Enero Juxtapoz

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FRIDA KAHLO

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WorldMags.net ISSUE 168 / JANUARY 2015

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EDITOR’S LETTER

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STUDIO TIME

PAUL WACKERS

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THE REPORT

RYAN McGINNESS & JUXTAPOZ HYPERREAL

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PICTURE BOOK

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EVENT

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FASHION

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INFLUENCES

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DAN WITZ

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LEE CHEN-DAO

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KAZU

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SUZANNAH SINCLAIR

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RACHELL SUMPTER AND JACOB MAGRAW

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BILL SAYLOR

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TRAVEL INSIDER

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IN SESSION

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BOOK REVIEWS

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PROFILE

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GIFT GUIDE

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SIEBEN ON LIFE

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POP LIFE

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PERSPECTIVE

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GREGORY HALPERN

FERTILE GROUND IN THE BAY MATIJA COP DARIA BRIT GREENE @ SCOPE ART FAIR

KANSAS CITY

SVA’S WE TELL STORIES

JAKE FRIED

SNAIL MAIL PRAISE

JONY IVE Ryan McGinness in his NYC studio Photo by Jennifer Livingston Photo courtesy of Ryan McGinness Studios, Inc. / Art Resource, NY, © Ryan McGinness / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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RYAN McGINNESS

JUXTAPOZ ISSN #1077-8411 JANUARY 2015 VOLUME 22, NUMBER 1 Published monthly by High Speed Productions, Inc., 1303 Underwood Ave, San Francisco, CA 94124–3308. © 2014 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 rights reserved on entire contents. Advertising inquiries should be directed to: [email protected]. Subscriptions: US, $29.99 (one year, 12 issues) or $75.00 (12 issues, first class, US only); Canada, $75.00; Foreign, $80.00 per year. Single copy: US, $5.99; Canada, $6.99. Subscription rates given represent standard rate and should not be confused with special subscription offers advertised in the magazine. Periodicals Postage Paid at San Francisco, CA, and at additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 0960055. Change of address: Allow six weeks advance notice and send old address label along with your new address. Postmaster: Send change of address to: Juxtapoz, PO Box 884570, San Francisco, CA 94188–4570. 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 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 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.

JANUARY, n168

Juxtapoz Is Published by High Speed Productions, Inc. 415–822–3083 email to: [email protected] juxtapoz.com

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Cover art by Dan Witz 70 Commercial Street Oil and digital media on canvas 40" x 54" 2010

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TRACE MENDOZA

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ILLUSTRATION

BFA DEGREES Animation Design + Digital Media Drawing + Painting Game Art Illustration

MINORS Creative Writing Sculpture

MFA + POST-BACC Drawing Painting

LAGUNA COLLEGE OF ART + DESIGN

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EDITOR’S LET TER

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Dan Witz Mosh Pit Study (Jets) 2014

ISSUE NO 168 “The mosh pit will reveal all the answers. The mosh pit never lies.” —Norah, from Rachel Cohn’s Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist IT’S A LITTLE AUDACIOUS TO START AN EDITOR’S LETTER quoting YA fiction. But for the past few months, as we finished our newest book, Juxtapoz Hyperreal, and began working with Brooklyn’s Dan Witz, this line indeed kept playing back in my head as if to define a general feeling I had about Witz’s work and his place in the book. We are working with something real here, and even though there is an alternate-reality component to hyperrealism and an abstracted process that goes into the wonderfully dark, energetic mosh pit paintings of Dan Witz, there are undeniable revelations about the human condition. As hyperrealism aims to enhance the illusion of a reality, the mosh pit intensifies the experience of music to an almost primitive act of motion and action. And Dan Witz has found a way to forge these acts together.

street art came at a unique time in the history of both NYC and Witz’s time at Cooper Union in the late 1970s. To be at art school painting realist, figurative works in the face of modern art’s rejection of the forms, being influenced by what he calls “graffitied trains, punk rock and a few grownup artists like Gordon Matta-Clark… and the Situationists,” puts Witz at the center of many counter-culture movements that sprung some of the ethos of Juxtapoz. History repeats itself, and in 2014, we have begun to see an increasingly popular trend toward abstraction. And those who perform the act of painting figuratively, this new generation of realists and hyperrealists, revel in the role of rebellion once again. Now that Dan has begun to explore raves as another alternate universe of ritualistic release, I sense a search for truth about the human condition. There is something revelatory in the communal movement of people and moving energies, whether in the force of a mosh pit or the escape of a rave. Witz is right there, painting the exquisite beauty of these moments.

Dan is a painter, street artist, photographer, documentarian, political interventionist, musician, and someone I consider to be a realist in more ways than one. He is simultaneously anti-authoritarian and oblivious to trends while being a pioneer who is astutely aware of art history. His forays into 10 |

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STUDIO TIME

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PAUL WACKERS A studio with lots of plants, naturally THIS IS MY STUDIO IN WHAT IS NOW CALLED EAST Williamsburg, where I have been for about two and a half years. I really like the studio, and before this spot, I was in a space shared with about five other people. It was always hard to tell that so many people were in there since we were so crammed in, and I had no windows in and around my 10’ x 10’ nook. So when I saw this corner spot with a door I could close, and so many windows (I even I had to board up a set for wall space), I said, “I’ll take it."

their own. But this studio works, and I love it. It’s not always as messy as in this picture, but maybe it is—seems like I am always playing catch up for one thing or another. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love what I do and am always grateful that somebody out there wants to see it.

It really is a great workspace. I am here pretty much seven days a week, even though I fool myself into thinking that next week, I will take a day off. It’s just big enough to work on the projects and things I want and need to do. Occasionally, some tweaking needs to happen when things need to be built, like crates and stuff, but I can easily set up a drawing table when that is more my mood.

Paul Wackers has a solo show at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco up through December 20, 2014.

And, yeah, I have a lot of plants.

For more information, visit paulwackers.com and eleanorharwood.com

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Part of me always dreams of taking over the space next door so all my things will each have a permanent place of

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Keith Haring, Untitled, 1982. Vinyl paint on vinyl tarpaulin. Collection of Sloan and Roger Barnett. Keith Haring artwork © Keith Haring Foundation

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THE REPORT

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COMMUNITY IDENTITY STABILITY The Brave New World according to Ryan McGinness

above Portrait by Jennifer Livingston (detail) opposite Plastic Reality Oil, acrylic and metal leaf on wood panel in artist’s frame, 28" x 36" 2014 Photo courtesy of Ryan McGinness Studios, Inc. / Art Resource, NY, © Ryan McGinness / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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THERE WAS A TIME WHEN CONVENTIONAL WISDOM suggested that George Orwell’s vision of the future depicted in 1984 was the percipient prophecy of all 20th Century dystopian novels. Aldous Huxley’s masterstroke, 1932’s Brave New World, was always the futuristic vision in opposition to Orwell. Critic Neil Postman wrote in 1985, “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.” Simply put (thank you, Wikipedia), Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us. As the continued march of the 21st Century’s technological revolution advances, the latter seems to be taking the lead once again.

It’s fascinating that Ryan McGinness’ newest body of work, on display at La Jolla’s Quint Gallery through the end of 2014, borrows Huxley’s Brave New World mantra “Community, Identity, Stability” for the title. A world of simple pleasures—social media, smart phones, 24/7 sports networks, gossip columns, and celebrity culture—has run rampant over the last few decades. McGinness has always been at the forefront of exploring universal icons and how an audience reacts to their presence in fine art. His overlayed paintings of technicolor women and symbols are both chaotic and structured, measured and wild. His Instagram account is a continuously clever use of the medium, with bold yet almost inscrutable statements blasted out to the world nearly every day—layer on layer,

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as McGinness tends to do, a brilliant satire on our modern world of pleasurable passivity. For Community Identity Stability, McGinness has created a series of works that “combine elements from past bodies of work into ‘studio views,’ or paintings within paintings.” The show features ten new paintings and ten monoprint lithographs from stone, published by Edition Copenhagen, some of which Juxtapoz was able to see at McGinness’ studio last fall. Pieces of his works from past series including Mindscapes, Black Holes and Women appear here again, but reimagined within new frames made by the artist (the first time he has ever done this). Whether the connection

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between Huxley and McGinness’ career arc is captured by the audience is yet to be seen, but the artist’s continued exploration of pleasure and symbolism matures, bends, and blurs show after show. A future of gratifying control is on display, and McGinness gets to hand out the soma. —Evan Pricco

For more information about Ryan McGinness, visit quintgallery.com and ryanmcginness.com

JUXTAPOZ.COM / RYAN - MCGINNESS

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Black Hole (Dark Energy, Pearl White) Silkscreen ink on wood panel 48" diameter, edition of 5 2014 Published by Pace Editions, New York Photo courtesy of Ryan McGinness Studios, Inc. / Art Resource, NY, © Ryan McGinness / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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THE REPORT

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TRANSCRIBING THE REAL Juxtapoz Hyperreal is the latest release in our ongoing book series NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN, IF I AM ASKED TO GIVE A talk about art, or even an opinion about art, people want to know what I think about the relationship between contemporary art and the Internet. What effect does the Internet have on distributing art? Are people less likely to visit institutions and galleries because they can just experience it on their phones? Is instant gratification winning out over the protracted process of experimentation? Unequivocally yes, everything is changing. If the way you order groceries is evolving, chances are, everything you need to know and understand about art is going through an incredible transformation. Galleries, museums, and the artists themselves are staking their claim with the 21st Century, creating experiences that adjust to, and apply to, how we gather information. Because of this, art is more popular and open than ever. 22 |

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Inevitably, in the face of such social hyperactivity, the recesses of my mind heard the summon back to the studio. Something has happened over the last few years. In a world of tiny screens and instantaneous self-realization, painting became a thing again. Technical skill was reintroduced to a generation of contemporary painters and sculptors, and those who championed conceptual art opened the door to discover brush and canvas. Within this movement, the obsession with camera phones, social media, and the Internet as a whole sparked something even more interesting: artists creating time-intensive and laborious work that looked like photography, reflecting our selfconscious obsession with screens and inflated social status. In a world where 24 hours a day are spent with access to limitless information, we find ourselves, more than ever, probing what it means to be human. Hyperrealism literally

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personifies an era where analog practice attempts to recreate a reality as it simultaneously blurs the truth.

a celebration, but a look into what motivates the artists and inspires them, and the craft of their studio practice.

There have always been figurative painters who created life-like portraits, pastoral painters who could turn a landscape into an Ansel Adams photo, but there is a new generation of painters who have taken the genre in unexpected directions. Jenny Morgan, Alyssa Monks, and Jonathan Yeo combine photorealism with slices of the surreal. Yigal Ozeri, Omar Ortiz, and Jessica Hess induce a double-take at their accurate portrayals of still life. Eloy Morales, Lee Price and Ian Cumberland make flesh so vivid and raw, it defines palpable. Of course there are the masters Hilo Chen, Roberto Bernardi and Glennray Tutor who have carried the torch for decades and belong in the history books for their craft. Juxtapoz Hyperreal is not only

Lucian Freud, the great British portrait artist and grandson of Sigmund, explained that, “The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.'' And thus, our motivation. This is reality and super-reality. This is abstraction in its uber-clarity. This is hyperrealism. —Evan Pricco

Juxtapoz Hyperreal is available at shop.juxtapoz.com and at bookstores and museums around the world.

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PICTURE BOOK

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GREGORY HALPERN Beyond the postcard LOOKING BACK OVER THE NUMEROUS PHOTOGRAPHY titles from the last year, The Photographer's Playbook is a standout, despite having very few actual photographs. With the assistance of 307 established photographers, the book provides insight into approaching and understanding the genre and could be viewed as a guide for the creatively blocked on how to enjoy taking photographs again. Two photographers carefully edited the volume, and Gregory Halpern was one of them. Back in 1998, while pursuing a B.A. at Harvard, Halpern embarked on a five-year-long project that involved compiling photographs and interviewing service employees, such as cooks, custodians, security guards and dishwashers, while working with The Living Wage Campaign. The goal was to raise awareness that one of the wealthiest universities in the country not only refused to pay a basic living standard to the workers that kept it running, but was actually cutting wages. Halpern’s first publication, Harvard Works Because We Do, was the outcome of this arduous undertaking which drew national media attention and resulted in a victory for the

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disregarded Harvard employees whose salary cuts were subsequently reversed. The experience of engaging photographs in the service of a cause was what ultimately led Halpern to a long term venture in exploring the potential of photography. Halpern has since advanced in his practice, creating several distinctly different bodies of work with deviating approaches, many published into limited edition books. Furthermore, Halpern has given lectures at various universities and written insightful and analytical articles pertaining to photography. He currently teaches at the Rochester Institute of Technology and was a recent recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. The state of California is Halpern’s current focus, and a forthcoming book of photographs is anticipated from J&L Books this year. —Austin McManus

For more information about Gregory Halpern, visit gregoryhalpern.com

JUXTAPOZ.COM / GREGORY - HALPERN

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EVENT

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FERTILE GROUND OVER THE BAY SFMOMA and OMCA on Bay Area art history, from Frida Kahlo to the Mission School MEANDERING ESTUARIES AND TECTONIC PLATES THAT surround the Bay Area have cultivated an aura of it being “the end of the world,” not in a negative connotation, but more as a place of endless possibilities and exploration. What was founded on Gold Rush ambition has informed groundbreaking culinary, musical and technological excellence, with the latter endowing the Bay Area’s identity going on two decades. In Fertile Ground: Art and Community in California, the collections from the Oakland Museum of California and SFMOMA are grafted into a new appreciation for Northern California’s consistently prolific breeding ground of artistic movements.

The exhibition focuses on a wide swath of art history, from Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in San Francisco in the 1930s, to the California School of Fine Arts in the 1940s and ’50s, with artists like Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn and Imogen Cunningham, to a fascinating look into the University of California at Davis in the 1960s and ’70s, with Robert Arneson, Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley and Bruce Nauman all pushing the envelope of Pop. And of course, there is also the Mission School movement of San Francisco in the 1990s, featuring a group of artists who not only defined modern DIY aesthetics, but also informed

clockwise from top

Robert Arneson, Study for California Artist, Polaroids, mixed drawing media, acrylic and watercolor on paper, 1982, Collection SFMOMA, gift of Rena Bransten, © Estate of Robert Arneson / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY, Photo: Ben Blackwell

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Diego Rivera, Flower Carrier, Oil and tempera on Masonite, 48" x 47.75", 1935, Collection SFMOMA, Albert M. Bender Collection, © Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Photo: Ben Blackwell

Manuel Neri, Untitled (Seated Woman), Plaster and dry pigments, 33.75" x 28" x 21.5”, 1979, Collection of the Oakland Museum of California, gift of the Collectors Gallery and National Endowment for the Arts

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Johanna Jackson, We Are All On Stage Together, Acrylic gouache on wood, 7" x 5", 2001, Collection SFMOMA, gift of Amy Adelson and Dean Valentine, © Johanan Jackson; Photo: Don Ross

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EVENT JUXTAPOZ

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“California is the best place for a person like me who wants to make things and dream through life. I am psyched to be in this version of Mission history and to be figured into the larger NorCal history as well. It’s a nice show! It gives a real studio feeling somehow, I think. The ceramics guys, the weird picture of Ansel Adams hungover, young Keegan’s old painting…”

a generation about how street-centric art could be validated by the establishment. To this day, Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Chris Johanson, Alicia McCarthy, Ruby Neri, and Johanna Jackson continue to be incubators of the urban folk scene, whether in painting, ceramics, installation or photography. Seeing them in the pantheon of California’s rich art history heralds how these artists will help shape the next breakthrough.

Fertile Ground will be on display at the Oakland Museum of California through April 15, 2014.

JUXTAPOZ.COM / SFMOMA

—Johanna Jackson

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clockwise from top

Barry McGee, Untitled, Mixed media, dimensions variable, 2009, Collection SFMOMA, Ruth Nash Fund and Louis Vuitton N. A. purchase, © Barry McGee; Photo: Ben Blackwell Frida Kahlo, Frieda and Diego Rivera, 1931; oil on canvas; 39.5" x 31"; Collection SFMOMA, Albert M. Bender Collection, gift of Albert M. Bender; © Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo: Ben Blackwell Margaret Kilgallen, Untitled, Acrylic on unstretched canvas, 136.5" x 316", 2000, Collection SFMOMA, Purchase, by exchange, through a fractional gift of Evelyn D. Haas, and through gifts of Albert M. Bender, Vicki and Kent Logan, Janice and Henry Rooney, and bequests of Dr. Gertrude Ticho and Dean Barnlund; © Estate of Margaret Kilgallen; Photo: Ian Reeves

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FA S H I O N

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NOT AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF Matija Cop’s unorthodox fashion laboratory MATIJA COP’S DESIGNS INSPIRE INSTANT INTRIGUE. What are they made of? Who is the mastermind behind these unbelievable shapes? We tracked down the young Croatian designer, who is not only inspired by throwback futuristic films, but also by literature and architecture. Reminiscent of exoskeletons mixed with futuristic Elizabethan regalia, there is no line between art and fashion in his designs. They are one and the same. Kristin Farr: How did you get into fashion design? Matija Cop: Quite spontaneously. I studied at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, but realized that I couldn’t express myself completely, so I decided to enroll in fashion design. I see now that it was a good move for me, but I’m glad I got to experience a different approach to humanity. I now use theory as a starting point for my concepts, and then I translate it into the visual language of fashion design. Tell me about life in Croatia. It’s interesting because we are a country in transition. Until 1990, we were part of Yugoslavia and socialism. People who are living in socialism are still alive, and they are a little bit stuck in their own confused thoughts that are then implemented in society. As we are a young, independent country, I think younger people have the opportunity to create and express themselves in a more subversive way. That’s why we have a lot of subversive, queer and contemporary performance artists and designers who are somehow fighting against that socialistic state of mind. Political structure and economy is also in transition, trying to develop in a more profitable, capitalistic way. The best part of Croatia is probably the coastline and islands, which are incredible and possibly some of the best spots in the Mediterranean—really authentic and wild, in a way. You’ve maybe heard about Dubrovnik or Hvar as some of most beautiful parts of our coastline. The whole coast

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and islands are antique, as we were part of the Greek and Roman empires. My piece, Object 12-1, is actually inspired by the cathedral of St. James in Sibenik. What are some other non-fashion objects or interests that inspire you? I often draw from texts—literary texts or works on fashion theory. However, it’s pictures that influence me most—motion pictures, at that, whether contemporary or classic, Blade Runner or Satyricon. Of course there is also photography and painting, depending on the project I’m working on. Lately I’ve been drawing from performance art, which treats the body quite similarly to fashion. It places the form in different contexts and actually communicates with the audience through the body itself. What type of person do you envision wearing your designs? I don’t dwell on that at this stage of creating. I think my pieces are quite open and can interpret various identities, accommodating someone who wants to draw attention to themselves, or someone who wants to hide behind the structure of the garment. It’s important for me that the wearer of the garment really does want to wear it—and by wanting it, expresses themselves within the piece. What kind of unusual materials do you work with? So far, in my collections, I’ve worked with various high-tech materials, mostly because of the experimental nature. I experiment with the form and the very idea of the fashion garment. Among the materials I’ve used is the polyester 3D air mesh fabric, which is used in the car and sports industry as the base material, as well as a fabric softener. For the project Object 12-1, I used ethylene-vinyl acetate, a completely technical material widely used in various fields like medicine, pharmaceutics and the food industry. I reshaped the material by cutting it with a laser to make it accommodate the needs of fashion design.

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How do you search for materials? I don’t have a unique method. It depends on the requirements of the project I’m working on. I visit shops that don’t usually carry textile materials, and I always find something interesting. More often than not, I do additional work on the material I find using various techniques, from laser cutting to traditional weaving. How has your work evolved since you’ve been in grad school? The work has evolved on all levels, from the materials to the techniques I use. But the biggest change is certainly in the way I think about fashion; what it is and how I see it. That’s the first phase in the working process, pinning the concept, which varies greatly from my first collection to my latest collections. What are your biggest influences? The biggest influence in my work is my humanities education. It’s made me approach subjects in an interdisciplinary manner, so I don’t concern myself with categories and boundaries. That affects my choice of the subject, material, and the very manner of presenting a project wherein I don’t limit myself to fashion categories. Is your goal to create designs that have never been seen before? That is not my primary goal, no. My intent is to create something visually powerful that can communicate with people, something that can instigate in people the need to communicate solely with just that—the object. I also come across a lot of problems with the subject itself, which I approach quite specifically—I make the subject subordinate

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to the concept. It is because of this that it’s possible to find solutions that look like they had never been made before. But I think this mostly happens because I revolve exclusively around my own opinions. Who are some creative people whose work inspires you? For each project, there are new people, works and disciplines. At each moment of involvement in a new project, I’m immersed in the works of performance artists and abstract art, as well as the works of Virginia Woolf. At first glance, it’s probably difficult to connect that to some of my previous projects, but that’s one of my goals as well—to be a completely different person in each of my projects. What music would best accompany a show of your work? It would probably be some piece of classical music interpreted in a new way, a complex mix that conveys something completely new. I love to juxtapose seemingly opposing sensibilities and expressions. What’s your favorite outfit? I actually feel the most comfortable with the least clothes on me as possible when I’m at home, unconcerned about what I’m wearing. Perhaps it is because fashion occupies my mind completely, and to keep a balance, I sometimes need to get rid of it completely.

For more information about Matija Cop, visit notjustalabel.com

JUXTAPOZ.COM / MATIJA - COP

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ARTIST ABIGAIL LARSON

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OTTAWA FLUEVOG.COM

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1600 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC PhillipsCollection.org l Generous support for the exhibition is provided by The Man of the Light, 2005, Polyester resin, marble dust, fluorescent lights, Courtesy Mirella and Dani Levinas, Washington, DC

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BERNARDI ROIG NO/Escape Through March 8, 2015 Contemporary art projects inspired by the art and spaces in The Phillips Collection

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INFLUENCES

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ALL’S FAIR IN MIAMI Daria Brit Greene, Vice President of SCOPE Daria Brit Greene pulls the strings behind the scenes of SCOPE, an organization that produces some of the most innovative and forward-thinking international art fairs, shining a bright light on new talent. From modest beginnings to non-stop shows, SCOPE has set the gold standard while growing exponentially. Currently embracing pop culture connections, each event is more spectacular than the next. Greene gives us the lowdown on SCOPE’s magic touch.

Portrait by Thomas V. Hartman Earrings by Lainie Love Dalby

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SCOPE: Then and Now Founded in 2001, SCOPE has mounted over 70 art shows in 6 different cities. Beginning as a small hotel art revue and arriving at its current status as the largest and most global contemporary fair in the world, SCOPE Art Show has always served as a platform for young, emerging talent. Originally conceived to take over several floors of a hotel, the intent was to provide the intimate experience of a gallery in every room. Once we started building our own pavilions, we realized we could do this virtually anywhere and present an incredible lineup of a galleries, really exploring how we could affect tangible cultural change in the surrounding communities. SCOPE’s ambitious productions have grown so large that we now concentrate on our highest performing markets: Miami Beach, New York and Basel, Switzerland.

The Mission SCOPE was the first in what our industry affectionately calls “satellite fairs,” but our mission sets us apart: We create opportunities for young, emerging galleries, artists and curators to achieve a level of exposure unavailable anywhere else. We do this by constantly reinventing the art fair model. A few examples are SCOPE’s Breeder Program, which offers opportunity to young galleries that normally could not afford to participate in an art fair; our FEATURE program often works with governmental agencies to present curated sections of the fair and special projects, and our strategic partnerships with brands like VH1, Fiat, Red Bull, Heineken and Bombay Sapphire. As our industry begins to deeply embed itself in pop culture, SCOPE is leading the charge in making emerging artwork accessible and rising artists successful. Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop Non-show months do not exist. As soon as one fair closes, our staff is already in the throes of planning the next edition. It’s pretty much known that SCOPE throws the best events— from way back when we helped launch the Scissor Sisters, to our present partnership with VH1. We’ve had sprawling warehouse parties, intimate cocktail events at luxury hotels

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and even private dinners inside the pavilion. We want guests to experience contemporary art in new, unexpected ways and to understand how art communicates with a variety of disciplines, most specifically music. We are known for investing in the new contemporary movement, and collectors of the genre seek us out for new discoveries. Memorable Moments SCOPE produced a giant, branded balloon, 10 feet wide and filled with 550 cubic feet of helium, which was secured to the tent. Our branding was visible for miles and visitors could use this beacon as a guide to our entrance from across the city. One year at Basel, the rope snapped and our balloon sailed away. Anecdotal evidence had it landing in France, but we were never sure. One of my all-time favorite installations at SCOPE was our 2008 Miami project, FriendsWithYou’s Rainbow City. The installation featured multiple bounce-houses and the now-iconic cast of FriendsWithYou characters. It was such a treat to take the occasional bounce-break—and of course FriendsWithYou has moved on to international acclaim since then, so it’s a special feeling to have contributed an instrumental chapter in their story. There are so many artists

who started at SCOPE for whom I can say the same thing. Curation by Swizz Beatz For our 2014 Miami Beach fair, I am very excited to be working with Kaseem "Swizz Beatz" Dean, who is curating a selection of artists representative of The Dean Collection. There will be four artists creating site-specific installations around the fair, all of whom will be working directly with Swizz Beatz for curatorial direction. This is a big highlight for me. I was first introduced to Swizz Beatz by an artist named Hebru Brantley. I was in Chicago, judging Red Bull’s Canvas Cooler Project, and I snuck upstairs to visit with Hebru in his studio. While I was admiring a particular painting, Hebru mentioned that Swizz Beatz had just acquired it for The Dean Collection, along with several others. I tucked that bit of knowledge in the back of my mind and two years later, when brainstorming on who would be the subject of SCOPE + VH1’s Art + Music partnership in 2013, I immediately thought of Swizz and Hebru. I reached out to Hebru, et voilà! Next thing I knew, we were all on set with VH1’s creative team, led by Phil Delbourgo, filming a really awesome spot, which aired for over a month.

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On set, Swizz talked about his travels to artists’ studios around the world, and it was obvious that this guy is truly passionate. When his manager reached out to me this year about a collaboration, I was very enthusiastic. @TheRealSwizzz on Instagram is full of amazing works from The Dean Collection: Kaws, Swoon, Daniel Arsham, Cleon Peterson, etc., but there is more to him than just collecting. Swizz has been using his NYC home as a makeshift gallery for very intimate events with artists and his group of artcollecting friends. He invests financially and emotionally in artists’ careers, and to be honest, some of the ideas he’s discussed with me are really next-level thinking for the art world. Signing with SCOPE The founder of SCOPE, Alexis Hubshman, used to work across the street from me in Chelsea, back in my gallery days. We’ve been friends for many years, so I have always been involved in SCOPE—first as an exhibitor, then as a curator, a creative consultant dealing with branding, marketing, social media, partnerships, etc. Each role I played at SCOPE seemed to be integral, so in 2010, we decided I would come on board full-time. Looking back at my 15-year career in the contemporary art world, I have always enjoyed exploring how other industries intersect with ours. All of the artists I work with share the

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capacity to think in these same directions. When I look at an artist’s work, I don’t imagine it in a museum, I imagine it integrated into the daily lives of “regular” people. That is the most rewarding aspect of my career—bringing art to people who don’t even realize they are consuming it, while making their lives richer and more interesting. In the past, I was an independent curator working with galleries and museums, often mounting a dozen international shows a year. I gave a lot of first shows to a lot of very well-known artists—similar to the present-day, where I am in a position to give emerging artists their “big break.” I am almost always gifted with artwork as a thanks. As a result, I have a sizable art collection—over 80 works from 70 artists. Each artwork is a piece of personal history, shared between myself and the artist, and there is not one single work in my collection that I would sell under any circumstances. The last gift I received was from an artist named David Shillinglaw. It’s hanging in my son’s room, giving him an early art education.

For more information about Scope Miami Beach 2014, visit scope-art.com

JUXTAPOZ.COM / SCOPE

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left Swoon for Chandran Gallery/Scope Miami Beach 2014 right Hilary White for Paradigm Gallery/ Scope Miami Beach 2014

WorldMags.net JACK BECKETT IS THE FOUNDER OF THE OUTSIDE COLLECTIVE

It’s my dream job Jack Beckett used to hang artwork in galleries around London. Now, after studying Graphic Design at Shillington, he’s the founder of his own creative agency. “The best thing I took from Shillington was the quick turnaround on briefs. I’ve worked with a lot of people that are recent graduates from degree courses and they’re nowhere near as prepared for the tight deadlines and multiple ongoing projects as Shillington grads are.   I founded The Outside Collective in 2011. We recently helped launch adidas ZX Flux shoes at the Truman Brewery. For me, it was the dream job! I’ve been into kicks for a long time, and to be working with brands like adidas and Converse has definitely been one of my career goals.”

School of graphic design shillingtonschool.com F shillington.fb T @shillington_

ENROLL NOW TO STUDY IN 2015—NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY! SHILLINGTONSCHOOL.COM

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NEW YORK • LONDON • MANCHESTER SYDNEY • MELBOURNE • BRISBANE

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Dan Witz and the evolving world of realism INTERVIEW BY EVAN PRICCO PORTRAIT BY BRYAN DERBALLA

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T

HE FIRST TIME I ACTUALLY MET DAN Witz was on a ferry boat ride touring the magnificent fjords of western Norway. At the time, like most people interested in the broader emerging art world, I knew of Witz as the Brooklyn-based painter who created an indelible series of mosh pit paintings. There was also this not-so-secret-but-sort-of-hidden career as a street artist with a body of work that started over a decade before any street art term was coined. And accidentally, on this boat tour, I got to know what Dan was all about. My conclusion was this: Dan has been at the forefront, consciously unconcerned about the trends of contemporary art, grasping an extensive knowledge of art history and the role of this new generation. Learning about the art career of a man who paints motion, energy, interaction and force, in tandem with the calm and ancient surroundings created by centuries of natural movement made for a compelling parallel history. This interview was conducted throughout 2014 in conjunction with the Juxtapoz Hyperreal book and this cover story. From music to art, from Cooper Union to PETA, Dan Witz is a punk chameleon who continues to explore the possibilities of painting and confrontational interactive street art. Evan Pricco: You attended Cooper Union in the late 1970s. You were a punk rock kid, and the punk rock thing to do at

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Cooper Union at that time was to paint figuratively. What was art school like at that time? Dan Witz: Yes, it wasn’t too long ago that painting figuratively was considered rebellious—if it was considered at all. Crazy as it sounds now, when I was a student, painting with technical facility, depicting beauty (unless it was ironic), and accessibility (especially accessibility), were forbidden— completely off the table if you wanted to succeed in art school and eventually show in decent galleries. You have to love the irony: Modern art’s very genesis sprang from its rejection of academic realist painting, and now it’s the modernists who have become the blinded establishment and the realist painters a transgressive force for change. But as much as I disliked art school, I can see how I benefited from my time there—even if it was mostly as a contrarian in training. In high school I’d been led to believe that the study of traditional painting techniques was a common jumping off point to more personal types of expression (think Picasso and Duchamp), but for some reason, probably my punk hair and clothes, the in-crowd at school considered my type of tight, facile realism to be threatening. It’s still hard for me to even talk about this—I don’t think I ever have publicly—but this event was so traumatic and formative that it bears mentioning: one night my studio at Cooper Union was attacked and my paintings were vandalized. I never found out who did it. It was a few weeks later that I committed my first “illegal” artwork, painting graffiti fires up and down the back stairwells at Cooper Union.

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Vision of Disorder Frieze Triptych Oil and digital media on canvas 144" x 24" 2014

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“Punk rock had opened my eyes enough for me to understand that art could be about more than providing expensive wall candy for rich people. It could actually speak truth to power...” Not being a New Yorker yet, I couldn’t get over how zealous and parochial, and how, well, personally everyone took their opinions. But as I hung out in the punk clubs and became more and more converted to those zealous, parochial attitudes, I began to understand how for young artists— especially those who hadn’t accomplished anything yet— their opinions were their identity. Alongside this came the dawning realization that my romantic dream of becoming an artist was in reality just another competitive career grind like fashion or advertising. Young artists who were ambitious and well connected (and usually attractive) and were good at marketing themselves, and who aligned themselves with what was currently in vogue were rewarded with attention and shows—regardless of the quality or originality of their work. Even back then I was aware that my resistance to this was naïve and idealistic. Deep down I understood

that success, especially in creative fields, has always been a rigged game—famously more about who you know than the actual work. But still my resentment towards the compromises it seemed necessary to make was really making me question what I was getting myself into. Around this time is when I started playing in bands. And then, after I got out of school, part of the reason I painted those tightly realistic and blatantly pretty little hummingbirds on the street was that I just wanted to say, “Fuck it.” I don’t need anyone’s benediction or permission, I can do whatever I want. Punk rock had opened my eyes enough for me to understand that art could be about more than providing expensive wall candy for rich people. It could actually speak truth to power, usually with a message of, “You suck,” or “You’ve totally failed us”. I was young and

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invulnerable so I was fine scraping by with rent-paying jobs, doing street art and playing in bands that would never make it. Were kids aware, and I mean art school kids at Cooper Union, that something was beginning to happen on the streets, graffiti? Definitely. I mean, we all rode the subways to work and school and it’s hard to imagine any young artist could see those trains rolling into the stations and not be at least a little affected. This was pre-Beastie Boys and Keith Haring, though. Art school kids tagging with spray paint was still a ways away. Those trains were definitely the big hammer that cracked me open, though. I was in complete awe of those artists and still am. When I started doing my own thing on the streets, I was super careful not to tread on their turf—aesthetic or actual. Not only would it have seemed phony for a guy like me to be bombing with spray paint, but the way the streets were back then, I probably would have gotten my ass kicked. 52 |

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When did you start working in the streets? Was your work influenced by the early punk zine and flyer days, or were you just trying other forms of intervention and straight-up experimentation? My first street works were in the late 1970s. Band posters were definitely dominating the streetscape, and since I was in bands, I did my share of wheat pasting. But my big influence, beside the graffitied trains, punk rock and a few grown-up artists like Gordon Matta-Clark and Charles Simonds, were the Situationists. At some point I’d copied into my sketchbook excerpts from the 1960s book, The Society of Spectacle, by Guy DeBord. What I took from it all (and still do) was that artists should provoke moments that shock the spectator out of their passivity, helping them towards a more creative and awakened life. What did your paintings look like at this time? After a year or so of hummingbirds and all the attention that got me, I realized I had to either move on to new subjects or become the hummingbird guy. With my mistrust of

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above Byronesque Oil and digital media on canvas 40" x 58" 2014 opposite Mosh Pit Study (Anarchy) Oil and digital media on canvas 15" x 20" 2014 following spread ABC No Rio Oil and digital media on canvas 96" x 56" 2011

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success, this was actually an easy decision. All along I’d been systematically trying to learn how to paint figuratively. I was cycling through various realist painting styles: Flemish precisionism, thick gestural bravura brushstrokes, dark academic glazes—I was consciously acquiring a wide range of representational experience as a jumping off point. By this point though, I was pretty sure old master-style realism was the direction I’d be heading.

You were in bands throughout this time, right? Yes. Noise bands—post-No New York, a very unique and intense scene. I had my own group with a revolving set of friends and a job (of sorts) playing in a few of Glenn Branca’s large ensembles. I knew next to nothing about the right way to play keyboards, which was considered an asset back then. Besides being an incredibly fun and extreme thing to be doing in your twenties, it was great for me because I got to tour Europe and visit the old master museums. How much does music influence your decision to create these mosh pit paintings? Music has definitely been an important influence, and it’s not just the energy, passion and authenticity of punk and hardcore that drives the mosh pit paintings. Bob Dylan, Brian Eno and Agnostic Front have been my teachers as much as Titian, Velazquez and Fab 5 Freddy. Talk about the process of the mosh pit paintings, and some of the new rave paintings you are currently working on. What does your night out look like when compiling a body of work? Mosh pits are more violent, of course, but it’s a ritualized violence: there’s real threat (and real injury) but there are codes of behavior—an organizing principle to the mayhem. To get it right, I have to photograph from practically inside the action which, being an adrenalin junkie, I really enjoy. This is definitely a contact sport though, and I usually come home with some bruises. Last night I photographed a concert by my favorite hardcore band, Vision of Disorder, and I took some pretty hard hits. I’m okay but my camera got damaged. Raves are a more voyeuristic experience. It’s still deeply physical: the sub-woofers in these clubs could be used by the CIA at their black sites. And in a similar way to the hardcore concerts, the people are in a private transfixed state that I’m hesitant to disturb with my flash. Thankfully, though, the lights and music are so invasive that hardly anyone seems to notice me. Nothing against the white boys with the tattoos, but I can’t tell you how invigorating it is to be exploring these raves now. Just painting people of color is such a relief, and I’m completely fascinated by the dualities of the gender benders. There’s a cultural resonance there that I think is still highly charged. At both venues, if it’s a good band or DJ and a good crowd, I start photographing and slip into the moment (and the melee), and improbable amounts of time pass without me, which is something I dearly love. Then I drag my plunder home and hole up with Photoshop, which is another lovely

lost world for me. Puzzling together the compositions can take months. After I have the digital file printed in monochrome on the canvas comes the long hard slog of the actual painting, a gestational feat which, to be honest, is ridiculously difficult but never becomes routine. Maybe this is too general, but what sort painter would you consider yourself to be? Are you interested in photorealism as a genre? Technically, I’m an academic realist, what the Impressionists used to mockingly refer to as a pompier. This is because of the way the academic artists back then mostly did ponderous history pieces, lovingly rendering the reflections on the helmets of the Roman soldiers. These helmets apparently resembled the headgear that the French firefighters, or pompiers, wore at the time. In any case, my primary pictorial goal is to create utterly believable light, space and presence, especially presence like those technically brilliant but largely forgotten salon artists. One of the main things that attracts me about these guys is the anonymity of their technique—how the artist’s brand and ego are sublimated, how the picture’s chief objective isn’t about who did it (unlike these days, in our current salon), but more about the narratives or visual fancies they’re presenting us with. I’ve always been obsessed by what those salon guys could do with oil paint and how poignant their failures as artists were. In fact, I’d have to say that their ending up in the dustbin of history has had an almost motivational effect on me. I totally understand why their names have been forgotten, but I’m still convinced that something as profound as this way of painting can be a part of the cultural dialogue.

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Photorealism is mildly interesting to me. There are lots of great painters working in that niche, and as an art student, I was glad to have something contemporary I could relate to. But traditional photorealism has always ultimately seemed to be about flatness and emotional distance, which is exactly the opposite of what I’m going for.

hummingbirds were regarded with such polite loathing— like I was some kind of mud person or gate crasher at the country club. Those tight smiles from gallerists and curators, that “nice to meet you, now please leave” look—that, as much as anything, galvanized me into making realism my life’s work.

What is the hardest part of the human body to paint? Ah, finally, an easy question. The soul…

You have seen the trends of the art world fluctuate over the years. Have you seen anything like street art and the way it completely became this populist movement? Yeah, I’ve been famously wrong about this. Back in about 2004, I was on a street art panel with Marc and Sara Schiller of the Wooster Collective. We were discussing the possibilities of this exciting new art movement and I, as the elder statesman, felt it my duty to bloviate a bit and remind everyone of that old saying, “What is in fashion must inevitably go out of fashion.” So, yeah, I was wrong. I didn’t understand how seismically the paradigm was shifting. And in my defense, who could have foreseen this? It’s unprecedented. Up until then, the trend cycle of art movements had always ran a rough corollary to those in music or fashion or hairstyles. Then came digital technology and the Internet, and everything changed. All of a sudden, the quality of your work mattered more than who you knew or what you looked like. This first bona fide art movement that’s been independent of high culture’s “mediation” has

Is realism a skill that you acquired, or are you naturally talented with an affinity for realism? Yeah, I was the guy in my high school that could draw, though I can’t say I ever recall anyone accusing me of being a prodigy or anything. But whatever aptitude I had, it was enough to get me accepted into art school. I loved figure drawing and found out that solid draftsmanship was the common starting point for the artists I admired—even modernist or avant-garde ones like Picasso and Duchamp. The usual path was to use this classical education as a jumping off point for more expressive or less literal approaches to making art. I stuck with the realism, though. Early on, the punk in me figured out that realist painting made the establishment art world of the time weirdly uncomfortable. I mean it was bizarre how those sweet little 56 |

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left Brite Night 1 (detail) Oil and digital media on canvas 68" x 48" 2014 right Agnostic Front Circle Pit Oil and digital media on canvas 82" x 48" 2014

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outlasted and been out-liked by anything we ever dreamed of. Seriously, I don’t think Pop Art or Abstract Expressionism or even Cubism has had as long a run as this. These days, when I visit contemporary art museums, I can’t help but get the feeling that sometimes all I’m doing is walking around and checking off top brands, as in, “Look, they’ve got a so-and-so… and hey, there’s an early what’sher-name.” The art on the wall is beginning to seem like footnotes from some other culture’s art history, or worse, like the museum trustees’ investment portfolio. Don’t get me wrong, there’s usually some amazing, inspiring art, but after my own experiences with the energy and accessibility of the urban art world, modern art museums have begun to seem more and more like late capitalism’s overstuffed closets… mostly featuring past seasons of the emperor’s new clothes. One of the things that is interesting to me is that there are people in the world who know the mosh pit paintings but not the street art, and vice versa. What sort of freedom does that give you? A lot of artists I admire have had dual practices: Warhol made films, Degas sculptures, Rembrandt was a master printmaker. For me, and I’m guessing for those guys, multiple disciplines have a balancing effect. The figurative paintings I do, especially the mosh pit group ones, are just

too difficult and soul crushingly lonely for me to spend my entire life at. And the street art is too dangerous and physically draining. What I do is focus on one of these until I get completely sick of it, and I mean literally nauseated, then I switch. With my obsessive work habits, I’m pretty sure I would have burned out years ago if I hadn’t stumbled on this nice little balancing act. In my case, there’s also something to be said for the freedom that comes from not being too successful. We’ve all seen how destructive that kind of pressure can be on an artist. I’d like to think that by now I could handle it (and a little more money) but in the past, I’ve had my problems, so I’m not really sure. Besides, who’s got time for all those fancy cocktail parties and awards ceremonies? I’ve got a three-year-old who more than satisfies my need for extracurricular activities. Career-wise, where I am these days is fine. I get regular validation and I’m still as driven and hungry and full of productive anxiety as I’ve ever been. Although, again, maybe a tiny bit more cash probably wouldn’t hurt. In September, I did a street art collaboration advocating against animal agricultural practices with PETA UK. I installed non-permissional trompe l’oeil grates and windows with farm animals behind them, but I also ended up making

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a bunch of painted cast-resin chicken feet and planting them around London. It wasn’t until we were almost finished with the lengthy, complicated and frustrating process of figuring out how to cast the chicken feet that it dawned on me that I was making sculptures. This just made me so happy. I was doing something totally new and something I knew absolutely nothing about. I was a complete beginner— at my age. My last question, and an easy one: when you walk into a museum full of paintings, what is your feeling? If the paintings are nineteenth century or older, I’m crazy. I’m like one of those sports hooligans going to see their home team play in the championship. The moment I hit the galleries, I slip into an altered state. Seriously. My pulse quickens, my eyes widen, all extraneous noises shut off. These guys on the walls are more than my teachers, or what I aspire to be when (or if) I grow up. They’re the serious, real apostles of my faith. In my day-to-day life, whenever doubts assail me and I wonder why I’m inside all day chained to an easel, I remember this place, this mental museum and how utterly engaged I am there. I remember there’s a place on earth where spending a life making paintings totally makes sense. Naturally, the idea follows that one day it’d be nice to hang there as more than a spectator, but honestly I’m not the type to let myself indulge in thoughts like that. Although I do love how Lucian Freud had carte blanche to visit the National Gallery after hours. That’s an ambition I could get behind.

For more information about Dan Witz, visit danwitz.com JUXTAPOZ.COM / DAN - WITZ

Brite Night 2 Oil and digital media on canvas 72" x 48" 2014

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LEE CHEN-DAO

The mysteriously pleasurable world of a Taiwanese surrealist INTERVIEW BY ALEX NICHOLSON PORTRAIT BY THE ARTIST “YOU'VE ACTUALLY NOTICED IT!” CHEN-DAO EXCLAIMED, “the characters in the paintings all carry a hint of happiness, yet are you able to feel and experience this expression?” The look on the faces in Lee Chen-Dao’s paintings arouse and attract interest in how the characters are feeling about the situations we find them in. Their emotions seem open to interpretation. Are they enjoying themselves? Do they have a choice, or do they just go with the flow? While most of us will probably never find ourselves in scenes like these, we have all experienced the same emotions, ambiguous interactions and relationships he describes—confusion, embarrassment, helplessness, phoniness, lust, indulgence, anger and sadness. A selfdescribed “modern day storyteller with an old soul,” Lee Chen-Dao expresses these sensibilities with hints of irony and an air of elegance, employing classical painting techniques to describe timeless human emotions and interactions in a modern context. I first connected with Chen-Dao while putting together our Juxtapoz Hyperreal book and jumped on the opportunity to reconnect and delve further into his upbringing, the artistic climate in Taiwan, and what world this idiosyncratic cast of characters inhabits. Alex Nicholson: I am curious what your interests were as a kid. How was the majority of your time spent? Lee Chen-Dao: My memories from my youth are a little blurry. As a child growing up in Taiwan, especially in the large metropolitan cities, a typical day involved attending school, and then going to after school homework and prep programs. It was pretty much like this until I was 19

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when I passed the exam to attend college. A majority of my childhood interests came from reading manga novels. Japanese manga were really popular during my childhood and I had a collection of my favorites. Apart from the drawings in comic books, when did you first become interested in art and decide it was something you wanted to pursue? My father is an artistic educator and my mom once ran a gallery. Only because of that was I assigned to take part in various art competitions when I was a kid. No special talent showed at that time, but I still entered an art school later. After graduation, I started to know myself more and felt that being an artist was something suitable for me. Tell me more about your father’s art career and your mother’s gallery. What types of art did she show? The art at my mother’s gallery was composed primarily of works from Taiwanese artists with styles that were heavily influenced by more modern western styles. My father is a well-known portrait artist and he has dedicated his whole life to learning and perfecting the classical, Renaissance style of oil painting. This had a profound impact on me, and early on, I considered oil painting as the only form of art. Later, as I attended my father's alma mater, my own path to art began and everything naturally just kind of fell into place. What do your parents think of your art now? I'm not sure, and I don't really dare to ask. I believe even if they were to see my works, they'd probably have no clue what’s going through my head.

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So, what was your experience in art school like? The purpose of attending my father's alma mater was to become the type of artist he is: to be a great and skilled painter. What I did not realize as I entered into school was that there was a 30-year generation gap between my father and me. During this period of time, many things have changed, including art. So, as I spent those four years in art school, I devoted a lot of effort and time to studying art history and learning how to appreciate the various types of art from different eras. I also dabbled into other genres, but after a good period of time, I returned to painting. The world of art is vast, and every day I constantly try to find new and interesting things that will keep me motivated and yearning for more. This approach I take to art is a result of my time in college. What sort painter would you consider yourself to be now? 62 |

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Once an art critic described me as a modern storyteller with an old soul. I like that. Even though I was learning oil painting in a formal academy, funny themes with contrast interest me more. It bores me to see an artist who only knows how to paint. As someone who pursued your undergraduate and MFA degrees in cities around the world, can you give some perspective on the art community in Taiwan? What is it like being an artist in Taipei today? Taiwan is a small country, and looking back on its recent history to the present day, it has a strong, self-sustaining type of mentality that is reflected in the politics, culture and economy. The Taiwanese are a very diligent and proud people. Though our population is small, we do not lack determination and will. On a national level, we yearn to be recognized as equals in the international community. These

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above Cat Fight-Love Kick Oil on canvas 55" x 41.25" 2013 opposite Valentine II Oil on canvas 23.5" x 35.75" 2013 following spread Swan Lake Oil on canvas 92.5" x 68.75" 2014

Translation: Shawn Sun

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cultural characteristics have a strong impact and influence on our perceptions of art, and they allow us to have a strong appreciation of western art. Consequently, we like to use western art as a bar to measure the quality of our work, and because of this, we have a problem with self recognition. Taipei is the capital of Taiwan, has the highest standards of culture and can be considered the Mecca of modern Taiwanese art. Many aspiring artists will choose Taipei as a place to start their career. This is a situation that is probably similar to most major metropolitan areas in other countries.

Enjoyed Couple was one of the first paintings of yours that I saw, and it immediately became a topic of conversation in the Juxtapoz office. Can you tell me the story behind it? Of course! Enjoyed Couple is one of my artworks that was completed back in 2009. At the time, I did a series of works that were similar to classical styles of painting, yet my work only depicted similar movements and had nothing to do with the themes and stories that are commonly found in classical paintings. So, one hot night, as I was on a vacation with friends, the silhouettes of two of my "bigger" friends came into the room from the showers. Even after showering, there were still beads of sweat on them. They were sitting in the group, immersed in our conversations, and all of a sudden, at this moment, the scene in front of me reminded me of the painting Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeur from the Louvre. It's interesting because it is a vastly different era, yet the scene in front of me was very similar to that particular painting, so I took a few quick pictures. I never would have thought that this would be one of my works that garnered notice from people. Do you mostly work from reference material, or purely from your imagination? Most of my work is not a product of my imagination, rather it is a product that expresses my observation of current society mixed along with some of my own atypical styles and humor. Who are the recurring characters in your paintings, the girls in the cat fights, the heroes, the bosses and the BFFs? What kind of world do they live in? The characters in my paintings have numerous types of outfits and each represents a different story and message. My more recent paintings can be divided in two categories, the first being the overweight men in suits with masks, with the suits representing civilization and order, and the masks, deceit and phoniness. Obesity represents the typical, ordinary nature of man, as well as desire. This combination of order, desire and lust, along with deceit, has allowed society to give them the title of "hero" or "boss." The second category is the naked female characters with rifles. The nudity represents the weak and helpless while the rifles are a symbol of resistance. This character is a representation of many of the common people today. I put a lot of emphasis and observation into the interactions and relationships between people, and I've found that these

two types of characters in my paintings both represent the reality we live in today. It is my aim to use my artwork as a medium to express the reality of the world around us, and thus, I decided to vividly depict the contradictions represented in their interactions. How do sexuality and violence play a role in the paintings? Yes, there are subtle hints of sexuality and violence in my work. When you strip away etiquette, discipline and order, sex and violence are a direct representation of mankind's true nature and instincts. There is a playfulness to the physical contact in your paintings, though, and most of the characters seem to be enjoying themselves or, at the very least, having a decent time. You've actually noticed it! The characters in the paintings

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all carry a hint of happiness, yet are you able to feel and experience this expression? Whether it’s through a smile, maybe a sense of reluctance, or a even a little bit of sadness? You have said that you are trying to describe emotions or relationships, which are ambiguous, embarrassing or even helpless. Are these emotions that you find in your own life, people around you, society? Does your personal history shape the content, and is there any part of your paintings that is self reflective? I like to interact with people from all walks of life, because everyone has their own unique story, and I can have a chance to be part of that story. Any particular event or story has many reasons behind it, and learning about them has sometimes been a very moving experience, whether with anger or sadness. I believe that some of these interactions were vital for me to experience, and perhaps later become 66 |

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something I can draw from in creating new pieces of work. In using painting to express specific situations, I often employ elements of sarcasm, yet I do it in a style that is also elegant and decadent. This also kind of highlights and combines the themes of conflict and harmony. In terms of characters that resemble me the most, I'd have to say it is probably the suited men with masks. Our worldview naturally evolves as we grow older. How has your own perspective been influenced directly by painting, and has it changed who you are? Completing a piece of work requires a substantial amount of time. Painting has definitely changed my life, yet it actually isn't what influences my thoughts and views. I don't look much into the problems involving the styles of painting; I care more about the content and the meaning of a painting. My views are drawn from the reality that surrounds me in combination with my personal creativity. On the topic of

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left Sabrina & Lydia Oil and gold foil on canvas 58.25" x 33.5" 2014 right Tender+M203 Oil and gold foil on canvas 32.25" x 23.58" 2014

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art as a whole, it has definitely been a major influence. I do harbor doubts towards art. I constantly want to be able to define the boundaries of what art is as I want to be able to establish and define what represents my style of art, and what I strive for every day are those aspects of art.

that will define the legacies of today's artists.

Can you describe the evolution of your work? I want to establish a style of art that defines me. From the influence of Internet, blogs, and online community, this is an era of rapid global and personal development. Everybody has the opportunity and capability to define and evolve the relationship they have with the global community, and this includes artists as well. This philosophy is something I learned from the work of modern day Japanese artists such as Takashi Murakami, an artist who developed his own style of visual language, something that corresponds to the world around us. Whether or not a style of art is able to connect and correspond with the surrounding reality is something

Are you interested in mediums other than painting? Painting is a hobby that I'm skilled at, yet it's not necessarily my favorite medium of expression. I do have an interest in photography and other things. If possible, though, I would love to write a novel. Do you have a favorite photographer or filmmaker who has influenced your world? There are many photographers who have influenced me: Jan Saudek, David LaChapelle and Terry Richardson, just to name a few. Do you have any heroes, not necessarily artists, but anyone you look up to? One person comes to mind, a Mainland Chinese writer and author named Han Han (杻⭺). He is part of the new

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generation of intellectuals under the modern day communist party. I admire his critique on the current state of China's attitude, and he is someone who has admirable intellectual character and strength. He is a talented individual who can write, speak, act, and is also a professional racer. He is someone born of the current generation, yet he is an immensely talented young individual who is precise, acute, and also very gung-ho. If you are going to elicit change and have an impact, it needs to be done by someone who possesses these types of passionate qualities. What do you do during your free time? What are your interests outside of art? I like to learn anything that has to do with coffee because everyone in the world drinks coffee, yet the methods in preparing it vary drastically. I am familiar with different styles of preparing coffee and learned a lot of it from the Japanese who are very interesting; they often like to employ complicated procedures for relatively simple tasks. I feel it is a type of attitude of chasing perfection that they emphasize. Do you collect anything? You may have noticed from some of my works that they have very nice frames; these are frames that I have collected from all over. After some of my own personal tweaking, they've become a part of my various artworks. I have a couple hundred of them. What is your dream project? My dream project would be to have an exhibition at the MoMA in New York. What is next for Lee Chen-Dao? Aside from some art fairs, I am currently preparing for my third solo art exhibition, which will take place at Aki Gallery in Taipei at the end of 2015.

For more information about Lee Chen-Dao, visit leechendao.com

JUXTAPOZ.COM / LEE - CHEN - DAO

Enjoyed Couple Oil on canvas 45.5" x 35.75" 2009

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K A Z U

An Academy Award nominee for makeup takes his talents to South Beach INTERVIEW BY DAVID MOLESKY PORTRAIT BY THE ARTIST

LAST YEAR WAS THE COLDEST WINTER IN NEW YORK IN 30 years, so I readily accepted my neighbor's invitation to go to the Miami art fairs in December. First stop was the SCOPE pavilion, a huge temporary space right on the sand in South Beach. Waving my credit card-sized pass to the guards, I was swept in by the color and pattern, pulled straight back to Copro Gallery’s booth. Before me stood a hyper realistic bust of Andy Warhol resting on a stand as if formed from liquid mercury, daring me to reach out to touch the life-like skin. I felt like I was meeting Warhol deep in contemplation. I wanted to know what he was thinking but I also didn’t want to interrupt him. It felt intimidating to meet someone capable of reviving the dead, but a tall, elegant Japanese man stepped forward with the kind of calm that brought me to ease. I later learned that Kazu’s piece was the most written about in Miami that week. I met him again this past spring when he was exhibiting two new sculptures at SCOPE art fair in NYC, and we talked about the breadth of his career, from film to fine art. David Molesky: What were the telltale signs in your youth that presaged you becoming an artist? Kazu: I had a really strong curiosity. I picked apart

everything. I’d go to junkyards and take apart radios, watches and televisions. I wanted to know how things functioned. I applied the same curiosity to animals and insects, how they move and how they are living. I was fascinated with how things were made. There was one TV show that would show a Japanese craftsman making a chair, pottery and blowing glass. I would watch that all day. And If I saw painting and sculpture, I tried to do it myself. I was really fascinated about why a flower looks like it does and how a seed grows to sprout leaves and its life cycle. These are the things that helped me be an artist. I didn’t so much like Japanese traditional art because, to me, it looks so flat. They don’t do too much perspective. It’s so simplified, like a cartoon, though the colors they use are unique. I am interested in Renaissance period works. I really love those sculptures and paintings. How did you become interested in European art growing up in Japan? When I was a kid there was no Internet. I used to visit the bookstore art section and look through everything. There wasn’t really a good European art museum in Kyoto where I grew up, so it was hard to get exposure to that kind of work.

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WorldMags.net “As I try to recreate nature, I realize more how beautiful, complicated and perfect it is.”

Did you receive any art education or were you self-taught? I’m self-taught for the most part; I hated school and education. Maybe I am the one who didn’t know how to be educated or didn't find good teachers. Textbooks weren’t interesting so I searched for other food for thought. Sometimes I would watch someone making something in a store window, and there I learned the mentality of making work. What did you end up studying in college? I have never been to college, so I never had a formal art history class or anything. Right after high school graduation, I moved to Tokyo and immediately started work. Wow! How did you land a job like that being so young? I started special effects makeup at about 17 years old and decided that would be my job. I got some books and started practicing every day. In June 1987, I found Dick Smith’s P.O. box in a magazine and decided to write to him because his works really inspired me. I asked him, “How can I do this; should I go to school in the United States?” He responded there was no good school; I just needed to keep practicing. I would send him my work for feedback and he would help me that way. In 1988, he was supervising a Japanese film and he hired me to be on the crew. The movie was called Sweet Home and it was shot in Tokyo. It was a horror movie so I made burn victims and fake heads and arms, mostly things like that. Back then, were you working with silicone? No, there was no silicone for skin. We were still using foam latex or gelatin, you know, the stuff you can eat. After that first film gig, where did you go next? For two and a half years, I was an artist at Makeup Dimensions owned by Etsuko Egawa. In 1991, I made my own shop to work on film and TV. The makeup industry was very primitive in Japan at that time, so I was considered good enough to teach, even at that age of 22. Takuya Wada started a makeup school and got permission to use Dick 72 |

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Smith’s Advanced Makeup Course as the main textbook. One day, Dick mentioned the school to me and asked if I was interested in teaching there. The economy was very bad in Japan at the time and there was only V-cinema, which was film only released on video. No time, no money and it was hard to make a living just by working on it. So I accepted the teaching job and still worked films on the side. For three years, I was teaching people only a few years younger than me. My dream was to come to the US and do special effects makeup, so I decided to move here. I talked to my friend Eddie Yang, who I befriended while working on Sweet Home. He had just started to work on Men in Black, and Rick Baker was looking for a crew. Eddy mentioned my name and also Dick and the other artists were talking me up. Rick then decided to get me a visa to come to this country. So Rick got the visa and you worked on Men in Black. Then what happened? I worked with Rick for 12 years. When Rick stopped taking jobs constantly, I started to get my own show and film jobs. In 2007, I started my own company. In 2002, I made a portrait of Dick Smith in celebration of his 80th birthday, just to thank him for his great guidance and support of my career. When I showed the sculpture at the special effects trade show, the reaction from people really inspired me. I felt a more powerful connection between what I made and the audience, and that was how I realized this was something that I wanted to do. When I talked to Rick Baker, he said that art doesn’t make money. His father was a painter. Every year I got more frustrated by the film industry and I began to lose interest. Finally, in 2011, I thought I’d had enough, but at that moment, I got a job offer from Paul McCarthy, and that jump-started me as an artist. Around the same time, I began to work on my Lincoln portrait. Aside from frustration with some Hollywood egos, what were some of the best moments?

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Portrait of Andy Warhol Oil based clay, polyester resin, silicon rubber, fabric, chrome plating, human hair and silicone pigments

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That would be when I met a really great talent, like some director or actor. It’s always hard to realize what kind of person they might be when you only see them on the screen. When meeting some great actor, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt, they are so famous you think they are a different kind of species, but I found them each to be just a human being with a great soul. Before I met Akira Kurosawa, I heard all these scary stories about him. But he was really a sweet man who loved what he did and was a really powerful person. I was crew on his movie Rhapsody in August. Just being next to him gave me a lot of energy. I enjoyed looking at your lifecast collection of celebrity heads and learning about the process and difficulties you might encounter subjecting someone to this kind of immersion into liquid silicone. You had a good story about one famous actress. I was asked if I could make her look 70 years old for an HBO movie. They said she didn't want to take a new lifecast. 74 |

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Actually, I had one job offer from a different production that involved turning her into a man, but that didn’t happen. I had to take a lifecast and she kept refusing. We tried to get one from the past, but the only one available was the one from The Hours and that was a long time ago. I said we needed a new one because her face is quite different from that time. I explained the process and she agreed to it. We got started, but she got scared from beneath the silicone layer and started hitting her leg like a frustrated kid. We tried to finish as fast a possible, and even though the plaster bandage wasn’t set up yet to support the silicone, we had to take it off. I had a lot of repair to do on that life cast. I wanted to ask you Ira Flatow's favorite question: If someone gave you a blank check that could be used on any equipment or materials, how would you spend it? That is a fun question. As of now, I want to expand my workshop since I’m starting to work on bigger pieces. I need more space and equipment. I would like to get a large 3D printer and scanner.

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Portrait of Dick Smith Oil based clay, polyester resin, silicon rubber, fabric, chrome plating, human hair, and silicone pigments opposite Rise of the Planet of the Apes Oil based clay, polyester resin, silicon rubber, fabric, chrome plating, human hair, and silicone pigments

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In the near future, I would like to gather artists I like and invite them into a creative sanctuary. I could design and produce a space that gives artists freedom to create with all kinds of tools and equipment, and a gallery space attached kind of an all-in-one space where we can just concentrate on creating. We need that kind of space. Yes, we do. What are you working on right now? I am planning and researching the design for my next piece. I’m also working with Paul McCarthy, and working with an actor on some furniture design. Sometimes I make realistic portraits for a computer game company for scanning. It’s not such a stressful job and I can get funding for my sculpture projects. How do you like working with Paul McCarthy? It is an amazing experience working with Paul. He is one of the biggest artists and keeps giving me great inspiration for the possibilities to exist as an artist in this world. Most of his projects are done in massive scale. He has a huge heart and soul. I really enjoy working for him. Whose portrait will you sculpt next? Salvador Dalí. I am planning to finish by SCOPE Miami this year.

Do you feel like your interaction with technology, especially regarding the visual interpretation of human emotion, contributes to what philosophers are calling "the singularity" where artificial intelligence will catch up to human intelligence? For example, have you heard about how they will be able to record personalities onto CDs that can be run on a computer to facilitate a conversation? I have two thoughts about it. One, I am sure it’s going to happen and I am not sure how good it will be. Human reaction and relationships should be humans communicating to one another. Computers will be much more complex in the near future and it will be very close to human brain function, but a human being is a lot deeper than a computer. In the human mind, there will be lots of mistakes and good things happening in the perception of each person that will connect people. The difference is people have a history that will influence decisions and feelings, and that will make each person unique. I worry about Japanese people, where there are a lot of introverts and people with communication disabilities. They might substitute it for a relationship since it is easier than real humans. So does that mean you are going make a “plastic fantastic lover,” like the Jefferson Airplane song? No, I’m against that. If that becomes normal, there will be many people who won’t know the correct interaction with other people. There will be a species of robots devoted to human relationships, and those who use them will probably never have a normal relationship. Are there similar types of things happening today? Yeah, there are many people that are so used to communicating through computers or the Internet that they are not able to communicate in person.

So, with your sculpture, even though it’s an artificial face, are you are hoping that it will, in the end, help people in their real face-to-face encounters? I’m not trying to substitute or replace nature. I’m trying to talk about what is beautiful about it. If someone lost a limb or part of the face, I could help them by recreating what they lost. But I’m not trying to replace individuals or the existence of a human with my work. You mentioned that part of the silicone sculpting technology comes from the medical industry. Have you used your skills to help out in that arena? Yes, I have. I made one for an actor who wanted to avoid paparazzi. That is part of it, and I have done medical prosthetics. The hard part is there are a lot of restrictions when putting artificial parts on a real human body. Are there other ways you could use your art to help people and society? What ways might you try in the future? One thing would be a communication tool, similar to what you were talking about earlier. Eventually, they will probably

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be replacing humans on some jobs. For what I am using right now, in 10 to 20 years, there will be a different way to make it. I might be using an organic biomaterial to create a portrait, using actual living cells. Have you ever thought about using mechanics as an armature to support the silicones? Yeah, I have. The only difficult thing is the longevity. When the silicone keeps moving, it deteriorates and breaks down, and also the mechanism wears out eventually. If they make something stronger, it would be possible. That’s why I mentioned there might be new skin material that will repair itself, so it can move and keep rejuvenating. They are printing organs and skin now.

Welcome to the Ka-Zoo! It’s great you are dreaming along with these developments. Ha ha, that’s how many people pronounce my name. It’s really possible, and not that far off now. So far, computers can’t beat human and animal ability, but eventually technology will be mixed with biology. As I try to recreate nature, I realize more how beautiful, complicated and perfect it is. Eventually, I will get to the point that I have to use more than conventional material. Instead of imitating nature, I would use it.

Kazu’s latest sculpture of Salvador Dali will be on display at the Copro booth at SCOPE Miami Beach 2014.

What are the next technological advancements that will come to your studio in the near future? Maybe I can design and grow something real, like plants and animals. I can make a zoo with those creatures. It’s more humane than caging animals from nature. But things can get dangerous at this level, and we will have to make serious guidelines. 76 |

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For more information about Kazu, visit kazustudios.com

JUXTAPOZ.COM / KAZU

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Process and final piece of Portrait of Abraham Lincoln Oil based clay, polyester resin, silicon rubber, fabric, chrome plating, human hair, and silicone pigments

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SUZANNAH SINCLAIR The dawn of a new phase: no more naked ladies INTERVIEW BY KRISTIN FARR PORTRAIT BY JENNIFER DUMONT

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NE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT challenges for an artist is to abandon the standard. You become known for something specific, and people come to expect it. Either that, or be branded a one trick pony. You really can’t win. It’s not an easy profession, and it often chooses you. Suzannah Sinclair became known for her sensual paintings of nude women, but her works weren’t communicating as feminist watercolors in the way she wanted, so she took a left turn. She eliminated the figure. I caught up with Sinclair amidst this significant transition. Her new work proves that abandoning your standard doesn’t have to mean losing your signature vibe. The maker remains constant, and that’s what counts. Kristin Farr: Can you describe the recent shift in your work? Suzannah Sinclair: The work evolves with each show, but in 2012 I had my first year without a solo since I graduated from undergrad. I took a break from deadlines and my own expectations, as well as the perceived expectations of others, to let that shift happen. I was feeling the itch that something needed to change, but at the same time, I didn’t want to force it. It had to happen organically for it to be sincere.

Did you get tired of being known for nudes? Yes, I did. It’s great to be recognized, known, and, dare I say, Google-able, but it started to become like, “Oh yeah, the naked ladies. That’s you.” I was getting more requests to contribute to things that had the “erotic” modifier—I don’t like that word; it’s not for me. It’s fine if that’s your thing, but it isn’t mine. I don’t want to be subcategorized; it feels diminishing and marginalizes what I do. It’s not lost on me that, yes, I paint from vintage Playboys, but I’m drawing from that genre, not trying to feed back into it.

previous spread Field Study Watercolor and pencil on birch panel 24" x 24" 2011 left Lack of Conclusion Watercolor and pencil on birch panel 28" x 24" 2010

The new work still has the same vibe. How would you describe the common feeling in your paintings? I’m glad it has the same vibe. I’m trying to visually converse about the same things, but tweak them to be clearer and more purposeful. I started to feel that people weren’t getting it… and that was my fault. If they don’t get it, I am not speaking clearly. I want to be less obtuse and vague. As for the common vibe, that’s me! I see through my own set of rosy-colored glasses. I paint from that view. The soft focus, ethereal colors... it’s all very easy going.

Were you born in the ’70s? I gravitate towards that decade’s aesthetic, and it seems like you do too. I was born in 1979. And like most families not on the cutting edge of culture and acquiring the newest stuff, it was the ’70s in my house well into the next decade. I have deep nostalgia for the ’60s and ’70s: the music, the vinyl, the clothes. My parents are awesome and they met in California in 1971 in between my dad’s two tours of Vietnam. My mom was a social worker and then a special education teacher. My cousin likes to tease her that she was a hippie, but she wasn’t. She was her own thing—traveled a lot, got involved in things she doesn’t talk about, made pottery, cooked international and healthy foods—a super smart, independent lady. I’m always intrigued by my folk’s pre-kid lives, especially now that I am a parent—a whole life lived, kind of mysterious, and rightly so. It’s not like I’m planning on telling my daughter stories about my single, kid-free days. Did having a daughter affect how you felt about your paintings? I’m sure it did, even if wasn’t consciously. It’s not that I don’t want that imagery around my child. In fact, my studio is still plastered with nudes because I still paint from old Playboy magazines as my reference images. I just take out the figure and paint the rest of the scene. When I became a parent, a lot of fears arose, rational and irrational, including “What if people don’t want their kids playing at our house because they think there will be naked paintings everywhere?” Silly, maybe, but I live in a very small town of 1600 people. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. I love the small town vibe, and I think it’s going to be an awesome place for my daughter to grow up, but I do worry about being the oddball artist. Tell me more about life in Maine. I grew up spending my summers at the beach in southern Maine with my grandmother. I never thought I would actually live in Maine, but here I am, living in the woods of central Maine, which is a whole different beast than the coast. It’s rural and wild, with a last-frontier feeling. I was living in Brooklyn when I first started coming up here, and I did the back-and-forth for a while, then moved here full time a little over three years ago. I love it up here. It’s beautiful and quiet. We’ve got some land and most of our free time is spent preparing for winter: collecting, splitting and stacking wood. I don’t have much of a green thumb, but I’m trying to garden more. We have chickens. I want to raise pigs and goats but livestock really limits how much you can travel.

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My husband hunts for wild game for the dinner table. We are not total homesteaders, but we try to live off the land as much as we can. Have you been experimenting with materials or mediums lately? I’ve mainly been working with watercolors for a long time. I’ve always been interested in what the paint really is: the history of materials and techniques and how to make it work for me. When I started painting watercolor on birch panels, I had an artist friend question the archival nature of the process. He suggested sizing the panel first with rabbit skin glue. It worked like a charm and made it a more stable surface to paint on. I loved getting out the double boiler and measuring out the ingredients; I love a good recipe. I love when the studio turns into a science lab. After working on birch panels for a while, I started to feel that there was a certain quality I wanted in some of the paintings that I 82 |

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couldn’t get with those materials. I wanted deep, colorful darks, especially in some of the interior paintings I had started doing. I had no interest in oil paint, but I loved egg tempera paintings when I saw them in museums or books— the soft quality, the richness of the pigments, the not-quitematte eggshell finish. So I set out to learn about it a year or so ago. I got some books, pigments and other materials and took a week-long class in New Hampshire with a master of egg tempera, Koo Schadler. I learned in a week what would have taken me years of fumbling around to figure out. It was amazing, and that is what I’ve been working with since. I make the paints: it’s just egg yolk, water and pigment. I use fresh eggs from my own chickens. The paint dries very quickly and can be tricky. But a good egg tempera painting has many layers, the more the better. It can look really bad at first, but you just keep painting and it starts to come together. It’s more forgiving than watercolor; I can scrape things away and get more physical with it.

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above Karla by the Fireplace Egg tempera on gessoed harboard 9" x 12" 2014 right The Odds Watercolor and pencil on birch panel 36" x 24" 2009

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Tell me about your installation work. I like to make environments for my paintings and add things like plants, rugs and furniture to set the stage. It hopefully changes the viewer’s experience. Sometimes it’s just adding rugs to absorb sound and quiet the space, or adding a bench to encourage people to hang out and spend time with the show. Those things are more about exhibition design, but the farthest I’ve gone was when I duplicated a set from a Playboy photo shoot—a flokati rug with a large potted houseplant in front of a mirrored wall. Let’s talk about your recent show in Boston and the citing of Linda Nochlin’s essay in the press materials. Writing artist statements has always been a struggle for me. I tend to err on the side of being mysterious and leaving a lot open for interpretation, but really that was just me being chickenshit—not having the guts to put it all out there, fearing that it’s not “cool” or relevant. With the most recent solo at Samson, the gallery was asking for text for the press release. I tried to type something up and was at a loss, so I quoted some passages from Nochlin’s Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? and also included a statement I wrote in applying for an artist residency that I didn’t get. I didn’t want that writing to be used verbatim, but rather as a point of reference for them to come up with something, but they asked if they could use it as the press release. I blushed at the thought of putting it out there, and then, with some encouragement, I decided to do it. Why be shy? This is it, this is my life. I’ve made all these choices to get me here, and here I am. Linda Nochlin rocks. People are still trying to discover great women artists and it was helpful to reread her piece and think about opportunity, circumstance and why I turned to painting from nudes in magazines in the first place. I have Nochlin’s article and Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” from 1975 saved on the desktop of my computer, and when I need to give that other half of my brain some exercise, I reread them. It seems you hit a tipping point with gender disparity in the art world (or in the whole world). Did something specific push you over the edge? I never really wanted to talk about gender equality. I just wanted to make paintings. I wanted to paint well, to capture emotion, to develop my own language, to travel with my work. Most of the group shows I am curated into are “women artists” shows. And they have been great shows, but I would like my work to converse with other works by different people who are doing different things than I am. I’ve had my pricing questioned knowing full well what the prices of my male peers’ works are. Maybe this makes me seem ungrateful, but why should I be happy just to be in the game? Sometimes when I make demands and stand up for myself, I feel like a major bitch. It makes me cringe and want to apologize, but then I just have to think, “What would a dude do?” Becoming a mom, especially to a girl, rekindled some of these things.

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Are there any specific questions you try to ask or answer with your newest work? Can I say the same thing in a painting—capture a certain feeling—without a face, without the figure? That’s where the new interiors work comes from. When I first started working with the figure, it was just a figure on the paper or panel, a lot of negative space. An artist friend asked me what would happen if I painted everything else except the figure. Took about a dozen years but now I am exploring that. When you were painting figures, did you have specific muses? I’ve been drawing from the same era and source material for such a long time that I know the models by name. I find a lot of the images online now, as opposed to using the boxes and boxes of magazines I’ve collected. I save the images by name. And I always wanted to do what I refer to as porn portraits, for a lack of a better name—cropping out the rest of image and just painting the head in a classic way. I was finally able to do that in 2012-13, and 12 of those portraits 86 |

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became the piece Names and Faces that I exhibited in Stockholm. I want to do a similar series but with still lifes. I have a folder on my computer called “Fruit and Flowers” from the same source material, but I want to make the bowl of fruit the focus of the painting and only have the nude in the background. When is your next show? My next solo show is in September in Stockholm with Stene Projects. It’s a great space—a small, white-washed brick room with tall ceilings that I think used to be some kind of stable. It’s interesting to see the work in that environment. I have some ideas for another rug... Tell me more about the rugs. My new favorite thing is making rya rugs, which are Scandinavian shag rugs. I like to teach myself how to do things from books. I taught myself how to knit, and now I really enjoy knitting. Especially in the winter, at night, in front of the TV. I’m at my best, painting-wise, in the morning

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previous spread Nowhere, Somewhere Watercolor and pencil on paper 34" x 47" 2010 above Installation view Nature Nudes and Interiors, Samsøñ Boston, MA 2014 right Linne on Wire Bench Egg tempera on gessoed hardboard 9" x 12" 2014

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and daytime. I still want to make things at night but am totally out of juice after my daughter goes to bed. I have been using rugs in the staging and installation of my shows for a while, and when planning the recent show in Boston, I was researching rya rugs, which were big in the ‘70s, and I decided to make one. I found an artist in Maryland who had all these hard-to-find supplies and so much knowledge to share, and she helped me figure it out. It’s very satisfying. It took over my life for a while, working on it during my daughter’s naps, and every night I would try to get two rows done out of a total of 125 rows. Two rows would take three hours or so. Everyone in my household was happy and relieved when I finished. It took over the house; there were skeins and bits of yarn all over the place. What is a dream project that you’d like to work on? I want to make prints again. I studied printmaking at MassArt and haven’t made a print since then. When I saw Nicole Eisenman’s wall of monoprints in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, I was blown away and reminded of the fantastic

things my peers were doing in the MassArt Printshop. I troll Craigslist and Uncle Henry’s for presses. I want a big one that I could do full bleed prints on, and I have a great studio for it. My studio is a third grade classroom in an old elementary school that was closed and turned into a community center. There is an empty space for rent right next to me that would make a great printshop, only 50 cents a square foot. But I would want people to come up and hang out with me and make work too. Like a retreat for them, and company for me—it does get a little lonely up here. I miss my old studio mate from Brooklyn and the way we would do our own totally different things in the same space. Now that’s a dream.

For more information about Suzannah Sinclair, visit suzannahsinclair.com

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RACHELL SUMPTER & JACOB MAGRAW Escaping to the beautiful landscape of Puget Sound, the collaborative efforts of Sumpter and Magraw have turned nature into technicolor explosions INTERVIEW BY GABE SCOTT PORTRAIT BY ALLISON WEBBER

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N UNINCORPORATED ISLAND ON THE Strait of San Juan has been home to Rachell Sumpter and Jacob Magraw for the past several seasons. Only relatives and occasional weather have lured them back to the mainland, and the self contained life with their two children has strengthened familial and creative bonds. Rachell now teaches in Seattle, but Jacob's roots on the islands go back to his grandparents, and their property remains a deeply inspirational workplace. It is rare to see such a composite of visionary work that encompasses both the literal and imaginative, intertwined in a cerebral union between two people who seemingly can forge as one. However, in order to comprehend the sum of the parts, it is crucial to decipher the attributes of each.

work some more. Kids come home, chaos, homework, draw together, make dinner, kids bathe in a plastic box, bedtime stories, bank the fire, turn it down, and sleep!

Gabe Scott: I’d like to have a perspective from each of you about a typical day on a bucolic island in Puget Sound. Rachell Sumpter: Bird songs usually wake us up. If it's winter, it's dark. If it's summer it is light when we get to bed and light when we wake. We’ll grind some coffee, Jacob chops wood and starts a fire, and the kids fight over helping him while we figure out the plan for the day. When the kids are out of the house, there’s work on sketches or finals, checking the fire, as well as email. Eat something, drink tea,

Hit the beach. Pick up rocks of interest. Pull likely logs above the tideline. Lunchtime. Birds fly into the water, seals creep. Stop by the farm, do farming. From there pick up Mica at school, talk to the teachers, gather the coats, books, lunch. Back to the cabin.

Jacob Magraw: Wake up early. Too much light. Chop wood, start fire, grind coffee, breakfast. Pile kids in mini truck and go to school. Say hi to everyone; there's only 13 kids. Spend a couple hours at the school library. It's small, but eclectic. Guess who checked out Ramona the Pest in 1976? Aaron. He was making his way through the Beverly Cleary books that November. There's a lot of Bradbury in this library, and miraculously, the entire Nausicaa series. It’s January and there won’t be wood in April. Hunt around the woods for fallen logs to cut up. Get better at telling the difference between Douglas Fir and White Fir.

Fire is still going, add wood. Music, books while making dinner. Rice, cabbage, beans, cheese, greens. Look at the water, watch the shipping lanes. Bath water heats, help Mica

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with her reading. Bath, stories, bed. Check the fire. Make paintings, stitching, drawings. Use a headlamp.

pretty well, material wise. I don't do acrylic, though; those are all Jacob.

How long were you into the relationship before starting to collaborate seriously together? How did that affect your individual growth? JM: For the Needles and Pens fifth anniversary show in San Francisco, which was in 2008, we had done a fair amount of work on each other's pieces but in an assistant capacity. That was the first time I remember putting both our names and actually trying to make it seem like we both worked on a piece. I think it let us move on from the little stylistic whirlpools in which our paintings tended to get stuck otherwise. It was a good way to examine why I made certain decisions and if there was a better way to make things.

Rachell, so much of your work, particularly in the last few years, has exhibited and maintained an ambient, ethereal quality. Do you find that comes from an internal part of your character, or is it more of a representation of how you see things in the natural world? RS: Both! What is now seen every day is not necessarily the way the world has been seen by people prior to three hundred years ago. Really, the beauty is everywhere. I'm trying to capture the magical little bits before they’re gone. Part of it, too, is from my grandmother who was an illustrator—and a little crazy! She would paint me pictures of purple and blue unicorns on icy cliffs with fuchsia skies behind them. I think that taught me the world you paint can be the world the artist sees rather than the reality that has been constructed for us to live in.

RS: Our relationship was built around making art, both together and apart. I think we both wanted that. Sometimes we do not work on each other’s pieces at all, but most of the time it is collaborative—at least from my perspective! It has definitely changed my development in that I have someone around whose opinion I respect and who I can toss around an idea with anytime. Plus, there are the kids; we tag team with them, no babysitters. So if there is a deadline to meet, one has to pick up where the other left off. Our work meshes

opposite Fruit (detail) Gouache and pastel on paper 7" x 10" above People Who Matter Gouache on Paper 20" x 12" 2010

For some time your work has focused on indigenous cultures and small, isolated populations that are heavily rooted in longstanding traditions. You've also spent a good amount of time traveling to remote areas to experience and study them firsthand, simultaneously using these experiences to help formulate a body of work.

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Do you feel this comes from a more anthropological point of view, where you are engaged in a “study” of sorts, conveying your findings through your paintings? Or do you simply hold a strong fascination with the geography of these places and cultures, leading to a compulsion to immerse yourself within your images as more of a diary of discovery? RS: The latter. There are many amazing anthropological studies out there and I seek them out to help inform my work in a way that a fact checker would. What fascinates me are societies that rely upon their own collective histories, environment and knowledge to inform daily life. I like isolated communities that retain their way of living through generations and often choose to turn their backs on modern conveniences. It’s the uniqueness of what to them may be 92 |

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everyday that I like to capture. The clouds of beautiful dust blown behind a farmer as she hand-tills her soil. The lean of owner-built homes. Technicolor sunsets filled with birdsong. Snow and rainbows. Salmon, crabs, lambs, eagles and otters. Talk to me about the new embroidered direction. Where did it come from and where do you see it going? RS: I was hired to do some book covers for Penguin, and the art director there thought that I embroidered because I lived a rustic type of life. I took on the work and learned quite a bit, but the embroidery for art and fun is Jacob's thing now. JM: It's where I've been putting most of the hours lately, but it’s one of those things we're not directly collaborating on.

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above Rachell Sumpter Brothers in Sport Gouache and pastel on paper 14" x 11" 2011 opposite Jacob Magraw Signal Embroidery thread on cloth 9" x 13" 2014

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I feel like I started doing it because of Rachell. I thought it was really similar to the core of the type of painting I was doing. Suddenly, we were hunting down thread and fabric and learning how to mount fabric on stretcher bars. I liked how close to drawing it felt, and how it changed slightly the attitude of my line. I found the stitching removed some of the style and sort of smugness of the brush but still had a lot of the color and improvisational qualities that I like. How similar is the technique you apply to the intricacy of your paintings to that of the needlework in the embroidery? JM: Very. I approach it in a very similar way, and I layer and try to tie things as close together, but at a much slower pace. RS: For me, painting is much more fun. There is more room for discovery. Maybe with Jake it is being reeled into a single line that he finds freeing. Jacob, what kind of needlepoint or application device do you work with when you're working in gouache? JM: A small brush; you have to have something that can hold paint. A lot of the painting process is mixing. Most of what I do is mix colors—there's a drawing stage, but most of the painting stage is mixing and holding paint. The brush has to be large enough to hold enough paint so I can paint certain areas on the picture simultaneously. It's important to the process in terms of what I'm referencing. It's sort of like printed materials: charts, graphs, scientific illustrations and diagrams that explain large scale ideas. Because those are printed, and there are technical obstacles to printing, you'll have a few colors. Since I left school, I've been taking a few colors and assigning them meaning. I’m using a few colors over and over again with slight variations throughout the piece.

Are you saying that you've developed your own color chart for certain meanings? Is that a different series of variables from piece to piece? JM: It usually varies, but there will be general themes. When I was starting to work that way, there was a palette where I was trying to chart a specific incident. I'll work in similar forms and also similar colors for the extent of a certain emotion or memory within that phase of my personal history. But it does vary and reflect what I'm trying to express in that process. It depends on what issue I'm dealing with in order to change it. Do you maintain a similar approach with stitching? JM: Actually, I think even more so. Because you're referencing textiles and quilts, or things like that which contain meanings for people. Quilts and blankets, especially, collect experience. By referencing that stuff and incorporating the color scheme, it's kind of like a hierarchy. When you're in painting mode, does that mean that there is also a systematic approach? A sectional breakdown that you might see in a textile process, so the painting will have a coded “fabric” as well?

JM: Yeah, the process of doing the drawing first, then doing the coloring is very much like having a pattern. I think the drawing does function that way. The pencil drawing is your pattern, then there's another way of thinking with color where you fill that in. Do you bounce back and forth between the two mediums? Is there a conscious comparison or evaluation of the stitching versus painting? JM: I do, but more of the straight stitching pieces because I haven't really mastered them yet. It's a little more exciting at the moment, but not as visceral, as it moves slowly. The process can sometimes be a little less exciting, but the finished product, and having a couple pieces together, has

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been quite interesting. I do think the references for the embroidery are a little more intriguing and accessible than what I was doing with the paintings. What do you mean in regards to the references? JM: They are ways people can relate. I think it's a lot easier to describe the stitching pieces as stations or receiving devices for history and experience. That does exist in the painting too, but it is sometimes hard to get out of my own way in order to get my point across. Obviously, with the paintings, there are a lot of other steps involved. Being trained as an illustrator, I developed certain habits, as I've drawn since I was three years old. But with the stitching, I'm able to communicate what's going on a little more easily. People approach stitching and fabric much differently than they do painting. What do you feel you gain from collaborative work that you can't produce on your own? RS: It is usually more fun to work with someone else. I tend to be the more practical one and there is less pressure to make some "thing" with him around. The level of production did go up; once Calder starts school in two years, we will be able to work at that level again.

They play a lot of oddities, weird songs, covers. They always seem to have some weird cover of a Beatles song. It's sort of a staple of the show. So, in this interview he was asked about it, and he said that if he plays a cover of a song he knows really well, he feels like he's actually able to hear it again for the first time. It sounds a little bit cheesy, but that's sort of the way it works. Working on something together, you're outside it enough to sort of see what you're doing from a different perspective. I'll give Rachell a piece, and she'll do something that I never would have done. It’s sort of like seeing your own work in a cover song. Then I get to respond to what she's done, and her to me in a whole new context. We live together, we have kids together, and we're always talking together. There's so much shared material there that it's not coming out of left field. It's certainly not anything I've been able to do with anyone else.

For more information about Rachell Sumpter and Jacob Magraw, visit rachellsumpter.com and richardhellergallery.com JUXTAPOZ.COM / SUMPTER - MAGRAW

JM: Kenan Juska and his friend have a radio show in New York called Chances With Wolves, which I was listening to. 94 |

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above Habituation Gouache and pastel on paper 7" x 10" opposite Rachell Sumpter Everything is Golden Gouache and pastel on paper 11" x 14" 2014

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BILL SAYLOR

As abstraction is nurtured in Brooklyn, Saylor’s creative output grows and grows INTERVIEW AND PORTRAIT BY AUSTIN McMANUS

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APPILY, I SPENT MOST OF THE LAST warm day of fall inside, conversing and observing the craft of Bill Saylor in his Brooklyn studio. Located near the invariably rugged Myrtle stop on the JMZ line, Bill’s high-ceilinged, naturally lit studio emits an air of creative refuge. A panoramic view from the roof gives a clear perspective of the obviously old versus the bona fide new that make up the evolving neighborhood. Within the studio walls are large canvases with multiple layers of paint already poured, smeared, scratched and brushed onto them. None appear finished, all seem to be in the under-construction phase. Tables are overwhelmed with several stacks of 8.5 x 11” drawings, some layered thick with the application of multiple mediums. Every inch of space is occupied with some sort of painting supplies, more artwork, and a plethora of books. There is also a kitchen and makeshift, partially enclosed bedroom. To me, it seems ideal; for Bill it may be getting too small for the scope and size of work he is currently producing.

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Curious about his method of applying large quantities of paint to canvases, I asked if I could observe a part of his process, and Bill was happy to oblige. Bill leaned over the sizable canvas on his knees and I witnessed a tactical splash of the entire container’s worth of blood-hued paint into the center of the canvas. Bill then lifted and tweaked the frame in various directions, then ran around to the other side of the canvas doing the same. I pointed out that a few objects in close vicinity had fallen victim to paint shrapnel speckling, but Bill was unconcerned with the collateral damage. He appeared to have tunnel vision directed towards his newly applied layer and was pleased with what resembled a gruesome stabbing crime scene. Austin McManus: What’s a typical day like for an artist named Bill Saylor living in Brooklyn? Bill Saylor: Staying in Brooklyn, I usually wake up around 5:30 or 6:00 to the sound of my neighbor walking through a huge pile of bottles that he collects for recycling. I make some coffee and breakfast, then head down to the parking lot and check my car windows to make sure they’re not

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left to right Untitled Mixed-media on paper 24" x 36" 2013 Lupo Oil, collage on canvas 2011 Untitled Mixed-media on paper 24" x 36" 2014

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smashed out. If they are and you catch it early, you can have them replaced by the afternoon. I’ve done six so far. Maybe go to the gym, return some emails, turn on the radio and start kicking around in the studio. Maybe read a bit, start out with some drawings or just get into some paintings. Make some dinner later; watch some TV or movies online. What was growing up in Pennsylvania like for you? I grew up about thirty minutes north of the city center of Philadelphia, in a suburban town named Willow Grove. My grandfather owned the last old dairy farm in town, about 26 acres that was used for a big construction company he built. Our house was also on the property and at night, when it closed, I had it all to play on: riding motorcycles around, skating on the farm lake, playing ice hockey. Willow Grove had a famous amusement park that was started in 1896, but by the ’70s, it was old and run down. We would sneak in under the fence and run around in this crazy old-world park, where every hour women came running out of a saloon and gunfighters would have shoot-outs in the “Western town” area. It had a giant wooden roller coaster that ran through a paper mache copy of the Swiss Alps. There were fun houses, freak shows and mirrored rooms to get lost in. But mostly I spent a lot of time in the woods. Do you recall the first time you drew something or made something that you would consider art? Maybe I was around five. I used to lie on the floor and make drawings of my favorite comics. I thought they were pretty good. What was the attraction at age 19 when you moved out West? I attended Santa Barbara City College too. My older brother was going to photography school in Santa Barbara and I went out for a week’s visit when I was fourteen. Coming from the landlocked Northeast, the California Ocean seemed like a paradise. After high school in Pennsylvania, I worked the summer and moved out there thinking I’d stay a few months and help my brother drive back East, but I ended up staying about eight years between Santa Barbara and Long Beach, going to school, surfing, skateboarding, and scuba diving—not a bad life for a while. You’ve been showing your work since the early ’90s. What was your very first show like? It was in ’91 with Kenny Schacter down in SoHo: The Unlearning Show. Rachel Harrison was archiving her tampons and Jonathan Horowitz had a video with the song "Je T'aime” playing on loop for two months. Someone was fermenting vodka on the counter at the entrance, and Dan Asher had a feedback loop created by two talking parrot toys. I showed two sculptures, one a row of salt licks, the other a meat hook tree made from steel hooks that were left in my studio in the Meat Market. It was about ten feet tall and I was nervous that someone would tug on it and it would come crashing down.

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and how did that project materialize? I met Harmony through The Journal magazine. He saw my work in one of their issues and wanted to do a trade, so The Journal hooked us up and suggested we do a zine together that they would produce. We each started about thirty to forty drawings, then traded the piles and worked on top of each other’s work, which eventually became HO BAGS. I never saw all the works complete until the zine came out. Later, he came back to the studio and bought a big painting. I didn't know what to expect at first but I really liked Harmony. He was cool and genuine and kept saying, “Just make the most radical shit you've ever made.” He was a big supporter who connected me to Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of The Black Keys who both bought a lot of work when I was broke. Having lived in Brooklyn for a while, I’m sure you have witnessed a slew of changes. I’m curious about how you view the current artistic climate.

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left to right Blow Back Oil, charcoal and spray paint on canvas 64" x 84" 2013 Untitled Mixed-media on paper 25" x 38" 2014 Untitled Oil, charcoal, and pencil on paper 25" x 36" 2014

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Honestly, I lived in Manhattan for 12 years before coming to Brooklyn, and I was never that connected to any galleries here except a small show at The Journal. My corner of Bushwick has been slow to change, but it is starting. My grocery store has been getting better, less ratty, more food. That’s been a good change. I really enjoyed your drawings and paintings at NADA this year, especially the pieces with the extraterrestrial figures in them. Can you tell me a little about this body of work? I wanted more works with imagery for NADA and I had a lot of drawings at the time, too many for framing, so I glued a number onto panels along with the paintings. I did have some alien figures in there, plus others that were more like octopus squid figures, which kinda look like aliens. For me, it was more about the abstraction of all these images coming together and starting to develop a quasi-narrative. You told me an entertaining story about a past exhibition

you did in Las Vegas. Can you share some anecdotes from that trip? In 2002 my dealer, Leo Koenig, was asked to install a show in a 20,000-foot unused part of a shopping mall called Neonopolis at the head of Fremont street. He came over to my studio and saw a 4 x 5’ loose black-and-white Hells Angels California painting I made. He loved it and wanted it to go in the show. I knew it could be a problem but didn't let on and let him take it anyway. I guess it was just one of those taboos that made the painting feel dangerous, however silly that was at the time. We unloaded the show into the space while construction was still finishing up, so a lot of local guys got to see the works. I had about thirty feet of wall with all kinds of paintings and drawings, and I guess the word got out to the local chapter about the one painting. After the show opened, we left, went back to NY, and then a few days later, three dudes came into the Vegas show from the Hells Angels. They scared the shit out of the young girl sitting at the reception desk, demanding it be removed.

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They were pretty pissed about it, though they did like a drawing I made of Sonny Barger. They decided that could stay but they wanted the painting out. The president of the New York chapter called my gallery and really intimidated Leo by saying he wasn't able to control the Vegas chapter and anything could happen if we didn't get it out. They also said they knew who I was and where I lived which got kinda weird. Leo offered to sell it and give the money to a charity of theirs but they weren't interested. It was taken out. I did make a few more after that but changed the text to famous hurricanes and some that said “Jet Stream Loser.” You have piles of drawings at your studio. Do you find satisfaction in the immediacy of drawing on 11x14 paper as opposed to working on a large canvas? I’ve always made lots of drawings of all sizes. I leave them on the floor, pin them on the wall or pile them in boxes and reference them later. I like their immediacy but it’s just part of the process for me, a way to come up with new forms and images that can be bumped up. I also really like the more sustained focus you need for large paintings, making them so that they appear to have been dropped there with the same intimacy as a small drawing. That’s the real trick. 102 |

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Since you also work in Pennsylvania, how do the varying environments affect your practice besides the obvious difference of working inside versus outside? The city has a lot more mark making and graphics going on in the streets. In PA, we’re on the river with trees and wild animals, flooded with a different energy, but I don't think there’s any big change between the two as far as my attitude about making things. I just rented a studio for the winter, and that gives me more room to spread out, which is great. What is most rewarding about making art for you? Deciding that a work is finished. What are some of the greatest challenges you've faced in your artistic career? Just holding onto my studio after the recession. Those days sucked.

For more information about Bill Saylor, visit billsaylor.com

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left Installation view of Audio Tuna Sunshine Courtesy of Leo Koenig Inc. 2011 right Muddy Waters Collage, oil,spray paint on canvas 76" x 99" 2010-2014

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T R AV E L I N S I D E R

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KANSAS CITY Dispel your notions of Kansas City, and see it through the eyes of photographer and performance artist Jaimie Warren KANSAS CITY HAS BUILT A REPUTATION, WITH THE help of the Kansas City Art Institute, for churning out great artists who consistently contribute to the fabric of its small but strong contemporary art community. Young artists are joining forces with local establishments that are giving generous grants, curatorial and exhibition opportunities, and free studio and exhibition space, such as the Charlotte Street Foundation, the Rocket Grants program through the Warhol Foundation, and the H&R Block Artspace at KCAI. The city clearly wants artists to succeed in order for it to grow into a vital art center and hub, which is a wonderful way to work, especially if your practice has collaborative components. Opportunities for artists in KC are often in sophisticated art venues like Bill Brady Gallery, a recent transplant from NYC, and Haw Contemporary. Both take advantage of the affordable real estate in the West Bottoms, a neighborhood consisting of mostly vacant warehouses which used to house the now defunct Kansas City Livestock Exchange and Stockyards.

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The world famous Nelson-Atkins Museum is an enchanting and massive museum of historical and contemporary art by day. At nightfall the glow of the new architectural addition and the eerie expanse of the undulating sculpture lawn transform the area into surreal place to converge with friends. Grand Arts and the Kemper Museum are also excellent places to view contemporary art projects and exhibitions. For a three-day visit, here is a guide to experiencing all things weird and great that you might not expect in Kansas City. Two tips: First, don’t go where everyone will tell you to go—Westport, the Plaza, or the Power & Light District. Second, you will need a car, especially if you want to see the good stuff. Day 1 Start with breakfast at You Say Tomato or Succotash, both known for their brunch, then head out on a 45-minute drive to St. Joseph, MO, where the Glore Psychiatric Museum houses a spectacularly odd array of dioramas—

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and fine-scale miniatures. It’s often overlooked, but it has truly incredible treasures inside.

torture chambers, witch burnings, blood-letting, lobotomy instruments, and fever cabinets—plus a collection of over 1,000 items found in a patient’s stomach, in addition artworks made by patients. There is also a secret, ultraweird surprise in the basement, but you’ll have to go to find out what it is! Head back to KC for lunch at El Patron for the freshest and best tasting Mexican food in the city. Not only do they have a nice patio, but they also have the best margaritas, as in, extraordinarily strong. Next stop is shopping at the Landing Mall on Troost Avenue, a weird, desolate place with an old Topsy’s candy store and ‘80s faux brick and rock walls. The stores are straight out of the ‘90s—floor-to-ceiling mirrors and neon everywhere, not to mention contemporary fashions mixed with items they are literally still pulling from ‘90s backstock. You can find some serious bargains and amazing fashions here. Next stop is the nearby National Toy and Miniature Museum, located inside of a mansion that houses over 300,000 toys

Finally, dinner and drinks in Westport. I know I said not to go here, but I really just meant don’t get stuck here. Have dinner at Harry’s Bar & Tables, Port Fonda or Westport Café & Bar. For a quieter evening, head to 39 th Street for amazing Mongolian BBQ at Ghenghis Khan, or the family’s other restaurant, Blue Koi. And if you like gay bars with great drag shows, dancing and karaoke, Missy B’s is also on 39 th Street. Ron Megee is a local drag theater star, so if you see his name in an upcoming drag or theater show, go! David Wayne Reed and De De DeVille are also fantastic performers. Kansas City has an impressive drag scene.

clockwise from left H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute From the patient’s stomach Glore Psychiatric Museum Photo by Patrick P. Evenson A meal at Succotash opposite Sissel Tolaas SmellScape KCK/KCMO 2007-2012 Grand Arts, 2011 Photo by Megan Mantia

Day 2 Head to breakfast at Happy Gillis in Columbus Park because it’s cute and delicious, then drive about two hours (I know it’s a stretch, but it’s worth it!) south to the Precious Moments Chapel where they have remade Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel out of Precious Moments figures. It’s simply

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too weird to miss if you’re out here. Then drive back for a late lunch at Arthur Bryant’s or Gates BBQ. You will hear a million arguments over a dozen BBQ restaurants in Kansas City as BBQ pride is big here, but these two are the best! I swear! Gates is a more memorable experience and has the original ‘70s interior, so go there. Next, some local shopping on West 18th Street. Designer Peggy Noland, who straddles Los Angeles and Kansas City, creates a new installation there every few months. The stores on this strip are locally owned, and YJ’s snack bar, a local artist hangout, is at the tail end (Monday’s Mayan tostadas are fantastic). Nearby is an art installation that has luckily stayed—multiple hammocks amidst green pastures overlooking the grandiose Kauffman Center for Performing Arts. It’s a great place to let that BBQ digest, especially since we are on our way to the next restaurant! Scope out those few West Bottoms galleries I mentioned, then have drinks, snacks, or a giant steak at the historic Golden Ox restaurant—a carpeted, cowboy-themed restaurant and bar full of period saloon décor. It’s all about the atmosphere and the history of the stockyards, which is fascinating.

Oceans of Fun and enjoy a thousand water slides and roller coasters. The Belly-Up Bar at Oceans of Fun is the best bar in Kansas City. It’s in a pool, though, so if someone throws up, the party is over. In the mood for one last road trip? Go to Branson, Missouri. Essentially a theme park for senior citizens, it has some of the strangest live shows I’ve ever seen. Picture Vegas and Dollywood mixed with Hee-Haw. If you want to stay in Kansas City, head toward the Farmer’s Market and into Columbus Park for a fantastic meal at Vietnam Café. It’s authentic, cheap and the huge portions are bonkers. Have the sweet potato fries with cilantro and shrimp, and the spicy tamarind soup with tofu and peanuts. Next, a 20-minute drive to Leila’s Hair Museum to round out your odd museum tour. Leila’s has an outrageous amount of rarely-seen hair wreaths and hair jewelry predominantly from the late 1800s. Back to Kansas City proper for our last night in town—dinner at the intimate Le Fou Frog for French cuisine, or Westside Local for farm-to-table dining with an inviting atmosphere. Have some local Boulevard beer while you’re there.

If you are lucky enough to be here in October, you are right in the middle of the infamous West Bottoms haunted houses—giant warehouses (The Beast, The Edge of Hell, etc.) that are nationally known for being legitimately frightening. Some end in giant, five-story spiraling slides!

For more information about Jaimie Warren, visit dontyoufeelbetter.com

Day 3 For the last day, there are three choices, depending on the time of year. In summer, spend the day at Worlds of Fun/

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Thank you to the great people of the Kansas City Art Institute for their help.

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Center For the Advancement of Transmodern Awareness Peggy Noland

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IN SESSION

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WE TELL STORIES School of Visual Arts brings back alumni for massive illustration celebration KNOWN AS A BOUNTIFUL BREEDING GROUND OF illustration, the School of Visual Arts in NYC has been at the forefront of connecting the illustrative arts to fine art appreciation. One of our favorite degree programs at SVA is Illustration as Visual Essay, attended by many artists who have graced the pages of Juxtapoz, including Nathan Fox, Martin Wittfooth, Sam Weber, Yuko Shimizu and Aya Kakeda. On display through December 17, 2014, the SVA Chelsea Gallery hosted We Tell Stories, an exhibition of work by more than 340 artists who graduated with an MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay in the 30 years since the degree was first offered. Curated by founding chair Marshall Arisman, the show brought together an alumni that has produced everything from editorial art, children’s books, comics, graphic novels, animations, products and fine art. Juxtapoz has championed illustration as a prominent fine art

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form and We Tell Stories shows how the SVA has nurtured the spirit in multiple generations of artists. Underscoring the success and ubiquity of the SVA Illustration program, Arisman noted, “If, in the past 30 years, you bought a book because of its cover, thumbed through the illustrations in a magazine or newspaper, read a children’s book to your child, thought a graphic novel or comic would make a great movie, purchased an app for your iPhone or visited a gallery, you have seen the art of our alumni.”

For more information about the SVA, visit SVA.edu

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clockwise from left Art by Aya Kakeda, Clay Rodery, Ned Gannon

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REVIEWS

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BOOKS The titles Juxtapoz is currently reading BRETT AMORY: THE COMPLETE WORKS AND SELECTED ESSAYS BY BRETT AMORY “Sittin’ in the morning sun, I’ll be sittin’ when the evening comes. Sittin’ here resting my bones, and this loneliness won’t leave me alone.” Like Otis Redding, Brett Amory left the South and came out West, finding himself pondering, among other things, the big city and its expanse of solitude. Brett Amory: The Complete Works and Selected Essays, published by Vivant Books, presents, among other works, soul-grabbing studies from his Waiting series, depicting the unique shades of San Francisco, New York City and London, while reflecting on the urban experience of ticking time and endless hours where daytime challenges and taunts, and nighttime harbors and haunts. Like a masterful collection of short stories, each piece awakens an emotion. The captivating paintings invite observation, illuminated by thoughtful essays, which just might invite the reader to stay awhile as the entire portfolio lends a fuller knowledge of life as we learn it. —Gwynn Vitello Vivant Books, vivantbooks.com

EPITOME BY NICK CAVE “Out of a riot comes a dream.” After the collective pain of the LA Riots of ’92 sparked by the Rodney King trial, Nick Cave felt depressed: “I remember thinking that my identity is really only protected in the privacy of my own home. That the moment that I leave this space, I could be just another profile. Then I was thinking about myself as a black male, and that on top of art, on what I’m trying to be as an artist… It was really hard...” At that moment he caught sight of the glitter of litter on the street, and from that trash came the inspiration to grow an armor in which to hide. So began his Soundsuits. Cave is not alone in seeking artistic remedy for community trauma but his art is like none other. Cave’s new and most comprehensive survey, Epitome, explores the brilliant materials that the artist uses for his mixed-media performance and installation work. Exciting and colorful, this monograph is a must for any modern art lover. —Lalé Shafaghi Prestel Publishing, prestel.com

ED EMBERLEY BY TODD OLDHAM AND CALEB NEELON Ed Emberley’s drawings influenced a generation of artists who grew up to be the influencers of today. Since the ‘60s, his popular how-to-draw books molded millions of young artistic minds, and if you ever made a thumbprint drawing, Emberley is the man to thank. For a hefty new monograph of his work, Caleb Neelon and Todd Oldham explored Emberley’s life and his Massachusetts studio, which holds everything the artist has ever made, every drawing that went into his 100+ books for children. In his fun and thorough introduction, Neelon talks to a collection of artists whose impressionable young minds felt a big Emberley imprint, including Mel Kadel, Josh Keyes and Souther Salazar, and the intergenerational dialogue becomes loud and clear. Like all the best children’s books, Ed Emberley does not skimp on the pictures, and the incredible range of style, subjects and technique is showcased beautifully. Emberley’s influence is unstoppable, and luckily, this book will be around for future generations. It’s a book that had to be made. —Kristin Farr Ammo Books, ammobooks.com

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THE KATLASH | SANUK.COM

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JUXTAPOZ.COM / SUBSCRIBE

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PROFILE

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FRAME ON FRAME The hand-drawn animations of Jake Fried IN 2011, JAKE FRIED CREATED NIGHTFALL, THE FIRST of his-ten-and counting animations. Headache, Last Meal, Waiting Room, Sick Leave, The Deep End, Raw Data, Down Into Nothing, Headspace and Brain Lapse would follow. Hand drawing ten or twenty frames a day, Fried scans each as he moves along. For many animators, this would mean thousands of stills and in-betweens lying around, but not for Jake. He makes his dark, primarily black-andwhite designs directly on the image as he proceeds, obliterating the drawing below with layers of Wite-Out, gouache, ink and coffee. Yet for so much work in the past two years, the resulting physical product is eight thick and crusty pieces of drawing paper. They look like the accumulated mess of a painter's mixing palette layered and dried to half an inch thick. Fried keeps these relics, but they aren't the end product. “I've never been interested in creating traditional animations using individual cells,” he says. “Rather, I approach my work as ‘moving paintings’ where one image morphs and evolves, each frame building on top of the last.” The stills visible here, for instance, are now as buried under layers of art media as a long-since-covered piece at a popular graffiti spot. Each of Fried’s animations has since racked up hundreds of thousands of online views from around the world. As a painter, he didn’t know what to expect.

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“I have always reworked my images over long periods of time.” Fried explains: “I realized eventually that I was more interested in the evolution of the image rather than reaching any final state. So my animation process is really an extension of what I’ve always done. I just didn’t ‘see them’ until I began recording the process.” For the sort of person who finds the gallery setting a most inconvenient, awkward and supremely uncomfortable place to watch anything on a moving screen, Jake Fried hears you. While the ideal setting for his animations is “in a theater or gallery setting without distraction,” putting the works online has elevated the role of the pause button. “I think of each individual frame in my films as their own work of art, and online viewing encourages one to stop at any point for closer inspection.” Though you may not be able to hit pause in a museum video room, it’s entirely within reach while wearing sweats in a dark bedroom. —Caleb Neelon

For more information about Jake Fried, visit inkwood.net

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Still from Headspace

Stills from Down Into Nothing

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PROFILE

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3 MUST-SEE ANIMATIONS BY JAKE FRIED Described by the artist himself

Headspace (2014)

Brain Lapse (2014)

Raw Data (2013)

“A portrait morphing in and out of his surroundings.”

”This is all about images being built-up, torn away and reconfigured. Everything is shifting around you.”

”I’m working on the idea of man vs. technology… A sense that the animation watches you as you watch it.”

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GIFT GUIDE

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THINGS JUXTAPOZ IS AFTER For the holidays, dog days, and New Year’s days

LIQUITEX COLLECTION Spray paint, brushes, paints, and acrylics liquitex.com

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WAT-AAH LIMITED EDITION BOTTLE SERIES Created for WAT-AAH!’s Taking Back the Streets initiative, the collector’s box can be purchased online at wat-aahstreets. com and select bottles are also availabe supermarkets nationwide. Get your bottles by Kenny Scharf, HAZE, Lady Aiko, Posh Dog, Technodrome1, Concep, Vesa, and SMURFOUDIRTY. wat-aahstreets.com

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THE MIRANDA BY MIRANDA JULY Made in collaboration with Welcome Companions, each pops with colorful punch. welcomecompanions.com openingceremony.us

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EXCEL BLADES Every artist is in need of a good knife set, blade, hammer, cutting mat, or scissor. Our office has been using the Excel Grip-On Knife and Light Duty Knife all season long, and they are durable we have used. American made! excelblades.com

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ONE YEAR MEMBERSHIP TO THE DE YOUNG MUSEUM Give the gift that lasts all 12 months. If you don’t live in SF, a membership to your local museum should work! deyoung.famsf.org

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ED01 - T NATO WATCH BY ELECTRIC Electric has an extensive collection of sunglasses, watches, snow goggles, bags, and apparel, and the T Nato watch is a must-have. Available in seven different band colors, the camo being our favorite. electriccalifornia.com

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CONVERSE CHUCK TAYLOR ALL STAR COMBAT BOOT Available in Black and Pine Needle for the urban and wilderness survivalist in all of us. converse.com

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WOODROCK BY VICTORIA WAGNER One-of-a-kind painted wood sculptures hmxaa.com

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SIEBEN ON LIFE

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Snail mail is the best mail RECENTLY, I MADE A NEW ZINE WITH MY BUDDY SHAUN Mefford. I used to make tons of zines when I was younger and I immediately remembered what I liked about it: it's a quick and extremely affordable way to disseminate an idea, aesthetic, opinion or whatever the hell you want. The beauty is that there are no rules, so you're free to do anything you like with your money and time. You get to call all the shots, a rare opportunity in adult life. It's also a really easy way to promote your work. I get emails from younger artists requesting advice on how to get their work out there. My suggestion is always, "Make zines and send them to companies/people you're interested in working for/with.” I honestly owe the bulk of my commercial success to zine making. In my mid-twenties to my early thirties, I was constantly working on zines that showcased my illustrations and writing. I'd send them to skate companies, publishers, galleries—anyplace where I thought I might get work. This practice led to freelance writing for Big Brother magazine (RIP) and later secured a staff position with Thrasher magazine. The nod from Thrasher opened tons of doors, and all of that can be directly traced back to zine making. I still trip out on that. Enough about what I did. How does this relate to you? Well, nowadays everybody has access to the same technology. Everybody is trying to get more Instagram/Twitter/Facebook followers; everybody has a website; everybody is sharing everything with everybody. But when is the last time you found something really awesome and handcrafted in your mailbox? I imagine most art directors and gallery owners are in the same boat, inevitably bombarded constantly with emails and other unsolicited social-media nagging. A clever zine with a handwritten note sent via USPS is way harder to immediately trash as opposed to hitting the delete key on a computer. I'd like to conclude by stating that I'm not trying to make a case that zine making should only be used for commercial purposes. You can make a zine for you and your best friend and never show it to anybody else in the world. Like I said earlier, no rules. Well, actually, one rule: staple that shit together. You're not making a newspaper for crap's sake. —Michael Sieben

Page from Fume Coaster zine. Photo: Shaun Mefford, Illustration: Michael Sieben

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/EzKhZ&Zd z͗:ĂƌĞĚƵďĞů

The Oceans Calling Oil and Acrylic on Canvas S/N prints available

Hunter S. Thompson Oil and Acrylic on Panel S/N prints available

Punk Rock Zebra Oil and Acrylic on Canvas S/N prints available

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POP LIFE

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LOS ANGELES // SAN FRANCISCO Neil Young, Shepard Fairey, Mercedes Helnwein, Jony Ive

SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS

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COREY HELFORD GALLERY

1 | Neil Young and his daughter, Amber Jean, with Shepard Fairey at her recent exhibition, There’s A Shape In These Hills I Know

4 | Eric Nakamura, Soey Milk, Luke Chueh, Chloe Noh, and Kent Williams at Chueh’s solo show

KNOWN GALLERY

MERRY KARNOWSKY GALLERY

2 | The stars of See Life: Tatiana Suarez, Amandalynn, and Lady Mags

5 | The uber-talented Mercedes Helnwein with artists Vonn Sumner and Kim Kimbro

JULIA MORGAN BALLROOM, SF 6 | Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design, Jony Ive, with SFMOMA’s Director Neal Benezra at the SFMOMA’S Bay Area Treasure Award dinner honoring Ive.

3 | Tristan Eaton, Shane Jessup, Just Willie T supporting See LIfe

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Photography by Sam Graham (1-5) Drew Altizer (6)

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FRAGILE VENTURES are proud to present the global launch of URBAN[E] BY BEN EINE at MEGUMI OGITA GALLERY, TOKYO. Bringing the inimitable typographic style of Eine to life in 3D, limited edition cubes presented in concrete, metal and wood. PRIVATE VIEW Friday 5th December

PUBLIC VIEW 6th/7th December

Pre-orders now being taken - [email protected] Cubes will be available to buy at the show and online from Friday 5th December ZZZIUDJLOHYHQWXUHVFRPŤZZZPHJXPLRJLWDFRP WZLWWHUFRPIUDJLOHYHQWXUHVŤLQVWDJUDPFRPIUDJLOHYHQWXUHVŤLQVWDJUDPFRPHLQHVLJQV WorldMags.net

POP LIFE

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NEW YORK CITY // LONG BEACH // COLOGNE David Choe, Nick Walker, Andrew Schoultz

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345 BROOME STREET, NYC 1 | Nick Walker recreates his own British Invasion as he runs into Crash at Walker’s pop-up show

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RUTTKOWSKI 68 GALLERY 3 | Andrew Schoultz changes up his game in Cologne

R.JAMPOL PROJECT(S), NYC 6 | The legendary Martha Cooper paid respect to Elbow Toe at his opening

LONG BEACH MUSEUM OF ART 22 LITTLE WEST 12TH STREET, NYC 2 | Drago Publishing’s Paulo Lucas von Vacano celebrates the release of WK Interact’s new book

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4 | There’s James Jean at Masterworks 5 | Nathan Spoor, Ron Nelson, and 3x Jux cover artist, David Choe

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Photography by Joe Russo (1, 2, 6) Sam Graham (4, 5)

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PERSPECTIVE

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DESIGN FOR LIFE SFMOMA awards Apple’s Jony Ive its Bay Area Treasure Award PLAY THIS GAME WITH US: THINK OF YOUR FAVORITE household or daily product. Look around your room, house, car, or office and try and name the industrial design team behind it. You may know the company, but probably not the designer, and you’re not alone. Still, the name Jony Ive rings a bell; the Senior Vice President of Design at Apple has been hailed as one of the greatest designers of the last century. He and his team have actualized products that have literally changed the way we live our lives, interact with technology, and communicate in the 21st Century. And may we add that he is a Knight? In October 2014, our friends at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art awarded Jony Ive’s accomplishments at Apple with the SFMOMA’s Bay Area Treasure Award, previously won by the likes of George Lucas and Richard Serra, to name a few. This is a special award, one that allows us to celebrate the unique innovators in the San Francisco Bay Area, from film to tech, fine art to photography. Ive’s recognition not only illuminates SFMOMA’s pioneering

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commitment to design, but shows the museum’s expanding grasp of what art and creativity really means to the SF Bay Area. The award and accolades bestowed upon Ive are not hyperbole. Even if you are not a professed “Apple person,” there is an undeniable fact that what Team Ive has achieved in the world of industrial design challenges rival technology companies to create products with both subtle and tangible beauty that is both smart and simple to grasp. He qualifies as a worthy addition to the canon of Bay Area artistic aristocracy.

For more information about Jony Ive and the Bay Area Treasure Award, visit sfmoma.org

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Los Angeles, CA October 25th 2014

MARCO ZAMORA

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