interview by Jeffrey Deitch
photographs by Max Farago
Ariana Papademetropoulos’ paintings are thresholds—portals into alternate utopian universes. Oneiric interiors are grand stables for a fantasy menagerie and translucent figures that haunt with languorous decadence where beds become symbols of sexuality and dreaming. Painting these distinct worlds since her early childhood, Papademetropoulos was inspired by the occultist environs of Southern California, particularly her hometown of Pasadena where rocket scientist Jack Parsons and Marjorie Cameron once held magickal rituals at his estate in the 1940s with a coterie of believers in the esoteric. Coming from a family of architects, Papademetropoulos uses Renaissance techniques to build a world that is uniquely her own.
JEFFREY DEITCH: So, we're here in Mumbai, sitting in the lobby of the Oberoi Hotel.
ARIANA PAPADEMETROPOULOS: Yes. We’re in a kind of utopian setting.
JD: This is, yes. An artificial utopia. But let's transport ourselves back to Pasadena, California.
AP: Okay, let's go.
JD: I've always been impressed by how you were so rooted in Pasadena, Los Angeles, but somehow your artistic outlook is so international. Your work encompasses influences from Italian Renaissance, French Surrealism, and many other sources. But the key is your California background. You are California all the way through. A lot of the artists in Los Angeles, they come from someplace else. But you come from Los Angeles, you went to school in Los Angeles, you apprenticed with artists and that's where you work. So, let's talk about your background. You come from an artistic family.
AP: I come from a family of architects on both sides, Green and Argentine, so although I was born in Los Angeles, I’ve always known a world outside of it. I suppose my interests are very influenced by both architecture and by my surroundings of Los Angeles, and so that follows through in all of the work.
JD: I met you in a very organic process. That's how I like to meet artists. It’s not like I saw your art in a group show and contacted you, and you didn't send me an email with your images.
AP: We met at the Autre dinner! We talked about Los Angeles history and that's how we connected.
JD: That’s correct. We were seated next to each other at the Autre dinner at a hotel in Downtown Los Angeles.
AP: And here we are doing an Autre interview.
JD: I already knew a little bit about your work from some mutual friends. People said, “Oh, you have to see Ariana’s work. She's brilliant. She's such a great artist.” So, I was already intrigued. And then, I visited you in this storybook house in Pasadena. What a romantic place. It was kind of an outbuilding, like a stable, a barn, connected to a grand estate. It was a little bit shabby, which was perfect. And I went into your studio. There weren’t just paintings propped up and easels—it was a total work of art. A gesamtkunstwerk: book covers, astonishing objects, stools that have human legs coming out of them (laughs). It was an entire prosthetic world, and that's my favorite kind of artist. Where it's not someone who just makes a painting or a sculpture, it's an entire artistic universe that you created. And it seems that you were born into this artistic universe. I mentioned to your mother once how talented you are, and so young. And she said, “Oh, well, she's been doing this since she was six years old or earlier,” that you were born to be an artist.
AP: I feel like it wasn't really a choice, it's just the way I've always been. But I think ever since a young age, I was highly sensitive to my surroundings and I figured out that the way I create a space affects my way of being. An architect creates a space and ideally it will affect the way that you behave in that space. Frank Lloyd Wright believed that the functionality of a space could enrich the life of whoever inhabits that space. In a way, it’s obvious, but I instinctively picked up on that ethos and knew that how I decorated my room would have an impact on my perception.
JD: And most of your artworks are set in an interior.
AP: Exactly.
JD: There may be figures, there might be a fantasy animal, like a unicorn. But almost always set in an interior.
AP: An empty room for me is like a portal to an imaginary realm. It always starts off of being basically bored in a house. That kind of suburban, empty room allows the fantasy to come through. It takes you to this middle world.
JD: You're interested in volcanoes as well.
AP: That's true. (laughs) I'm interested in archetypal subjects from fantasy, but I'm also interested in geological wonders and the natural beauty that exists on Earth. Volcanoes, crystals, waterfalls, flowers, geysers, bubbles, caves, you know, there is a lot of beauty everywhere if you look for it. Utopia does exist in some sense. It's just that we have to choose to see it.
JD: We've had a number of conversations about the special occult history of Pasadena. It’s a very unique place because on one side it's very Midwestern American, but on the other, it has attracted extraordinary people who enter into alternate realms. We talked a lot about Marjorie Cameron.
AP: And Jack Parsons.
DEITCH: I'm curious to hear how you learned about this as a child in Pasadena and how that alternate history of Pasadena has shaped you?
AP: I've always been very drawn to esoteric subjects, including magick, Aleister Crowley, all that kind of stuff. And then, when I came upon Jack Parsons and Marjorie Cameron, I got very excited because it really is this crossover between all the things that I love, which is the occult, science, and art. But what's remarkable is that the mansion where I had my studio belonged to this woman named “The Silver Queen.” She inherited silver mines. Her husband died and she got married eight times—one was a prince in India. But I was convinced when I was working there—because it's very close to The Parsonage, which is where Jack Parsons lived—that she threw parties and that Jack Parsons attended. I imagined this whole scenario. And what's wild is that, one day, I went to the studio and it was transported to the 1930s. The house was often used for movie sets. They brought in all these orange trees and everyone was dressed in suits and hats. They were filming a show about Jack Parsons and my studio was The Parsonage in the TV show (laughs). I found the script and my mind was completely blown. That crossover between what's real and what's a fantasy is so present in Los Angeles. And speaking of utopias, Jack Parsons wanted to create his own version of utopia. The Parsonage was an 11-bedroom house where people from all walks of life had rooms and they performed sex magick. It was basically this place of free love and they believed that sex magick could take you to an alternate realm. L. Ron Hubbard lived there for a while. Also, professors at Caltech, bankers, and people like Marjorie Cameron.
JD: It was a fascinating fusion of art, science, technology, the beginnings of space exploration. Religion was all there. Los Angeles art, for a long time from the perspective of New York City, was all about light and space and minimalism; high-tech materials. But there was always this undercurrent of homegrown surrealism; this utopianism. You mentioned Marjorie Cameron.
AP: Yes, Aleister Crowley told Jack Parsons she was the Scarlet Woman, the woman that would move us out of a patriarchal society, the age of Osiris, into the age of Isis, the age of women.
JD: It's fascinating that from the beginning you embrace that side of Los Angeles history in your art.
AP: Los Angeles is a place that's built on myth. The idea of the city came long before Los Angeles was there. It has always had a history where fantasy becomes reality, and not just in Hollywood. And then, we created the concept. Beachwood Canyon had The Krotona Inn where the theosophists lived, which had very utopian architecture. There were the Nature Boys in the 1930s, who were like the first hippies—these Germans who moved to Laurel Canyon, and were vegan, and had long hair, and looked like they were from the ‘70s. The Native Americans say that Los Angeles has always had this magnetic quality to it that made people delusional. So, it's always this place of smoke and mirrors. Even hundreds of years ago, there was some type of energy that made things unclear. That opens possibilities for people to believe whatever they want to believe. That's what Scientologists believe—you create your reality and however you choose to live becomes the basis of your reality—which can be dangerous and idyllic. Growing up in LA, all of this has been embedded in my work.
Ariana Papademetropoulos, Phases of Venus, 2022. Oil on canvas, 91 3/4 x 108 1/4 inches (223 x 275 cm); © Ariana Papademetropoulos; Photo by Argenis Apolinario; Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery
JD: We presented a fascinating exhibition project together called The Emerald Tablet. It was quite unique. I'm not sure any other artist has ever done anything like this. It encompassed a very impressive solo exhibition of your work with epic paintings. And then, in the other part of the gallery you curated an exhibition that articulated your unique aesthetic and it was a kind of fusion of what we've been talking about. This Los Angeles occult history with The Wizard of Oz, and that myth. You should talk a little bit about The Emerald Tablet and Unarius, who did a performance in front of the gallery as part of the opening.
AP: L. Frank Baum [who wrote The Wizard Of Oz] was a theosophist. He named The Emerald City after The Emerald Tablet, which is an ancient alchemical text. The most famous line is “As above, so below.” I wanted to basically do an esoteric version of The Wizard of Oz. Instead of leading you to the Emerald City, it led to the Emerald Tablet, which is a place of collective unconsciousness. It's this place that all artists go to—a timeless universe. And that's why the green room had artists from the past hundred years. They all looked similar because they're all from this world some of these artists connected with. It's why the Mike Kelley piece looked so similar to the Agnes Pelton. The Jean-Marie Appriou piece looked like it was out of a Leonora Carrington painting. Everything was connected because it's this place that we can all enter into. Unarius believes there are these crystal cities on Mars, which was really similar to Mike Kelley's Kandor piece, which is where Superman was born. Unarius is a belief system, but they also functioned almost as a film studio because they made so many movies. They had their iconic bird release at the opening.
JD: Unforgettable. They drove their spaceship up North Orange, parked in front of the gallery, and had their cosmic release.
AP: I think perhaps Ruth, who started Unarius, was a performance artist without knowing it. She dressed as an Angel and flew down for her sermons suspended by a rope, surrounded by beautiful, young angel men. She lived out her dream.
JD: And I love the way this exhibition tied together your work with that of this special Los Angeles history by Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw and artists from an earlier era, some connected to Los Angeles, and also artists like Leonora Carrington and Agnes Pelton.
AP: Agnes Pelton is a big influence for me. She's very connected to that other realm, that collective unconscious that I'm always interested in, and theosophy is a religion that has been very inspiring to a lot of artists. Kandinsky was a theosophist. It's just a fusion of worlds that almost looks musical, and it comes from this idea of thought forms; where the best way to describe a feeling is not through words, but through pictures. I think that's what art is. It's not articulated, but you can feel it. Those were the ideas of Madame Blavatsky and Annie Besant.
JD: So, you have an exceptional technique and you paint almost like a Renaissance master. I'm fascinated by the art education you gave yourself. You told me you were kicked out of about five high schools. Then, you attended CalArts where I'm sure you got very good artistic insights, but you didn't quite fit in. But then, you did something very interesting. You created an old-fashioned apprenticeship. You worked for Noah Davis. You worked for Jim Shaw and absorbed artistic techniques and approaches the old-fashioned way.
AP: I think that's the best way of doing it, seeing how an artist operates in the world. Because, in a way, I do think art schools are a bit problematic. I can tell when an artist goes to CalArts. I can tell when an artist goes to Yale. You go to an art school with your own way of being and then you come out as a product of that school.
JD: You didn't let CalArts do that to you.
AP: I just don't think I could have. I don't have that personality. I've been interested in the same subject since I was ten years old. I am so through and through myself that I'm not successful at being anything but that. I think some of my favorite artists are self-taught because that is what being an artist is. It’s figuring out your own path. I mean, there’s a way of being a successful artist where you follow all the rules, but ultimately, you can also get there by doing it your own way.
JD: Your perspective is also very international. Your name is Greek, but your mother is from Argentina. And you have a natural affinity for Italian culture—some of your wonderful paintings were painted in Rome, which suits you very well. Somehow, you're channeling the Renaissance in what you do—a sort of fusion of this unique California underground aesthetic and channeling Botticelli.
AP: I definitely have my fantasy version of Italy. I first went there as an escape, but the longer I'm there, the easier it is to see the real-world version versus my Dolce Vita version. But I think Rome and Los Angeles are kind of similar in a way. And the churches of Rome are basically installation art. It’s all about trompe l'oeil. You don’t even know what you're looking at anymore. Is the sky really opening up to the heavens above? You go into those churches and you are overwhelmed by the beauty. It’s almost a religious experience because beauty is a portal to get you somewhere else. And I think that's something that I really strive for in my own work. I try to use beauty as a gateway to get to another thing.
JD: I'm fascinated by your studio practice. You remind me of my friend Jean Michel Basquiat who was out all the time enjoying life in the clubs, yet astonishingly prolific. He obviously spent hours and hours in the studio. And so, unlike many artists, you have a very full and interesting life. Here we are in India, but your work is so demanding. It must be hours and hours in isolation doing this repetitive, exacting work.
AP: I travel and I live my life, but I don’t think an artist is never not working. I get inspiration from seeing the physical world. For the show we are doing together on Nymphaeums, it will take a lot of research and visiting grottos. And then, I’ll go into my studio for a prolonged period of time and work out the ideas I’ve absorbed. The physical nature of the work does require a long time, but it's almost meditative, and I enjoy the peace. I’m either working or I'm exploring, but anything in between, I've just never learned how to do that. It's either I work really hard or I'm wanting to live life to the fullest.
JD: So, a fascinating example of how you experience the world. You accompanied me some years back on a trip to Germany and you had read on the internet that there was some house built by a madman. It was the architecture of a schizophrenic and we were determined to see this house. When we encountered people in the art world and told them we were going to see this house, nobody else had heard about it. So, we rented a big Mercedes—I asked you to drive—and we saw this house. It was absolutely amazing. And that's typical of how you take in the world. I haven't seen the image of this house in your work yet, but something from this house is going to be there soon, I’m sure.
AP: That trip was actually the first time you mentioned to me this idea of a gesamtkunstwerk, or a total work of art. I never knew that word existed. And you were saying to me that that's what I'm doing. There's the work that I make, but it's also an extension of the world that I live in. And I feel like that idea really resonated with me. Now that I have a word to describe this thing, it’s opened so many new possibilities, because I've always been a little bit afraid of being anything other than a painter. There are always magical, beautiful things if you look for them. And there are things that are out of this world, that are in this world.
