That is sweet. Are there any installations or pieces that mean more to you than others, perhaps a defining moment in the process?

MOORTEL: In a way a piece like this comes from a specific installation, which really means a lot to me. The piece is like a proper extraction from that so it’s a direct storyline for a piece like this. There are many more angles and stories for a piece like this. When you start talking about it it’s like “this comes from there and this comes form there.” But I always work within the concept of an exhibition, like a solo show, even if it’s only a fair booth. They’re all connected somehow to each other. Ideally, when you talk in terms of collection they should get this and install it like this but I’m not thinking like that because it should be how it was conceived and how it’s made in a way.

MACEACHRON: You mean all the works here should be displayed together?

MOORTEL: Yeah, but it’s also a nice idea that everything goes. They come from a different angle, different sources, they come together at one point and then they leave each other. That’s also beautiful.

MACEACHRON: Where are you going next?

MOORTEL: Hoboken, it’s a part of Antwerp. Next up is Madrid. Then New York in May for Frieze. Then Paris, Vienna, Belgium.

MACEACHRON : How long do you get to be home and see your family?

MOORTEL: Oh as much as I can.

You can catch Joris Van de Moortel's solo exhibition "Ça vous intéresse l'architecture? Botanics of sound in which wires get crossed and play with the rythmic structure" on view now until January 31, 2016 at BE-PART in Waregem, Belgium. text, interview and photographs by Scout MacEachron. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Uprooting Sculpture As We Know It: An Interview With Artist James Capper

text and interview by Scout MacEachron

James Capper looks a bit like a mad scientist. He is standing in the middle of a park holding a comically large box with buttons and joysticks on it. It’s raining and everything, including Capper, appears to be sinking in to the grass. His hair and clothing are soaked; his expression part exasperation, part intense focus. The box is attached to a Mini-Cooper-sized, spider-like machine that Capper is controlling. The machine raises and lowers it’s legs, taking chunks of grass with it. A small crowd gathers to watch. “I didn’t expect all the rain,” Capper says to no one in particular.

Capper is a 28 year-old British artist redefining what we think of as sculpture (i.e. a chiseled Greek naked person made of marble). Capper’s sculptures move. The one he’s currently controlling is a walking machine or earth marker. It looks something like a moon walker meets spider meets robot. The idea was born from a show at the Paul Kasmin gallery in New York in February called “MOUNTAINEER TEETH.” Capper’s goal with the Mountaineer design is to create a sculpture he can sit inside of and climb up a mountain. The exhibition was his first solo show in the US and included various sculptures and drawings. The gallery represents Capper. They are the ones that arranged for him to participate in this year’s Art Basel Miami where he showed one of his sculptures in the afore mentioned Collins Public Sculpture Park.

Capper is shockingly young for an artist of his prowess. He graduated from the Chelsea College of Art and Design with a B.A. and immediately began working. His work has been shown at the Saatchi Gallery in London and the Moving Museum in Dubai among others. Capper began drawing at an early age but it wasn’t until he learned how to weld that he turned his attention to sculpture. His interest in machinery, engineering and the industrial quickly led him towards the moving sculpture.

I met Capper at Collins Park to observe his moving sculpture. At over 6 ft tall he held an umbrella over my and his publicist’s heads as we ran to the nearby W hotel. Tucked on stools at the hotel café we chatted over hot coffee. I sat on his right side, Capper can’t hear out of his left ear.

In reality Capper is far from a mad scientist type in appearance and personality. He is thoughtful, genuine and soft spoken in the way that someone whose ego has yet to be inflated by greatness is. Capper is handsome, in a British way. As he talks it becomes clear that he is deeply passionate about his work. He has a vision and that vision is and will revolutionize the medium of sculpture. Expect great things from Capper in the years to come. And if one day you see a spider-like machine walking up a mountain with a man inside it is most likely him.

AUTRE: How did you end up at Basel this year?

JAMES CAPPER: Paul Kasmin started representing me in March of this year. I had a show at his gallery in New York called “Mountaineer.” It was a survey show of drawings and sculptures. There were eight sculptures that sat around the walls, which were the component parts of a much larger concept. They were called “Mountaineer Teeth.” And then there were something like 25 drawings. Initially, that’s where my work begins from, where ideas manifest.

AUTRE: Drawing?

CAPPER: Yes, drawing.

AUTRE: Tell me about your beginning as an artist. Were you the kid who grew up knowing what he wanted to do? You have a pretty interesting niche.

CAPPER: I’ve always drawn. I’ve always felt a lot more comfortable drawing than actually writing. In some ways, the best way I can translate ideas is through drawing. That’s where I started. I always had pencils and pens. Now, that’s still a fundamental part of my mannerisms as an artist. That is the one key element that drove me to art school. I knew that there was one thing I could always fall back on—that I could draw. My interest in sculpture really opened up in art school. I went to the Chelsea College of Art in London, and then I went to the Royal College of Art in London.

AUTRE: Do you remember what you drew as a kid? Was it abstract or normal kid stuff? Maybe some of both?

CAPPER: I would say it was just the normal stuff that kids my age would draw, but it really came out on my foundation. The drawing teacher told me, “You have a really straight line. It’s not like these scribbly, scattered lines.” That really opened up, for me, the possibility of making the drawings I make today. I’ve always enjoyed it. I’ve always had my quiet moment where I sit down and make drawings. When I make drawings today, I have to have some sort of solidarity or quietness to be able to convey ideas. I can’t do it when I’m under stress or pressure from the studio. That, fundamentally, is where the ideas come from. I draw from an open mind. They are a way of articulating thoughts.

AUTRE: Tell me a bit more about when you were in school. How did your interest in sculpture develop?

CAPPER: Before getting into Chelsea, I didn’t know if I would ever get into art school. I enrolled in a job where I ended up helping out some fabricators. They were doing heavy fabrication—welding stilts together. I understood, having drawn from a young age, that it’s not that far between a pen and a welding torch. You have to have a fairly steady hand, an idea, and a certain confidence in what you’re doing. The transition between being able to draw and being able to weld was like the transition between a saxophonist and a trombonist. It’s a very smooth transition. What I found before getting into Chelsea was that my fabricating skill in metals was getting quite good. I wanted to open that up in these workshops I took in art school, particularly in woodworking. I ended up doing a lot of abstract sculptures. I was very inspired by David Smith and Tony Caro. That’s what helped me get through my first year of art school. Then, I realized that I was really interested in making what I had made while welding—these big, still, moving structures. So, I started investigating that. Those are the primal beginnings of this language, this DNA of what I do now. It all came from fusing all these different things—primary drawing, a little bit of knowledge in fabrication, and art school.

AUTRE: Give me a brief sketch of your path from art school to now.

CAPPER: In my second year at Chelsea, I met this amazing young woman called Hannah Barry. She ended up inviting me to exhibit my work in a group show—what we called a “squat scene.” You guys probably have the same thing in the States—artists have exhibitions derelict buildings. That’s what started this relationship with Hannah and the other artists involved in this squat. A year later, pre-graduation, she opened a gallery in the Southeast part of London called Peckham. I had my first show there, which was a drawing show. From there on, this relationship unfolded. I’ve been working with her for eight years now, and she’s done her utmost best to help me produce ideas. For instance, this year, we produced “Atlas,” which was an idea for a work that I had in 2007. For both of us, we know how much of an achievement that is. It was an idea from, essentially, the beginning. We were commissioned by Henry Moore Foundation a couple of months back, and the show is still running in London.

AUTRE: From the drawing, when did you start building the type of work I saw outside?

CAPPER: There were a number of drawings that I made in 2009, when I was at the Royal College of Art, the sculpture school based in South London. I sat down one morning, having just enrolled in the place, seeing this phenomenal facility. But I didn’t have a penny to my name. So I thought, I can always fall back on my drawing. I put together a whole bunch of drawings on this translucent paper of my dream ideas. These ideas, predominantly, started the foundations of what I now call “Earth Marking.” They were a whole bunch of mobile sculptures. Hannah and I try not to use the word “kinetic,” because it gets confusing. We’re talking about heavy engineering, rather than something more whimsical. And we’re talking about innovation as well, which is something I don’t believe we see a huge amount of in the latter. Predominantly, I put down these ideas thinking, “If I had all the time and money and everything in the world, this is what I would do.” I just went out into the abyss. That was the first time I found this error in my thinking. It’s like a reconnaissance area, where I can go completely off the track of art, engineering, technology, etc., and come back with ideas and predictions. Things I wanted to aim my target to. These were the first target drawings, one of them being “Mountaineer.”

AUTRE: Tell me more about Mountaineer.

CAPPER: Mountaineer was a mobile sculpture that I would be able to sit inside—like an operating crane—and climb up a mountain. It has these four telescopic legs. It’s very much like a crane or an excavator, but very influenced by insects, on a large scale. It was making those drawings, and seeing films like Fitzcarraldo, where he pulls the ship over the mountain, that influenced me in this radical way. That was the beginning of this investigation, what I do and who I am today.

AUTRE: Have you ever had an interest in engineering? Did you teach yourself?

CAPPER: The biggest thing I had to teach myself in the latter years to make these dream drawings come true was building the relationships I have with my industrial supply chain. I needed to be able to delegate as well as manufacture things that are true to the drawings and the ideas. Being a good drawer and being a good welder means that the principles and the skeleton of the sculpture are together. Then, moving from the studio to the power coaters allows it to be painted very well. Their work is fantastic. Being able to work with the hydraulic engineers who make the hoses is also fantastic.

AUTRE: What is your London studio like?

CAPPER: They say this area of Southeast London—Kent Road—is quite a rough area. In the British Monopoly, it’s one of the cheapest ones on the board. But it’s getting good. Peckham—where we originally had the squat—has turned into a huge art district in Southeast London. It’s maybe partly to do with the amount of artists who have moved into the area. My area, when I moved into it, was predominantly industry. I moved into it to move next to the powder coating place so that I could paint. Now, there are warehouses full of artists.

AUTRE: It’s kind of like Brooklyn.

CAPPER: They are inspiring places to be. When the artists come in, they’re even more interesting. This area being full of warehouses—whether it could gentrify, I don’t really know. Unless they start knocking the warehouses down. That’s happened in London. It’s a good piece of London for artists, and it could be like that for another ten years, I imagine.

AUTRE: What’s your process like when you’re in the studio? What sparks your creativity?

CAPPER: It’s really quite mundane. It’s like a normal day. I start around 8, I stop for lunch around 1, and I finish at 6. It’s probably a bit of a longer day for most of the industry guys who start at half-8 and clock off at half-4. If you were to walk into the studio, you would think it was a manufacturing shop. I occasionally people dropping in and saying, “Hey, do you reckon you could weld this up for me, mate?” I have to try to explain to them. Sometimes we give in.

AUTRE: Tell me more about this piece specifically. How did it come about?

CAPPER: It’s been about two years work. I made drawings of a family of prototypes, Mountaineer being one of them as well. The drawing started off as this program where I wanted to investigate radical engineering to make things walk. I wanted some kind of propulsion that could transverse across many different kinds of terrain. It’s kind of like one of those things which already proves itself. A while back, I made this piece called “Midi Marker.” It moves like a caterpillar—expanding and contracting. It’s super simple. That went on to influence Greenhorn, which is a much larger work. I ended up making these four articulating arms—I call them flippers. It can steer around the forest. It’s amphibious.

AUTRE: When I think of a traditional sculpture, I think of something that does not move. What does it mean to have your sculptures move? You could have just created your drawings in an immobile way. Why did you add the movement element?

CAPPER: I saw this one work in Chelsea, in a very rare catalogue. It was Michael Heizer’s “Dragged Mass.” I loved it so much I photocopied it and made my own. The work was commissioned to be outside the newly built Detroit School of Art. He delivered something like a 60-ton piece of sandstone, and he had two bulldozers drag the stone until the machine stopped. What it did was it left this huge mark behind it. It sunk into the ground. He got into a lot of trouble, because it didn’t look like a sculpture. But that opened my eyes to what sculpture could be. That lead me on to an investigation in Land Art. Heizer was swapping his canvas and paintbrush for sticks of dynamite and a bulldozer. It reminded me of the relationship between drawing and welding. I was wanting to make something really pioneering. I didn’t want to be a copycat.

AUTRE: It sounds like a lot of your pieces interact with land in some way. There’s a contrast between the electrical, the mechanical, and the earth. Is that intentional? 

CAPPER: I say with “Earth Marking” that it’s not so much that I’ve made a glorified pencil making the ground. The mark making they make is a forensic analysis. It informs how I can make the work better. I want to make this highly methodical walking machine, which is radical engineering. The only way you can really investigate and move forward in it is to take into account all the marks left to perfect these things. For instance, I see a number of engineers copying animals when there are similar ways to get these movements. There are simpler methods, and more graceful movements. It makes the marks and the machine pieces of work in their own right. For instance, “Atlas” and some other works all sit on these concrete blocks that they made. They stand on the work that they made.

AUTRE: Collins Park, were they worried about the sculpture messing up their grass?

CAPPER: They were super amazing about it. In order to initially install these works, we were going to lay down all these sod to get the forklifts and the equipment in. And they were like, “It’s fine, just drive on the grass.” It’s the land of understanding.

AUTRE: On a day-to-day basis when you’re home, how would you describe yourself? You seem pretty put together and responsible—not like a crazy artist. What do you like to do when you’re not making art?

CAPPER: It’s difficult. Being a young sculptor—or any young artist—there’s a challenge of finding the initial production costs and budgets for these works. I’m pretty much working every day of the week. It’s totally a life thing. It’s part of my lifestyle now. If I’m not working, I’m thinking about it. If I’m not thinking about it, I’m working on something. This year, I made 45 drawings and 21 sculptures. I’m used to making about 4 sculptures a year. This year has been a really crazy year for me. Aside from that, I like to take trips out of London into the outside countryside, into Kent. I enjoy time out on the local scene in Peckham with my friends—the Peckham Badboy Club. I find time outside of what I do, but I’m mostly working. It’s what I love. I haven’t found anything so far to put me off of it.

AUTRE: Do you feel like, in the past year, you’re at that point in your career where everything is exciting? Or has it been steady?

CAPPER: I’ve been taking a lot more risks. I’m trying to get these dream works made. I’m sending them out of the studio with no compromises. That’s one of my biggest ethoses. It makes me less of a commercial entity. The main priority of this year—having the representation—is still making sure the work has the maximum output and impact. It’s not like resting back and watching things take over. It’s been a really challenging year, and I hope there are many more to come.

AUTRE: What’s your dream at the moment? The Mountaineer climbing?

CAPPER: Yeah. You have to always have a 25-year dream. Otherwise, you don’t know what you’re aiming for. For an artist, you’re limitless. So yeah, there are ideas for Mountaineer. The machine comes in three sizes: a four ton machine, an eight ton, and then a thirty ton. That’s what I call the “Mountaineer Super Climb.” There are drawings for these. There’s a work that I call the “Walking Ship.” If you looked at it, it would look like a fishing boat of some sort. But I would modify it, I would put legs on it, so I could walk out into the sea. I would turn the cargo part into a studio. Ideally, I’d love to take it to Venice Biennale and have parties on it. Before Venice sinks!

AUTRE: What’s next for you?

CAPPER: Next year, I’ve been invited by the Sol LeWitt Foundation to participate in a residency, in Spoleto, outside of Rome. I also just found out that they’re interested in commissioning Number 10 in the long list. To get all of these ideas made may still take a few years, but that will be a great body of work. We’ll be testing those works in the mountains in Spoleto this summer. I’m really looking forward to that. It’s an expedition. 

You can visit James Capper's website here. Text and photographs by Scout MacEachron. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

All Or Nothing: A Conversation With The Legendary Artist, Writer And Cultural Survivalist Jack Walls

text and interview by Adam Lehrer

Getting to talk to your heroes is a double-edged sword. On one hand, there is a massive sense of glee and feeling of, “Damn I’m doing it” that arises in anticipation of the conversation. On the other hand, the recourse of the hero in question becoming an actual flawed human being stripped of the mystical powers that you have built up around them in your mind is a serious concern. That made it all the more gratifying to me that after talking to artist and writer Jack Walls, the man became both more human AND more mythic to me throughout the conversation.

Walls is known throughout the art world as many things. A poet. A creator of images. A romantic. The long-term boyfriend of the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. A perennial outsider artist rebel. An icon.

He dreamed of being a writer and an artist since he was a South Chicago gang-affiliated youth in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, surely being one of the few men to look tough with an Oscar Wilde book in his hand. With a penchant for adventure, he joined the Navy in the ‘70s, settling in New York City after.

Walls became a slightly enigmatic downtown NYC staple as Mapplethorpe’s boyfriend in the ‘80s, often appearing in Mapplethorpe’s images clad in tight jeans and a tank top. After Mapplethorpe’s death in 1989, Walls embarked on a film career, studying at Chicago Filmmakers. He tried to get a Mapplethorpe biopic off the ground for years before being frustrated into stagnation in the ‘90s.

When Ryan McGinley, Dash Snow, and Dan Colen formulated a new downtown NYC rebel art scene in the late ‘90s, they all uniformly cited one artist as a massive influence: Jack Walls. The trio was hell bent on having Walls become a mentor of sorts to them, perhaps even a father figure, and eventually Walls relented. Through the process, an entirely new generation of art weirdoes found themselves interested in the work of Jack Walls. He was the subject of a solo exhibit at RARE this past summer, while another exhibition Paintings, Et Cetera opened up at Basilica in Hudson. Though Walls claims to have no interest in the “antiquated system” that is the art world, the art world is surely interested in him.

His writing is also getting more attention than ever. His poem The Ebony Prick of the White Rose’s Thorn, an epic rumination on love, grief, and life after love, garnered near unanimous praise. Indeed, it’s a devastating read.

Few artists have been able to shift between visual art and the written word as seamlessly as Walls. When photographing him for this article in Gramercy Park, it’s clear as to why: the man oozes soul and poetry. Just sitting still, he gives off the presence of a man deep in profound contemplation. Walls and I were able to speak at length on, well, everything: his early impressions of literature, Mapplethorpe, Dash and crew, the art world, and the strength that can only be achieved through tremendous grief.

Now based in Hudson Valley, Walls is as active as ever.

ADAM LEHRER: When you went to the Navy, you took three books with you: the dictionary, the Bible, and Babel by Patti Smith. The dictionary and the Bible are, of course, important works for any aspiring writer, but what was it about Patti Smith’s book that made it the third essential book? How did it affect you as a writer?

JACK WALLS: I discovered Babel before I knew anything about Patti as a singer. I was listening to soul music. The punk thing was new. I was aware of Patti’s image, but I never listened to her. I saw that she had a book out, and I picked it up. Every time I would look back at a passage, it did something else. Right away, I knew that this was not something you read in one reading. It’s something that evolves. I thought it was interesting how she flipped language back on itself. I knew it was special. It was something that you can pick up and read starting anywhere—just like the Bible and the dictionary.

LEHRER: So you love words?

WALLS: Mm-hmm.

LEHRER: I think all artistically inclined people have one thing they’re sensitive to. Maybe a painter is sensitive to visuals. A musician is sensitive to sounds. Are you more sensitive to words than you are to visuals?

WALLS: No. I look at words as paintings. Any good writing is visual. Any good sentence paints a picture. Having said that, I spend a lot of time with photographers. [A lot of them] don’t read. Beyond that, they’re terrible spellers. Their whole thing is visual. I don’t know if that’s true of all photographers; no one’s today. But from my own personal experience, I can tell you. One of them was Robert. There are others that I’d rather not mention.

LEHRER: When you started reading heavily in Chicago—James Baldwin, Oscar Wilde—did literature fill a void that you were, up to that point, filling with gangs and that sort of lifestyle?

WALLS: I always knew how to draw and paint. They say God gives everyone a gift, and I took it for granted. The challenge for me was wanting to be a writer. When I was in seventh grade, I read Manchild in the Promised Land. I was obsessed with that book. Where I grew up, on the South Side of Chicago, wasn’t [that different] from Harlem, though Harlem was much more gritty. Even though it was tough, it was still sugarcoated in the way Claude Brown wrote Manchild in the Promised Land. It made me want to go to New York. It made me want to be a writer. It made me want to try heroin. I thought that I would have a better chance at success as a writer than as a painter. The tools were minimal—a pencil and a piece of paper. If you were big time, you would have a typewriter. To be a painter and an artist, you would need a whole arsenal of utilities. It’s a lot to carry around. Having said that, even as I was trying to make myself into a writer, I had sketchbooks. I was always doodling. I always had the reputation of being a good drawer. When I was in the military and in gangs, people would always say, “You draw so good.”

LEHRER: You describe yourself as a romantic, or being invested in romanticism. Especially from a certain time period, there’s a romantic vision of a writer. I always think of William S. Burroughs with a hashpipe sitting in a nice bed somewhere. Did you have a romantic vision of being a writer?

WALLS: Oh, yeah. I didn’t join the Navy because I was patriotic. I joined the Navy because I wanted to see the world. By that time, I had stumbled across Genet. Before I joined the Navy, I was going to the gay bars on the North Side. There were always these soldiers coming from Great Lakes, which was the naval base outside of Chicago. That sparked my imagination.

LEHRER: So, you were thirsting for experience more than anything, and hoping to filter that into your writing?

WALLS: I knew that in order for me to write, I had to go out and have adventures. I was joining the navy to write about it later. At that point, before the Navy, what was my experience? West Side Story? That was done already. Especially by the time I joined the Navy in the late ‘70s, the narrative of growing up in the inner city and being a gangbanger—that was uninteresting.

LEHRER: I read your interview with Ryan McGinley in Vice some years back. You said that gang life had a romanticism to it. Do you still feel that way? Maybe it was romantic when you were involved with it, but now hearing about what’s happening on the South Side of Chicago, there doesn’t seem to be anything romantic about it.

WALLS: Back then, we were still basically living in the 1930s. We were fashioning ourselves off Bonnie and Clyde. We were mimicking Humphrey Bogart, John Dillinger, James Cagney. We even dressed like that. I look back at it now as play-acting. These kids today are play-acting, but they’re play-acting Scarface. These guys go to Iraq, and they come back to gangbang. They learn how to gangbang in that war with real weapons. So it’s a real difference. People are not so naïve. It’s hard to romanticize people flying planes into the World Trade Center. There’s nothing romantic about that at all.

LEHRER: When you got out of the Navy, were you already making art and/or writing, or did you kind of start when you met Robert?

WALLS: I was always doing it. But I was doing it because it was what I did. I didn’t go to art school. Some people move to Manhattan specifically to start hanging out in galleries. I wasn’t overtly thinking like that. I got real jobs. I worked as an usher in a movie theatre. I tried to be a waiter. Then, I ended up as an office clerk for a car company. That’s what I was doing when I met Robert.

LEHRER: When you met him, did you know he was a famous photographer, or were you just attracted to him?

WALLS: It comes back to Babel. In Babel, one of the first pictures is of this guy holding up what I thought was a string. It was a self-portrait of Robert pushing the plunger to take the picture. I didn’t realize that was him when I met him. I was living with Robert for several months [when I realized it was him]. I went to St. Mark’s Bookstore, and they had reissued Babel. I picked it up, and when I opened the book, the picture of the guy with the string was Robert. This book… This guy—I carried it around with me for my entire military career. I didn’t put two and two together until we had known each other for about a year. And I was like, “Babe, that’s you.”

"Grief and romanticism is the same thing. If you can romanticize grief, I don’t want to say you hit the jackpot, but you really have something. What are you going to do, wallow in it?"

LEHRER: That’s amazing.

WALLS: I think experiences happen to you for a reason. And then there’s the simple fact that I’m here. Why am I here? Robert died of AIDS; most of the people I know died of AIDS. Here I am at 58-years old, healthy as a horse for the most part. Is there some sort of plan? I didn’t have my first one-man show until I was 50. I was minding my own business when I met Ryan McGinley, Dan Colen, and Dash Snow. This was the late ‘90s. In the late ‘90s, the art world had shifted, especially the young art world. It was more independent films and Sundance. Sam Rockwell. Jeffrey Wright. The list goes on and on. The art world was wide open for Ryan and Dash.

LEHRER: Those guys turned out to be incredibly successful and influential. What did you find so exciting about them when you first met them?

WALLS: Nothing.

LEHRER: Haha, nothing?

WALLS: Dash was 17-years old. He was doing this graffiti thing. I thought he was going to get in trouble. He was always running from cops. That’s also when the point and shoot came out. Photography was getting easier. Everybody became a photographer, as evidenced by Instagram. Dan Colen had just got off at RISD. He was the only one that seemed to have a plan. The first painting he ever did, which we showed to me, said “JACK.” Just my name, and he had fake diamonds and all this stuff in it. His plan was to only make two paintings a year, but they were going to cost $20,000. He thought he could make $40,000 a year, and that would be it. I didn’t know it was going to take off the way it did. I remember when Ryan told me that he was going to have a show at the Whitney. I thought it was never going to happen.

LEHRER: Were they nuisances? Were they destined to have you as their mentor?

WALLS: I don’t know. I used to party with them. We would be hanging out in Cherry Tavern. It didn’t occur to me that I would be a mentor. It was more organic, I guess. Their pictures were so good; VICE became interested in them. Ryan became their photo editor. Dash was taking pictures and that’s when he was doing these photo-realism things.

LEHRER: I feel like people are so interested in Dash because of this lifestyle or this myth that he created around himself. People forget that there was a lot of emotion and a lot of politics in his work.

WALLS: Oh yeah. He used to drive me crazy. Everything was an inside joke. Dash got locked up in LA, so he had to do some time out there. Once you get locked up, the white people hang out with the white people, the black people hang out with the black people. Dash’s natural instinct is to hang out with black kids. He goes over to them, and they say, “Uh, you can’t do that.” He was a natural rebel. And that was a part of his charm. The kid didn’t give a fuck either, which is really important. I don’t give a fuck either.

LEHRER: It was almost like a rejection of the art world, but then it became almost the status quo in the art world.

WALLS: It was not aimed at trying to impress people in the art world. That’s what it has to be. It has to be like: “Fuck you.” When I was with Robert, I saw how the art world worked. He wanted to be this “artist person.” But I actually saw the politics and mechanizations of the art world. And then Jean-Michel—poor thing. His approach to the art world was all attitude and spirit, and the art world fell at his feet.

LEHRER: You’re one of the few guys who was a part of the 1980s art world—Basquiat, Keith Harring, Robert—and the next big wave—with Dash, Dan, and those guys. Do you worry that that epic downtown scene is becoming impossible in the city now?

WALLS: Oh, it’s terrible now. We were living in the center of the universe. Now, the center of the universe is the Internet. That’s what it all boils down to. I think it’s a good tool to use to get a point across and show art. But some people want to take pictures of food all day long, or take pictures of cats.

LEHRER: I wanted to talk to you about the screenplay you wrote—Somebody’s Sins—about Robert’s early years. I know it got scrapped, but given the enduring influence he’s had, do you think you would revisit it?

WALLS: It’s being revisited right now.

LEHRER: No shit? That’s fantastic.

WALLS: I wrote that in the ‘90s. I was trying to get it picked up by Hollywood. When I first met Ryan, it was lying around, and he read it in one sitting. So that’s what I was doing in the ‘90s, writing about Robert’s early years before he became famous. But it didn’t happen. And 9/11 happened, which kickstarted me into doing paintings and making things to show.

LEHRER: After the movie didn’t come through, and you were in that period of stagnation, were you disappointed about the project, or was it deeper than that?

WALLS: What I learned from that was that any contract can be broken. In Hollywood and in New York, everybody signed on the dotted line, and it just didn’t happen. It was written about in the press and everything. I have a scrapbook of this shit. They tried to resuscitate that thing a bunch of times. About three years ago, I rewrote it. In this version, Robert is dead by page 30. When he dies, we’re already a half hour into the movie. Then, it covers Ryan McGinley and Dash Snow—they come into it. And I stopped at 64 pages. I left it open-ended. I wouldn’t call it a documentary. It’s a piece of art.

LEHRER: You have always been pretty interested in cinema, even before you went to the Chicago Filmmakers to study?

WALLS: How could you not? I grew up watching the Golden Age of film—Bette Davis, Joan Crawford. Those people know how to act. There was none of this Keanu Reeves bullshit. That’s not acting. These are personalities saying words. They lead these scandalous lives, they drink blood or whatever, and then they go make movies.

LEHRER: There are some great actors out there—Tom Hardy, Michael Fassbender. And Sean Baker just made Tangerine. He wanted to make that movie so badly that he filmed it all on his iPhone. I feel like now is an excellent time for your movie ideas to come to life because there are so many people getting them made.

WALLS: Absolutely. Hollywood is like the art world. It’s an antiquated system. I have friends around my age that are trying to make films. They’re always going around looking for money. They look ridiculous. On top of that, you don’t really need money. All you need is energy and half a brain. You can figure it out. If you have a computer, you can do just about anything. If people stop spending so much time watching porn on their computers, maybe they could get something done.

LEHRER: Did you ever have trouble identifying as an “artist?”

WALLS: Don’t get me wrong; I worked real jobs. The artist thing came later. I didn’t even start considering myself an artist until those kids—Dash, Ryan, and Dan—started getting all this press and talking about me like, “Artist/writer Jack Walls was a really big influence on them.” To this very day, whenever someone introduces me as an artist, the stress kicks in. When someone comes up to me and asks, “What do you do?” I say, “My name is Jack Walls. Google it.” They’re asking to be entertained. Are you kidding me? Then, there’s the other side. There are people who want to always talk about what they’re doing. “Oh, I work in small construction pieces, and then there’s this collage.” Fucking shut up. I’d rather hang out with musicians. You just hand them a guitar. They actually do something.

LEHRER: Patti Smith came out with Just Kids. I’m assuming you read it.

WALLS: Oh, of course. I had my “Ebony Prick of the White Rose’s Thorn” show, and she came. She gave me the first signed copy hot off the press.

LEHRER: What was it like to read about Robert from the perspective of a woman who loved him before Robert really knew who he was?

WALLS: She is a really good writer, but I’ve heard those stories. I heard them from her; I heard them from him. It was nice to open her book.

LEHRER: I read an interview of you in Hillbilly Magazine, and you said there was a part of you that hated the art world. Do you still hate the art world?

WALLS: It is what it is. The whole thing is really smoke and mirrors. It’s maybe the same twenty people that are trying to control things from the top. Then there’s everybody else. I am what I am, but I’m still not a mainstream artist. I’m still on the outside, basically. I was never really accepted by the art world. I wanted to be left alone for the most part. Some people in the art world are really good people. But here’s the thing: Ryan and Dan became everything in the art world that I was trying to avoid.

LEHRER: You mean an art star, basically?

WALLS: Yeah.

LEHRER: You have such a loyal support base. There are artists out there who love your work so much. So you were able to infiltrate that world.

WALLS: It wasn’t intentional.

LEHRER: Are you content these days with where your career and your life have taken you?

WALLS: I’m open to having shows. I want to show. I want people to like my art and buy my art. I really do enjoy the art world in that I’m happy for the young people that are coming up now. They’re trying to change the game. The kids now in their mid-20s, they have so many inspirations around them—whether it’s me, Ryan, Dash, Warhol. You could even go back and study Renoir or Van Gogh. It’s all laid out. It’s there for the taking.

LEHRER: I want to talk to you about “The Ebony Prick of the White Rose’s Thorn.” I love the line in there, “I dream so much of you that I might never reawaken, et cetera.” You have suffered tremendous loss throughout your life. Is it easier for you to work through grief, or does grief just floor you?

WALLS: Grief and romanticism is the same thing. If you can romanticize grief, I don’t want to say you hit the jackpot, but you really have something. What are you going to do, wallow in it? Just accept it. Actually, like it. It’s emotional to grieve. You don’t get to experience it all the time. I took a friend with me to the [Dash Snow show at the] Brandt Foundation, a new friend that I’ve only been seeing for a couple of months. We go for a drink afterwards, and we’re in this bar. All of a sudden, he bursts out crying. I’m like, “What’s the matter with you?” He says, “Jack, I was so moved today.” The whole theme was a lot about grief. Grief is when it gets you. I try to be a badass sometimes. I try to say I’m not even thinking about that shit. It’s when it gets you. My father died in May of 2001. I didn’t grieve that until about ten years later. It’s going to get you at some point.

LEHRER: Was it about unresolved issues, or just because that’s how it happened?

WALLS: I couldn’t go there. I didn’t even go to the funeral. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go home. This might just be me, but you can’t be a normal person and expect to be an artist at the same time. For me, it’s all or nothing.

Jack Walls' The Ebony Prick of The White Rose's Thorn can be purchased here. Follow Jack Walls on Instagram (@hifibangalore). Text and interview by Adam Lehrer. Photographs by Scout MacEachron. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE


Getting Afreaky: An Interview With Nikolai and Simon Haas of the Haas Brothers

The Haas brothers seem like mystical ambassadors from the future. However, they are not here to portend of doom and gloom, like the current headlines may lead you to predict. Indeed, the future looks pretty bright according to Nikolai and Simon Haas – fraternal twins who make high-end sculptural objects that only the very lucky can afford, but are almost talismanic in their complexity and humorous in their intentional simplicity. The materials the brothers use mimic natural and rare phenomena in nature. This gives their work a sexual energy that takes phallic and vaginal forms, replete with folds and shafts and rounded curves that could make the prudish contingent quite sensitive. Put the work together and it looks like a combination of Maurice Sendak's menagerie of Wild Things and Dr. Seuss on too many tabs of acid. 

If you visit the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, you can see some of their drawings on the walls of the Chapter Restaurant; next to the lobby. Portraits of Roman Polanski are juxtaposed next to chubby line-drawn creatures holding cocktail glasses – Nikolai’s work is more cartoonish, one dimensional and comical, while Simon’s work is more realistic, detailed and has more perspective. It’s a perfect way to experience their work on an individual scale. But it is when they bring their styles together that the real magic happens. Simon comes from a much more logical perspective, while Niki is much more laid back, creating an incredibly powerful dynamic. 

Over the last couple of years, the Haas brothers have been riding high on a wave of popularity – a collaboration with Donatella Versace took their works straight to the gilded living rooms of the fashion and design world. Solo exhibitions in New York have made them darlings in the art world. However, the proverbial wave crashed when they were on a private jet heading back to LA from an exhibition of their work in Miami.  

To fill their souls again, they have been working with a group of bead artists located in a township outside of Cape Town, in South Africa, who call themselves the "Haas Sisters." This week at Design Miami, the brothers will be premiering works from this collaboration, entitled Afreaks, which include colorful four legged creatures in varying sizes and large psychedelic mushrooms – more examples of the Haas Brothers, and now Sisters, goal to spread positive vibes. The work will also be on view this February at Cooper Hewitt's Design Triennial. 

In the following interview, we talk to the Haas Brothers about their craft, their collaborative relationship, the sexual overtones of their work and how a trip to Africa changed everything. 

AUTRE: When did you first start collaborating artistically together? Was there a specific moment when you knew you wanted to make this happen together?

NIKOLAI: My first remembrance of doing stuff together was when we wanted to make these machines. There was a popular artist at the time who made these rolling ball sculptures. We saw that as kids, and we wanted to make this machine in the backyard. We were about 3 or 4.

SIMON: Our very first collaboration started in 2007. He was in a band with Vincent Gallo, and they were touring. I was in school, and they called me and asked me to tour with them. I dropped out and drove to LA to join them.

NIKOLAI: That was our first professional collaboration.

SIMON: Then a friend of ours offered Niki this construction job in 2010, and he asked me to do it with him. We rented a studio downtown. Basically, that’s when we knew that we were going to be working together always. We actually had a conversation about it. We rented that shop, and we didn’t know what to do.

NICKOLAI: In this conversation, we were asking ourselves, “What are we starting a business for?” We just want to work for ourselves and do our own thing. I don’t think we said it explicitly at the time, but we knew we were dedicated just to being happy people. That was the spirit of what was going on. I remember when we sat down and talked about what we were going to achieve, that was the number one thing—being happy, and trying to spread that in our community. Not just the people who we were working with in the studio, but also in the communities outside of the studio, the LA community.

AUTRE: And the rest of the world as well?

NIKI: Yeah, as much as possible. We have a community in Miami now because we go there all the time. We have a community in Europe because we go there all the time. The whole point is to be happy.

AUTRE: When you collaborate on a piece together, where does it start? Is there a brainstorming session?

NIKI: It’s different every time. I think our most explicitly collaborative moments are when we have to sit down and conceive new shows together. On single pieces, we’re collaborating all the time—asking each other questions as we go. Simon’s always working on the philosophy and the deeper meaning behind the work, and he’s always thinking about how the work can change. I’m kind of doing more brutish work, like sculpting or sketching cartoons.

SIMON: He’s the maker, and I’m just testing stuff all the time. I’m a fanatic; I’m a materials person. The way we collaborate is Niki gives life to these processes, and I give him materials to work with. And we always talk about all of it the entire time. Also, as twins, we’re on the same track.

NIKI: It’s not just the conception of the piece. The collaboration doesn’t stop. The African project is such a good example. The actual objects themselves are just a result of the real important part of the project, which is the philosophy of the book. Hopefully people read it. That’s the kind of project that people will put in history books if they read what Simon has written.

SIMON: It’s basically a feminist, white privilege project that’s wrapped up into something consumable and pretty. That’s the thing—our audience is the 1%. We’re delivering things to them to make them think. It’s not something they would necessarily pick up on the shelf. We get to put this stuff in there to kind of figure out later. We talk about ourselves as entering more into philosophy in that way.

AUTRE: That’s really interesting. My next question was about luxury and the definition of luxury.

NIKI: To be honest, most people who are living luxurious lives have pretty bad situations. There’s something about wealth where it gets to a certain level, and it starts to dehumanize the person. They perceive themselves as an odd commodity, even though they trust themselves more than anyone else. Luxury, honestly, is being as happy as you possibly can be. There’s a sweet spot where you have enough to support what you want to do. At the same time, you are loose enough that you can say, “Fuck this.” If you have to get work, if you have to write contracts—even if you’re making thousands of dollars, it’s not all that luxurious. You’re under your own thumb.

SIMON: Luxury as people understand it is almost like a prison. You go to basically the same hotels and the same restaurants in every country in the world. Someone who is living luxuriously is having the same experience everywhere. You’re getting the Vegas experience all over the world.

NIKI: The Hollywood hotel, the concierge that takes care of everything for you. If we had gone to Cape Town in the luxurious way, we would have been taking crazy advantage of black people. We would have been ignoring the entire context of the point of being there. We would have barred ourselves from doing this project. 

AUTRE: Luxury, in a sense, can also mean the freedom to be creative.

NIKI: We have the luxury to do whatever we want. That’s what I’m looking for. The luxury to allow ourselves to be happy. We want to be curious all the time, and we want to explore that curiosity. That’s the luxury we’re after.

AUTRE: You have the capability to work in this small format, and then you can explore all those ideas that were in your head.

NIKI: We talked about supporting our community. We were telling kids that the guy that hired us for this first time said, “Hey, I’m giving you the ability to start expressing yourself.” That’s how we started making our stuff. Later on, our gallery said, “Hey, make whatever you want.” That was a big moment for us. We weren’t making anything cool before that really. Money and space doesn’t make you very happy. I would actually say I was just as happy when I was 18 years old and broke.

AUTRE: I want to talk about sexuality, because that’s a major part of your work, especially in your drawings.

NIKI: The sexuality, to me, is just the reality of being a person. Everybody thinks about sex. Everybody has sexual organs. It does occur a lot in the sketches in particular. In the rest of our work, it appears about as often as it does in everyday life. You see yourself clothed, and then at the end of the day, you’re naked looking at your own dick. The way that I push sexuality in the cartoons and the way I use it in art work (like the sex room we made a couple of Basels ago), the point is to make it seem like less of a shock. It is simply an innocent expression if it’s done well. Obviously, if not, it can be oppressive. It’s all happiness. It’s an extension of being a person. The point of using it in our work is the idea of leveling the playing field. 

SIMON: It’s so positive. Tom of Finland was more centered on the erotic. The idea behind this is positivity. There’s a very positive message. Beyond that, we focus a lot on animals too. Animals and sex are really common themes throughout history, design, and art (which were the same things until recently). We feel like it’s a natural interest. It’s what’s around us. To exclude it from the work is almost weirder. I was in drawing classes at RISD, and there would be people doing life drawing classes who would leave out the penis. That creeps me out. Showing it is not creepy. Taking it out, showing me your thought process, is kind of creepy.

AUTRE: There’s so much shame attached to sexuality in our culture.

NIKI: We are vehemently anti-shame. That’s one of the pillars that Simon set up for our ethos very early on. Any time we sit down to do a piece of work or a show, we make sure to follow these guidelines we made for our studio.

SIMON: The first few sexual pieces, people would come up to us and say, “Oh my god, you can’t show that.” That’s shaming. We’re not going to listen to them. It’s because of their own discomfort. We made a piece for Basel about sex and shame. People would enter through this giant vagina. We like to get people to consider their own thought processes as they’re experiencing these things. I think it’s important.

AUTRE: It is important. There is a lot of censorship going on these days, like with Instagram.

SIMON: The fact that you can’t show nipples on Instagram pisses me off. The nipple can’t be free; that’s so stupid.

NIKI: We’re not trying to be shocking when we talk about sexuality. People think we’re sensationalist and shocking, but really we’re just expressing what we think.

AUTRE: Do you ever have creative disagreements? How do you resolve them?

SIMON: We have, though it’s kind of rare. We had a big fight in Cape Town, but that wasn’t creative.

NIKI: Talking to each other creatively, we take each other seriously. If Simon doesn’t like something I’m coming up with, or if I don’t like something he’s coming up with, we just try to explore it with each other. You probably have a point, let’s find what it is. Our creative fluidity is beyond good.

SIMON: In school, I had critiques by some teachers who had chips on their shoulders. It was so obvious. They will give shaming critiques of work. We don’t do that to each other. It stunts your creative growth so much. We understand that if one of us shits on the other one’s piece, he’ll stop exploring it and be afraid to do it. I know that his output is going to be incredible, so I have to trust it, and vice versa. The biggest fight we had was in Cape Town, and it came only because we were both going through so much. We’d been riding this crazy high from getting pretty successful pretty fast, and it kind of hit us. When we were in Cape Town and working with these women who had so little, it was like, “What am I doing?” Both of us were going through internal turmoil, which caused us to have a big fight.

NIKI: There were also a bunch of reasons why we had to flesh things out. After the fight, it ended up so much better. It was so worth it. That was the first time we ever had a fight. It’s crazy. Literally, if you talk about the moment before we went to Africa, we had our first solo show in New York. It was met with tremendous success; we sold everything.

AUTRE: Was that R & Company?

NIKI: Yeah. We were hanging out with collectors and all that bullshit. We were staying at a friend’s penthouse. We were taking ecstasy and listening to soul music, and it was so fun. I don’t feel bad for doing it at all; it was unbelievable. But then we go from this moment of complete pleasure and excess to being dumped in Kairicha. We set that up for ourselves, but it was a good reality check. Fuck. Who gives a shit about what we just did? I was proud that we did that, we worked really fucking hard. But we’re young white men. We grew up knowing A-list celebrities. Half of this, whether we like it or not, was handed to us. Suddenly we're working with black women in Kairicha where black people still don’t have the same rights, they are not being given any chances. When we came into the picture, we did a small fair in South Africa, it was the first time they had ever been to the town’s center. That was the first time they got to go to a fancy event.

SIMON: And the crowd that came in was shocked that they were all in there, and as the artists especially. It was really cool.

NIKI: People say it’s not racist in South Africa, but then you try to take them all out to a sushi restaurant, and you can’t do it.

AUTRE: It seems embedded.

SIMON: They’re like, how about going to KFC and going to the top of the hill instead? We actually wound up doing that, and there were people taking photos of us. It was so bizarre.

NIKI: You have to realize, though, that that’s how these people grew up. That’s what it’s like in South Africa, white or black. The whole black community has its own issues with intolerance too. They’re super intolerant with gay people. It’s all fucked up. What we have to understand is that everyone growing up there has grown up with a certain social structure. The idea of ignorance really comes into play. Culturally, people were brought up in an ignorant way. We want people to understand that you don’t want to isolate people you’re hoping to change. If you do that, nothing’s going to happen. And everybody, as evil as they may seem (and I don’t even believe in the idea of evil), nobody is actually evil. Everyone is a person deep down inside. Whatever it is that they’re reacting to, if they’re acting in a way that’s full of shit, like demeaning a person because of their skin color—I believe that they are fully capable of dropping that. It takes time. I think that the Internet is the biggest purge of that of all time. All of a sudden, nobody on the Internet community seems tolerant of homophobia or racism. As a mirror of society, you see society not willing to tolerate that anymore. The Internet touches about 80% of their lives. That’s great. They all have cell phones and listen to Beyoncé and One Direction. But the thing is, Beyoncé is not homophobic or racist. When you have idols that are being put in front of people like that, it’s only a matter of time before it melts away. In fact, anybody who is younger than us is not an issue. You just have to wait for the old people to die away. Although, I’m sure there are some people carrying the torch who are younger.

AUTRE: A lot of people don’t get that reality check. They go to the developing world, but there’s no reality check.

SIMON: You turn into a monster. I felt myself turning into a sharky monster before we went to Cape Town. I was noticing changes in my behavior. Like, I was totally okay with being an asshole to somebody. That’s not like me, and it started to bother me a lot. Thank god we went to Cape Town; it hit us so hard. I remember, right after Cape Town, we went to Miami. We wound up in a G7 flying back here, and I could not enjoy myself. It felt brutal.

NIKI: These pieces of art are selling for thousands of dollars. At some point, it’s too much money. Nothing is worth that much. I know some of our stuff is stupid expensive. But the point is that it’s feeding something much bigger. We’re trying to bring it back to the community.

AUTRE: With you guys, there’s craftsmanship.

SIMON: There are definitely reasons why our stuff is expensive.

NIKI: If there’s an art piece that has historical value, but all that’s happening with it is the piece being taken and used as a commodity. It’s dehumanizing. It’s been moved around in the market with a shitload of money on it. No one needs something that costs that much.

AUTRE: How did the project in Africa come about?

SIMON: Cape Town was named world design capital, and we went for a fair to show some of our pieces. When we got there, we were being tourists looking for art in South Africa, where everything is totally whitewashed. We went to this craft fair, and there was this booth with really cool beaded animals. The woman in the booth was so fascinating and cool and making these beautiful pieces. We just loved her and her story. The booth is called Monkey Biz. On each piece, they have a tag with the name of the woman who made it. We thought that was amazing, because that doesn’t happen very often. It’s a small thing, but it’s actually a really big thing. That’s what got us to want to start doing it. We had this whole penpal exchange with this woman—Montepelo—and her team for about a year, and she really wanted us to come. We showed up and started working with them. They were all afraid of working with us, actually. They’re used to being treated poorly. As soon as they realized we weren’t on that track, it became this really awesome community building experience.

AUTRE: When will those pieces be shown?

SIMON: In December. December 4th.

AUTRE: So that’s your next major project?

NIKI: Yes. And we have another show in February.

SIMON: The theme is beauty.

NIKI: We’re trying to transgress beauty. We’re trying to get rid of our exclusive authorship.

SIMON: Jeff Koons would never name all the fabricators that worked on his project. That’s what we’re trying to transgress. I think it’s kind of cool.

AUTRE: Design and fine art—where is that line?

SIMON: The line is the people who are going to make money off of it. It’s completely commercial. Also, the word “design” is completely Western and very modern. There was never a distinction between the two until recently in our culture. It’s so location and time based that we find it to be gross. We don’t really make that distinction.

NIKI: At the same time, we’re proud to be a part of what’s considered the design community. The truth is, we’re just doing what we do. No labels, man.

SIMON: We rose up through the design world, but we are contentious there. As our stuff is being thought of more as art, the design fair has tried to push us out. Art Basel and Design Miami are the same thing, but they don’t know what side our work should be on.

NIKI: Design Miami has been trying to push us out because we’re “art.”

SIMON: That actually happened with this Cape Town project. We had to appeal and fight for the right to get into it. They told our gallery that they couldn’t show it unless they had us in that booth.

NIKI: The design line exists only in the eyes of the people of commerce.

AUTRE: What do you think will change things?

NIKI: It’s already happening. The Internet, again, is leveling everything. Hashtags have become more important than library cardstock. The way that people think about design now is like library cardstock. The hashtag is going to take over. People in our generation don’t give a shit. People who are old have dedicated time to a certain way of life, and they’re really resistant to changing that way of life. But the truth is, they’re old, and they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.

SIMON: The reason why it hasn’t already changed is literally money, government, etc. But that will go away, and it will all be much chiller. It’s clear from looking at the Internet what’s going to happen. Growing up gay in Texas, I saw very few people who were out in the public eye. The best I could get was Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on TV. Now, on the Internet, you can see whatever you want. Everything is going to change.

You can see the Haas Brothers' "Afreaks" this week at the R & Company booth at Design Miami opening on December 2nd. You will also be able to see the work at Cooper Hewitt's Design Triennial, which will open on February 12, 2016 and will run until August 21, 2016. Purchase the "Afreaks" book here. text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper and Summer Bowie. photographs by Sara Clarken

The Highway Is For Gamblers: An Interview With Artist Jeremy Everett

In Jeremy Everett’s latest, most ambitious work of art, entitled FLOY – a magnum opus of grandiosity and scale – the artist crashes a 60-foot truck on a highway in Utah, leaving milk spilled across the asphalt. The wreckage was filmed from a helicopter ­– the artist had to race from the crash site to the helipad before the milk evaporated. Indeed, evaporation is an important part of Everett’s oeuvre – in his Double Pour series, for which his current exhibition at Wilding Cran is named after, the artist captured water spilled on a generic parking lot in Los Angeles before it dried and disappeared into the ether. While most artists apply material to material, Everett’s practice seems almost like a VHS tape on constant rewind; a fuzzy layering of time, space and ephemerality that makes you realize the illusion of time, the impermanence of life and the absurdity of everything. For instance, there is the time the artist took a vacuum to Death Valley and literally Hoovered the desert landscape – in the following interview, you’ll find out what happened to the vacuum. Also in our conversation, Everett talks about what it's like crashing a truck full of milk, the symbolism of the American highway, and his experience growing up in the American west.  

Oliver Kupper: So, I want to talk about FLOY because we’re standing in front of it right now, what was it like making that project? 

Jeremy Everett: We had a very small crew, only seven people. No insurance. It was mostly spoiled milk. We also had to use this fire-retardant foam because the milk was evaporating so fast I wouldn't have had time to go get the helicopter and fly back and document the piece from above.  But I like it even more, that it was staged in this way. Shooting from the hip. 

OK: Yeah, it’s like a set. Was it originally used to transport milk? Real dairy?

JE: Yes its all real. The truck was previously wrecked so I filled it and wrecked it again. 

OK: Was it difficult to get permits? 

JE: It was tedious, government agencies need facts. Part of the text for this piece will be the proposals for the permits. They ask for exactly what you’re going to do—how, when, who. It’s this absurd idea dissected into factual government vocabulary. I was trying to convince the department of highway on the phone, they said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but if it all evaporates and there will be no permanent damage then okay.” 

OK: Utah seems outside of that creative realm. People might be more open to saying, “Okay, whatever you want to do.”

JE: In the beginning they couldn’t understand how it could be sculpture, but they were still very supportive by agreeing to do it, by the end of the day they loved it so much all of the families of the local crew came out to see it  and celebrate the work. Very interesting to see that transition. I am so grateful for their help,  I’m sending them a print from this show

OK: The branding on the truck says Real Dairy, that's such an American, generic thing.

JE: Yeah, and the highway is America’s greatest monument 

OK: I’ve been reading a lot of interviews about you, and it seems like people have trouble defining your work in a less abstract way. How would you define your practice?

JE: All of the work is directly related to and participates inside of life.  The work in this show begins with an action, wrecking the truck, pouring two puddles in a parking lot in LA, painting the visual structure of the surface, the grid, until it breaks. Allowing these disruptions to produce a visual charge.   

OK: And earth art. Could that be used to define your work? You grew up in Colorado, right? 

JE: I grew up in Colorado very close to where Christo did Rifle Curtain, I enjoy the works of Smithson and Heizer very much but I don’t feel my work has a connection to land art. I closed the the highway so I could wreck the truck, so the sculpture could participate in the system, stop the system, this disruption is a significant part of the work.

OK: So there’s a performance aspect to it?

JE: Yes. All of the photographs of Works in Situ are documentations of temporary works that I stage or perform. I really enjoy how factual a work is when it participates inside of life.  Double Pour lasted five minutes, during this time the parking lot became something else long enough so I could  photograph it.  

OK: And landscape architecture—what were you going to do with that degree?

JE: Nothing. But the school was incredible. We had full freedom in a very conceptual environment. 

OK: So, you used that to explore your artistic practice?

JE: Yes. I never really practiced landscape architecture. After school, I went to Toronto to study with the designer Bruce Mau. It was a graduate interdisciplinary studio with only seven people, so we had full freedom. My entire education was full freedom. I never really thought about the need to categorize what I was doing or making.   

OK: It seems you have an obsession with materials and decay, the way materials interact with one another.

JE: The way the cream of the milk ran down the chrome of the truck. I enjoy using references of certain materials as a part of the work. Also revealing certain visual qualities like the way the wireframe grid leaves an image on the surface of the painting with photographic accuracy. 

"Once during a snowstorm a truck flipped and slid into my lane. I was far enough away that I stopped to watch, but it was unbelievable. That physical power. Beyond the violence of it there was a very interesting sculptural quality to the object. "

OK: Could you talk a bit about where the obsession with material came from?

JE: I approach painting through sculpture and photography. These paintings are the results of trying not to make “paintings.”  I am also obsessed with printing and copying, all forms of reproduction 

OK: Is there a fatalistic element to your work? 

JE: Yes and no. 

OK: In terms of environment, is there any kind of message you’re trying to tell?

JE:  These are such short term discussions that I don’t find it interesting in the long run. Art is a much bigger picture.

OK: It doesn’t need a message. Do you think too many artists are looking for that message?

JE: I enjoy art when it is dysfunctional. Working with a message seems more connected to advertising. 

OK: I want to talk a little about the performance sculpture. Where did that idea initially come from? 

JE: I grew up in the West and saw several truck accidents.  Once during a snowstorm a truck flipped and slid into my lane. I was far enough away that I stopped to watch, but it was unbelievable. That physical power. Beyond the violence of it there was a very interesting sculptural quality to the object. 

OK: We gamble with inertia all the time.

JE: This object is massive. When you flip it on its side, something happens visually and physically. It becomes heavier -  I was interested in that sculptural situation.

OK: When people think of trucks, they don’t think about the death and destruction of it. They think about a truck driving down the highway. It took two years to put together?

JE: Yes it took two years to find the pieces. I drove from NYC to LA for a residency, stopped for gas and there was this wrecked truck sitting in a parking lot, it was the last part I needed to realize the work. I found the owner of the truck, convinced him to let me re-wreck the truck and it was on. I shot the piece two weeks later.  

OK: With this show, what are you trying to convey as a whole? 

JE: All of the work is connected by a monumental or un-monumental temporality. There are three photographs of Works In Situ hanging directly on the wall, constructed from smaller tiled prints. This grid construction is very important, and relates to the paintings which are also grids with a photographic quality, but pushed until the grid of the surface is broken. The paintings lead you to FLOY in the next room which is much larger and more specific work in Situ. Next to FLOY is a photograph revealing the section of the gallery wall exposed on film under specific lighting conditions. 

OK: You grew up in Colorado, but you said you spent time in Paris as well?

JE: I’ve been in Paris on and off for the past five years.

OK: What brought you back to LA?

JE: I did a residency here and found it so easy to make work. This city is all about production. Now I have a studio thats large enough to work on multiple ideas at the same time.

OK: It’s easier to get out of LA too. You can get out to open space. There are open highways, which play an important part in your work. 

JE: Yes.

OK: What about your vacuum piece – were you going to show an example that at your current show here at Wilding Cran? 

JE: I like the repetition of vacuuming so I took a Hoover to Death Valley and vacuumed the desert for nine minutes until the vacuum blew up. We were going to show it here, but it didn't work visually in this space. 

OK: So, lets talk about some of the wire mesh pieces – can you talk a little bit about those and what materials did you use?

JE: I was interested in mapping the painting with a perfect grid so I laid out a wireframe and then began to build the surface with paint, casting the painting like a sculpture. By doing this, the grid began to slip, fracture and crumble in ways that were specific to the action.  

OK: Fine art is probably more freeing than architecture?

JE: Yeah. I left architecture a long time ago. It was just for school. I entered the art world through the back door.  

OK: Anything that you are working on now? 

JE: I have a few large scale temporary works like FLOY that I am always working on out of the studio. One of which should be realized in the next three months. In the studio I'm preparing a solo show at Edouard Malingue gallery in Hong Kong and another show at Art Basel Hong Kong opening in February/March. 

OK: Can you talk about those?

JE: Yes the paintings that will be shown in Hong Kong are made using smoke pigment.  The canvas is almost printed with pigment and air, revealing the structure underneath as the image and composition. I use air current to make a copy in a similar way that a photocopier uses light. 

OK: Bigger than this?

JE: Different. Even more reduced. 

Jeremy Everett "Double Pour" will be on view until November 14, 2015 at Wilding Cran Gallery, 939 South Santa Fe. Avenue, Los Angeles, CA. text and interview by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

A Long Strange Trip: An Intimate Conversation With Actor, Artist and Now Curator Leo Fitzpatrick

photograph by Curtis Buchanan

A little over three years ago, I moved to New York to attend a graduate journalism program at NYU. Though I had wanted to get here forever, the very essence of being here didn’t hit me until I was record shopping at Kim’s Video and Music (RIP) in the East Village when I saw artist, actor, and now, curator Leo Fitzpatrick flipping through the bins. Fitzpatrick, to me, was something of a city landmark for young weirdoes that like fucked up art. As a bored suburban teenager I would look at photographer Patrick O’Dell’s Epicly Later’d blog where photos of Leo with his uber cool friends—from actress Chloe Sevigny to pro skaters like Jason Dill—and I saw a world and a lifestyle that I knew I wanted a part in. Fitzpatrick and his mega-famous artist buddies like the late Dash Snow and Dan Colen were my New York heroes, much like Lydia Lunch and Basquiat were to a previous generation. It wasn’t just about the work; it was the whole wasted freedom of that particular moment in downtown New York's history.

It’s been a long strange trip for Fitzpatrick since he was discovered skateboarding in Washington Square Park at age 14 by Larry Clark to star in the director’s seminal ‘90s troublemaker film Kids. Though he has remained involved in acting on and off ever since (he’s most likely appeared in at least one of your favorite shows: The Wire, Carnivale, Banshee, and a hilarious turn in this past season of Broad City as a misdemeanor prone trust fund man child), art has more or less been his primary passion since he bought his first Chris Johanson piece at age 17. He gained some notoriety for his austere and slightly brutal painting style as well as for his documented friendships with some of the early ‘00s’ most famous wild child artists like the aforementioned Snow and Colen, Nate Lowman, and Ryan McGinley.

But Fitzpatrick may have found his true calling as a curator. What sets him apart is his unbridled passion for the art that he likes. What he doesn’t like is the financial motivations that sometimes overshadow what art is supposed to be. This notion allowed Fitzpatrick to conceptualize the Home Alone and Home Alone 2 galleries with Lowman. The driving force behind the Home Alone concept was that none of the art that Fitzpatrick and Lowman showed was actually for sale. This freedom allowed them to re-imagine the gallery as a hangout. A place where ideas could flow freely and art could be displayed in interesting and surprising ways. Home Alone housed shows by artists like Adam McEwen, Larry Clark, Klara Liden, and others. The problem, of course, became money. With nothing to sell, Fitzpatrick and Lowman were losing money every month Home Alone was alive. And with Lowman’s busy schedule, Fitzpatrick shouldered much of the logistical burden behind the concept. “It’s tricky to hold up a gallery when you’re working with a friend,” says Fitzpatrick. “When we broke up Home Alone, it was mutual, but you can start to resent your partner at some point.”

But thanks to Marlborough Chelsea director Pascal Spengemann and owner Max Levai, the spirit of Home Alone lives on in the Viewing Room, a space set up in the Marlborough Chelsea location where Fitzpatrick has complete creative control and is again not worried about the constraints of selling. “Financially, [Home Alone] kicked our asses,” he says, “With Marlborough, I have support. It’s all the best parts of Home Alone, but with more stability.” In just a few months, the Viewing Room has hosted a show by 80-year old Los Angeles-based artist George Herms, and is currently holding an exhibition by iconic New York photographer Richard Kerns. “It’s his photos from the ‘80s” says Fitzpatrick. “I don’t know what he would call them, but I call them “streetscapes.” They’re all never-before-seen photos.”

After I profiled Fitzpatrick for my Forbes column last winter, he and I became friendly. I’m not going to lie: I look up to the guy. He is a singular example of someone who was able to carve out a place for himself in the art world without any formal training but a whole lot of sheer passion, hard work, and interesting ideas about the industry. We chatted in the Viewing Room about transitioning the Home Alone concept to a commercial gallery.

Adam Lehrer: How did this collaboration with Marlborough Gallery come about?

Leo Fitzpatrick: I wanted to have a body of work that was different. I enjoy discovering. I’m excited to try new things [with art] in an unconventional setting. In this space, I don’t have to worry about selling art. When you free it up like that, it’s exciting for everybody.

AL: Does making art for a gallery space feel as interesting as working in a more guerilla-type setting?

LF: There are benefits to both. I just needed the help. A lot of people remember Home Alone as something bigger than it actually was. But running a gallery is a lot of work. I don’t have the energy to start anything on my own anymore. We closed it at a good time. And I don’t think I could have gotten a job at a gallery before Home Alone.

AL: Do you see more artists trying to move outside of the conventional frame of showing art?

LF: I think people are moving towards finding ways to show art outside of the conventional gallery. Maybe your friend owns a pizzeria—put your art on the walls, and call that a gallery. I don’t see anything wrong with that.

AL: Getting work out there is more detrimental than ever, with the living costs associated with this city.

LF: The problem is finding space. Artists are living in the same spaces that they work in. It limits the kind of work they can produce. Like, a painting is much easier to make than a sculpture because it takes up less space. But I also like the challenge.

AL: Because with challenge, one is automatically forced to think differently in his/her execution?

LF: A lot of my outlook comes from skateboarding. One person might just see some stairs, but a skater sees a lot of options. How do I manipulate this to work for me? That’s how I view the art world. I can’t compete with somebody who has a lot of money or more education than me, so I have to invent a new way to do what I want to do. I’ve probably made some naïve mistakes, but that’s what you have to do.

AL: Chelsea shows have been the same forever. This is a new concept in an established space. Do you think, if it’s successful, it could be pioneering?

LF: It’s an unusual concept, so I don’t know if it will catch on. But I think it’s a great idea. I would support other galleries that wanted to try it. I never understood why the art world was so territorial. Aren’t we all trying to do the same thing? When you start talking about money, that’s when the competition comes in.

AL: How do you see yourself fighting that territorial aspect of the art world?

LF: When I came into the art world, I was a young kid. I was really intimidated by the Chelsea galleries. They were cold to me. I want to create a space for the kids who are curious. Why would you turn someone like that away? I tried to make Home Alone more of a hangout than a gallery. If one kid comes for a free beer, but gets really excited about making art or starting his or her own gallery—I think that’s really cool.

AL: Is it keeping the culture alive in some sense?

LF: Oh, yeah. You have to encourage kids to do their own thing. They can’t just sit around making the kinds of things that are going to be shown in Chelsea. Start your own movement. And kids need a place to talk about their ideas. Art is [about] growing up with your peers.

"Kids are unpolished. They’ll stay out until 4 in the morning and talk to each other and try to take over the art world. I love that kind of thing. Kids fucking up the system—to me, that’s great."

AL: What are the challenges you see for young artists?

LF: With the Internet, everything is so transparent. It must be hard for younger kids not to compare themselves to their friends. If they see their friend selling something for $20,000 and they’re only selling theirs for 10, I don’t think that’s healthy. They won’t be able to concentrate on making the work.

AL: What is your relationship to money?

LF: I have a very funny relationship to money now, especially money in the art world. I understand that it needs to exist, but it’s hard for the art world to thrive. I probably can’t afford the art that’s being shown in the gallery, but I get to hang out with it for a month. For me, the exposure is more important than the money. I just want to start a conversation.

AL: Is the role of curator fulfilling creatively in the same way making art is?

LF: Maybe more so. I get more out of supporting other artists than I do supporting myself. I’m not very ambitious. I don’t really consider myself an artist; it’s just something I do. If I get asked to do an art show, that’s cool. But if I confirm that I’ll be showing an artist that I’ve been trying to get for months, that’s like, “fuck yeah!”

AL: What has been your favorite part of curating?

LF: Hanging an art show is more satisfying to me than anything. I always tell the artists to not worry about the art they give me. My job is to make it seamless. They get to make whatever they want to make, and I figure it out. And I’ve loved experimenting with how the show is going to look. You want the art to get exposure, but you don’t want it to be too conventional.

AL: Is showing artists that you feel are under-appreciated important to you at all?

LF: That’s not always the case. I’ve done shows with artists who have had a lot of exposure. But I prefer otherwise. George Herms is an 80–year-old from California. He’s a dying breed. He’s a photographer, a sculptor, and a painter. His whole life embodies art. I want this show to set the tone for the rest of the gallery.

AL: Are there other curators that inspire you?

LF: Not really, no. But I do follow a lot of little galleries. I like to support the underdogs. These little galleries are the underdogs, and they’re doing really cool stuff. If I was to compare myself to contemporaries, I would compare myself to these tiny, scrappy galleries that are just trying to get by. I’m not trying to compete with a big gallery.

AL: But if that did prove to be the evolution of it, would you be opposed to it?

LF: As long as you keep your heart in the right place. But I don’t think about competing with the art world. I have ambition, but that doesn’t mean making money. It means putting on great shows that leave people scratching their heads. I also want to prove people wrong. To the people who say, “You can’t do that,” I say, “Let me try.”

AL: Have you had to attune your business savvy to deal with those challenges, or are you letting Pascal and Matt take care of that?

LF: No, I do everything. If you’re a smaller gallery, people might be more eager to help you out than if you’re a more established Chelsea gallery. So we’ve gotten a lot of support. But I deal with a lot of rejections.

AL: For all of your lack of pretentiousness and mellow attitude towards what you do, the name Leo Fitzpatrick is one that is known in the New York art world. Are people starting to recognize you for your connection to the art world as much as your acting career?

LF: Kids have come up to me on the street. At first, I thought they were going to talk to me about my acting, but then they said, “We really like Home Alone.” To me, that was the best feeling in the world. I think of acting and the art world as two different careers. And if you’re not going to sell your art, a kid stopping you on the street to say they like your work keeps you going.

AL: How do you go into choosing work for the gallery?

LF: The work has to excite me first. Everything I show gives me a gut reaction. There aren’t any politics to it. It’s not the artist who is hot at the moment. I’d rather show people who aren’t in the limelight, and give them the exposure. I’ll do more research, dig in the trenches, and try to find artists who were forgotten or who don’t get the respect they deserve. Hopefully, the rest of the audience will find it interesting, too.

AL: What you do makes people realize that it is possible not to come from a certain world or scene, and still be able to do what you want to do.

LF: For sure. I think we need to give these guys a little heat. If you can’t compete on their level, and you still attempt to create (whether it be art or a gallery or whatever), that shows that you have a lot of drive and hunger. From the beginning, you’re setting yourself up for failure, but you say, “Fuck, I’m going to do it anyway.” That’s awesome.


AL: You once said to me that the art world needs a grimy side. Do you think griminess can exist in this Chelsea system?

LF: Grimy can mean so many things. I think it’s the youth that will provide the “griminess.” Kids are unpolished. They’ll stay out until 4 in the morning and talk to each other and try to take over the art world. I love that kind of thing. Kids fucking up the system—to me, that’s great. It’s probably a good idea to get on those kids’ sides.

AL: How should they go about that?

LF: A kid just reached out to me from London and said—“Hey, I want to do a Home Alone in London.” You don’t need my permission. You can even use the title Home Alone. I don’t own it. It’s just an idea. You can sell art out of the back of your car and call it a gallery. Just fucking do it, man.

You can catch Leo Fitzpatrick's current curated show, Viewing Room: Richard Kern, at Marlborough Chelsea until December 23, 2015. You can follow Leo on Instagram: @lousyleo. text and interview by Adam Lehrer. Follow Autre on Instagram to stay up to date: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Leo Fitzpatrick and Richard Kern by Adam Lehrer

On Truth And Symbolism And the Universal Meaning of Life: An Interview With Artist Annina Roescheisen

Artist Annina Roescheisen is making her name known in the art world. Right now, you can see her formative series What Are You Fishing For? at the Venice Biennale, in the context of the European Pavilion. Starting today, the German-born artist who received her degree in art, philosophy and folklore from the elite Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich in 2008, will see her first solo gallery show in New York. Her series What Are You Fishing For? is emblematic of her work: rife with symbolism and metaphor, and dripping, literally, in pictorial beauty. In the following interview, Annina talks about the use of metaphor in her work, her experience getting to know New York and the meaning behind her self-designed tattoos.

Ariana Pauley: There are a lot of metaphors that you use in your work. Do you come up with the metaphor beforehand, or is it a fluid process?

Annina Roescheisen: It’s more of a fluid process. The whole story-writing is a process. It starts with a keyword or a phrase that I write down; I always have these little books with me. There are a lot of things going back and forth. Often, I have five things spinning around in my head at once. At a certain point, there is one story that ends up pushing forward. It can come from anywhere. So, the symbolism comes more naturally. It’s something I like to play with, but I don’t construct the work around the symbolism. It’s just a manner of expressing myself.

AP: For the film that was in the biennial, what would you say were the most important metaphors?

AR: In this one, I think it’s about life, death, and Renaissance. There are many others, but I would say those are the main three.

AP: How was your experience at the biennial? How did it all come about?

AR: It came through a gallery in Berlin—Circle Culture Gallery. The gallery owner really likes my work, but I don’t fit into his program (he’s more into abstract art, graffiti, etc.). He’s really very supportive. When he saw the film, he was applying for the Venice Biennale with another artist, and he proposed that I apply my film with him. I’m a young artist; I never thought they would say yes. But I had the answer in two days. I still don’t understand it sometimes. It’s so unreal that I just do it. I think it’s good, sometimes, to not understand what you’re going to do. It’s best to just do it.

It’s a tiny, tiny room. I don’t have the biggest room. But I am so happy to participate and to have the whole atmosphere.

AP: You just moved to New York. Are you nervous that the culture is going to affect your art? Do you think your time in Paris affected your art in a certain way?

AR: I think it always affects your art, where you live. In general, no matter where you live, it’s just about growing up. Definitely, my art is going to be affected, in a way. But it’s also growing more as a woman and growing up in general. Paris was good to grow up, as an artist. I feel more apt to face a bigger audience.

AP: Was there a specific reason why you decided to come to New York?

AR: It’s more open here. People are more curious. I like the way they think here. People just dare to do things. For them, doing things is experience. For me, that’s what life is about. It was nice to grow up in France, but people are not that positive. They are afraid to do things. Sometimes, the result doesn’t really matter at the end. Just go out and do something. In Paris, it could feel like a prison. I feel more open, more supported, and a bit crazier here.

AP: Is it your first time in New York?

AR: I’ve been going back and forth for a year. I wanted to know for sure where I wanted to settle. Sometimes, you have an idea of a city or a job which is not the real thing. I didn’t want to jump into an illusion. I was doing two months in Paris, a month here, two months in Paris, and a month here—for a year. If you move your ass in New York, you can really get somewhere. After the year, I knew I preferred it to France.

AP: What are you working on next?

AR: I wouldn’t say I’m hoping to deal with more mature work, but the next thing I’m working on is much more frontal. It’s still my signature, but my art thus far has dealt with subtle, hidden messages. You can decode if you want to, but you have to plunge into it. The next piece I’m working on is super frontal. You can’t escape it. I don’t know what’s going to happen after.

AP: How did you come to do this new work?

AR: The last one that I just finished—it’s called “A Love Story—is more subtle. It’s about emotions. I wanted to work on a topic called “Love.” It’s so cheesy. Everyone would want to vomit on it. But I wanted something both subtle and deep. Provocative things—nakedness, violence—they’re too easy. It’s super-subtle. Then, from that project, I wanted to do something more frontal.

The new thing I’m working on is called “The Exit Fairytale of Suicide.” It’s super hard-cut. It’s between black and white, hard and light. It’s still my work, but more frontal. The topic of suicide—you just can’t escape it.

"I write quite often. But when I was younger, I didn’t write a diary, I would write on my body. It’s the same thing—symbolism. It’s one sign that stands for a whole story."

AP: Are you focusing mainly on film now? Or are you still working with sculpture and photography?

AR: The photography always comes with the film. I really like to keep some moments of the film, for the audience. There are a lot of people that can’t buy video art. So I want to be aware of that. It’s nice to have a certain moment of a film that plunges you into the whole thing when you see it. So, when I do video art, my whole photography is based on the film. I really don’t like to do photography pure. In a film, you are more authentic. You’re not standing in a pose. The image is in the movement. For me, it’s a deeper photography than posing photography.

In terms of sculpture, there are going to be more museum shows, more installations that you will really have to walk through. I’m also creating sculptures that I integrate into my film.

AP: For your film and photography, is it always you as the subject?

AR: In the beginning, yes. When I was younger, I did some modeling. It was easy, because I knew exactly what I wanted for the images. It’s not about me. You’re like a tool, a transmitter. On “Pieta,” at that point, the easiest way to get what I wanted to convey was to use myself as the model. The movements are played in slow motion, but I didn’t want to edit the video too much. I don’t like to change my art in Photoshop or anything; I like to keep it as close as possible to the original film. It’s good when you’re aware of your body, and when you’re aware of the camera. For me, that was easiest.

For “What Are You Fishing For?” I would have loved someone to be in my place, but the water was, like, six degrees (about 43 Fahrenheit). You can offer to pay a model as much as you want, but if it’s not their project, they’re not doing it. I prepared for months—taking cold showers, reading up on those cult divers. I was psychologically prepared to do that.

This last film, I’m not in it. I’d like to be more and more in the back. But in a way, it’s nice when you have the experience in front of the camera. I can direct people better. I know exactly what I can ask them.

AP: You do a lot of humanitarian work. Will that translate into your new work? Are you planning on continuing that in New York?

AR: I would love to. I work a lot with autistic children. Every time I go to Paris, I still go to see them. I worked in a project in Berlin for street kids. I would still like to integrate my work into humanitarian projects. For the moment, I haven’t looked around at what is in New York, but I would like to do something.

It’s easy to do good stuff as well. It’s not always necessary to do something that is public. You can be a humanitarian all the time, in a way.

AP: Would you want your art to translate that to the viewer?

AR: My art has a lot to do with emotions in general, and I really try to keep it open for everybody. That’s the humanitarian side of it for me. I don’t like the “elite art” thing. I loved that in Paris, all the exhibitions had young people coming—13, 12, even younger. I really want to have an art that talks to everybody. On the other hand, I don’t know if there’s a day where I can really work in front of the camera with autistic children or with women’s rights. In a way, it’s in my work without being in my work, through my personality.

AP: You described your practice as a “social media practice.” Could you explain that?

AR: Actually, it’s a term that I would love to erase. It created a lot of confusion. “Social media,” for me, was word-by-word. “Social,” because I like to be in the social, humanitarian arena. “Media” is just the medium that I use. But “social media” as in Twitter, Instagram, whatever created so much confusion. I’m stepping back from the term, because it doesn’t describe my work as an artist.

AP: Tell me about your tattoos.

AR: I started early, when I was thirteen. I write quite often. But when I was younger, I didn’t write a diary, I would write on my body. It’s the same thing—symbolism. It’s one sign that stands for a whole story. Nowadays, I use more of the paperwork to describe things. When I was younger, I did it on my body.

AP: Did you design them all yourself?

AR: Most of them. I work with a friend who is a graphic designer in Munich, just so I can do it properly. I got a lot of inspiration from the Japanese artist Nara. I saw one of his images when I was five or six, without knowing anything about contemporary art. But it was always appealing to me—the side of the cute little girl paired with this more evil side. I loved the eyes with the stars inside—like the universe. There’s a lot of depth, even though it can seem childish. I love his art. He was a big inspiration for a few of my tattoos.

AP: Are there any artists specifically that inspire you?

AR: I like the paintings of German Romanticism—Freidrich, for example. I like literature as well. I love contemporary artists as well, but more for who they are. Marina Abramovic, for example. I’m not a big fan of her work, because it’s super violent. But I really like how she pushed herself to do something innovative and unique. She’s such a strong, spiritual woman. And her project, “The Artist,” is so great. Yes, nowadays, it’s a bit too commercialized, but I think she’s great.

AP: While you’re in New York, do you have any projects lined up besides the upcoming exhibition?

AR: I have a group show on the 22nd of November at Catinca Tabacaru Gallery on the Lower East Side. We’re about to talk about a solo exhibition there as well. I have two solo shows—one in Paris and one in Geneva—also in November. That’s the month. I’m working on other projects, but I’m waiting for confirmation before I spill any dates. The next show will probably be around springtime next year.

AP: Do you have a specific message that you want your new New York audience to get from your work?

AR: Not really. I think it’s not up to me. At the point that you exhibit your work, you give it up to people. It doesn’t belong to me anymore. Take whatever you want to take from it. I just hope that people will like it.

"What Are You Fishing For?" will open tonight and will be on view until December 1, 2015 at Elliott Levenglick Gallery, 90 Stanton Street, New York, NY.  What Are You Fishing For? is also on view at the Venice Biennale until November 22, 2015 at Palazzo Bembo in the context of the European Pavilion. interview and photos by Adriana Pauly. intro text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

No Hate, No Fear: An Interview With Artist On the Rise Marilyn Rondon

photograph by Miyako Bellizzi

Text by Adam Lehrer

The first time I met Miami-based artist Marilyn Rondon was at this year’s New York Art Book Fair. She was working at a booth under the tent section of the fair and it’s very hard to not be immediately drawn towards her: a fiercely petite Venezuelan woman in her mid-‘20s with painfully beautiful bone structure, deep brown eyes, jet black hair, Olympian fitness level, and a vast collection of tattoos including script on her forehead and an amazing battle royale back piece done by Brad Stevens of New York Adorned. Trying to evade a pervasive sense of shyness, I briefly chatted with her while perusing through her impressive display of self-published zines and other work.

I ended up picking up a copy of her ‘Selfie Zine’ and as I browsed through it on the train home I was struck by its raw depictions of human friendship and exuberance. The format is simple enough: throughout the book Rondon appears in selfies along with male and female friends in varying degrees of clothing. Rondon’s willingness to show her self sans modern filters is striking. Her ‘Selfie’ book is the antithesis of Kim Kardashian’s ‘Selfie’ book in which Kim appears 100 percent made up and perfect in every photograph. Rondon actually seeks to reveal herself. To be known. Not to peddle an idealized version of herself.

Curious, I started following her work on both her Instagram (@calientechica) and her Tumblr pages (totallystokedonyou.com). In photography, creative projects, painting, writing, zine productions, and more, Rondon shares her life with her myriad followers. Her willingness to let people into her life has resulted in inspired creativity and the occasional public debacle. Her “Latina Seeks Thug” project was the result of her jokingly saying to a friend, “All I want in life is a thug to have a baby with.” In a stroke of mad genius, she decided to post an ad on Craigslist asking for that exact thing. Without even a picture, she got 101 emails in 17 hours from gentleman looking to take Rondon up on the offer. On the more difficult end of her creative life sharing, Rondon wrote an article in Dazed about her cheating boyfriend that he would eventually ask the publication to take down. She simply goes with her emotions and does her best to let everything fall in place. That is what makes her an interesting artist.

The first time I spoke with Marilyn she had just gotten back from a silence retreat and she was still flying high off the experience, making it the perfect time for an interview. She is incredibly warm and open yet simultaneously self-aware. She discussed much of her artistic philosophy and the brazen harassment from perverted men she suffers as a result to her commitment to her work. The sheer amount of activity Rondon engages in is astounding. Along with her social media projects and experiments, Marilyn has also started painting commissioned murals characterized by bold repetitive patterns. As a working model, she has a rigorous exercise routine and strict eating habits. A couple days after the interview I was out celebrating my birthday and Rondon was DJing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She literally does everything, and it all becomes a part of a rich and diverse artistic world. Marilyn Rondon is a contemporary artist to watch (on social media, and in her work).   

Adam Lehrer: You work in so many different mediums. What was the first medium you messed with when you first felt an inclination towards creativity?

Marilyn Rondon: I was enrolled in a magnet art elementary school in the third grade. There, they teach you everything from ceramics to photography. I learned how to develop film when I was in the fourth grade. My dad was a musician. My mom is really artistic. My younger sister makes art and plays music. My older sister photographs and paints. I was fortunate. I always had my little sketchbook. I did ballet for a few years. Art was always my favorite. I could create my own world and distract myself from reality.

AL: That’s interesting that you say art distracts you from reality. When I look at your work, you put so much of yourself into it.

MR: I use myself as my subject a lot. Art should be about the human experience. I like to play around with the idea that this is my world, but it’s also collective… I really don’t know how to explain what I do.

AL: You’re great at illustration. You’re great at photography. But I also think your Instagram and Tumblr are really interesting. Do you consider all of it in the same domain of your work?

MR: I consider [social media] a reflection of my photography and my drawing. I’m just documenting my life and what I’m going through. I’m growing. I started documenting through photography really young. I would always take pictures with my Polaroid camera. I would take photos of my friends at school and on the weekends all the time. I was fascinated with holding on to the people I love and care about. It’s strange to call it art, but every photographer shoots what they want to shoot. I just want to shoot the moments I should remember. People always change; you never know when you’re going to stop seeing someone, for whatever reason. It’s really important for me to capture that.

AL: The mural stuff you’ve been doing is really amazing. How did that opportunity come up? Have you always been drawing in that repetitious pattern?

MR: Yeah. I always just draw the same thing. I feel fortunate, at such a young age, to have found that style which is so distinct. No one else’s stuff looks similar to mine. I honestly just do it because I love painting so much. The feeling I get when I put the paintbrush down—I’m in heaven. It’s so therapeutic. The most painting I did was in the past year, when I was getting over my breakup. I did 300 paintings.

AL: Do you think you’ll always continue with the multimedia aspect of your work, or are you shifting more towards painting?

MR: I haven’t painted in a month. It’s been really hard to not paint for that long, but I haven’t had a lot of inspiration. I was recently commissioned to do ten paintings in five days, which was really hard, because my paintings are intricate and cover the entire canvas. It was a shit show. I didn’t sleep for 36 hours. I’m literally the most determined person I know. I’ll sleep when I’m fucking dead.

AL: I love the “Latina Seeks Thug” debacle and subsequent show that you got into. Do you feel that your best ideas come from spur-of-the-moment things that happen in your life?

MR: Yeah, especially with that piece. I made that piece as a joke. In passing conversation, I said, “I’m going to do this, and it’s going to be hilarious.” I didn’t think it would have the amount of reach that it did. I didn’t think it would even be considered art. I totally forgot that I even put out the ad. My ribs hurt for the week straight after that because I couldn’t stop laughing.

AL: And there are guys that sent you dick pics?

MR: Yes. It happens to me on my Instagram too. I turn my phone on, and it’s just dudes sending selfies with, “Hi.” And then, immediately afterwards, it’s a picture of them jerking off. What do they get from this? These men that do this are clearly sex offenders. Any man in their right mind knows not to send a video of them jerking off to a stranger. They’re so sick in the head. It’s repulsive and scary. It’s all the time, too. And it’s not just me.

AL: I think it’s cool that you turned this disgusting habit of perverts doing disgusting things into something positive. You’re posting all of these guys’ pictures, but people still send them. Is it proving a point that these guys don’t learn?

MR: They’re brain dead. They see me as an object, and they don’t take the time to know me as a person. They just think, “Oh, she’s hot; I’m going to send her a picture of my dick.” Oh my god, you don’t know what I’m going to do with that photo? You idiot.

AL: Your conversations with other women reveal similar social media experiences. Do you find that the abuse women go through—on the Internet and in real life—is a common theme, or is it more extreme in some cases than others?

MR: It’s more extreme in certain cases than others. Or maybe not. Everything in life is constantly changing. We’re different people, in different environments, in different cities. I really don’t understand it. I want to know if men experience this. I want to interview guys who are on social media, to see if they have similar experiences with women. I’m interested in the other side of it, to see what it’s like for a guy who is posting a bunch of selfies on social media. Are girls sending him pictures of their tits? How common is this for a man? That’s where I want to go next.

AL: Well, I don’t know, if that happened to me, I don’t know if I would be bummed. Women have to endure all the time which makes it different.

MR: This shit also happens in real life. When I was eight years old, I was walking home from school one day, and some pervert flashed me on the street. It happened to my sisters and my friends. These men are obviously mentally ill. They don’t realize their behavior is not okay. They think that they are justified in doing it because women look a certain way or dress a certain way. There are boundaries in this world, regardless of how someone presents herself.

I understand that I’m an interesting-looking person, and I have to deal with people asking me questions about my body. People feel so entitled to harass me. I work at a bar, and these guys will be like, “Can I braid your hair?” I’m like, “Can you not touch me?”

AL: Do guys use your tattoos as an in, like a pickup line or something?

MR: Oh, yeah. And they think it’s a compliment, but it’s like—“Go away. I don’t want to talk to you.” And then they get upset and start to insult you if you don’t respond.

AL: When you are portraying nude women other than yourself, how do you navigate the male gaze?

MR: I basically have no ass, so I’ve always had this fascination with asses. Like the grass is always greener on the other side. So I approach my subjects with curiosity. I just play around with them in a way that I would want to be shot. I’m comfortable with my body. I think sexuality is totally okay. I’m very comfortable with my figure, and with the woman figure. It’s not something that should be shameful. We’re human beings. When I’m shooting girls, I’ll say, “Oh, I wish I could look like this, can you do this?” And they’ll do it. It’s like I’m playing out my fantasy.

AL: So it’s still a representation of you, even though you’re not the intended subject?

MR: Yeah, I guess.

AL: Have you ever had a moment where you shared something about yourself or anyone else that you regretted?

MR: Oh, all the time. Half the things I post on Instagram, 20 minutes later I’m like—I shouldn’t have done that. I feel like that’s natural for most people. That happened to me earlier this year, actually. I was on a trip with my ex, and I found out he was cheating on me. Then, there was an article in Dazed about it. He was very upset, and asked them to take it down. I didn’t do the piece as revenge. I didn’t want to hurt him. I had to use the words that I used to show him how we was treating me. I made the piece to raise awareness about the places we put ourselves in for the people we love. But it was totally taken in the wrong context. I was portrayed in the wrong way, and I suffered for a long time because of it.

I come from a family of abuse. I was abused for a really long time. When you’re abused for a long time, you think it’s normal. But it’s not normal. You need to be treated with love and compassion. Love should be unconditional. That’s what I wanted to get across. 

AL: Do you regret any of the work you make?

MR: I don’t regret any of the work I make. But it can be exhausting. People judge who you are without knowing anything about you. I’ve put things out that have made me grieve. But that’s the life of an artist.

AL: I find it amazing how open you are with talking about mental illness and the things you have been through. It’s inspiring. Do you feel you have a responsibility to erase some of those stigmas?

MR: That’s why I do what I do—because of where I’ve been, what I’ve gone through, how I got out of it. I know how hard it is to be there. It becomes much bigger than it really is. I have people write me every day, saying, “I’m going through the hardest time. Can you give me some advice?” I make myself available. I’m not a therapist, but I try to help people through what I’ve learned. If I can affect just one person in a positive way, I’m happy. I don’t need money for that. We live in a world where people are so closed off. People don’t know how to love, how to love themselves.

AL: Did you move to Miami for a change of scene, or for work?

MR: I moved to Miami the day after I broke up with my ex, because I wanted to murder him. But I grew up in Miami. The only way I was going to get over him was to never see him again, so I uprooted my life. But it was the best thing ever.

I’m taking a break from painting, but I’m having my very first solo photo show in January in Miami!

AL: Do people ever interpret your intensity as coming off too strong?

MR: Yeah, but I kind of like it. I’ve learned to love without expectation. I feel so free because of it. I can tell someone I love him/her and I don’t expect to hear it in return. I just want them to know that they are loved. People’s ideas of love are so skewed because of the romance movies and books they read. No. Love is about sharing. It’s not selfish. And when you love yourself 100%, you can love freely.

You can find more of Marilyn Rondon's photography and art on her website - you can also check out current and previous zines. You can also check out a selection of those dick pics here. Text and interview by Adam Lehrer. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE


Art In the Age of Afrogallonism: An Interview with Ghanaian Artist Serge Attukwei Clottey

There are not a lot of artists willing to get dragged by a noose through the streets of Accra, the capital of Ghana, in the name of social justice. Gallon by gallon, Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey is returning your used plastic refuse in the form of beautiful masks and mask-like sculptures that take on haunting human expressions. In the artist’s native Ghana, yellow canisters are ubiquitous and have become a seamless part of the country’s landscape. Where these containers come from has become a source of plight for the people of Ghana and central to Clottey’s artistic practice. Originating in Europe, the containers once held cooking oil, but after a water shortage, the containers were repurposed to hold water and gasoline. Over time, though, the gallon jugs have become so plentiful that they have started to pollute the beaches and even landfills. Clottey has coined the term “Afrogallonism” to describe this exercise and it has, over the years, become his rallying cry. Indeed, there is something very punk in what the artist is trying to achieve. Many of his sculptures come from works created by Clottey for his performance collective GoLokal, which has held numerous public presentations that have to do with displacement, migration, colonialism and Africa’s place in the treacherous nexus of a vastly globalized world. A land rich with resources, but flooded with greed. Footage of Clottey being dragged through the streets by a noose while performers throw money at him was replayed multiple times a day for a week straight on the local news. Reverberations of Clottey’s message is slowly making its way westward to the States. Officially opening today, Mesler/Feuer gallery in New York presents an exhibition entitled “The Displaced” where you can experience many of Clottey’s incredible assemblages, wood installations and plastic sculptures in person. Autre caught up with Clottey during the installation of his current exhibition to discuss his own art history, his politically and socially charged performances, and his ideas of the “New Africa.”

Adriana Pauley: How did your art career start? Did you always know you wanted to become an artist?

Serge Attukwei Clottey: My dad is an artist. I drew and painted at an early age. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue art as a career. I was more interested in electronics. Growing up in Africa as a child, we got all of these electronics imported from America. I was very interested in how they functioned and in who is behind that creative process. But because my dad is an artist, he thought that I should pursue art. He was going to give me the platform to be successful in that field. So, I got chance to study art in Ghana for four years. Then, I studied in Brazil.

AP: How did you decide you wanted to study in Brazil? Was it a similar culture? Did that influence your art?  

SAC: After going through four years in art school, I wanted a way to further my education. I had a scholarship to study in Brazil for three months. I wanted to experience a different place, and how art is shaped differently in that place. Brazil actually changed my entire relationship with art. I became more experimental with materials. In art school, I learned how to paint traditionally. In Brazil, I got a sense of contemporary art. When I came back to Ghana, my approach was totally changed.

AP: Does your interest in electronics come up at some points in your work?

SAC: Yes. Electronics have been a part of my practice from childhood. Now, I combine art and electronics. I work more with performance and installation. I work more with electronic interests. It has given me a new platform to visualize those ideas with materials. It has given me a lot of exposure. It’s very new—combining art and electronics, in Ghana especially.

AP: Has art always been a big part of your life? 

SAC: Growing up with my dad, I studied how to paint even before I went to art school. I don’t feel anything special about art, because I grew up in that space. It was a very creative upbringing.

AP: You recently did a performance piece, and you have a performance collective now. What has been the response from the public? 

SAC: From the beginning, people were unsure about it. The guys who are in it are not artists actually; they are from different careers. There are a lot of creative people in the community where I was born, but they don’t have the platform to explore that. As an artist, I have that platform. I find a way to bring them together to address issues in our community. Since then, it has been very challenging. The topics we work on are very political. We have very religious subjects. We explore gender identity. Over time, people have become more understanding. We have a lot of presence in the media, in publications. We are trying to address issues such as how the politicians manipulate youth during elections. And how after, they have nothing to offer. We were very critical about that, and it was on TV the whole week before elections. It gave us a lot of publicity. It tells me that it’s possible to create that sort of a platform. I hope we can establish a company which serves as a profit for the group, and for the locals as well.

AP: Would you say, generally, that you would like to give something back to society? To educate them about certain issues?

SAC: I grew up in the community. Ghana has been my inspiration. It makes sense to extend my exposure to the community. The community has been my main collective in exploring my artistic ideas.

AP: In one of the performances you did, you traced the journeys of your family. Your ancestors used to go to the north of Ghana, and come back to the south with different Buddhist techniques. Does that spiritual aspect play into your work?

SAC: It’s played a major role in my work. I wanted to narrate my family’s journey, because we also have a migration background that no one knows about. I’m using the narrative to make a new construction relating to my present work. The idea of continents, of transporting something from one continent to another, is very interesting to me. My family would transport from one town to another, but there is no proper documentation of that history. In my artistic practice, I want to reconstruct that history for my generation. I’m interested in combining my family history in relationship to my new work.

I’m interested in the sea and how it navigates the world together. I’m also interested in finding ways to trade back to the West. All of my materials are imported from Europe or America. The trade relationship changes the value of materials. Africa has come to realize how trade has come to benefit the West. As an artist, I want to find a strategic way to trade back to the West with materials that now benefit Africa.

"Our development needs to be seen. It needs to be shown to the world. We have to acknowledge our past, but we need to develop our present, our future. I’m interested in creating a link between Africa and the people who have been displaced from Africa."

AP: Do you see any parallels between your family’s journeys and your own journeys now?

SAC: I’ve traveled a bit throughout the continent, and I’ve seen how African art is being pursued in different ways. It’s not about people struggling in Africa. I’ve shown my work in Ghana as well as all over the world. There’s a possibility for change that African art is exploring. My family background has been a guide in my artistic journey. I see how powerful my ancestors were trading on the coast. That is the spiritual aspect that has been guiding me on my journey.

AP: You use a lot of plastic, which is very important in the United States. It is important in Africa, too, but for other reasons. Do you address that issue?

SAC: I try to address where my materials come from, and how that changes the value of those materials. There is a big difference between a plastic that is made to be presentable and a plastic that is being dumped somewhere.

AP: How do you gather that material? 

SAC: We collect them on the coastal beaches, as well as at dump sites. In Ghana, because of the volume, there is no space to consume them. They find ways to dump them. We don’t have proper recycling structures. You end up seeing them on the streets and in the ocean. For me, the material plays a very significant role in my work. I take care in picking out and repurposing the plastic that has been discarded.

AP: What about colors? I know you use a lot of yellow. Do colors have a certain meaning in your work?

SAC: The dominant color is yellow because yellow is used for transporting oil. Looking at yellow in Ghana, it’s in our flag to symbolize wealth. But I want to change that. It shouldn’t be about the “New Africa.” What can we generate from this plastic? It has become part of our life. We need that to survive. Instead of getting it out, we can use them. We can’t just store them; need to take care of the environment. Once I put them together, I can build houses. We need to innovate new ways of dealing with this.

AP: Can you explain your concept of “Afrogallonism?”

SAC: Afrogallonism is a word I made up after working with this plastic for fifteen years. Over time, it has become my second skin. Every time I see a gallon, I get inspired. I realized that the top of it looks like a mask. Afrogallonism is the new Africa, the future of Africa. We have traditional masks, but this is the mask of our time. This is a relevant mask that brings up issues of water and environment. It’s a movement that I started. I want to find ways to inspire people to work with plastic. Afrogallonism is a word that came up after realizing how much time I have spent working with this material.

AP: What would you like your American audience to take away from your exhibition?

SAC: The displays are about migration and how people have been displaced all over the world. Coming from Africa, I’m interested in bringing that kind of connection—the relationship of humans and materials. I’m interested in how migration has displaced everyone. I want the audience to see that this is a New Africa. This is Africa in the 21st century. This is what we are going through. Our development needs to be seen. It needs to be shown to the world. We have to acknowledge our past, but we need to develop our present, our future. I’m interested in creating a link between Africa and the people who have been displaced from Africa. As this material comes to America, I hope to create that link. 

AP: Do you have any upcoming shows or performances planned?

SAC: Right after this exhibition, I have a performance in Ghana, just before the next election. I’m very critical. When it comes to politics, people have loud voices, but they are not heard. As an artist, together with my collective, we perform in public space. We hit the matter hard. We want to use our exposure to address that relevant issue.

Serge Attukwei Clottey's "Displaced" is on view now through November 22 at Mesler/Feuer Gallery, 319 Grand Street, 2nd Floor New York, NY. Follow Afrogallonism here. intro text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Interview and photographs by Adriana Pauly. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Every Day Is Like Sunday: An Interview With Claressinka Anderson On The Domestication of Art And Eschewing The Traditional Gallery

Step into Claressinka Anderson’s beautiful, but modest-by-comparison, contemporary home on the border between Santa Monica and Venice Beach in Los Angeles and you are stepping into a new breed of art gallery: part home, part gallery, and part breeding ground for ideas. Lately, there is a trend amongst gallerists ­­– from Los Angeles to New York to Miami – who are eschewing the traditional white-walled platform and exposing art in a much more organic environment; one that is conducive to conversing, socializing, and yes, collecting. But this platform of showing art is not new – the French nobility and wealthy patrons of the arts have a long history of turning their homes into art galleries. In fact, they were the first art galleries. It was only in the 20th century, when art became much more of a global enterprise, that art needed a much more “professional” environment – a storefront to show an artist’s work – and thus the traditional gallery was born. But sometimes, the stark atmosphere of a gallery can be intimidating for collectors – new and experienced. This is where Marine Projects and Marine Salon comes in. Claressinka Anderson – its founder – is much more interested in the introduction between artists and collectors, as well as the innovation of ideas. What better place for this conduction than her home, with it’s open floor plan, double-height walls, and an intimate courtyard. You feel at home and the art you see on the walls makes much more sense that way. Last week, Anderson invited us into her home for a chat – Salon No. 13 was in full swing with works by up-and-coming artist Fay Ray lining the walls, sculptures by Galia Linn guarding the entrance, and other works perfectly placed as if they’ve been there all along. There is something undeniably glamorous about Anderson. She is knowledgeable about the arts, passionate about the arts and has a deep appreciation for the allure of art. In our interview, we chat about her early interests in art, the impetus for turning her home into an art gallery and how Morrissey lyrics can become a powerful philosophy for living life.

OLIVER KUPPER: So, what made you decide to start a salon style gallery in your home?

CLARESSINKA ANDERSON: I was interested firstly in the historical salons from France - the 17th and 18th century salons and then going into the 19th century. I think the very first salons, although there’s not a lot written about them, were actually from the 16th century and were in China.

I had always been really fascinated by the idea of these intellectual gatherings around art and literature and music that took place in people’s homes. So I was interested in re-contextualizing that in the contemporary art world and making contemporary art accessible for young people and people that are potentially interested in starting to collect. 

OK: What are some of your earliest experiences with art?

CA: I grew up in London, and I have my parents to thank for exposing me to art from a very early age. They weren’t really into contemporary art, but they were very much into the arts in general. Theatre and music, and they took me to museums. I don’t have any particular memories of it, but I’ve been told by my mother that I was always drawn to, as she would say, the avant-garde. Which I think for her was more like modernism, but that’s what I was really drawn to. When I was five I became obsessed with Picasso, so it started pretty young. I would ask her to take me to the National Gallery and I would actually copy Picasso’s paintings into a little sketchbook I had. She still has some of my weird little rudimentary drawings of boobs.

OK: Did your parents collect art?

CA: They did, but like I said, not contemporary. They collected kind of more traditional, and some modernist influenced art, but not actual modern art. They didn’t have the money for that kind of thing.

OK: So, you started Marine Projects as a salon style gallery and then you shifted things into a more traditional setting and then back again – what was the reason for this?

CA: It just suits me and my character better. I’m also more of a free spirit, and not that I’m not a business woman, but you really have to be super super cutthroat to be a top tier dealer, I think. I’m just not really that person. And I think if you had done this interview with me a couple years ago I probably wouldn’t have even admitted that, but I feel comfortable saying that now. I’m more comfortable in myself now too - I’ve come to a place where I just really want to live authentically in the same way that I want to work with artists who have really authentic practices. And I struggled with it, I thought: am I really going to be this person? Am I really going to go to every single art fair? Am I going to do all these things that you have to do when you’re tied to that traditional model? And I just made the decision that actually, no I am not.

OK: So who are some artists that you’re really excited about right now?

CA: Well, to start, all the women artists in my current exhibition. Also, a couple of the artists I’ve worked with, Jow, in the back room who has a solo project, she was an artist at the gallery so I’ve worked with her before. And then Fay Ray, she was another artist who I’m working with again and I feel really deeply invested in her career. There’s also this young artist called Shoshi Kanokohata  who just graduated from UCLA and he’s a sculptor. He’s working in ceramics and he’s doing really interesting work. I haven’t had a chance to work with him yet but I’ve bought one of his pots and I’d like to. He also does more conceptual pieces from his more traditional, more Japanese background throwing pots with the glazes. They’re just really, really beautiful. So I really respond to, and love his work. I collect ceramics, it’s something I’ve gotten into recently so he’s someone who I really like. 

OK: So the home itself- did you look for a space that would accommodate the work, or what was that process like?

CA: I did actually. It wasn’t in a time when I had realized what I’d be doing yet, because I lived here for almost 2 years before I started the salons. But I definitely bought the house with showing art in mind. I didn’t necessarily think I’d have my own business out of here, at the time I was working with another gallery, but I knew that I wanted to collect and show work. I walked in here and I was amazed by how much space there was, for a house that’s at the end of the day not that big, on a lot that isn’t that big, I just thought the use of space was so fantastic. Particularly this double height wall and that raised wall above the front door, I was really inspired by the possibilities - these are dynamic spaces. I’ve had a lot of collectors come into this space who live in much bigger houses, and they are actually envious of how much wall space I have. It’s just really great for art.

OK: It is great, and it’s great for a salon.

CA: Yeah and I think it’s this really nice hybrid between home and gallery where it has a warmth to it. It’s a home, but it still has really tall walls. I was talking about it with Ariel Herwitz, and she was saying “I’ve shown my work in lots of galleries that have lower ceilings.”

"...You really have to be super super cutthroat to be a top tier dealer, I think. I’m just not really that person. And I think if you had done this interview with me a couple years ago I probably wouldn’t have even admitted that, but I feel comfortable saying that now."

OK: Absolutely. Are there any challenges between showing in a gallery setting and a home?

CA: It’s more just the opening of yourself to having a lot of random people in your house. You would think I’m a super open person, but I’m actually pretty private. So it’s funny that I’ve decided to do this, because I’ve really had to open myself to the idea. And it’s fine when I have people who I’ve already gotten to know a little bit, or I’ve had exchanges with. But sometimes I do get random emails from people and I have no idea who they are and they want to come by. I’m here by myself and I really don’t know, so there’s things like that where I’m a little unsure. I try and do a little bit of a check to figure out who everybody is before they come over.

OK: So I want to talk about some patrons of the art, or some other inspirations when it comes to salons. Can you name any specific people or institutions?

CA: I mean definitely; I’d have to say Gertrude Stein would be an obvious one for me. Because I actually really was looking at her for an inspiration for what she did in Paris- I mean she was essentially running a museum out of her home, and all these incredible people were involved. And she was also a collector, I mean she was a collector, a patron, an intellectual, a visionary. She would have to be my number one inspiration. I also read Peggy Guggenheim’s autobiography, or one of them a few years back and was really interested in her story too. The idea of how someone’s truly personal interest in art and love of art can then grow out into something that really educates a lot of people and brings it to a wider audience, same with Gertrude Stein.  I am interested in that, and it being accessible. I think that oftentimes when you get to a certain level gallery, you no longer become accessible to a lot of people. That’s really not what I’m trying to do - my true inspiration is to start people off as collectors.

OK: So Marine Projects is like the gateway drug for collecting art.

CA: (Laughs) I like that.

OK: I mean, it’s addictive.

CA: No it’s hard! Usually in couples there tends to be one person driving the collecting a little more than the other, it just tends to be that way. With my husband, I’m recently married - I just got married in May, I’m definitely the one that drives the collecting. But he’s really open to it too. We will definitely continue to collect together.

OK: It’s addictive, but you also get to live with art. And that’s an amazing and beautiful thing- to live with art.

CA: You just reminded me of one thing that I’ve really learned, that’s very different from my experience of doing shows here versus at a regular gallery. I’m really cognizant of how much the energy of the home changes from show to show depending upon what work is in it. And because I’m living with it, you feel it differently than you do when you see it in a gallery. Obviously it’s the same thing, a gallery is a blank slate, it’s a white cube, and everything that goes into it also changes it. But something about actually living with it day to day - you know to have breakfast, taking a shower, being in it all the time, you really are affected by it. And I think that we are energetic beings and art has energy in it, it really does. When I de-install shows, there’s always a couple of days where there’s nothing on the walls and it feels so uncomfortable to me. It’s funny because the people who are living next door and renting the house, I went there a while ago and they don’t have anything on the walls. It’s just amazing to me that they just don’t live with any art - and so many people don’t.

OK: It’s a very weird thing.

CA: I get sad, and I start to feel kind of anxious when there’s nothing on the walls. With this particular show, I really love it, and it’s a great show to live with, but I’ve also specifically put pieces in shows that are a little bit difficult to live with sometimes, or things that I wouldn’t necessarily want to live with all the time. Because I think that we shy away from things that are uncomfortable. In terms of collecting, those are often pieces that work well in gallery settings but then people don’t actually want to take them home. So I’m trying to do that as well.

OK: But art should interrupt your life in some way.

CA: Exactly, exactly. So that’s another aspect of what I try and do here too. Same with Galia’s vessel upstairs on the coffee table like that. Proportionally it’s too big for that coffee table, but we really wanted it to be in the space.

OK: What is your advice to new collectors who are hesitant about collecting art? Is there a piece of advice that you always give them in one form or another?

CA: I actually do. For me, and I’m sure it’s different for every person, but I really say: you have to absolutely love every single thing that you buy. Irrespective of whether you think it’s a good investment, irrespective of all these things, which are things that should be taken into account - you know I always say that you don’t want to pay some sort of exorbitant amount of money for something that isn’t worth it, and it is important to research. But at the end of the day none of that matters because it could all fall apart anyway. So the question is: will you be happy with that thing on your wall? Or on the floor? Wherever it is, you have to love it.

OK: Okay, last question, we noticed some pillows upstairs with Smiths and Morrissey lyrics – is there a story behind those?

CA: That’s kind of a cool story, it’s a little more personal. So there’s this artist, Lisa Borgnes Giramonti, and she did these hilarious tongue in cheek, needle point paintings. They were poking fun at Hollywood and botoxed ladies and all these things. I really am drawn to text-based work just in general, and I had gone over to her house just to do a studio visit and she had one of these pillows in her house. Because I knew she did a lot of needlepoint stuff I figured she had done it herself, and she said “yes, I’ve kind of just been doing them for friends… a little side project.” And I liked the Smiths growing up, so I saw the sweetness I was only joking one and I really liked it, so I asked her if I could have that one and she said yes so I bought it from her. When I met my now-husband, I found out that he was a major Morrissey fan which was just a super funny thing. I mean I liked the Smiths, but he was a huge fan, and I thought that was pretty funny because I grew up in London and he grew up in Cupertino. So quite soon into our relationship, it was his birthday and I contacted Lisa, and she actually made one for him. And then I gave it to him as a gift for his house. I think in the back of my mind, I was always thinking that at some point the pillows are going to be together! So now they are. Another layer to the Everyday is Like Sunday, is that Sunday is our special day and it’s the one day of the week that we always spend together unless one of us is traveling. So it became this almost philosophy for us, that we were going to live our lives with an Everyday is Like Sunday attitude.

Salon No. 13: Works 373 – 417 will be on view until November 21, 2015 At Marine Art Salon – you can send an email or call to make an appointment. text and photography by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Kill The Clown, Keep The Comedian: An Interview With The Devilishly Brilliant Marc Horowitz

Marc Horowitz is a genius, but he may also be the devil. His work is satanically brilliant. Over the last ten years, Horowitz has performed riotous pranks that have taken on the form of conceptual art and mad marketing schemes that seem at times Bernaysian, but always dementedly creative. He has taken a mule to run errands in San Francisco, he started a semi-nudist colony, he has tried to convince the board of the Golden Gate Bridge to build giant fans to blow away the fog so tourists could take pictures and he spent an entire year of his life trying to have dinner with 30,000 people after he wrote his name and number on a whiteboard in a Crate & Barrel catalogue. And that is only a sliver of his antics. When the stock market crashed, he tried to bail out the banks with his artwork. Today, Horowitz will see the official opening of his first solo show at the Depart Foundation in Los Angeles. How he has never had a formal solo art exhibition in a U.S. gallery is a question that even boggles the artist. Entitled Interior, Day: A Door Opens, the exhibition combines works on canvas and sculptures that took the artist an entire year to create. The sculptures harken back to Roman and Greek antiquity, but if you look closer, you'll notice one statue with a strange smirk, an 8-ball sword thrown through its chest with BRB written on the blade – or you may look even closer and notice that he has included strange cat figurines, artifacts taken from his mother’s home in the Mid-West (she’s a hoarder Marc would later tell us). In the following interview, Horowitz talks about being the weirdest kid in school, selling “poop shoes” to Mormons, and the symbiotic relationship between fine art and commercial art.

Oliver Kupper: You grew up in the Midwest. What were some of your earliest introductions to creativity and art?

Marc Horowitz: My mom enrolled me in art classes from the ages of five to nine. And then I was just a fucking weirdo. I used to breakdance for senior citizens when my grandmother did Meals on Wheels. I organized a breakdancing competition for these elderly people.

OK: How many people were competing?

MH: There were four of us, and about four people watching us—all of whom probably didn’t understand what was going on.

OK: And there was a ghost removal happening? What was that?

MH: I moved around a lot as a kid. We ended up in South Carolina. At that time, Ghostbusters had just come out. I was a huge fan—I bought the cassette tape and I would listen to it all the time. I was very entrepreneurial as a kid. I made a business card that said, “Ghostbusters and Cleaning Service.” My friend and I handed these business cards out—putting them under people’s doors and in their mailboxes. My mom was getting calls at 3 in the morning—“There’s something moving upstairs. We’re frickin’ terrified. Can you come now?” She would say, “I’ll send my son over in the morning. He can help you out.” I’m about eight at this time. I built this homemade box, like a ghost box. My friend Ian and I would show up to people’s houses like this. They would literally look straight ahead and then down to where I was standing. We would do this whole performance—banging on things, making a lot of noise. At one point, we had dry ice. When we were done, we’d ask, “Can we sweep your porch for 5 bucks?” That was my first business.

OK: You said you were entrepreneurial. It seemed like you were verging into some sort of performance art or conceptual art. Did you know you were doing that, or was it purely being an imaginative kid?

MH: I think it was hyper imagination. It was sort of like restless leg syndrome. I had so much energy. My mom refused to put me on Ritalin. Teachers used to say, “You have to get that kid under control.” I was the fucking class clown. Everything that went wrong in the class would be pointed at me. Out of necessity to keep myself entertained, I would make friends in this weird way. One time, it backfired, and there was a good five-year period before high school in which I was a complete nerd.

OK: How did it backfire?

MH: I told everyone at school that there were aliens that had landed in the forest behind the school. I convinced everybody. I got everyone at recess to line up along the fence, and I was just running down the line saying, “Look for the shiny objects!” I was fucking out of my mind. The teachers were trying to break it up. I went to the principal’s office, of course.

The first time I went to the principal’s office, it was the first day of kindergarten. The teacher had to leave the room for an emergency call, and I organized the whole class to hide so that we could surprise her. She was terrified. And when she asked, “Who did it?” everyone pointed at the bathroom. Of course, I was the only one hiding in the bathroom.

OK: You went to school for economics. Where did you want to go with that degree?

MH: It was a minor in microeconomics, with a major in marketing. At the time, I was working in the cornfields in Indiana. Because it was agriculture, I was being paid less than minimum wage--$4 an hour or some shit. I was cross-pollinating corn. All my friends were going to business school, and that sounded awesome. I wanted to make some fucking money. That’s about it.

OK: And then, the Crate & Barrel thing happened. You wrote your name and your number on their whiteboard. Did you expect insanity to ensue after that?

MH: No, I thought it would just be an inside joke. Six people would see it. It was a cascade of events. So, I went on this business trip. I was given fifty dollars a night for food, but I couldn’t keep all of it if I didn’t use it. Which is ridiculous. So I would invite different people out for dinner until I exhausted it. Then, I put up an ad on Craigslist—“Free Dinner.” The morning news picked it up as a story. The next day at work, everyone was making fun of me. They were like, “Oh, what do you want to write on the board, Mr. Cool, Mr. Ad-Guy?” And I thought, “Let’s extend this even more.” So I wrote “Dinner with Marc” and then my cell phone number. I promised everyone on set that I would take everyone who responded out to dinner. I forgot about that shit until I got a call from Jake in Overland Park, Kansas, wanting to go out to dinner. And then it just never stopped.

OK: What was one of the weirdest dinner dates?

MH: There were some fucking weird ones. There was this family in San Juan Bautista with 25 people. There was one here in LA—I met the guy who was the producer of Britney Spears’s movie Crossroads. He was trying to pitch to me over dinner for a movie about a guy that puts his number in a Victoria’s Secret catalogue, and the character goes from becoming a nerd to the cool guy. Some guy ran an obstacle course for corporate people. It was nuts.

OK: It seemed like a convergence of you wanting to get out of the corporate world and other people wanting something fun to do.

MH: It was like a portal. I like to create these situations that take you away from reality. That’s what I do.

OK: You have a marketing background. What do you think the line is between marketing and fine art?

MH: That’s a big question. Can they work together? I don’t think they’re on opposing sides. I think they’re hugging each other. Without marketing, you couldn’t have the art world. The art world doesn’t want to acknowledge that it participates in some of the same things that the rest of the world participates in.

OK: In the sense of being accepted by mainstream media, they seem like marketing strategies for your creative endeavors. When does fine art enter that stream?

MH: I did a project called “Sliv & Dulet Enterprises.” I had this alter ego—Burt Dulet. He had a mullet. He ran this agency with Kyle Sliv, his partner. We created a summer line of products and services. It was artists posing as business people posing as artists. It was very confusing. We set up shop in this gallery in San Francisco. We developed these hijinks. We had a meeting with Golden Gate National Park Service. We were trying to pitch them on the idea to install 75-foot fans to blow the fog away so tourists could take photos of the city and not be disappointed. They were looking around the room and thinking, “What the fuck is going on here?” There was another time, for the signature series, in which I had to sell poop shoes to Mormons. The idea was that it's a pair of shoes that you put over your shoes when you go into public restrooms so that no one knows who's going poop.

Marketing was such an integral part in a lot of these things. If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? It doesn’t. You need eardrums there for it to make a sound. Much in the same way, artists need people to make their work resonate. Marketing played a big role in working these projects, in something like the National Dinner Tour, or working with a group to sell them on poop shoes.

"Marketing was such an integral part in a lot of these things. If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? It doesn’t. You need eardrums there for it to make a sound. Much in the same way, artists need people to make their work resonate."

OK: Your current show is your first solo exhibition. Why did it take so long?

MH: I didn’t even realize it until I was approaching it. I was like, “Holy fuck. This is it, man.” The Europeans entertained me for a while, but I didn’t sell anything, so I was gone. I didn’t need the galleries. When I had an agent, Sony Pictures and MTV were my galleries. They were my vehicles. I didn’t need the traditional galleries. I took a different route. Harrell Fletcher changed the way I thought about art as a whole. I went out and did all of these performances while I was going to school. I was anti-gallery. It’s the capitalist machine. I didn’t want to be a part of it.

OK: Do you think something changed in the art market that made you more accepting?

MH: Things changed outside of the art market. There became too much compromise. In working with companies like Nissan and Sony, I became coopted wholly. I realized that they do, actually, have all the power. I’m left with minimal power. I can re-edit things and present my own version, but who is really making the decisions? That led me to the project, “The Advice of Strangers.” For me, that represented a huge failure. I started grad school at the exact same time. Honestly, after that, I was done with performance. It was too hectic—mentally and physically.

OK: So you had more freedom in the studio?

MH: Yes.

OK: What is the relationship between all the pieces in the show? What’s the vision for the cohesive whole?

MH: I think the thesis for the show is conflating personal history with art history. I went to grad school for two, long, grueling years. Charlie White said, “Kill the clown, but keep the comedian.” It made me clownish. I wanted to cut that part of my practice, which meant severing my ties to video and performance—at least for now. I wanted to go back to the studio, back to my roots—which is painting and sculpture. It’s a return home.

OK: And a lot of your humor is still infused.

MH: The humor is still fully here. It’s also a collaboration with family. My mom is a hoarder, and she gives me these cats and these weird things. We started a photo series where I would photograph all the weird shit she gave me for Christmas and such. I began incorporating elements of the photographs into the sculptures.

OK: People like to describe your work as “Net Art” or “Post-Internet Art.” What the hell does that mean?

MH: I’ve taught two classes on it, and I still can’t answer that fucking question. Personally, I’m on my own island. “Net Art” has become so convoluted. Post-Internet Art especially. That confuses a lot of people. Everybody’s making post-Internet art if you think about it. A lot of the practice had to do with technology—incorporating blogs, Twitter, online audiences. But I wasn’t a chatter. I wasn’t an active community member—I was an outlier. Whatever technology or materials serve the purpose of the idea, that’s that.

OK: What’s next?

MH: I’m releasing my own cryptocurrency in a month. It’s called “H Coin.” It’s live now, but I haven’t officially released it. The value is based on my mood, productivity, and sales. I plug this in every day, and the value goes up and down. I’m selling this series of photographs that I worked on with my mom through this medium. You can play Snake to earn the coin. Some guy played enough snake—probably 40 hours—and got himself a piece. He said, “I just moved to LA. I’m super bored, and I wanted the piece.” He deserved it. It’s been a process. It’s not a true cryptocurrency in that people are solving block chains and shit, but it’s in the vein of a cryptocurrency. Also, I’m having a show in Berlin in February.

OK: Was it a different experience being in the studio than being out in the world?

MH: I was so sick of making film edits and sitting at a computer. I was sick of frame-fucking everything. I wanted to see a direct mark to something physical. You put down fucking yellow—there it is, you deal with that right now. For me, it was a relief. It felt right. 

Interior, Day: A Door Opens will be on view until December 19 at the Depart Foundation in Los Angeles. You can check the exchange rate for the hCOIN here. Text, interview and photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE