GWAR // JAMES JEAN // LARASSA KABEL // MODERNICA // MR.

GWAR
//
JAMES JEAN
//
MICHAEL PEARCE

A VISUAL HISTORY
OF ROCK’S MOST
DISGUSTING
ART COLLECTIVE
//
PHIL HALE

GWAR
MR.//
//
PAT McCARTHY

BARRY McGEE
JAMES JOYCE
CLARISSA BONET
//
LARASSA KABEL

DECEMBER, n179
DECEMBER 2015, n179

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DANNY OF TOGETHER PANGEA
FLEET OVERALL
ISSUE 179 / DECEMBER 2015

10 EDITOR’S LETTER 24 PICTURE BOOK

LET THERE BE GWAR! CLARISSA BONET

14 STUDIO TIME 34 DESIGN

JAMES JEAN IN LOS ANGELES MODERNICA

18 THE REPORT 38 FASHION

JUXTAPOZ IN TIMES SQUARE ZANA BAYNE

24 EVENTS 44 INFLUENCES
BARRY McGEE JAMES JOYCE

70 MR. 82 LARASSA KABEL

48 GWAR 60 PAT McCARTHY 92 PHIL HALE

104 EVENT 118 PRODUCT REVIEWS

JAMES JEAN @ HIDARI ZINGARO
120 SIEBEN ON LIFE
108 IN SESSION SIX PACK WITH POROUS WALKER
ACADEMY OF ART UNIVERSITY
122 POP LIFE
110 BOOK REVIEWS
126 PERSPECTIVE
114 PROFILE REMEMBERING THE PIZZ
MICHAEL PEARCE

Clarissa Bonet, Vertical (detail), 2014

© Clarissa Bonet. Image courtesy of
JUXTAPOZ.COM Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago
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GWAR // JAMES JEAN // LARASSA KABEL // MODERNICA // MR.

JUXTAPOZ ISSN #1077-8411 DECEMBER 2015 VOLUME 22, NUMBER 12
Published monthly by High Speed Productions, Inc., 1303 Underwood Ave, San Francisco, CA 94124–3308. © 2015 High Speed Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. Juxtapoz
is a registered trademark of High Speed Productions, Inc. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Opinions expressed in articles are those of the author. All
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ART COLLECTIVE
GWAR The publishers would like to thank everyone who has furnished information and materials for this issue. Unless otherwise noted, artists featured in Juxtapoz retain copyright to their work. Every
effort has been made to reach copyright owners or their representatives. The publisher will be pleased to correct any mistakes or omissions in our next issue. Juxtapoz welcomes editorial
BARRY McGEE
JAMES JOYCE submissions; however, return postage must accompany all unsolicited manuscripts, art, drawings, and photographic materials if they are to be returned. No responsibility can be assumed for
CLARISSA BONET

unsolicited materials. All letters will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright purposes and subject to Juxtapoz’ right to edit and comment editorially.

Juxtapoz Is Published by High Speed Productions, Inc.

DECEMBER, n179

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Cover: GWAR’s Oderus Urungus
Photo by Mark Harvey
1990
ADRIENNE STEIN
FINE ARTS ALUMNA

LAGUNA BFA DEGREES

Animation
MFA
Art of Game Design
MINORS
Art History
COLLEGE Design + Digital Media Drawing Creative Writing
OF ART + Drawing + Painting Painting Sculpture
Game Art
DESIGN Illustration LCAD.EDU/JUXTAPOZ
E D I TO R ’ S L E T T E R
ISSUE NO 179
OCCASIONALLY IT’S NICE WHEN THINGS GET A LITTLE
messy. The Juxtapoz staff is coming down from a major high
after our 11-day newsstand residency in Times Square with
Grotesk and Victory Journal. That highlight, a beautifully
pristine presentation with the spot-on folks at the Times
Square Alliance, prompted a change of scenery, maybe an
injection of more blood and guts for the next project. Maybe
something with swords and guys with names like Oderus.
I know what you must be thinking: “Oh my god, is that
a GWAR cover?” Whether a fan or possessing a vague
memory from early 1990’s late-night MTV, you will remember
GWAR as this incredibly over-the-top, filthy, vulgar but
incredibly alluring, rock band that dressed in pre-civilization,
post-human costumes, enacting gross atrocities on stage
at every performance. But, what may not be appreciated
is that you were witnessing one of the most well-thought-
out, conceptual and creative art collectives of the last 50
years. GWAR excels as an amalgam of performance art and
storytelling, punctuated by theatrical stage production and
propelled by a cult-following, art-centric fanbase. This fall,
Gingko Press and book editor Roger Gastman published
Let There Be GWAR, a resplendently salacious historical
perspective on the band. Highlighting not only the self-
10 | DECEMBER 2015
created folklore about what GWAR is and was, the book The Slaves of GWAR with
Slymenstra Hyman
documents the complex costume design and DIY ethic that 1990
created such a fascinating cultural phenomenon. Expanding Photo by Matt Harvey
on the book, we focus on GWAR as an art collective of
friends and collaborators in Richmond, Virginia and how they
created a group whose fans eagerly anticipated a drenching
of vomit and blood. A weird kinship, isn’t it? Yet something
too unique and beloved to ignore.
From the works of Mr. and his own special relationship with
performance, to the other-worldly fashion creations of Zana
Bayne, and James Jean’s continued mastery of a fresh kind
of poetic painting, the December 2015 issue is full of works
that escape neat definitions and boundaries. We don’t want
to cover an art world that doesn’t get a little uncomfortably
provocative, so sometimes that means getting a little dirty in
the process.
Enjoy #179.
STUDIO TIME
JAMES JEAN
WELCOME TO THE MURDER ROOM
I LIVE AND WORK IN THE SAME PLACE. THE WINDOWS
face west toward downtown Los Angeles. As it gets later
in the day, the sun descends behind the few skyscrapers
in the distance and fills the studio in an oppressive light.
Sometimes the entire room turns orange and pink. I should
wake up earlier to avoid this dazzling yet impractical
light, but my frequent trips between Japan and LA have
thrown my circadian rhythm into disorder. I needed
to rent something quickly, so this loft was only meant
to be a temporary place while I looked for something
more permanent.
The owner of the unit wanted me to sign a one-year lease,
but I tried to negotiate a month-to-month arrangement.
When he gave me a tour of the unit, he realized that he
had gotten my autograph seven years ago at Comic-Con
and relaxed his terms. He would be happy to know that
I've wrapped the walls and floor with plastic to protect his
precious loft. Visitors to the studio have remarked that it
looks like a murder room. But perhaps it's not so much the
room as it is the cold, calculating demeanor of the host that
inspires this homicidal impression. Just kidding. I'm a great
14 | DECEMBER 2015
host. My guests never leave. They stay close to my heart, Portrait by Brandon Shigeta
inside my broken circadian clock, in a realm beyond time.
Though I crave stability and predictability, the course of my
work has taken some unexpected turns over the past year,
and this splatter-proof box has contained a variety of oddly
shaped panels and enormous, unwieldy canvases. I've had
to transform the space to accommodate the weirdness of
each project. There are no easels or drafting tables here,
only cardboard boxes, sawhorses and wood panels that
stack into makeshift supports. An airbed wallows in the
corner and tempts me to stop working. Perhaps the owner,
the fan, has set up a pinhole camera to record my every
brush stroke, my every secret shame. The plastic sheeting
not only repels liquids but also reflects paranoia back upon
the subject. The subject is bathed in these delirious fluids.
—James Jean
Read more about James Jean’s new exhibition at Hidari Zingaro
Gallery in Tokyo on page 104.
T H E R EP O R T
THE SPIRIT OF PRINT
THE T.SQ NEWSSTAND COMES HOME
THE T.SQ NEWSSTAND MADE ITS APT DEBUT IN NEW
York City while a twilight torrent of rain scattered tourists,
shuttling them to run for cover. The flashing billboard
screens persisted in powerful presence, transforming the
plazas into giant reflectors, their evening glow rivaling the
mid-day sun. The ensuing effect illuminated the Juxtapoz
signage, which rose to the occasion and shared in Time
Square’s showy shine. Somehow it felt that the Newsstand
had come home. In fact, the blueprint for the Juxtapoz and
Victory Journal T.SQ Newsstand re-creation and residency
in New York City with Times Square Alliance was rooted in
this physical space and energy.
Kimou “Grotesk” Meyer had designed the booth for
Juxtapoz, inspired by those cramped, colorful Times Square
newsstands. Although a few stalwart stalls remain, this
project is more than a resurrection of the past. This artist’s
rendition honors not only old New York, but the spirit of
print, affection for old newspaper and magazine stands, and
vibrant energy of physical publishing. One Times Square
18 | DECEMBER 2015
Alliance Security guard, a lifelong New Yorker, remarked, Photography by Andrew White
“This isn’t so much a memory for me, but just a desire to
have these newsstands back on every corner like they used
to be.”
The T.SQ Newsstand is an installation and very much the
product of Grotesk’s ability to create a hybrid of function
and art. As thousands of people walked by the newsstand
it became a meeting place for artists, friends, fans, the
curious, as alive in its surroundings as we had hoped. After
all, it was meant to be. —Evan Pricco
A big thank you from Juxtapoz and Victory Journal for the generous
support of Converse, the Times Square Alliance, Times Square Art,
The New York EDITION, Grotesk, Cheryl Dunn, Colossal Media, ONLY
NY, Matt Weber, Smart Crew, Fool’s Gold Records, Daniel Arnold,
Barbara Kruger, Charlie Ahearn, Jean Julien, Jason Polan, Matt
Wright, Jane Dickson and Mike Langley for all their contributions.
THE REPORT JUXTAPOZ | 19
E V EN T S
BARRY McGEE
CHINA BOO @ RATIO 3, SAN FRANCISCO
NOVEMBER 6–DECEMBER 19, 2015
The last time Barry McGee had a solo show at Ratio 3, it was under
the alias Lydia Fong in an attempt to make something different than
the work he’s known for, but he wasn’t able to hide that recognizable
magic. Everything McGee touches turns to art, and his influence is
heavy. We’re always ready to see what the wizard will conjure up next.
China Boo is like the arrival of a long-awaited album. Always fresh, yet
always signature—that’s why Twist is still King.
22 | DECEMBER 2015
TRISTAN EATON
LEGACY @ SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS, LOS ANGELES
NOVEMBER 7–15, 2015
Curated by Library Street Collective
Tristan Eaton has a storied and varied track record. A legend in the
vinyl toy arena, he designed the ubiquitous Dunny for Kidrobot. He also
founded Thunderdog Studios, working with corporate and public giants
like Nike and Barack Obama. Very few artists can list the president on
their client roster, so it’s no wonder that Eaton’s new show is called
Legacy. The artist has been focused on murals and paintings for the last
few years, and his iconic portraits speak for the legacy of Pop Art.
JOHN FELIX ARNOLD III
FROM HERE @ JOSEPH GROSS GALLERY, NYC
NOVEMBER 5–25, 2015
John Felix Arnold III embodies the force of transformation in his new
exhibition. He explains, “This work marks a huge moment of letting
go, diving deep into process, facing fear and, in turn, breaking my own
conventions and just letting so much that is under the surface erupt in my
voice. It feels like the most honest, evolved, rawest body of work I have
made.” Attempting a deconstruction of the typical narrative, the artist
reveals conscious and unconscious evidence of transfiguration.
PIC TURE BOOK

CLARISSA BONET
INNER SPACE
THE FIRST TIME WE SAW THE WORK OF CHICAGO-BASED
photographer Clarissa Bonet, her art spoke to us with
immediacy. “Expressing a feeling or a mood is challenging
to photograph; it’s not a tangible thing,” she told camera
company Lomography. “So I used light, shadow and color as
a way to communicate to my viewers what my experience
of the urban environment was like.” If there were ever
a photographer who captured both the anonymity and
community of urban life, Bonet is that messenger. She creates
an accessible language for what we see and feel navigating
a city. No, it's not a tangible thing, but each of us knows the
experience of walking down the street, wearing headphones
and creating our own soundtrack for the scenario. Bonet’s
work has that unique quality of resonating with the viewer,
visually capturing the gripping reality of everyday life.
Fortunately for us, she put it into words as well. —Juxtapoz

“THE VAST SCALE AND OVERWHELMING PRESENCE OF

the urban space are attributes of the city that captivated me
immediately upon moving to Chicago. Coming from Florida,
the foreign landscape made quite an impression on me—and
still does almost six years later. City Space developed out of
my attraction to the metropolitan environment and its people.

Mundane tasks of everyday life became completely new

experiences in the urban arena—from the way I commuted,
bought groceries or became caught up in the morning crowd.
Yet the most significant change was becoming a pedestrian,
roaming the city’s surface, experiencing life in flux. Rooted
in the action of the pedestrian, City Space reconstructs
everyday events in the city that I have publically experienced
or witnessed. Stark light, deep shadow, and muted color
are visual elements I explore to describe the city. I use the
city as a stage and transform the physical space into a
psychological one.”

clarissabonet.com

All images © Clarissa Bonet /

Courtesy of Catherine Edelman
Gallery, Chicago.

Absence Presence, 2014

24 | DECEMBER 2015
 “ City Space rethinks the genre of street photography, imaging
it anew. By analyzing the work of street photographers
I decipher their photographic language and use it as a
conceptual vehicle for my own work. In studying them,
I also borrow from their practice as I wander the streets for
hours, observing life, making snapshots, and taking notes in
above
Spilt Milk, 2011 reaction to my encounters on the streets. The materials and
experience gained from these explorations are the source
opposite
Sweeping Traces, 2014 material I use to structure the final photographs.”
PICTURE BOOK JUXTAPOZ | 27
“ More than documenting the street, I depict emotional and
psychological experiences of city life that arise from physical
characteristics of the environment: looming buildings, rigid
structures, and mysterious inhabitants that occupy the
space alongside me. The images I create are not intended
to represent a commonality of experience, but express my
personal interpretation of the cityscape and how aspects of from left
the physical environment affect my perception of place and In the Clouds, 2012

elicit a psychological response.” Perpetual Shadow, 2014

DESIGN
MODERNICA
RESURRECTING ICONIC CHAIRS
WITH DABSMYLA IN THE HOUSE
FOR A MODERNISM FAN, WALKING THROUGH THE
gates of the Modernica factory in Los Angeles is like being
Charlie Bucket cashing in his golden ticket to Wonka’s
chocolate tour. In the grim industrial outskirts of Los
Angeles, down a makeshift road, lies the five-acre campus
where five buildings are painstakingly restored, each
representative of a different architectural time and place,
each a wonderland of case study and design. While there
are no psychedelic candy mushrooms or fantastic blueberry
gum flavors to be found, the 52 current colors of sweet
fiberglass shell chairs just might suffice. Among the racks of
wire bases, organic ceramic shapes, and translucent bubble
lamps, amid the faint scent of Styrene and whir of machinery,
highly skilled craftsman in white factory coveralls handcraft
the iconic chairs, tables, bookshelves and beds to order.
No Oompa Loompas in sight.
The owners, Frank and Jay Novak, are excited to walk the
property as if this is their first time. They speak in exhaustive
detail and never tire of telling their story, one that has
evolved over time like their designs. As anyone with even
32 | DECEMBER 2015
an eBay obsession might understand, it is a tale of passion
and tenacity. The Novaks turned theirs into a furniture
business. The brothers’ appreciation for modern design
and architecture started early, in a house built by a Neutra
protégé, where they grew up in Omaha, Nebraska.
In 1989, the first thing Modernica ever produced was a
small butterfly table. However, their fate was determined
in 1990, when, after a few years researching the origins of
the fiberglass chair, Frank, who began his career as a set-
builder and art director for cult filmmaker Roger Corman,
stumbled upon it in a parking lot in Compton, full of perfectly
preserved, yet discarded shells. “They were stacked,
twelve thousand of them,” he remembers, “ so I thought
I could make some rocking chairs, and got a hundred of
them. Eventually, we bought them all.” In 2000, under the
guidance of Sol Fingerhut—the man who, in 1949, invented
the process, as well as the preform machine that still
makes the shells at the factory today—the brothers began
manufacturing the chairs under the Modernica umbrella.
It’s hard to believe their ubiquitous plastic curves, seen in
coffee shops, hipster dining rooms and on design blogs
everywhere, were almost obsolete. “These are his machines.
He had all the equipment sitting there, dormant,” explains
Jay. “They had stopped making the product six years earlier.
Those chairs were completely out of production.” Ultimately,
the Novaks bought the machines at auction, and moved
them onto their current property in 2011.
Luckily, the guy who knows how to fix the arcane, one-of-a-
kind behemoths came along with the equipment. Many of
Modernica’s employees have been here for the long haul,
with even some of the youngest staff members clocking in at
around 10 years. They are a close-knit group of 100, with the
company supporting animal advocacy and other personal
interests of its employees. “It’s my biggest wish that people
come to work, and it’s not a job,” offers General Manager
Lori Weise. “We want people to enjoy it and do something
they feel good about. Life is short.”
Consequently, Modernica keeps jobs and products
interesting with color experiments and regular artist
collaborations. The unofficial program, initiated by two All photography by Shannon Cottrell
young, art department heads, Lennys Arias and Sergio Diaz,
who supervise assembly and the wood shop, respectively,
help artists and lifestyle brands realize exclusive, limited-
edition collections. “Embedding images in the fiberglass is
something we’ve been working on for awhile,” explains Diaz.
“We tried painting with spray cans, which kind of do what
they want to do, and different inks do different things. The
calico chair is one of the first ones I did. It was my invention.
I was trying to get camouflage! But that looks good, the way
it bleeds.”
Anytime an artist approaches the company, they are
referred to us,” adds Arias. “We collect the ideas and
give our input on what we think will work. I develop new
pigments, new resins, and the additives. I started learning
the presses and here we are today, with all these colors
that we have in stock.” The Hundreds did a “CMYK” armed
rocker, all black with cyan wire base and magenta and
yellow rockers. Retna lent his hieroglyphs to some shelving
units; Huf invented his own green; Krink achieved the first
DESIGN JUXTAPOZ | 33
DESIGN
metallic chair with a sublime concrete color containing glittering aluminum
powder; and, most recently, Dr. Woo premiered an X-ray chair, including a real
shot of his skeleton pressed into the fiberglass.”
So far, the only thing proving difficult for the masters at Modernica is a perfect
sea foam shade. Three parts green, one part blue, the most beautiful hue
was achieved with the lead-based pigments of the ’50s. However, while
experimenting with more the eco-friendly colors and technologies of today,
the Novaks have plenty of new ideas for furnishings to test as well, and plan
to keep it fun and keep it local.
“We couldn’t exist in any other city,” offers Jay, contemplating the beautiful
Southern Californian day. “Here we have the aesthetic, the architecture,
a brilliantly talented workforce… this city was made for us. People in Los
Angeles are open to things. This is the city of the future.”
modernica.net
34 | DECEMBER 2015
DABSMYLA X MODERNICA
In October, Modernica hit an unprecedented milestone as
artists DabsMyla opened Before & Further, a 4,000 square-
foot installation takeover of a 1930’s Spanish Revival building
on the property. Using their harmonious design instincts,
upbeat characters and midcentury color palette, DabsMyla
unquestionably transformed both the exterior and interior
of the former drafting offices. Oversized 3D sculptures, new
paintings, teepee, black light secret entrance, and lighting
installations filled the space like an avant garde nirvana set in
the atomic age. There’s even a spectacular two-sided, eight-
foot room divider made with specially fabricated fiberglass
panels that glow in the natural light. The duo worked on the
structure seven days a week for three months, hand-painting
and re-interpreting the two-story installation The result is
breathtaking, both in scope and execution. Yes, of course,
there are special DabsMyla chairs.
FA S H I O N
ZANA BAYNE
HARNESSES AND HARDWARE
WHOA! YOU MIGHT THINK THEY’RE STRAPS OF
submission, but consider the words of poet laureate
Robert Frost, who wrote “You have freedom when you’re
easy in your harness.” Driving home the power and strength
of the word, know that Brooklyn designer Zana Bayne
harnessed her own energy and imagination to initially
handcraft what she simply describes as “a belt with
two extra belts on top.” She’s woven her way up to risk
takers like Lady Gaga, Debbie Harry and Madonna,
so we wanted to know more about her leather lore.
Gwynned Vitello: What did your childhood bedroom look
like, and how did it morph into the teenage years?
Zana Bayne: I’ve always liked surrounding myself with lots of
things, and growing up, my bedrooms were always complete
chaotic messes! I loved having all of my things out in plain
sight at the same time, which can get quite messy. I do recall
cutting out the brightest and most graphic advertisements
36 | DECEMBER 2015
and editorials from Elle Girl magazine, pasting them up
on my walls like tiles. Later, when we moved to California,
I was definitely feeling more in touch with my Goth side,
my bedroom a sponge-painted dark purple, and I had this
Victorian-looking bed frame with a Moroccan lamp hanging
from the ceiling to top everything off.
With your mom being in the fashion industry, did she
influence you? Did she let you dress yourself for school?
My mom continues to be a massive influence on me, from
her eye for design to her experience in business. I feel so
lucky to have been raised in a creative family, allowing
me to express myself through my clothing, no matter the
phase. I grew up with a stay-at-home Dad who didn’t put
restrictions on what I wore, sometimes resulting in peculiar
combinations like wearing three skirts layered over each
other, or my favorite gold felt crown which I wore every day
to kindergarten.
Were your fine arts studies helpful when you decided to go
into fashion design?
Certain aspects of my education helped, and others
hindered. In college, there was an attitude that fashion was
not to be taken seriously, that it was frivolous and a lesser
practice than the traditional fine arts, and more specifically,
the antithesis of conceptual artwork. I think I struggled with
this a bit at the time, but I don’t carry any of that attitude.
What I have taken is a very graphic eye for shapes and
forms, and an interest in how they interact with the body.

I imagine you put clothing items together in unexpected

ways, but did you ever sew any of your own garments?
Absolutely! I love mixing and matching vintage with
designer, and filling in the gaps with pieces that I made
myself when I couldn’t find or afford certain things. When I
moved from San Francisco to Berlin, I actually brought my
sewing machine and bag of pyramid studs with me.

Did you make belts at first and then literally branch into
harnesses? What was the first material you used?
Before leather, I fashioned a rudimentary harness out of
elastic and key chain rings. Later, when I gained access
to the materials, my first proper harness was made from
vegetable-tanned leather that fastened at the waist, as well
as over the shoulders—still sold as the “Signature Harness.”

How did you figure out how to make the design? Pattern,
template, sketches?
The first piece was a series of small belts around the body.
Being self taught, I convinced myself that I did not know
how to make proper garment patterns, so I simply didn’t use
them. When we started selling online, the pieces weren’t
even traditionally sized, and each piece was made according
to customers’ measurements. Obviously, this could only
work for so long. Now, I come up with a sketch, then make
a rough first sample. From there, my design assistant fine
tunes the sample and draws out the technical pattern.

Tell us about the qualities you look for in leather, and how
you use different textures and weights for various designs.
Much of the collection maintains structured shapes, so
the leather must have a measure of rigidity. The pieces in
the “Originals Collection” were, and are, fashioned from
heavy cowhide, which keeps a smooth exterior with a
secure feeling of durability. The seasonal collections are
made from double-faced bonded leather, so both sides are
luxurious to the touch and allow a variety of textures and
colors. We’ve been playing with different weights recently,
as I’m interested in creating lightness and movement with
certain styles that have hundreds of straps. Each piece must
be comfortable, as well as visually striking, so we strive to
balance design intricacy with leather and hardware.

Do you use other materials?

We introduced PVC in 2012 which, when clear, has a
wild effect layered over clothing. Every season, we work
with different textures like exotic skins or patent, so new
materials are always a possibility.

FASHION JUXTAPOZ | 37
How long does it take to make a harness, and do you
deploy the troops?
The “Signature Harness” might take twenty minutes,
while one of the fully-linked dresses is at least six hours to
assemble, not including prepping the straps. Currently, our
studio is run by four permanent staffers, as well as a rotating
cast of interns.
Where do you source the metal accoutrement—even the
tools you use—and have they become more complex?
Sources always vary, and many components have
become signature to the designs. We also use traditional
leatherworking hand tools, which are standard to the
medium. Computers cannot replace them! We also work with
jewelry designer Chris Haban to develop custom hardware,
from star tips to Surrealist hands, to the curved, oversized
buckles of the last collection.
Tell us about the video collaboration with Lady Gaga.
This was pretty early in the brand’s development in 2011,
38 | JUXTAPOZ FASHION
when we were contacted by Nicola Formichetta’s team to
design gold-embellished pieces for Lady Gaga’s dancers for
Saturday Night Live. Shortly after, we were asked to make a
series of full-body styles for her and her dancers for a tour
through Asia, the pieces immortalized in the “You & I” video.
I’d send a sketch, wait for approval and usually had less
than a week to complete the project, but was given a great
amount of creative liberty.
What accompanies the creative routine in your studio?
I mostly design after hours so that I can be alone in the
studio. Sometimes I’ll spend hours in silence, simply
because I forgot to turn on music. I’ve found that
adrenaline can work just as well as caffeine—without
making my hands shake!
zanabayne.com
 NO,
YOU’RE
WEIRD!

 J O H NF LU EVO GS H O E S

VANCOUVERSEATTLEBOSTONTORONTONEWYORKSANFRANCISCOCHICAGOLOSANGELES
MONTRÉALPORTLANDQUÉBECCALGARYWASHINGTONDCMINNEAPOLISDENVEROTTAWA
FLU EVO G CO M
I N FLU EN C E S
JAMES JOYCE
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YELLOW SMILEY FACE
WHATEVER JAMES JOYCE—NO, NOT THAT ONE—HAS
done, it’s always been big. He began his career as a graphic
designer, soon shifting to illustration to land clients like The
New York Times and Nike. His studio artwork is innately
bold. His art pokes fun at cultural behemoths, like the classic
yellow smiley face or Facebook. And his recent exhibition at
Dismaland demonstrates his position on the front line with
other subversive artists. James Joyce makes something new
from our cultural white noise.
Rachel Cassandra: It seems like you've shifted entirely
from design to art at this point. Describe the transition.
James Joyce: I've always had a massive interest in
contemporary art and I finally got to a point in my career
where I felt comfortable enough to make a leap. I've shifted
before from graphic design to more illustration, and now,
into art. I think it's the natural progression of being an
artist or creative individual. You've just got to keep things
42 | DECEMBER 2015
interesting. If I were doing the same thing for twenty Photo by Leo Cackett
years, I'd probably be pretty bored and churning out crap
as a result.
I was showing the Like paintings to a graphic designer friend
of mine in New York recently and the first thing he said to me
was, "You're a typographer at heart, aren't you?" So, I still do
have an appreciation for all of that stuff.
Can you tell me about the show you just finished?
I was exhibiting in Banksy's new show, Dismaland in the
seaside town of Weston-super-Mare in England. I had a large
video installation piece titled Perseverance in the Face of
Absurdity in the first gallery. We built a large circular screen
and projected a rotating face onto it. All the elements of
the face tumble around as the disc rotates. Banksy used my
original image for the cover of the program, too.
There is a dynamic visual vocabulary in your work. Often
you take powerful visual icons, twist them, and combine
them with popular phrases. How do you make those
choices?
I like the idea of tweaking something slightly and giving
an entirely new meaning or feel about it. For instance, the
yellow face, an image that's been around since the 1950s:
how can I play with something as iconic as that and make
it my own, in a way, so it becomes something else? It has
an entirely different meaning from its original state, yet you
still recognize what it once was. I like the idea of subverting
cultural icons, or playing with the language of the culture.
The tweaks seem really simple and slight but, in fact, are
quite fundamental changes to something and give it an
entirely different meaning or context.
In a lot of my work, I'm interested in words or phrases. I’m
constantly writing stuff down. I've got a very long list of
words I've collected over time—just things I hear, nonsense
phrases, or those in-between words which, when isolated,
you think, ‘That's a strange phrase.’ For instance, the Oh No
paintings I've done. Symmetrically, it's quite a beautiful thing
to look at. The two O's mirror diagonally, and the N and the
H are similar to each other. As a graphic piece, clockwise from top left
3 Likes
it’s nice, visually, in an iconic way. In a different context, Acrylic on canvas
it could be quite a negative expression; it usually means 59" x 59"
2015
disaster or something. But when you isolate it and present
it as a large painting, there is a humor about it. I enjoy the Here for a Good Time Not a Long Time
absurdity of taking the time to compose and paint it. I did Gloss paint on wood panel
69" diameter
some screenprints years ago titled This, This, This, and This. 2015
When you isolate those phrases and think about them, they Laugh, I Nearly Died
don't mean anything. They get lost in the language and Gloss paint on wood panel
69" diameter
people don't notice them. When you draw attention to them, 2015
you realize, ‘This actually is a really odd phrase. It doesn't
mean anything.’
A lot of my ideas start with words, something I've jotted
down and then looked at afterwards. Things might start
happening visually when I look at a word, or it might trigger
an idea. A lot of the time I'm probably writing down complete
shit, but other times, it can be quite insightful, something
interesting. But if you don't write it down, you forget, so,
even if it's the stupidest thing, I tend to write it down.
Tell us a bit about the physical process of your paintings.
It’s all hand painted, but the final execution almost looks
INFLUENCES JUXTAPOZ | 43
I N FLU EN C E S
perfect. Only when you look very closely do you see traces
of human mistakes, slight wobbly bits. But I think it’s quite
interesting to see, on closer inspection, that it's not printed,
or done by machine or anything like that.
In terms of the process, I mask off each letter, then do a few
coats of paint on each color. Then I peel off, re-mask. I keep
painting, peeling off and re-masking it. It's a long process,
which belies the simplicity of the image. It’s the same with
the face paintings as well, which are gloss painting on
wood particle panel. Because they're gloss paint, you've
got to allow 24 hours between each coat. Years ago, I was
a graphic designer, where obviously a lot of the work is
created on screen and then printed. This is different. Most
of the artwork is created on computer first, compositionally.
But then, often, I'm going back to painting, which is an
ancient process.
There’s a lot of image and word repetition in your body of
work. For example, the dismantled smiley face shows up
in multiple pieces. Is that part of an unfolding process or
does each feel like a separate exploration?
I originally did the clown-face paintings probably eight years
ago, on a flyer for a club night in East London. Not exactly as
44 | DECEMBER 2015
it is now, but something similar. Things like that I've revisited clockwise from left
Oh No
because I suddenly realize, in the right context, it becomes Acrylic on canvas
art. When you make it out of a certain material and a certain 23.5" x 23.5"
2015
size, conceptually, it's a strong thing. It holds up.
Pedestal
Gloss paint, birch ply and
A lot of the ideas I have, they have a life. You can do various concrete bricks
17" x 35" x 17"
iterations of them, and they can continually unfold. Like,
2015
imagine that face piece: if you rotate that all the time, it’s the
Slow Burn
piece I've done for the Banksy show. Those faces can fall Acrylic on canvas
in any number of places. Obviously, some don't look right 17" x 14"
2014
compositionally if you freeze them, but there are many ways
you could compose that image. Perhaps there's a better way
to do it than I've already done it.
I like the idea of an ongoing series. They're all quite open
in that way. The Like paintings, for instance, they can go
on forever. I can do as many iterations of that as I want, but
each one is an original. There's a life to it that can carry on,
which doesn't stop with one painting. It can go on forever,
really, if you want it to.
www.jamesjoyce.co.uk
MAX WYSE -“Summer Hut” (2015), 25” x 24”, Mixed media on plexiglass

6355 Saint-Laurent Blvd, Montréal (Québec) H2S 3C3 1.514.393.1999 // info@yveslaroche.com // www.yveslaroche.com
GWAR photo shoot, 1990
WELCOME TO THE
SLAVE PIT
MEET THE DISGUSTING HUMAN ART COLLECTIVE
THAT LIVES TO SERVE THE MIGHTY GWAR
TEXT BY NANCY STRANGE // PORTRAIT BY MARK HARVEY
AFTER SEVERAL YEARS LIVING IN FOGGY SAN FRANCISCO,
I’d forgotten all about swamp ass. Then I went back to
Richmond, Virginia, in the middle of June, and it all came back.
I’d arranged to spend a few days in my old hometown hanging
out at The Slave Pit, which is both a physical workspace and
the name of the artist collective it houses. While I was there,
the studio’s overworked AC fought a losing battle against
the sweltering humid air, but that didn’t stop the artists and
musicians from showing up to prep for GWAR’s upcoming
festival dates and fall tour.
What you should know about GWAR is that they are foul-
mouthed, over-educated, under-civilized, heavy-metal-playing
monsters from outer space who dismember and decapitate
effigies on stage, and make human sacrifices to a giant
creature they call The World Maggot, while spewing effluvium
over crowds of adoring fans. You should also know the people
who make it all happen are members of The Slave Pit, and
GWAR just happens to be their most popular art project.
Despite their physical location in the former capital of the
Confederacy, the name of the group has nothing to do with
Richmond’s shameful racist heritage. It comes from the
group’s work ethic, their historic insolvency and from the plot
of the unfinished film that helped start it all.
Back in the mid-1980s, Richmond was seedy and violent,
full of crackheads and abandoned buildings. Between the
dirt-cheap rents and the fairly-affordable tuition at Virginia
Commonwealth University School of the Arts, Richmond was
prime location for a bunch of punk kids to make art, play loud
music and invest serious time in stupid ideas.
One of the places where a lot of those kids came together
was The Dairy, a disused, dilapidated dairy factory at a
crossroads in the Jackson Ward neighborhood. It’s now
renovated into lofts, but back then The Dairy was home to
hippies and hat-makers, artists and musicians, stoners and
weirdoes. Hunter Jackson was one of the weirdoes who lived
and worked there in a two-level studio space, where he and
his friend Chuck Varga built set pieces and costumes for their
never-to-be-finished film Scumdogs of the Universe. The
lower level of the studio was set aside for use as the set of the
space-pirate ship’s slave pit.
Another resident of The Dairy, Dave Brockie, had a band
called Death Piggy, which could claim a decent underground
following at the time. A lot of nights, after band practice,
Brockie would head over to Jackson’s studio space to unwind
with a few beers and check on the guys’ progress building
the slave pit and the Scumdog costumes. It was only a matter
of time before Jackson borrowed a Death Piggy song to
promote his film, and then a little while longer before Brockie
asked to borrow the costumes for an upcoming Death Piggy
show. Neither of them could’ve guessed how long their
collaboration would continue, or how far it would take them.
Brockie and Jackson weren’t fated to always get along—and
we’re speaking in massive understatement here—but what
 they did have in common was a trait some of us call “punk
rock Tom Sawyer-ing.” Both men were brilliant at getting
other people to work for free. They’d ask friends the proto-
GWAR version of Sawyer’s famous question, “Does a boy
get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” And every
day, friends happily and freely donated elbow grease and art
school know-how to help turn their crazy ideas into reality.
Instead of whitewashing fences, the work was drawing,
painting, fabricating sets and costumes, shooting film,
acting, making songs and storytelling.

Thirty years later, Jackson has distanced himself from the

remaining members of The Slave Pit and Brockie is sorely
missed after his unexpected death early last year. But their
co-created artist collective is alive and well.

I’m not at liberty to disclose the location of The Slave Pit’s

current space, for fear a bunch of bohabs (GWAR fans who
measures an irritating degree of devotion to the band) will
break in or, worse, try to befriend the guys while they’re
working. I can say that, from the outside, there’s no clue
to give passersby about what goes on inside that non-
descript warehouse, painted a non-descript color with
non-descript doors leading into a space where all the dark,
bloody magic happens.

On a hot mid-June day, I was greeted at the door by the

familiar, intoxicating smell of industrial-strength glue. The
entryway to The Slave Pit boasts two chairs placed on
either side of a glass-top side table, right outside the
front offices. Instead of Highlights Magazine or corporate
inspirational posters, the waiting area is decorated with
a dusty old alien helmet circa the late 1980s, fan art and
posters, including a Joe Simko “GWARbage Pail Kids” print
of “Oderus Among Us.”

It amuses me how many ways The Slave Pit operates like

any other business. The guys in GWAR have offices, storage
spaces and a break room where they’re expected to wash
their own coffee cups. These cultural icons, artists and rock
stars are usually filthy with paint stains, foam dust and fake
blood, but they’re also sitting at desks, zoning out on their
current status meeting and pretending to listen to each other
while looking at Facebook on their smartphones. They have
their own business language, too. I’ve overheard talk of pre-
pro for a Level One and status checks on new decaps (props
that can be decapitated over and over again on stage).

On the other hand, their filing cabinets are full of comics

and show flyers and their storage room has a box labeled
“Christmas” right next to a box labeled “double dongs.”
The two meetings I attended that week had action
items like search Craigslist for free couches to use
backstage at the annual GWAR-B-Q music festival, and
teach the newest slave how to finish constructing Flopsy,
The Cunt Faced Boy (the character has a vagina where
most of us keep our nose and mouth, so the prop could
withstand the rigors of being fist-fucked in the face on
stage every night for the next four months).

50 | DECEMBER 2015
There’s one office for Brad Roberts, a.k.a. Jizmack Da Gusha,
GWAR’s drummer. Roberts sets the rhythm of meetings like
he sets the rhythm of their songs. At Tuesday’s GWAR-
B-Q prep meeting, I watched him teeter between patience
and frustration as the group devolved into conversational
chaos for the fourth time. Someone wanted to know where
Jamison Land, a.k.a. Beefcake the Mighty, GWAR’s bass
player, had found the photo of Danny Bonaduce wearing
a GWAR t-shirt. After a moment, Roberts continued the
meeting as if the interruption never happened. “Ok, what
do we have for lights this year? I don’t want to load out in
the dark again.” One of the other guys shared what he
had arranged for lighting so far, and the meeting was back
on track.
Another office is reserved for Brent Purgason, a.k.a. Pustulus
Maximus, GWAR’s lead guitarist. Purgason joined the group
after his good friend Cory Smoot, a.k.a. Flattus Maximus,
passed away of congenital heart failure while sleeping in
his bunk on the tour bus in November, 2011. When Purgason
joined the group, he didn’t consider himself an artist
because he didn’t draw, but Brockie took him aside and said
something to the effect of, “Fuck that, you’re an artist now.” opposite (from top)
Flattus Maximus, 1990
Joining the collective changed Purgason’s approach to his Photo by Mark Harvey
own music and gave him new creative outlets like helping to
GWAR members, 1990
shape the ongoing plot of the GWAR Mythos. More recently, Photo by Mark Harvey
Purgason has stepped up to fill in some of the social media
needs Brockie used to handle as Oderus Urungus, GWAR’s above (clockwise from top left)
Early GWAR in the milk bottle, 1986
original lead singer. Photographer unknown
GWAR, 2006
The other big office belongs to Bob Gorman and Matt Photo by Adam Wallacavage
Maguire. To their chagrin, it also serves as the main meeting Live from “Antarctica” video shoot, 1990
Photo by Mark Harvey
room, occasional clubhouse and nap area, because their
office is the only one with a couch. In fact, that’s where I
dozed off some jet lag there the night I arrived. The next
night, Scott Bryan flew in from San Francisco, and he, too,
fell asleep on the couch. Bryan’s band Ghoul regularly tours
with GWAR. Bryan builds sets for Kink.com, and when The
Slave Pit is in heavy production mode, if he’s free, he flies
out and helps build props for them, too. The second day he
was in town, I ran into him getting water in The Slave Pit’s
kitchen. He was wearing a lilac bra over two giant foam tits.
“Fan threw it on stage,” he shrugged. At The Slave Pit, even
tour trophies become art supplies.
GWAR JUXTAPOZ | 51
left and bottom right
Prop fabrication for 1994 tour
Photos by Chuck Varga and
Matt Maguire
top left
Scott Krahl, Dave Brockie,
and Chuck Varga
801 W. Broad Street, 1988
Photo by Mark Harvey
52 | DECEMBER 2015
Gorman and Maguire are both full-time Slave Pit artists
who appear on stage as non-musician mainline GWAR
characters—Bonesnapper and Sawborg Destructo,
respectively—in addition to performing in a variety of other
smaller-character roles. While I was there, Maguire’s plan
was to finish constructing the new Blothar costume, but he
was continuously interrupted with other demands, like a
quick graphic design for a wristband for fans willing to pay
a little extra for express beer line access at GWAR-B-Q.
Maguire builds a good majority of GWAR’s props and helps
oversee part-time artists, interns and volunteers. During my
visit, he had part-time slave Margaret Rolicki create a chest
piece by painting liquid latex over a t-shirt on a mannequin.
He also showed me the progress on Blothar’s breastplate,
which he built around football shoulder pads and covered
with sculpted latex, rubber and fun fur. Blothar’s costume
has evolved from his first tour to include new hippo feet and
upgraded udders that are way more detailed and disgusting
than last year’s.
Gorman is The Slave Pit’s treasurer, shop foreman and
official unofficial archivist. I worked with him on Let There Be
GWAR, the 300-page official history of GWAR and The Slave
Pit, also co-authored by Caroline Ryder and co-compiled by
Roger Gastman. The book came out in September 2015 on
Gingko Press. (You should buy it!)
During my visit, Gorman showed me the studio’s custom-
built rotary sander that’s angled for the purpose of shaping
foam props like the battle sword he was working on. He
collaborates with the rest of the collective on GWAR’s
ongoing narrative, choreography and set lists. Gorman
credits Mike Bishop, a.k.a. Blothar, and the original Beefcake
the Mighty, with help in streamlining a lot of the day-to-day
operations at The Slave Pit. Bishop left GWAR in the 1990s
to do other stuff. He played in more “serious” bands like
Richmond’s Kepone and earned his PhD in Musicology and
Ethnomusicology from the University of Virginia. He’s had
“real jobs,” so when he rejoined the group, he had a lot
of skills and knowledge the other guys were lacking. He
introduced them to video hangouts for meetings and Google
documents so everyone could contribute, edit and stay up
to date with the latest tour plans and storylines.
There are times when only the artists are in the building,
working and watching movies like Nightmare On Elm
Street 3 on an ancient TV. The main workspace stretches
beyond the offices, past a long hallway of band practice
spaces, and stops where the building is divided between
the back storage area, the back kitchen, the bathroom and
the recording studio. Shelves cover all of the walls, and the
four twelve-foot work tables are piled high with mannequin
heads, face masks, glue, clamps, paint, spray bottles, water
bottles, paint cups and various unexpected tools like hair
dryers. Rolicki admits she likes to get in early to claim the
Vidal Sassoon hair dryer with the widest spray area so she
can get her rubber latex to dry the fastest.
At the back of the work area is a section surrounded by
sheets of heavy clear plastic splattered with (presumably)
fake blood. Inside, they have three or four fans, a table and
an old stove a friend gave them after its door broke off. They
use that space as a hot room to dry out molds and latex
faster. It’s just one more low-cost, high-quality Slave Bloody GWAR fans, 2010
Photo by George Abruzzo
Pit invention.
When the musicians come into practice the next day, movie
time is over for the artists. The musicians in GWAR use a
practice space at the warehouse, and The Slave Pit also
rents spaces to other local bands in order to help offset
some of their expenses. At one point during my visit, there
were three bands practicing at once, and I overheard Scott
Bryan muttering to himself about working in the midst of
“this infernal caterwauling.” But despite the heat, despite
the noise, despite the barrage of phone calls, the show
must go on. Therefore, the work at The Slave Pit must
go on too.
In addition to putting on GWAR shows and their annual
GWAR-B-Q, the collective has produced other bands,
including X-Cops, RAWG and The Dave Brockie Experience
(DBX). They’ve made films including the Grammy-nominated
Phallus in Wonderland (1992), exhibited in fine art galleries
around the country. They’ve offered student artist
workshops at both RISD and VCU, created comics, action
figures, performance art and even concrete garden trolls
GWAR JUXTAPOZ | 53
 left
Don Drakulich
Art for When The Shit
Hits The Fans
1994

right
Various GWAR flyers
1986—1992

54 | DECEMBER 2015
GWAR JUXTAPOZ | 55
known as GWARgoyles. Their newest creation is GWAR Bar,
located in Jackson Ward, just a few blocks from The Slave
Pit’s birthplace. GWAR Bar is largely the brainchild of Mike
Derks, a.k.a. Balsac the Jaws of Death, GWAR’s rhythm
guitarist. Derks is a quiet guy for the most part, but when I
asked what I should order at the bar, he described the food
in loving, mouth-watering detail. They serve high-end junk
food like Jizmak ’n’ Cheese, a penne pasta dish smothered
in creamy cheese sauce and topped with green peas,
mushrooms and toasted cheese.
With all of that going on, it’s hard to communicate succinctly
what The Slave Pit is like. The artists have a vision of
themselves as a punk version of Disney, a brand that can
put its name to any number of creative outlets. GWAR-B-Q
proudly serves GWAR beer and GWAR hot sauce, they sell
the typical band merch and the group licenses their name
and likeness to Mt. Baker Vapor for e-cigarettes and e-juice.
I think they’re like H.R. Giger crossed with that old Mexican
boy band Menudo (because of their constantly-changing
lineup), mixed with a little bit of The Blue Man Group on
crack. They’re vaudeville comedians acting like a touring
off-Broadway company that sometimes anally rapes a Nazi from left
Oderus Urungus, 2006
Pope character. They’re handymen who are erudite scholars Photo by Adam Wallacavage
and creators who revel in destruction. They’re rock stars
Second GWAR mini comic, 1987
who demand vodka on their tour rider so they can mix it with Art by Hunter Jackson, Dave Brockie
and Don Drakulich
water in spray bottles and cut the filth and stench of their
costumes between shows. After a long night of loading in
and loading out, wearing rubber and latex costumes and
heavy helmets, mock-fighting, moving props, playing heavy
metal and lifting scantily-clad women over their shoulders
before tossing them to The World Maggot, the guys in The
Slave Pit—a bunch of hard-working art school dropouts who
achieved the dream of making a living by making art—don’t
ever have the luxury of forgetting about swamp ass.
They might complain sometimes, but it’s easy to call them
out on it. I remember Gorman once started to bitch about
work and then caught himself. “What am I complaining
about? I get to make monsters for a living.”
Let There Be GWAR, published by Gingko Press, is now in bookstores
worldwide. gwar.net
GWAR JUXTAPOZ | 57
58 | DECEMBER 2015
The GWAR Temple backdrop,
2007
Art by Matt Maguire and
Bill Rose

GWAR JUXTAPOZ | 59
 THE BIRDMAN OF BUSHWICK

PAT McCARTHY
INTERVIEW AND PORTRAIT BY AUSTIN McMANUS
62 | DECEMBER 2015
L OST AND WANDERING THE BASEMENT OF TOM
Sachs’ studio, I came across some ceramic tablets
printed with photographs of flying pigeons. Moments
passed, and a bottle of scotch, a component of one of Sachs’s sculptures,
beckoned. After a few gulps, my focus meandered back towards the tablets,
and while inspecting one, a stern voice bellowed from behind me, “Hey, can
I help you?” I couldn’t blame him. I was an intruder whose shirt had a large
rip in the shoulder from a cycling accident earlier that evening, my shorts
covered in bicycle grease. “Sorry. I got separated from the group,” I managed
to say, wiping the excess liquor from my beard. “Hey, these are great!”
I motioned towards the tablets. “Does Tom know you’re down here drinking?”
he snapped. When I mentioned a few projects he might recognize, his
demeanor changed with a “Nice to meet you. Yeah, those are mine.”
Pat McCarthy then gestured for the bottle I was still holding and took a
few swigs.

A few days later, we climbed the ladder to his roof in Bushwick where he
keeps and flies his pigeons—a practice which has become a conceptual life
and work extension. Although Pat’s sculptures are aesthetic entities, they are
also functioning shelters. It’s a fascinating relationship because the work is
bigger than artspeak in a white cube and must constantly change to serve its
utilitarian purpose and adapt to the elements. Does this make the work more
successful than what Duchamp called “retinal art?” Is it too easy to call it a
form of relational aesthetics? Maybe, because it actually serves a purpose,
while most relational aesthetic art practices can be full of holes.

“Pat doesn’t have any kind of social media or online presence. Besides being
a culturally responsible gesture, it’s because the kid is hustling at double
speed. He is a scene.” —Andrew McClintock

Austin McManus: Your morning routine is unlike 99.9% of the rest of the
population, solely based on your daily “roof requirements,” as I will dub
them. What is an average day for you?
Pat McCarthy: My morning routine is the same as that of a hundred other
guys in Bushwick who climb to the roof every single morning, rain, shine
or blizzard. To get to my roof, you gotta climb the fire escape ladder from
the third floor. Everything comes up and down this outdoor ladder: sacks of
feed on my shoulder, jugs of water, lumber. Anyway, I’d compare the feeling
of groggily climbing the ladder each morning to hopping on a motorbike
straight after getting out of bed. It wakes you the fuck up!

Bushwick easily has 100 coops within a few square miles. Similar to how
the early graf writers made very public gestures directed at a very small

PAT McCARTHY JUXTAPOZ | 63

previous spread audience of like-minded practitioners, pigeon guys fly birds
Cheese Bike
Puch moped, stove, cassette stereo, primarily for other pigeon guys to see. My roof is known as
mixed media “Babylon Roof,” and the Babylon birds hold reputation for
72" x 30" x 48"
2010 - Ongoing flying unorthodoxly. Instead of in a nice, neat pack, they
above spread out, blanketing the entire sky in a great melee that
Joey's Coop resembles a 100-player soccer match from above. I find the
Stoneware, steel, wood, epoxy, string
25" x 13" x 14" disorder rather beautiful, a surreal reflection of life lived on
2015
the ground in this city.
Then I snap back to reality, grab a coffee on Broadway, and
jump on the 9:00am elevated train into Chinatown where I
work Monday through Friday on the Tom Sachs team in the
fabrication shop. We build sculptures all day with blockade
barriers and steel and every single tool, paint and part found
in a hardware store. Really hardcore carpentry. Tom is the
James Brown of sculpture and a hell of a teacher. Usually
I'm back on the roof a little after dark, and it’s beautiful
then, with the spotlights on and the moon out. The roof has
allowed me to study community, architecture and aesthetics,
mechanical and biological physics, weather, craft, utility,
social economics and gentrification, and above all, an
immense field study of animal life in all its complexity, as
64 | DECEMBER 2015
literal as birth through death. I stay up late.
You make your zine Born to Kill the old school way—
with paper, pens, scissors, tape and a stapler to create
a master. This process of zine making might be out of
fashion, as everyone now uses desktop publishing, but I
deeply admire your dedication to the labor, and the final
product is proof of process. Have you ever made zines
another way, and when did you first get into them?
In early high school, some friends and I made a bunch
of scrappy zines filled with skateboarding, spontaneous
cartoons, clippings of escort ads, and so on. Since way
back then, I've been obsessed with Cometbus, but I didn't
get zine fever again until I was 21 and traveling a lot. Born
to Kill began because of traveling. I wrote the first couple
while in Bombay for a winter. It was my first time living
abroad, and it was so lonesome and disconnecting. The
zines grounded my spare time. The following 20 issues were
all just road stories, assembled sitting on floors across the
United States. I made them super short, just a few pieces
of folded paper, totally obliterated with text and black-and-
white photos. They'd go to people I met on the road as a
token of gratitude, or in an effort to lengthen and make a
conversation intimate. Often, I’d leave them in alternative
stores for free or stuff them into morning newspapers. I
became compulsive, like some kind of Johnny Appleseed.

Soon, writing the zines themselves became the motivating

force to travel. The obsessive habit became ritual, and
zines became both the ends and means of my adventures.
Meaning, I undertook an action, or series of actions,
knowing that the full expression and articulation of them
would manifest in the zine about the action.

I’ve never made a zine any other way than paper, pen and
colored 4x6s! Personally, I can’t imagine it being nearly as
streamlined on a computer. Maybe I'm just not good with
that tool. It’s tough producing anything digitally, because
it always lacks the physicality of the scenario where it
was created, and the pace and the emotion shown when
using the hand. My small, anxious penmanship is not
meant as decoration but as information, aesthetic insight
into the moment pen hits paper, which hopefully enriches
the narrative. Lately I'm writing and printing everything
in my studio in a room shared with living birds, and
sometimes their feathers or their shit dust gets under
the tape on the master, and then is there in the photocopy.
Zine craft is addictive. The stitching, cutting and taping is
all very therapeutic.

The other day, we were talking about zines being just

another form of media to transmit information non-
verbally. You simply hand it to someone and they can
choose to absorb as little or as much information as they
want. We both agreed that giving them away hand-to-hand
gets the best results.
Zines are a unique medium, as they place the viewer in
a position to engage with the work on their own terms
and at their own pace. Unlike art on walls or pedestals,
zines are handheld, seen only when chosen to be seen,
sparing them from painting’s implied grandiosity and
sculpture’s physical violence. The most successful zines
contain subject matter that speaks directly from the
authentic rituals and labors of the artist’s life. These are
the most democratic and interesting, offering opportunities
for clear one-on-one dialogue.
Could you explain the inspiration behind your zine,
American Cream? It caught me off guard, you know,
seeing you naked and wearing makeup, and, in some
photos, wearing leopard-print spandex. Please tell me
you have received some sort of noteworthy reaction
giving this to someone.
All your questions make me blush! I make these two serial
nudie zines: there’s Skirts, featuring all female models, and
American Cream, that I myself model for. Both are comprised
of photos and surreal sexy vignettes I write, which is a
great exercise in prose and a vent to the sex-obsessed
backroom of my brain. When I shoot Skirts, I'm the one
directing and behind the camera. American Cream gives me
the opportunity to experience the challenge of being the
sexualized object. It’s a way to approach issues I'm serious
about, like gender politics, but in a campy and playful tone. clockwise from top
Babylon Traveler
It’s also a mode of participating in the part of our culture Pigeon transport carrier (wicker,
that is mega-saturated and obsessed with the production wood, denim, leather, steel, glass,
paper, pigeon seed)
of public self image. I have such a hard time giving them 13" x 13" x 13"
2015
away face-to-face, haha! But I have mailed copies to Werner Image courtesy Ever Gold Gallery
Herzog and Ed Ruscha. I’m still waiting for their feedback.
Pigeoning Issue 59,
Pages 2-3
Photocopy toner glazed in
In one of your zines, I saw these fascinating photos of porcelain, nails
pigeon coops in Cairo that tower off the roofs of the 11" x 8.5"
2014
buildings, and I found more images online. Can you tell me
Skirts 6 (detail)
a little about this specific style? You prefer coops made Photocopy toner glazed in
from unconventional materials, correct? Coleman stove porcelain, nails
52" x 53"
entrances and homemade ceramic perches? Image courtesy Ever Gold Gallery
2015
In my opinion, Cairo has the most beautiful coop
architecture. They fly these pigeons called Egyptian Swifts,
similar to our Brooklyn breeds. That is, they fly in tight
formation immediately above their homes. However, the
Swifts are huge. Their wings are a solid four inches longer
than the rest of the world’s pigeons, and they can fly high.
I'm talking the equivalent of twenty or thirty floors up! In

PAT McCARTHY JUXTAPOZ | 65

Brooklyn we call that “the pins” when they're that high. It’s
rare and breathtaking. The Cairo guys experience this every
day. In effect, their coops are floating in the sky, like in The
Empire Strikes Back. There’s a particular neighborhood,
where the majority of coops are, called Garbage City
because it’s where the city dumps its waste. And, naturally,
much of that waste is reclaimed and repurposed. Some of it
transforms into pigeon coops, which speaks to the narrative
around localized resources, the ingenuity of the builder and
their unique experience.
In Brooklyn, coops are commonly built of wood and tar
paper because the American Northeast is monopolized
by Home Depot and its bottomless pit of cheap plywood.
In Vietnam, coops are built of bamboo. In Cuba, concrete
and rebar. But in each of these places, the pigeon keeper
will have to find unique materials, often ready-mades, to
jerry-rig and transform into feeders, waterers, cages and all
kinds of necessary contraptions that accompany sheltering
pigeons. Not many manufacturers or stores exist that cater
to the community. Every pigeon keeper, in that respect, is an
inventor.
Something memorable you mentioned to me was that
you found creative inspiration in online shopping, which
instantly put a smile on my face.
I love eBay. It can take you on wild rides through culture,
craft and history. It’s like a trip to the flea market—a beautiful
landscape of objects that show their years of use. It’s
the Shangri-La of independent trade. Not to mention the
X-rated and raw side of eBay! It’s a little off their home-
screen’s beaten path, but it’s there if you dig—this crazy
marketplace where countless people trade their homemade
pornographic 4x6” prints for a couple dollars a pop.
Do you think the Cheese Bike will ever be resurrected?
The Cheese Bike is like my very first true love, and certainly,
I’ll always go crawling back to it, but nowadays I have too
many mouths to feed to rely solely on cheese sandwich
sales. I built it when I was 22 and deliberately unemployed,
but faced with the realities of living without income or
savings in NYC. For a while, I spent warm seasons sleeping
on rooftops to get by, and stayed with generous friends in
the winter, though I couldn't afford to socially participate in
city life. So I set out to invent a means to hang out at these
places. Having a past professional history of nothing but
carpentry and graffiti, I resolved to become a traveling cook.
My dad found a beat ’78 Puch Maxi moped in Connecticut.
I mounted an archaic gasoline-burning stove to the handle
bars, strapped on to the back rack a stereo, cooler and tarp
and started showing up at clubs to cook and sell grilled
cheese sandwiches.
Usually no one knew the Bike would be coming and I’d just
ride up into the sidewalk crowd in front of a bar and start
cooking. I’d sell a few sandwiches and move on to the next
spot. Maybe get a call from a friend or someone who got
my number off a Cheese Bike zine and head their way to
cook a few. Covering the most ground was the objective. It
was proper tagging. Always quantity over quality, using the
only the cheapest loaves of white bread ($1 for 20 slices)
and fakest cheese ($1 for 16 slices). Operating costs were
so low, the sandwiches sold for $1 each; democratized
and transparent trade. I rode all over the burroughs and
averaged cooking about 40 sandwiches a night for an
entire year; $40 plus tips on a decent day, just enough to
buy the next night’s ingredients and move onto a couch at
a crash house.
That job was a fight. There were bad nights, some very
bad nights. And there was a nightly anxiety to sell at least
ten sandwiches to cover costs because there was no other
money and no one to account for it but myself. The struggle
had tremendous impact. It was empowering, inventing an
“ WHEREVER I GO, WHEN I HEAR THE
FIRECRACKERS, I IMMEDIATELY
FREEZE, LIKE A BIRD HOUND,
ANXIOUSLY LOOKING EVERY
WHICH DIRECTION TO SIGHT THE
PIGEONS AND WATCH THEM GO
OFF ABOVE THE BUILDINGS.”
independent occupation to sustain myself—without college
or receiving loans, without food stamps, without taxes or
even Internet. Completely community supported, authentic
grass roots. I credit it as being the experience that largely
opened my eyes to the infinite possibilities of the world and
imagination, leading me into this current disciplined life as
a sculptor. I last sold sandwiches in Brussels in May 2014,
after riding alongside the Cheese Bike on a transatlantic
ocean freighter. My life has grown so much from slinging
sandwiches four years ago on Myrtle-Broadway. Now I live
alone in a four-room studio with a roof full of responsibilities.
It’s hard to imagine trading all this back to push 40 dollars in
sandwiches a night and sleep in a flop. But I do find courage
and reassurance knowing that no matter what happens to
me financially, there are jobs for the independent tradesman
in the street.
opposite
Born to Kill
What is the most rewarding aspect of raising and training American Cream, and Skirts zines,
various issues
pigeons? Photocopy on paper, digital c-prints
There’s a particular sound the wings of pigeons make All open editions
Each 5.5" x 8.5"
when they first take off in flight. The wings clap together 2013–2015
PAT McCARTHY JUXTAPOZ | 67
Babylon Coop
Pigeons, wood, steel, reindeer fur,
bamboo, bike, brick, ceramic
2012–ongoing
Photographed March, 2015
and loudly crack out three or four times, very fast, like
firecrackers. POP! POP! POP! This sound is subtly found in
all the urbanized corners of the world. Wherever I go, when
I hear the firecrackers, I immediately freeze, like a bird
hound, anxiously looking every which direction to sight the
pigeons and watch them go off above the buildings.
You recently acquired a tweaky little chinchilla to be your
housemate. Do you think it’s possible for your chinchilla to
be friends and hang out with your pigeons?
Here, I’ll bring her upstairs for the first time now just to see.
Can the answer to this question be a small photo? She was
so calm! The birds were indifferent.
You’ve been shooting with a Super 8 and making short
films to accompany your sculptures. How do you think
integrating that medium evolved the pieces overall
and do you imagine including other new components
in the future?
On one hand, shooting Super 8 has allowed me to
synthesize my experience as a bird watcher and study my
pigeons’ habits and interactions underneath a microscope.
When you shoot Super 8, you're very conscious of the
expense. When all's said and done, it costs a dollar per
second to produce. Seriously. So when shooting, you're
focused on your subject matter and committed to the
concept of the shot. It allows me to articulate my relationship
with them in the most candid and focused way I’ve yet
discovered, and share publicly the actual movements
of my private roof experience. On the other hand, the
pigeon films are created to be viewed via projection,
never on a monitor, and for that, a physical projector is
necessary. Thus a sculpture is built to house the projector
and act as a pedestal.
My projection houses are all small, portable pigeon coops,
and each coop sculpture plays a unique film. Inside, a live
pigeon acts as a symbolic projectionist, authenticator and
ambassador to their home shown in the film. There are
many of these films and cinematheques to come. They are a

68 | DECEMBER 2015
culmination of all the roof rituals—large, abstract,
sculptural fanzines.
You use a toner transfer method to create images on
some of your ceramic work, which is a cool way to mix
newer technologies with a craft that is centuries old.
What interests you most about this process and the
final product?
The zines printed on porcelain are an attempt to marry
ephemera and heirloom. The same photocopier and toner
drums produce both the paper Born to Kill and the fired
porcelain ones. It’s incredible. Monochrome printer toner
is a mix of black carbon and red iron, and thanks to JJ
PEET, ceramics master of NY, I learned that iron is a main
ingredient in many ceramic glazes. To make the transfer,
I’ll remove the photocopies from the machine after they've
been printed, but before they go under the heater, so the
image is literally wet. Then I’ll stamp it by hand onto wet
slabs of porcelain. When the slabs are fired in the kiln, the
black carbon burns away but the iron burns into the clay,
imbedding permanently. I currently have a show up in
San Francisco at Ever Gold Gallery called Shelters,
and in it we hung two large zine works opposing each
other that have a dialogue about opposing materials
and their properties and symbolism. On one wall is an
entire issue of Born to Kill, printed 25 times, and the
zines themselves are nailed to the wall, open-face, in a
grid. On the opposite wall is an entire issue of my erotic
fanzine Skirts, made on porcelain, also nailed to the wall
in a neat grid. The world’s longest surviving books are
written on ceramic slab. And the world’s most printed
paper magazines are pornography. I'm interested in finding
ways to transform images into hieroglyphics.
evergoldgallery.com
from left
Flights Cinematheque Issue 2
Sculpture and projected Super 8 film
(pigeon, rebar, bamboo, porcelain, plastic,
coat hangers, bottle rocket stems, denim,
pigeon feed, chia seeds, digital projector,
media player)
36" x 22" x 70"
2015
Image courtesy Ever Gold Gallery
Flights Cinematheque Issue 1
Sculpture and projected Super 8 film
(pigeon, porcelain, steel, bamboo, twine,
denim, digital projector, media player)
45" x 20" x 60"
2015
Image courtesy Ever Gold Gallery

PAT McCARTHY JUXTAPOZ | 69

MR.
THE NEW POP ARTIST
INTERVIEW BY EVAN PRICCO // PORTRAIT BY BRYAN DERBALLA
72 | DECEMBER 2015
 I N AN INDUSTRIAL NEIGHBORHOOD
about an hour outside Tokyo, traffic flies
past nondescript buildings that appear
to be abandoned, or are about to be. This is where our
car decides it’s time to stop and pull into a short driveway.
Various pieces of construction paraphernalia are scattered
about, a backdrop of multifarious tones of grey. I’m pretty
certain we have made a mistake. This can’t be the studio
of Mr., the Japanese artist whose internationally-significant
career is anything but muted, synonymous with a type of
bright, bold Pop that almost seems to require blinders. But
here he comes, greeting the photographer, translator and
me with a glow overflowing from his studio.
The first time you see a painting by Mr., you’re struck by a
tight, flawless technique and style that gives the impression
it was machine-made. Here in the studio, with paints strewn
about, multiple canvases in various stages of completion
and process, Mr.’s sleeping bag dead center, surrounded
by all this work, you begin to see the humanity within. The
handmade strokes, the perfect imperfections.
As the protégé to Superflat icon and uber-famous
artist Takashi Murakami, Mr. has become his own kind
of character, his work taking on its own version of
Japanese pop as both obsessive fan and cultural critic.
In what, at times, has been a misunderstood use of
teenage iconography, Mr. has developed an immersive
representation of himself into the art he makes. As a
performance artist, he has been known to dress as a
woman at his exhibition or museum openings, singing pop
songs, virtually bringing his characters to life. It’s borderline
hysterical, but an amazing detail about Mr. that is essential
Turgenev when you meet him: he is dead serious about this art, and
Acrylic on linen
86.6" x 71.28" serious about having fun presenting it to the world. He
2015
does it in a way that makes you stop and think about the
© 2015 Mr. /Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.
All Rights Reserved. idea of an artist in their own self-created universe. Mr. is the
director, producer, screenwriter, and lead actor, and it’s all
working quite well.
We spoke to Mr. just as his continued collaboration with
Pharrell was about to come to fruition in an adidas shoe
release, as these new paintings were heading out the door,
and as we were trying to catch a ride back to Tokyo for
dinner with his old mentor, Takashi.
Evan Pricco: The first thing I notice is that your studio is a
lot different than Takashi's. Having worked for him, does
Takashi disapprove of the way you have this studio set up?
Quite impressive, but messy and chaotic. How was your
work station back then?
Mr.: He's never given any huge criticism of my space. In
fact, I'd say there are a lot more similarities than you think.
This is inevitable, because I was deeply involved in the
management of his studio for several years. When I was
working for him full time, I sometimes used his production
space to light canvases on fire or what-not, but in general, I
did most of my own work at home in a very small room.
Do you always paint like this, with works all around,
or is this more of the style when you are preparing for
an exhibition?
I'd say, yes. But the reason for this is that I complete each
piece by hand after my assistants do the basic groundwork.
The canvases that you see lined up are the ones that are
ready for me to work on myself. As far as objectives go, most
of the pieces I make these days are commissioned by my
three galleries to sell at art fairs.
Can I ask why you prefer to have your studio this far
outside of Tokyo? This is a great space, but it's in an
almost-suburban neighborhood, away from the density of
the city. Do you need that?
From the perspective of people who live in the suburbs of
MR. JUXTAPOZ | 73
74 | DECEMBER 2015
Tokyo, Saitama doesn't seem that far. In truth, it's pretty
much a bedroom town for people who work in Tokyo. But
beyond that, it's impossible to have a studio in places where
the rent is high. I consider myself pretty savvy at real estate
matters and I believe I have a pretty good deal on the place
I rent now.
Having graduated from Sokei Art School in Tokyo in 1996,
being honest with yourself, what were your options then?
What sort of art career was feasible for a young Japanese
artist in 1996?
Well, I was always a fan of anime, and if I had been more
skilled at the manga drawing style, I probably would have
become a manga artist right away. Since this was not the
case, I thought that by going to an art university, I would be
able to develop my skills and someday be able to make a
living doing what I liked. To my great misfortune, however,
I failed at the entrance exams for art universities three
years in a row and eventually had to settle for going to an
art-oriented trade school. These schools exist for people
who fail to get into a university, and you don't need an
entrance exam to enroll. At this point, I was determined not
to fall through the cracks, and so I decided to do something
different from everyone else and pursue contemporary from left
Gasp! So Good!
art. Looking at it like that, I didn't really have any other Acrylic and cotton on burnt linen
other options, and my school days were lived without any 78.75" x 59"
2015
particular hopes or dreams. © 2015 Mr. /Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.
All Rights Reserved
When did you meet Takashi? Do you remember what he Photo by Bryan Derballa
liked about your work when you were a student?
I began working as his assistant in 1995. He was lighting
the fuse on the first-ever movement to incorporate otaku
elements into contemporary art, and so for someone
like me, who had given up hope, it was a great source of
inspiration.
What have you learned from Takashi, who is such a major
fixture in contemporary Japanese art?
To think the unreasonable, make it happen, and even if you
fail at first, to keep trying even if it takes years. Something
like that.
Were you a collector when you were a kid? You have all
sorts of collections and reference material around your
studio, and I wonder if that was an extension of your
childhood.
MR. JUXTAPOZ | 75
 from left
See You at School
Acrylic and cotton on burnt linen
98.4" x 98.4"
2015
© 2015 Mr. /Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Harajuku Kiss
Acrylic and cotton on burnt linen
78.75" x 59"
2015
© 2015 Mr. /Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

76 | DECEMBER 2015
MR. JUXTAPOZ | 77
 “...THINK THE UNREASONABLE,
MAKE IT HAPPEN, AND EVEN
IF YOU FAIL AT FIRST, [KEEP]
TRYING EVEN IF IT TAKES YEARS.
SOMETHING LIKE THAT.”

78 | DECEMBER 2015
MR. JUXTAPOZ | 79
 When I was in elementary school, I did start a stamp
collection. But really, what you saw is not a collection,
per se. It's simply that of all the magazines I have bought
over the years, I have barely thrown any of them away.
I'm unable to throw them away. I wouldn't consider that
collecting, it's more like a kind of mental disorder where I
keep piling up trash.

Maybe I'm looking too much into this, but do you like
baseball? Does your name come from Mr. Giants, the
Japanese baseball great from the Tokyo team Yomiuri
Giants, Shigeo Nagashima? Or does the name, “Mr.” sort of
reflect a bit of nostalgia for Japanese culture in the same
way Americans look back on certain iconic institutions,
especially baseball, and identify with them?
I'm pretty much one of these developmentally disabled
people who was unable to live a normal life like a normal
person. No matter what I did, it would always skew off in
some way.

The name Mr. is derived, as you say, from the nickname of

Shigeo Nagashima, who played for the Yomiuri Giants and
was the postwar star of Japanese baseball. As for how he
got the nickname "Mr. Giants," it was partly from the way he
used to speak in interviews. He would always mix in English
words in strange ways, and his answers were often so
skewed from the original intent of the question that people
couldn't help but laugh. Despite this, he was a genius on the
field and the leader of the team, and so, out of fondness,
they decided to call him Mr. Giants in honor of his own
failed attempts at using English. Mr. became my nickname
because I shared that skewed nature. When I worked as
Murakami's assistant, my answers to his questions were
always off somehow, and it drew a lot of of laughs. That's
how I came to be called “Mr.”

What do you think, both in Japan and the West, is the most
misunderstood part of your work? There's a big difference
between painting personal fantasy and the comment
on the "lolicon" culture of Japan. Do you find yourself
explaining a lot?
I present my feelings pretty honestly in my work—mainly my
own longings for animation and games. When I'm moved
to tears by a particular work or fall in love with a character,
I transfer that feeling directly to the canvas. But in Asia,
collectors often tell me that they find my work nostalgic
or that it takes them back to their childhood. I am not sure
what to make of that. For my part, I have not consciously
incorporated any elements of Asian nostalgia, and nostalgia
itself is not necessarily something that I aim for.

How do the Japanese market and critics respond to

the work?
Because I'm managed by Murakami's company, Kaikai Kiki,
the art scene in Japan has not always responded well to
my work. But over the last five years, people a generation
younger than me have started to sit on the boards of
museums and they seem to have picked up my work as
something they find interesting. Thanks to that, I suddenly
find myself in the spotlight.

80 | DECEMBER 2015
When you put on the dress and wig and really get into How did you meet Pharrell? And I assume that is how the previous spread
Mr. in his studio.
the character that is Mr. and what is in the paintings, it adidas project this year happened... Photo by Bryan Derballa
sometimes creates an uncomfortable situation for the In 2008, Perrotin Gallery held an exhibition of his work
opposite (from top)
audience. I personally think it enhances the whole thing. and mine at the same time. We then talked shortly for the Always, Always, Wherever You Go
When did you start incorporating the performance element first time over a video-conferencing screen. Since then, Acrylic and cotton on burnt linen
45.28” x 45.25”
into the work? he seems to have held an interest in my work and has 2015
© 2015 Mr. /Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd.
It's something I've done since the beginning of my career given me lots of opportunities. He's even come to see me All Rights Reserved.
as a contemporary artist. In addition to painting, I've at my studio.
Happiness, Sadness, Bundling
continually explored performance, for example, singing Everything into a Ball
karaoke versions of anime songs and cosplay as modes If I were to ask you to describe a dream project right now, Acrylic and cotton on burnt cotton
45.28" x 45.28"
of expression. what would that be? 2015
I'd love to make a video work of my own. Courtesy Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris

Some of your animation and music video works, especially above

Photo by Bryan Derballa
the "It Girl" video for Pharrell, are instances where perhaps And… can I take you to a baseball game next time you are
the West didn't quite understand your commentary. in the US?
But that's a good thing, right? Controversy, getting the Would that be in LA? I'd love to! When I was 21, I had a
conversation started? chance to see a Mets game at Shea Stadium, so, of course!
Pharrell has a genuine interest in the curiosities of Japan
and the city of Tokyo. I think the world of my art is like
an embodiment of those curios. He needed my art for its
surprise qualities. I can definitely understand how someone kaikaikiki.co.jp
who didn't understand my work might find it annoying or
an eyesore.

MR. JUXTAPOZ | 81
 LARASSA KABEL INTERVIEW BY KRISTIN FARR // PORTRAIT BY BEN EASTER

THE FINEST DETAILS OF VULNERABILITY RADIATE FROM LARASSA KABEL’S

arresting portraits, demanding an examination of the figures and feelings she renders
so lovingly. We came across her captivating animal drawings while curating the new
Juxtapoz Wild book. Mesmerizing in their skill and beauty, the undertones of her work
creep in slowly—the darkest, most poignant parts of life and death. Artists often aim to
help us tackle the tough questions, the uncertainties we avoid, and Kabel gently lures
us toward the inevitable, reminding us that life is the narrative, sex is the subtext, and
death is the epilogue. She encourages us to appreciate the novelty of existence.

Kristin Farr: What interests you about untamed, precarious
moments?
Larassa Kabel: I find them very emotionally engaging as well as
intellectually challenging. I do work about the things that I can't
stop thinking about. They just won't go away, and they often involve
unresolvable questions: the differences between men's and women's
experiences and the confusions that come from that gap, the fear of
death or loss, which is really the fear of suffering.
Do these things ever have a clear resolution? I think we all struggle
with these ideas. It's just that I use my art as a way of processing
and understanding. I've always been drawn to dark subjects, those
close to the bone. I'm actually a pretty happy person, so maybe I have
a little more room emotionally to spend on the hard subjects.
Why do you love drawing animals, and do you use them
metaphorically?
They allow me to address issues that would be difficult for viewers if
I used a person in the composition. Take the Hazards of Love series,
for example. After becoming a mother, I became acutely aware of how
devastated I would be if my son died. I have a lot of people in my life
that I would be terribly sad to see die, but having a child raised that
fear to a whole new level. And it does happen sometimes. No one
knows how things will turn out, and when you open yourself up for
that kind of love, you become incredibly vulnerable. I made several
pieces exploring this, trying to really understand and accept it. The
fawns in the Hazards of Love are symbols of child mortality. I feel they
draw a person in with their beauty and then reveal themselves as
heartbreaking symbols. Several people asked me about the drawings
when I was working on them, and when I told them about the project,
84 | DECEMBER 2015
they told me about their own children that had died. It was
incredibly moving. I realized that one of the issues around a
child’s death is that other people don't want to hear about it.
It's too uncomfortable, and they don't know what to say. At
the same time, the parents I spoke with wanted to be able to
talk about these children they loved. To never speak about
them was like pretending they never existed. So sad. As a
tribute, two of the fawns are named after children who died.
Describe your personal relationship with animals.
I have always loved animals and had them in my life. When
I was two years old, I became enamored with horses. Total
horse girl right from the start. Obsessed! And it was always
about working and nurturing a relationship with them. Some
people try to ascribe some sort of erotic connotation to
horse girls, but it is truly a pure thing.
I used to have horses and rode all the time until I went off to
college. Now, I live in the city and have dogs instead. They
come to work with me every day, and it's such a wonderful
relationship. I can't imagine not having them around.
Tell me more about your horse drawings.
For me, the horse drawings are a way of learning to live with
the knowledge that I and everyone I know will cease to exist.
Horses are beautiful and strong and very social—like large
dogs. They are also incredibly fragile. When they fall, they
break, and when they break, they don't recover. So to take
something I really love and pitch it headlong into disaster from left
The Fallen
forces me to sit with this dreadful panic and just be with it. Colored pencil on paper
I like to think it shows that there can be beauty in tragedy. 48" x 48"
2011
I hope I can have some grace about it when it comes.
Melanie
Colored pencil on paper
Do you work in a large scale because of the emotional 2015
Photo by Andy Lyons
immensity of your subjects?
The scale varies quite a bit depending on how the project
feels. The horses always felt like they should be life-size.
I envisioned the project hanging in a very tall space so it
could convey a real sense of gravity and impending disaster.
A life size horse hurtling down from twenty feet in the air is
experienced differently from a small drawing hung at eye
level. But some work is very small and very intimate because
it wants to pull someone in close. It's really the difference
between whether you want someone enveloped in an
experience or you want to lure them in from the outside.
Tell me about an interesting experience involving animals.
A couple of years ago, I had a very strange day. It felt like
I was on some sort of spirit walk or had been placed into
a fable. I was walking my dog around a lake where I go
nearly every day, and as we were walking, we came upon
a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. It was newly
hatched, raw-looking and bald, covered with ants, but still
alive and moving around. I looked everywhere for the nest
but couldn't find it, and I realized that the kind thing to do
would be to kill it. It was just a horror show. But I couldn't!
LARASSA KABEL JUXTAPOZ | 85
from left The idea of killing it paralyzed me, and I felt like a coward
Angel Baby
Colored pencil on paper
walking away.
60" x 52.5"
2014
I hadn't gone 30 feet before I came upon a fish on the
Any Minute Now—The Paint ground. It was alive and gasping. I picked it up and ran all
Colored pencil on paper
96" x 96" the way to the lake, which was at least 40 feet away, and
2010
Photo by Chris Hennessey
threw it in. The strange thing was that I couldn't figure out
how it got there, completely uninjured. I didn't see how it
opposite
could have been caught by a bird, and there wasn't anyone
Chanel else around, so it couldn't have flipped out of a fisherman's
Colored pencil on paper
2015 bucket. It couldn't have been there long because it was still
Photo by Andy Lyons alive. After the bad experience with the baby bird, that made
me feel a little better.
As I was driving home at the end of the day, we entered
a very heavy rainstorm. It was just pouring. I was getting
close to my house when I saw a young boy crouched on the
ground next to a yellow lab that was lying on its side and not
moving at all. I stopped to see if they needed help, and he
said his dad was coming and that he was alright. I could see
that the dog was too still. When I added it all up, I realized I
had found something that belonged to the air stuck on the
ground, something that belonged in the water gasping on
dry land, and something that needed air looking like it was
drowning on the land. Each encounter somehow felt staged.
I keep wanting to ascribe some meaning to it all, but I don't
know if there is any. In the end, I guess, it was good that I
didn't hang around trying to kill the bird because then the
fish probably wouldn't have made it, but the suffering still
bothers me. By the way, the next day when I walked at the
lake, there was no sign of the bird.
86 | DECEMBER 2015
That really does sound like a dark fairytale. Does your
source imagery come from experience or photographs?
I always work from a photo source, though it is often a
composite image that has been altered in Photoshop. For
example, the horses in the Any Minute Now series often
require the removal of foreign elements, the repositioning or
construction of legs or the addition of different manes and
tails. There could be three different photographs of three
different horses involved to make one image.
What have you been drawing and painting recently?
I've been working on a series of drawings that explore how
women's sexuality is subverted by male desires. There is a
wide spectrum to the female experience when it is defined
by men—everything from happy, consensual partners to
violence and even death. Why anyone would rape another
person is unfathomable, and the numbers of women who
are victims of sexual assault are pretty staggering. I have
been looking at how pornography, specifically POV blowjob
pornography, shows this wide variety of male desires, albeit
in a staged presentation. The BJ Girls are closely cropped
with no evidence of the action in the composition with a
strong focus on the eyes. I want to reverse the porn from
woman becoming flat caricatures and bring the focus back
on to her as an individual with an emotional connection to
the viewer. The women in the drawings go from happy, to
unsure, to—as part of a particularly disturbing trend—crying.
This category has been growing over the past couple of
years, and though I know it is staged, the fact that some men
enjoy this is pretty disturbing.
I have a companion series of paintings that have been
photo-transferred onto fleece blankets. They address
“ THERE IS A WIDE SPECTRUM TO THE
how women teach their daughters how to be safe and
acknowledge that all women have this inner awareness that FEMALE EXPERIENCE WHEN IT IS
they could be victims of an attack. None of the men in my
life understand what this is actually like. I think it is strange
that over fifty percent of the population is very aware that
DEFINED BY MEN—EVERYTHING FROM
HAPPY, CONSENSUAL PARTNERS TO
they are vulnerable to a particular type of violence, and
that this awareness alters their behavior. Don't walk alone
at night. Don't get left at a party by your friends. Don't use
that stairwell with the blind corner at the bottom, etc. The
images on the blankets incorporate victims of violence or
VIOLENCE AND EVEN DEATH.”
symbols of that fight-or-flight awareness. As a counterpoint
to the porn, I will be photographing mothers and daughters
interacting with the blankets.

The project with the blankets seems like a departure

for you.
The Security Blanket project is definitely a departure from
my regular practice. While I love spending so much time with
my drawings and paintings—drawing is very meditative—
there are some issues I'd been thinking about that didn't
fit those formats. The perennial issue of violence against
women—which is at epidemic proportions, yet gets very
little attention—had just been festering in me. I was talking
to my husband about it one day and realized that he, a very
progressive and feminist man, had almost no understanding
of women's experiences. He didn't realize I guarded my
behavior to stay safe, and he didn't know anyone who had
been raped. When he said, "Well, it's not like you don't feel
like you can walk wherever you want," my mouth fell open.
Of course I don't. I think every woman in my acquaintance is

LARASSA KABEL JUXTAPOZ | 87

from left very aware of her surroundings because she knows, mostly
It Shall Be Mine
Colored pencil on toned paper
subconsciously, that she is at risk for violence. Women are
19.75" x 26" prey. And I do know women who have been raped. So does
2010
he. He just doesn't know that he knows them. I realized that
Bang Bang 2 even though sexual violence is depicted through movies
Oil on canvas
18" x 14" and television and the news, because women rarely talk
2009
about what has happened to them personally, it feels
Any Minute Now - the Black removed for most men. They think it doesn’t happen to their
Colored pencil
96" x 96"
sisters, mothers, wives or daughters. And when you don't
2011 feel a personal connection to a problem, you rarely feel
moved to do anything about it. You may even question its
legitimacy. So I wanted to take something that is strangely
invisible and make it uncomfortably visible. I wanted to show
how we try to vaccinate our daughters against disaster. We
tell little girls that they are like princesses, but the flip side
is that some people use women and girls as disposable
commodities, so we need to put them on their guard. Putting
paintings of panicked fawns—to represent that general
wariness—and images of actual murder victims onto one of
the most basic and ubiquitous forms of shelter and warmth
seemed like a natural fit. Then I could photograph women
88 | DECEMBER 2015
and their daughters interacting with them in their homes to
show this gross reality.
How do people react to work like the BJ girls? Is it
uncomfortable to research violent pornography, make the
work, and then have to explain it?
I get a lot of different reactions to the BJ girls, depending
on who’s looking. First, there is a basic bifurcation; some
people know what they are looking at and some people
have no idea. Most men catch on immediately. They just look
at a lot more pornography than women do, and I think POV
fellatio pornography is really targeted towards them. Women
are far more likely to have a subtle reading of the work. We
see ourselves reflected in the image, not as an object of
desire. We are far less likely to see them as random actors.
The work really is trying to reverse that impersonalization.
By cropping out the point of contact, there is nothing sexual
left in the image, and with that interest removed, all you can
do is look into her eyes. Even if you feel a sexual interest in
the woman, you are really forced to see her as a person, not
a flattened caricature. You can't help but read her emotion
LARASSA KABEL JUXTAPOZ | 89
and know whether she is happy, uncertain or sad. That work had a daughter who was working at the White House in opposite (clockwise from top)
Encounter
range of emotion is what makes the research difficult. 2012. They wanted to have an artist interpret a photo of the Oil on canvas
I'm not anti-pornography, but I do find certain trends really White House, so they asked staffers if they knew artists who 54" x 40"
2010
unsettling. I've been seeing more and more crying girls. could do it. Around eighty artists submitted work, and mine
They are totally made up to look very distressed—running was chosen. It was very surreal. My husband and I actually Tumbled
Fleece blanket
eyeliner, etc.—so it is a theatrical representation, but why got to go to a White House holiday party because of it, and 40" x 60"
2015
anyone would be excited about having sex with someone that was a trip.
Photo by Andy Lyons
who is crying about the experience is something I have
High Water Mark
hard time wrapping my mind around. It feels like a real gap What's an animal you'd like to see or interact with that you Colored pencil on toned paper
between the sexes. When I have to dig around in those haven't before? 13.75" x 13.75"
2014
images, I take breaks and watch cute baby goat videos to I would love to see whales up close. The more I learn about
try and scrub my mind. I wish there were some things I could their intelligence, the more curious I become about what
above
just unsee. their experience of the world would be like. And it would be The Hazards of Love—Price
Colored pencil on toned paper
amazing to be near something so large. That's as close to
25.5" x 38.5"
I was going to ask if you had to take breaks and make dinosaur size as I can get. 2009
something lighter once in a while.
I will occasionally work on something that is just beautiful or
silly for some relief. I just finished a lithograph of a jackalope
which was a blast. I've had a weird fascination with them See Larassa Kabel’s work in the new Juxtapoz Wild book, published
since I was a kid, and they cheer me up immensely. by Gingko Press.

Is it true you painted the Obamas’ dog, Bo, for the White LarassaKabel.com
House holiday card a few years ago?
Yes. A woman who knew me and had bought some of my

LARASSA KABEL JUXTAPOZ | 91

PHIL HALE
A BRAVE NEW WORLD
INTERVIEW BY ASHLEY WOOD // PORTRAIT BY IAN COX
94 | DECEMBER 2015
T
HERE ARE ARTISTS WHO CAN CAPTURE A
vision of the future with which we, as viewers, can collectively
empathize or, at least, appreciate. This isn’t necessarily
pleasant because artists don’t always envision a picture of
honeyed happiness. Orwell didn’t predict pleasure domes,
Kubrick didn’t decree humans live happily ever after, and
Moebius stripped familiar modern life elements from his
content for an alien-looking blueprint. Phil Hale is a brilliant
painter who doesn’t exactly depict a present or future but
captures accidents of moment and conflicts as they are.
These aren’t necessarily singular visions of the coming
decades, but they recall unidentifiable struggles with
apocalyptic disaster that, for our psychological comfort,
we disclose and disguise.
“Rather than a collage that expects ‘new’ meaning to emerge
out of the juxtaposition of different visual orientations,” writes
Michiko Oki about Phil Hale’s work, “his paintings aim for the
disappearance of one image into another, one narrative into
another, one system of seeing into another, and are haunted
by the desire to move away from what it originally was.” In
conjunction with the exhibition, Life Wants to Live, held at
Jonathan LeVine Gallery in early 2015, Australian artist Ashley
Wood sat down with London-based Phil Hale to discuss Hale’s
first new body of work in nearly a half decade, construct a
necessary flow, and share some mutual admiration.
—Juxtapoz
Ashley Wood: To me, these pieces are quite beautiful, dark
and cryptic, so I’m wondering what your mission was, and
am I seeing what you intended?
Phil Hale: I didn't have a conscious agenda beyond trying
to avoid structuring the pieces in some bullying or over-
determined way. My approach, which I don't think is
particularly unique, was to collect images that interested
me, for whatever unexamined reason, and then combine
and improvise with them until they tuned into each other in
some unique way, some unexpected way. It was a filter, but
the process was self-regulating. I hoped, and knew, really,
that some kind of sympathetic and coherent shape would
coalesce out of that initial mess. I could have pushed it harder.
I was still too conscious of some of the cause and effect. It
closed down some possibilities that could have been more
radically different, more disruptive.
One of the pleasing aspects of your work is the classic
painting technique coupled with very contemporary
imagery. In many cases, these things don’t normally
lend themselves to each other, but they work so well
together here.
I found it very difficult because it really is a clash of values and
priorities—unfussy but precise, ambiguous but specific, skilled
but unconventional. The refined technical work is a bit of a
poisoned chalice because the ideal form seems so obvious,
so predetermined and unsurprising. But these contradictions
and conflicts bring a kind of grinding friction to the pieces. It
keeps them unstable and forces a kind of extemporising with
what is actually available rather than what I would prefer. I was
looking for a kind of magic gap between what I was doing and
the effect, but was also constantly blundering into the piece
and interfering with the possibilities. I'm sure there is a way of
bringing the elements together without the minute-by-minute
nuts and bolts. I'm still experimenting with what that approach
might be. The show was deeply instructional, though, and it
was easy to see what worked and where there was a misstep.
The figures shunt and cut, multiplying planes of movement.
It’s a fucking tesseract of paint! I have always wondered
about your inspiration for this, as I do something similar,
though mine is about keeping an ambiguous identity. You
seem to be coming from a different place, so what place
is that?
There is a surprising history of portrait painters in my family,
and my original obsession and focus was the late nineteenth
century portraitists. I also loved documentary photography,
and when I was growing up, we had many of the Time Life
books on WWII in the house. It's a generalization, but painting
and photography are really polar opposites: one is many
PHIL HALE JUXTAPOZ | 95
96 | DECEMBER 2015
moments compressed into one, the other a single moment
from which you can extrapolate a complete universe.
At this time—the 1980s—I was doing a lot of photography,
as well as trying to learn how paint works, how it wants to
organize itself. In the early 1990s, I began to experiment with
collage. It let me test form, composition and content, without
hitting technical limits or interference from my own neurotic
reflexes. I could see how those elements worked together.
It was probably the single greatest learning experience of
my life, and turned out to be a fantastically effective way
to remove myself from the piece, to be transparent. I was
always trying to find a way to utilize the paint, the immediacy
and connection of the documentary photography, and the
super-efficient abstraction of the collage. Of course, you are
constantly getting a prickle of what is possible, of what this
might allow.
In retrospect, this is really what most artists are trying to
do, but I had to find my own way—even to find out what the
useful problem might be, and then find a way to make the
practice work.
Regarding the documentary photo approach, that makes
sense as your work has a mid-moment feel, both-feet-off- previous spread
Lake of fire Cloud of snakes
the ground, in anticipation of a hit. Shit, now I’m thinking Oil on Linen
of your take on the D-Day invasion. 46" x 56"
2004
It's excruciating, really, that the art loses any contact with
reality, that it becomes a kind of laboriously-constructed opposite
Life Wants to Live
fantasy. Not just in content, but in how it is made. I'm trying 54" x 54"
to find a way to extract myself from the equation while still Oil on linen
2014
orchestrating or framing it. I think there's more to come.
above
The collaging is an enormously-powerful and freeing tool, Ziggurat
not just for what it can do but for the options it clarifies. 14" x 24"
2011
It shows you something about how paintings work and
how your mind structures information, how it constructs a
necessary flow.
I have always liked collage work. I see it as an equal to
your painted work, in as much as it’s part of your output as
an artist. The abstracted devices and figures have always
conjured up a world of vague and subtle flavors. I’m also
fond of the rough nature of the construction, where there
is no attempt to create a seamless image, but a revelry in
the raw and visceral, which is an antithesis of the modern
digital age. Oh, that sounded rather arty!
Yes, but absolutely right. For me, they showed the power of
the image over anything else. Even if it was crudely glued
PHIL HALE JUXTAPOZ | 97
Record Separator
Oil on linen
68" x 68"
2010
Life Wants to Live
Oil on linen
54" x 54"
2014
from left together, you still went into it, and it still worked. In some
Goad
Oil on panel
ways, it was an even more subtle way of carrying the intent,
12.5" x 18" because the viewer is complicit in the image. Like a magic
1988
trick where everything happens right in front, but you still
Life Wants to Live cannot figure out the mechanism—or, even better than that,
Oil on linen
54" x 54" what appears to be the mechanism, is not. The mechanism is
2014
somewhere else, since magic behind a screen is boring and
Life Wants to Live ineffective. You need an incomprehensible gap between the
Oil on linen
54" x 54"
effort and the event. Is that arty enough?
2014
What’s up with the partnering of the paintings, anything
beyond juxtaposing two images and ideas, or just a ploy to
get people to buy two paintings? If so, it’s a good idea.
I'm always in favor of friction, difficulty, misinformation and
problems. Otherwise it's like eating a bucket of potatoes.
You couldn't just bang any of these into the other. But some
of them, together, do allow a kind of exponential expansion
of relationships and choices that they can't do on their own.
I think the most pressing question about your show is,
what’s up with that fucking cow? It’s considered by some
(me) to be the titular work of the exhibition, the defining
moment of modern landscape deconstruction and
rebuilding all in the same stroke. Or, is it just a great
cow painting?
The cow is the core piece. Whatever I say will suggest that
I had a set purpose with these. I didn't. It’s a blind gesture.
But the cow covers a lot of territory, like some kind of
infinite generator of possibilities. It could be a marker for
100 | DECEMBER 2015
the crossover where non-conscious life overlaps with self-
awareness. It could be a love letter to Gauguin. It could be a
nightmare barrel of meat perpetuating itself.
The cow is like some kind of infinite generator of
possibilities. That’s an answer right there! Though
randomness is the set purpose, is this constructed chaos
your path of choice?
Yes. I need to build on it, crunch those forms together. I'm
still half-stuck in a slow accumulation style. I can feel how
the fragment/collage approach has the power to produce
some really startling and disorienting stuff, but right now it's
immature. I had been pushing against a strange shapeless
barrier for a very long while. I was trapped inside my own
dumb impulses. But now I'm kind of through the membrane.
I think I’ve found a way to grind together the information,
the visual, photograph-based information, with a kind of
painterliness where they can both operate in parallel to dial
them into each other. The paint needs room to work without
being slapped into line or bent into shape. It really is a magic
glue if it isn't shoved into a hole. And the guide is not really
randomness, it's more anything that will police and minimise
the micro-managing. If I relied on my own judgement in any
conscious way, I'd be fucked. No one should be rewarded
for being careful, thoughtful and skilled. In fact, care,
thought, and skill often mask and misrepresent the real
problems in a piece.
PHIL HALE JUXTAPOZ | 101
102 | DECEMBER 2015
My big ending question is, why do you paint? What’s the
driving force that makes you drag your ass into the studio
to carry on? I, for one, don’t really know why I breathe.
I guess I don’t want to die, but not painting wouldn’t have
that same outcome. Yet, I believe I’m defined by it; without
painting and drawing, I’m kind of floor pie. How about you?
I also start to feel insubstantial away from the studio, away
from painting. And guilty, too, but I don't really want to
examine that too closely. Right now I want to go back to
the studio because I feel as if I can, at least, locate and
recognize the active elements and how to process them.
I spent a lot of my career chipping away at problems that
turned out not to be that important or interesting like…
painting a thumb. Very difficult. They weren't totally
the wrong problems, but they were small-minded,
petty, self-inflating, uninteresting and maybe cowardly. It
required a kind of slowing down and attention that easily
became mechanical.
I had no problem being interested in the collage and from left
Life Wants to Live,
photographic work, so it was natural to bring them together. Oil on linen
I had always wanted to fuse these in some core-function, 54" x 54"
2014
effective way. Instead, I was actually working out some
kind of detail behavior and not really enjoying it. My show Study for Use Music to Kill
14.5" x 17"
at LeVine was the first serious sustained effort to find a 2015
way to bring it together; developing that show opened up Study for Use Music to Kill
opportunities in a way that was impossible in the older, 8.5" x 17"
2015
more procedural style. It doesn't even feel like a mature
form, being still very early in the development curve. Maybe
there's a joyless regression yet to come, but I don’t think so.
Phil Hale has two books out now: Black Crack published by Grant
Books, and Use Music to Kill published by 3A.
philhalestudio.com

PHIL HALE JUXTAPOZ | 103

E V EN T
IF NOT BLACK, THEN BLUE
JAMES JEAN’S ZUGZWANG AT MURAKAMI’S HIDARI ZINGARO GALLERY
JAMES JEAN KNOWS CHAOS. THRASHING WAVES OF
lines swirl around his figures, who try to make sense of
the world’s ubiquitous nonsense. The artist has ridden
the swells of fine art, design, and illustrative excellence,
landing prestigious awards and sailing through high-profile
campaigns and exhibitions. Now is the time for his art to roll
toward new audiences in Tokyo.
Juxtapoz: Have any unexpected themes come up as you’ve
been working on the new show?
James Jean: I tend to go into a body of work without a plan.
My intention is to allow the images to occur spontaneously,
and hope that there are some threads of coherence that
can bind it all together in the end. So, in that sense, the
results are always a bit unexpected. I want the work to be
surprising, and therefore, revelatory. For example, there's
an Indian goddess, Kali, who throws a peace sign like a
Japanese girl hanging out in Harajuku while wearing the
decapitated heads of lumbersexuals. And there's a Bedouin
boy wearing Supreme sandals and holding a giant mutant
bassoon. I'm not sure what it all quite means yet. But it
seems to tell a story of our time.
How did the title come about?
104 | DECEMBER 2015
I don't remember where I came across the word, zugzwang, above
Photo by Brandon Shigeta
but I had saved it in a list of words and phrases that I keep
on my phone. Visually, the word just seemed to pair well right
Sadhu
with the images for the show. It sounds funny, strange Mixed media on paper
and exotic, which is sort of the tone of these new works. 30" x 41"
2015
Zugzwang is a term used in chess when a player is forced
to make a disadvantageous move, and I feel that it's
particularly apt when applied to making images. Drawing or
composing an image is a series of moves, and each move
increases the risk of ruining the image.
In your Jux cover story a few years ago, you mentioned
feeling like a ronin. Do you still feel like a wave man?
Yeah, I'm slowly untangling myself from the seaweed and
tentacles of the deep. It will probably be another year before
I reach the shores of a welcoming nation.
Do you have an enduring muse, or do you believe in them?
I don't subscribe to the idea of a muse. The idea of being a
vessel is probably more apt. I'm more like a dirty piece of
ceramic. I suppose there are some recurring characters in
my work, but they are only pawns in a larger narrative that
I'm trying to uncover as I get older.
Have you been working with a distinct color palette?
The palette for this series is primarily blue. Blue has been
a recurring color in my work over the years. To me, it's the
most expressive and beautiful color, and works really well as
the foundation for my images. When I'm not wearing black,
I'm wearing blue.
Have you worked with Murakami before?
He visited my studio a few years ago and we've only
recently had the chance to talk more. I've never had a real
mentor and have always had to forge my own way, so it was
really important for me to see his studio and hear him talk
about his experiences and strategies for dealing with the art
world. His concept for the curation of this series of shows
at his Hidari Zingaro space is to feature a variety of cross-
genre creators and to continue his quest to invigorate the art
scene in Japan.
Did you do any specific research to prepare for the show?
I did some research into all the visual ideas that I was trying
to cobble together. One piece is a direct reference to Yayoi
Kusama's work, and I also collected images and watched
documentaries about Sadhus in India. I'm attracted to the
idea of being an ascetic and totally committed to an idea,
detached from the dumb concerns of the world… an idea
such as painting an infinity of dots, for example.
What do you like about each of the creative forms you
practice, including art, writing and music?
106 | DECEMBER 2015
I enjoy working with different elements and piecing them from left
Bassoon
together to create some kind of logic or order. There's a Mixed media on paper
fundamental pleasure in connecting a few words, a few notes, 30" x 41"
2015
or a few images together to make something that didn't exist
before. There's a landfill of ideas out there in a universe of Goat II
Mixed media on paper
nonsense that needs sorting. 30" x 41"
2015
Tell us about your new book.
I recently published Xenograph, which is a comprehensive
collection of work from 2010–2014. The entire print run
was sold out through pre-orders on my website, which
was amazing. However, distributing the book internationally
was an issue due to shipping costs, so I worked with a
Japanese publisher to produce a more affordable book,
called Pareidolia, that would be readily available abroad.
The main difference is that Pareidolia also contains a lot of
familiar, older pieces in order to introduce my work to a new
Japanese audience.
Are you telling one long story, or many stories?
I suppose it's one long story that splinters off into various
tangents. As different as some of the works may feel from each
other, it's all immediately recognizable as my work. Or so I'm
told. This BS just might be the greatest story of them all.
James Jean’s Zugzwang opens November 7, 2015 at Hidari Zingaro
in Tokyo.
IN SESSION
ALYCE TZUE
A WALK ON THE RED CARPET
ALYCE TZUE SHARES THE GLORIFIED AIR OF SPIKE LEE
and John Lasseter, past winners of the Student Academy
Awards. The Academy of Art University graduate shares
the experience of creating her animated film SOAR, a
collaboration with teachers and fellow students.
Gwynned Vitello: What was the genesis of SOAR, and how
long did it take to complete the film?
Alyce Tzue: I knew I wanted part of the story to take
place in the sky—a fantastical explanation of an everyday
phenomenon, an answer to the question, “Why is the
sky blue?” It takes three years to complete an MFA and, after
a year, you’re expected to complete your thesis, which, for
me, was SOAR. It wrapped a week before graduation.
What is your favorite aspect of filmmaking?
When you’re able to focus the abilities of many hard-working
people toward achieving a single goal, the result can be so
amazing. That definitely held true for SOAR.
How did you benefit from time with teachers and peers?
I’ve gained invaluable mentors at AAU. They’ve had complex
careers and have witnessed many people at the beginning of
their careers who either make it or fail. There’s great wisdom
in that vantage. I also enjoy spending time with my peers.
Talking to other students about their projects was so valuable,
108 | DECEMBER 2015
as we tend to share similar problems and successes. Film still from SOAR
Which AAU departments did you work with?
I worked mostly with the Animation and Visual Effects
departments. Graphic Design recommended our graphic
designer, and our web designer was from the Web Design
and New Media department. The School of Motion Pictures
and Television played a big role by submitting SOAR to
the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts)
student awards.
I wasn’t aware of the Student Academy Awards. Did you
walk a red carpet?
The Academy organized a full week of industry activities,
including visiting the Dreamworks campus and meeting
several of our heroes. The week culminated in the
ceremony, where we did walk the red carpet! Now I’m
working on a feature-length treatment for SOAR. As gold
winners, we also qualify for the real 2016 Oscars, which
would be incredible. Fingers crossed!
alycetzue.com
SOARfilm.com
academyart.edu
 Opening Reception Saturday, November 14th 8pm to 10pm
On Display November 14th to December 13th
305 E. 4th St. #103 Santa Ana, CA 92701 / www.marcasgallery.com / 714.760.4637
Nocturne
Kevin W Peterson

Michael Page
Into The Void
REVIEWS

WHAT WE ARE READING

FEMALE HEROES AND HEAVENLY FLOWERS

JR: CAN ART CHANGE THE WORLD?

BY JR
This retrospective charts the development of JR’s signature street art style: large-
scale, black-and-white portraits, his subjects often revealing true emotion. His
portraiture first displayed young men from the projects of Montfermeil, France. The
Women are Heroes project shows how women are frequently the unsung social
pillars in areas of conflict. Face 2 Face displays side-by-side images of Israelis and
Palestinians with the same occupations, on both sides of Israel’s separation wall.
JR’s images cover the walls of an entire favela in Brazil, the side of a container ship,
and the whole nave of the Pantheon in Paris. Through JR’s work, the people of a
community become magnified and magnificent in their own public spaces. As JR
says, “Images are not special. It’s what you do with them.” —Rachel Cassandra
phaidon.com

WHERE THE HEAVEN FLOWERS GROW

BY AARON HUEY
For almost thirty years, Leonard Knight built Salvation Mountain, a five-story
structure near California’s Salton Sea, to broadcast his message: “God is Love.”
But Knight’s evangelical dedication to his artwork transcended its religious
credo. His unwavering confidence in the power of love inspired visitors of all and
no faiths to marvel at an artwork that defied labels. Where the Heaven Flowers
Grow is a collection of images by photographer Aaron Huey, made during the
last years Knight was able to work on the mountain. Much like the mountain, the
book is meant to be experienced as a physical object. The various photographs,
letters and artifacts contained within the cover are best enjoyed petal by petal and
scattered upon a table before you. In the spirit of Knight’s lifework, the book is not
bound by traditional rules of the medium and has us excited about future releases
from Huey’s new publishing venture, Outsider Books. —Alex Nicholson
outsiderbooks.com

RAD AMERICAN WOMEN A-Z

BY KATE SCHATZ AND MIRIAM KLEIN STAHL
Rad American Women rightfully honors the female voices who have made an
unforgettable, indelible impact on art, literature, culture, social justice and beyond.
From rocker Patti Smith to activist Angela Davis, author Ursula K. Le Guin to
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, these are the “rebels, trailblazers and
visionaries who shaped our history… and our future!” Illustrated by rad artist and
educator Miriam Klein Stahl in her signature style that boldly communicates the
personality and strength of each luminary, this is a book about women you need
to know, and legacies that have changed the course of everyday life. A New York
Times bestseller, it’s described as a book for “children, their parents, teachers and
cool grown-up friends,” and that includes you. —Kristin Farr
Citylightspublishers.com

110 | DECEMBER 2015

12 .1-6 . 2015 SCOPE-ART.COM

WITH THE SUPPORT OF THE MIAMI BEACH VISITOR AND CONVENTION AUTHORITY AND THE CITY OF MIAMI BEACH.
 CLEON PETERSON
T-SHIRT
AVAILABLE NOW

Photo by Bryan Derballa

SHOP.JUXTAPOZ.COM Bangalore, India

@lovebryan

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (Required by Title 39, United States Codes 3685) Date of filing: 9/11/15 Publication Title: JUXTAPOZ. Publication Number: 1077–8411. Issue Frequency: Monthly. Annual Subscription price: $29.99. Address of Known
Office of Publication: 1303 Underwood Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94124–3308. Headquarters of the Publishers: Same as above. Publisher: Gwynned Vitello, PO Box 884570, San Francisco, CA 94188–4570. Editor: Evan Pricco, PO Box 884570, San Francisco, CA 94188–4570.
Managing Editor: Alex Nicholson, PO Box 884570, San Francisco, CA 94188–4570. Owner: High Speed Productions, Inc., PO Box 884570, San Francisco, CA 94188–4570. Stockholders owning one percent or more of the total amount of stocks: Eric Swenson Trust, 59 Rhode Island,
San Francisco, CA 94107; Gwynned Vitello, PO Box 884570, San Francisco, CA 94188–4570; Edward Riggins @ PO Box 884570, San Francisco, CA 94188–4570; Kevin Thatcher, 14975 Los Gatos Blvd, Los Gatos, CA 95032; Greg Escalante, A-20, Surfside, CA 90743; Robert Williams,
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P RO FI L E
MICHAEL PEARCE
ART AS ANTIDOTE
ON NOVEMBER FIRST, ATTENDEES OF THE THIRD
annual TRAC (The Representational Art Conference)
gathered at a beachside hotel in Ventura, California to
attend four days of presentations, demos and panel
discussions. I attended last year’s and saw co-founder and
chair Michael Pearce electrify the crowd with a passionate
kickoff speech. Powered by the Internet, Michael has
corralled a diverse community of representational artists,
art historians, philosophers and now, neurobiologists, who,
through collective effort, are creating the philosophical
foundation for the humanistic art movement.
Hailing from England, Michael is a tenured professor of art
at California Lutheran University, which has proven to be a
nearly-ideal post to launch his influence on the trajectory
of contemporary art. Earlier this year, Cambridge University
Press released his first book, Art in the Age of Emergence,
a philosophical look at the accelerating figurative
movement. Currently, Michael is completing a second book
that supports sentiment in art and tells the history of how
modernists have worked to abolish it. Foremost, Michael
is a painter, producing works that visually demonstrate
his philosophy.
114 | DECEMBER 2015
above
David Molesky: What is the story behind your beautiful Portrait by
veil paintings? Brittany McGinley
Michael Pearce: I started painting figures emerging opposite
from light. You know how Caravaggio painted figures Cloud Nine
Oil on canvas
emerging from darkness? I wanted to do the opposite. 28" x 38"
2015
I wrapped models in plastic sheets and sheer fabric. The
cloth disguises the body and allows me to distort it, while Portrait by
Brittany McGinley
maintaining just enough relationship to reality that they
make sense. The body of work morphed into being more
about half-knowledge. It is seductive, but not explicit. I’m
inviting you to explore, but I don’t give away too much.
My book discusses how human relationships are the
antidote to nihilism. Art is the expression of an idea
from the artist’s mind, which is met by a viewer’s mind.
Mind meets mind in a painting or a sculpture, as it does
in human relationships. Human love for one another is
the most important feature of our emergent culture after
postmodernism. The painting Half a Kiss is about a hope to
know and find complete unity with another, even though the
other is veiled from us.
These paintings depict your ideas of nihilism?
Yes. Emergence offers two answers to nihilism: first is the
comfort of shared experience you find when you look into
the eye of a lover, and next is a hierarchy that is implied by
the forward motion of time.

Love is an emergent quality that results from our

accumulative experiences through time. We find ourselves
exchanging ideas and consciousness, and our culture is the
emergent quality of this sharing.

Improved understanding of mind will inspire greater

interest in shared human experience.
Mind is an emergent quality of physiology. When you look
at it pragmatically, like Semir Zeki does, it’s pretty clear that
mind cannot exist without body. You have to have the body
to carry the mind around.

We understand the world in terms of sensory perception,

as well as our emotions. When you look at art, you respond
to it instantly. It appeals to you, or it doesn’t. You match
your perception with categories and expectations and
then, perhaps, intellectual thought, but the first reaction
is always sentiment.

Do you think works of art that are not immediately

appealing are a kind of acquired taste, that aesthetics
can be influenced by repeated exposure, as well as the
influence of cultural authorities?
Take Balloon Dog by Jeff Koons, for example. Many in
the art community hate Balloon Dog, but a lot of people
not interested in art theories think it’s a marvelous giant
Christmas tree ornament, and it’s very satisfying for them.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with that, but I think
that there is a hierarchy of ideas. As you develop a keener
sense of art through time, this complex set of ideas certainly
affects what you think of as good and poor art. But that
doesn’t mean that it’s the same for everybody. We are all on
our own evolutionary journeys, aren’t we?

I love this intersection between art and neuroscience.

Mind is an emergent quality that’s not going to be detected
or understood by reduction. In the book, I talk about the
wetness of water as an example of emergence. You don’t
get any knowledge of wetness by reducing water to the
oxygen or hydrogen that make it. The mind is the wetness of
the physiology of the brain.

I’ve heard you are writing another book.

The working title is Never Nothing. I’m exploring the ideas
of kitsch and sentiment. It’s extraordinary reading literature
by modernist writers, witness to the loathing and hatred that
they cast upon kitsch, by which they mean art that makes an
appeal towards sentiment. Their elitist ideas had more to do
with Kant’s disinterested interest and building a new brand
of modern culture.

So where do you think all of this Kitschaphobia, fear of

sentiment in art, comes from?
It begins after WWI and really picks up speed after WWII,
P R O FI L E
especially after Clement Greenberg’s ideas take root.
Culturally, the modernists won. Walter Gropius and his
Harvard cohort got busy building the modernist school and
dismantling any sentimental ideas from architecture, and
they wrecked their university’s enormous cast collection—
iconoclasts smashing it all up. That’s when things really
went south in terms of how representation went, and they
had very powerful ideas backing its destruction. The avant
garde were entirely opposed, philosophically speaking, to
the idea of sentiment in art. Hermann Broch, for example,
calls Kitsch “evil.” How remarkable to state that art that
appeals to sentiment is evil. It’s extraordinary. They were
so determined to get away from the Enlightenment and the
19th century. They believed that after the world wars, they
had an opportunity to make a brand new culture and re-
invent everything from nothing. Very idealistic, but not very
grounded in reality.
Maybe only if you could create a new organism that had no
evolutionary history on the planet.
Yes. You know, Postmodernism, in its way, is an
improvement on Modernism. Modernism had no room
whatsoever for humanistic representational art, but within
116 | DECEMBER 2015
Postmodernism, for all its nihilistic relativism, at least there from left
Angel of Death
is a place at the table for representation because everything Oil on canvas
is of equal value. The hatred for what we do—by which 96" x 96"
2010
I mean representation with its appeals to sentiment—is
Winter 1
certainly going to die as we move forward in time away from Oil on canvas
Modernism. That is why the conference is successful and 26" x 34.5"
2015
why representation is finding its place again. It’s because
of Postmodernity, in fact, which is a bit surprising, because
some of us think of Postmodernism as the enemy. But I don’t
think that is the case. I think Postmodernism opens things
up for us. If we can now provide philosophical content that
leads onward out of the stagnation of Postmodernity, which I
believe emergence does, then I think we have a really good
solid foundation for representational art. Emergence takes
us out of the nihilism of Postmodernism and gives us the
answer to Nietzsche’s problem. Emergence gives us back
our footing.
gildedraven.com
REVIEWS

THINGS WE ARE AFTER

EVERYTHING YOU NEED FOR A STUDIO SÉANCE

SPIRIT BOARD
BY XRAY
What can you gift a spirited friend who has it all? A special Ouija board
designed by artist XRAY, of course. The Spirit Board will answer all the
mysteries of life, ushering you back to a time when you didn’t know it was
special effects that made The Excorcist terrifying. Consult XRAY’s spirit
board, placing your hands gently on the planchette, and an answer will
be delivered through either supernatural communication or involuntary
muscle spasms, depending on how hard you believe. This is a next-level
artist edition and its haunting presence in our office has been making us
nervous for months.
station16gallery.com
THE PAINTERS CREW
BY THE CREATIVE LIVES
The Creative Lives is a video series covering many of our favorite
artists, Tiffany Bozic, Andrew Schoultz and Richard Colman to name
just a few. Besides serving studio tours and sage advice from the
masters, The Creative Lives has you covered in the painting gear
department. This sleek black crewneck is a painter’s dream, with
stash spots for brushes, a zippered kanga pocket, and three-quarter
sleeves that won’t get in your way. Get the matching cap for the
ultimate artist uniform.
thecreativelives.com

STRETCH-IT-YOURSELF CANVAS KIT

BY FREDRIX
Traditionalists stretch their own canvas. Artists with day jobs
buy them at the art store. Now there’s something for everyone
in between, the stretch-it-yourself kit from mainstay supplier,
Fredrix Artist Canvas. With pre-cut wood and all the necessary
hardware, including a patented “clever lever” for stretching
and tightening a canvas to perfection, this kit will turn you into
an instant professional. You may be so proud of your beautiful
blank slate that you’ll be anxious about adding paint to it, but
hey, the pressure is good for you.
fredrixprintcanvas.com

118 | DECEMBER 2015

S I EB EN O N L I FE
SIX PACK
POROUS WALKER
THE FIRST TIME I MET POROUS WALKER, HE TAPPED MY
shoulder at an art opening and handed me some human
teeth, telling me that he'd seen them fall out of my pocket.
Caught off guard, I awkwardly tried to explain that they
were for sure not mine. He then smiled and introduced
himself. Porous is without doubt one of the most bizarre and
imaginative people I've ever met. I hit him up recently to
grab a quick six pack (of questions).
Michael Sieben: How do the concepts come to you? Do you
picture the image first and then the words?
Porous Walker: Images first and words second.
Do you keep regular studio hours, or just sit down and jam
out a drawing when an idea arrives?
I seem to produce more work at night, after sundown, and
I usually make the work in batches and stages, so one night
the sketches, next night coloring and I always add the words
at the last minute.
What's the craziest or weirdest commercial project you
ever worked on?
The craziest and weirdest was an illustration I did for
Microsoft in 2006. They paid me a lot of money for a
drawing for their ill-fated Zune player launch. They put
my drawing on billboards and stuff. I made enough money
to buy my first Apple laptop. I'm pretty sure it's my fault
the Zune bombed.
120 | DECEMBER 2015
How many of your images have been flagged and removed Artwork by Porous Walker
from Instagram?
At least 3 million.
Do you still work for Francis Ford Coppola? If so, can I get
some wine?
I no longer work full time for the Coppolas, but you can
definitely get some wine. I still work with Francis and his wife
Eleanor on a freelance basis. They are two of my biggest
inspirations. I've done three lifetimes worth of work of all
kinds for them. It's been an Incredible learning experience;
I'm lucky to know them.
Is your daughter old enough to look at your work? Are
you nervous or excited about that moment, if it has yet
to happen?
Yes, Cedella is now 14 and has definitely seen my work and
ignores it. She understands that her dad is strange and
embraces that. I definitely don't flaunt it around the house,
but the Internet never lies. She is definitely a better artist
than I am, and the important thing is that she's learning it
takes a lot of work, time and sacrifice to create and share
your visions with the world. We both agree that inspiring
others to create and share what they want is the main goal.
See more of Porous' work on Instagram: @porous_walker
(but hurry before everything is removed).
P O P L I FE

NEW YORK CITY

HOUSTON & BOWERY WALL AND JACOB LEWIS GALLERY

1 2 3

4 5 6

HOUSTON & BOWERY WALL
1 | Much anticipated and long overdue,
FUTURA finally got the chance to stake
his claim on the iconic Houston & Bowery
Wall in Manhattan. Actors Balthazar
Getty and Norman Reedus (from “The
Walking Dead”!) flank FUTURA while he
takes a break.
3 | Curator Jeffrey Deitch stopped by and
swapped lenses with FUTURA.
JACOB LEWIS GALLERY
4 | Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro
paid respects to gallerist Jacob Lewis at
the opening of Shepard Fairey’s newest
solo show, On Our Hands.
5 | Legends, unite. Photographer Glen E. Photography by Joe Russo
Friedman, Beastie Boy Mike D and
Shepard Fairey share a moment at the
afterparty.
6 | Mike D does what Mike D does best;
makes the bodies move.

2 | Photographer Martha Cooper gives a

little love to someone’s blackbook.

122 | DECEMBER 2015

 Mounted in celebration of the centennial
of Robert Motherwell’s birth, this exhibition
presents thirteen works by the pioneering
Abstract Expressionist artist from his
seminal series Elegies to the Spanish
Republic5HÁHFWLQJWKHFKDRVWXUPRLODQG
moral uncertainties of the mid-twentieth
century, these paintings are a testament
to the timeless and transcendent aspects
of the human condition.

September 5, 2015–March 6, 2016

This exhibition is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in collaboration with the Dedalus Foundation.
At Five in the Afternoon, 1950. Oil on hardboard, 36 ¾ x 48 ½ in. (93.3 x 123.2 cm). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,
bequest of Josephine Morris, 2003.25.4. Art © Dedalus Foundation Inc. / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
P O P L I FE

LOS ANGELES, NEW YORK CITY, RENO

THINKSPACE GALLERY, KP PROJECTS / MKG, BRYCE WOLKOWITZ, NEVADA MUSEUM OF ART

1 2 3

4 5 6

THINKSPACE GALLERY BRYCE WOLKOWITZ NEVADA MUSEUM OF ART Photography by

1 | Men of the hour: João Ruas, Aaron
Horkey, and Esao Andrews at the
opening of their themed group show,
The Gilded Age, at Thinkspace Gallery.
KP PROJECTS / MKG
2 | Marco Zamora and Mark Whalen both
got a chance to meet up and celebrate
their respective shows, and share beard
secrets.
3 | Is there anyone cooler than Marisa
Tomei? The Academy Award-winner
owned the room when she came to the
opening of José Parlá’s new solo show in
NYC at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery.
4 | José and Marisa catch up, and the world
takes pictures.
Sam Graham (1,2),
5 | Artist Hung Liu with her work, Old Joe Russo (3.4),
Chris Holloman (5,6)
Gold Mountain, at the Members’ Gala
celebrating the opening of Tahoe: A
Visual History at the Nevada Museum of
Art in Reno, Nevada.
6 | Maya Lin in front of her sculpture, Pin
River—Tahoe Watershed, one of three
sculptures by Lin commissioned for
Tahoe: A Visual History.

124 | DECEMBER 2015

PER S PEC T I V E
PIZZ NO MORE
R.I.P. TO THE LORD OF LOWBROW
SUNDAY, THE 30TH OF AUGUST, 2015, STEVE “THE PIZZ”
Pizzurro had his fill of this mortal coil called life. As an alter-
native artist, he was there in the beginning, and he was one
of the best.
Juxtapoz, during the last 21 years, has gone through a lot
of changes. Way before the light-hearted fantasy-figure
work and large-eyed moppets, there was a true hardcore
underground. This is the genesis from which Juxtapoz was
born, and The Pizz was right there.
During the late ’70s and early ’80s, Pizz was part of a serious
LA punk-rock art movement, and he worked hand-in-hand
with all the heavy participants: Gary Panter (the father of
punk-rock art), Georganne Deen, Mad Marc Rude, Bad Otis
Link, May Zone, Johanna Went and the legendary XNO.
These weren’t over sensitive, wilted pansies. As the ’80s
turned into the ’90s, Pizz was carried along in the current
style sensation. If nothing else, Pizz was an important
fashion benchmark. Always dressed with a flagrant
disregard for modesty, brazenly hep. Early on, when I met
him at the beginning of the ’80s, he dressed only in requisite
punk-rock black. He always wore sunglasses and had a coif
that couldn’t be called a mullet, but was a large tuft of black
hair that looked like a lion’s mane shaped into an exploded
mohawk. Pizz styled himself with guts. Maybe “hep” isn’t
the right word. He was more than cool. Let me express his
demeanor academically: he was zeitgeistically poignant.
His art was that of a graphic scenester. Because of such
overt deportment, some people could not adjust to him. His
opposite (clockwise from top) early punk-rock art was an expressive storm of energetic
Death Takes a Holiday
brushwork made up of controlled but spontaneous splashes.
Acrylic on canvas
40" x 30"
1999
As the so-called low-brow movement became a plausible
Aye For an Eye phenomenon, Pizz started to pride himself on the virtues of
Acrylic on canvas
42" x 32" draftsmanship. He did mini comix, and aided Ed “Big Daddy”
2000 Roth on cartoon projects while continuing to supply rock
Blue Chrooning Goon bands with art. During the ’90s, he was front and center
Acrlyic on canvas
with the whirlwind attraction to tiki idolatry, along with other
14" x 20"
2000 artists like Shag and Mark Ryden. By this time, the Pizz had
126 | DECEMBER 2015
a well known bulletproof painting style. He had already
formulated the cartoon beaver mascot for Hustler magazine.
In spite of his growing reputation, he shied away from the
large, blue chip galleries, although he did find great favor
with the smaller alternative galleries like Zero One, Billy
Shire’s La Luz De Jesus Gallery, Copro Nason, and many
more. Pizz also received true academic recognition when his
name was included in the scholarly history book, Nancy
Moure’s California Art, 450 Years of Painting.
Pizz lived an enormously-colorful life. Besides his social
skills, he was a gyno-magnet with punk rock girls clamoring
all over him. He loved bitchin’ cars and owned a beautiful
purple-and-black ’57 Chevy lowrider. He was a member in
good standing in the rather exclusive rough-and-tumble
car club, the Beatnicks. He was an automobile artist par
excellence on the level with Chris “Coop” Cooper, Keith
Weesner and Von Franco.
Despite the resentment some people had for his brash self-
confidence and affected public persona, Steve Pizzurro was
an authentic character. He had many shortcomings, but they
only seemed to validate him. He was real, a street-fighter, a
Bohemian existentialist and a gifted artist. He leaves behind
a beautiful wife, Yuki Sakai, and many mourning friends
and fans. When he checked out of life in a room at the Long
Beach Airport Marriott, he did it with the same bravado and
style as he lived, with a .357 Magnum pistol and a poetic
euphemism spray painted on the wall.
The Pizz will leave a vacuum in Southern California art that
generations of Rat Fink artists can never fill. Pizz’s wife, Yuki,
summed it up rather simply by saying, “Pizz no more.”
—Robert Williams, September 8, 2015
Aid for his widow at www.gofundme.com/thepizz
PERSPECTIVE JUXTAPOZ | 127
 ry order sin ce 2012!
d on e tree for eve
We've plante

At Jakprints, being good

environmental stewards is more
than a throw-away line about
initiatives or a judicious use of the
word “green.” As a company, as
people and as a community, we are
passionate about leaving the Earth
better than we found it and we’re
confident you feel the same way.

Paper, Responsibly Eco-Friendly

Forested
All of our papers are sourced from well-managed
forests located in North America or Europe and certified
by one of the three major organizations who follow the
trees, pulp and paper through the entire chain of custody.
Some are certified in all three!
Apparel
We offer a wide variety of garment options that
are eco-friendly. On any of our apparel pages,
you can click on the Eco-Friendly tab to see
the best green apparel options anywhere, like,
100% Organic Cotton or Bamboo.
 Trees for
the future
Trees for the Future doesn’t just plant
trees for their ecological benefits, but
to benefit people in need. Technically
speaking, they an agroforestry charity.
Agroforestry intentionally combines
agriculture and forestry to create
integrated and sustainable land-use
systems. Trees and shrubs are planted
near crops and/or livestock, to the
benefit of all.

Inks
Rather than use a traditional, cheaper,
petroleum base, Jakprints uses 100%
Vegetable-Based Inks. Water-based,
aqueous coatings make our offset
products 100% biodegradable.

Prin t f o r t o d a y ,
Plant for t o m o r r o w E S
JA K . I N K / T R E
Call 877.246.3132
Click jakprints.com
The Chuck Taylor All Star

Made by Cody Hudson

Made by you