Kid Yellow interviews.

AZ: Alex Ziv, artist, 23 years young, born and raised in San Francisco, avid cigarette smoker, passionate art lover, motorcycle obsessive.

QA: Hello FFDG world. My name is Quinn Arneson and I am 24 year old artist. I am from Los Angeles, California but currently live and work in San Francisco.

QA & AZ: Julianne Yates from Gallery Heist had been watching us both or about a year or so and approached us both about potential shows. She made the connection that both our works had multiple commonalities that seemed to click. We both simply find humor in art while remaining religiously serious about our practice.

QA & AZ: We definitely chatted about making work that would be super cohesive, but remaining distinguishably independent from each other. We had things we wanted to accomplish independently, one being increasing the scale of our work.

Decades before the term street art was being uttered from ad executives' mouths, Blek Le Rat was bouncing about Paris throwing up political, thoughtful and humorous stencils... Banksy was quoted as saying, "Every time I think I've painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek Le Rat has done it as well. Only twenty years earlier..."

A new book on Blek Le Rat is due out this winter along with the solo show 60/30 at 941 Geary here in San Francisco to celebrate the 30 years that Blek has been creating works in the street. We emailed him a few questions below to see what he's been up to since we last spoke with him in '08. -Trippe

In the 1960s children used to read a lot of comic strips; I took on the name of Blek le Rat in reference to an Italian comic strip called Blek le Roc. I changed it into Rat, because I painted rats and the word "rat" is the anagram of the word "art" (something Banksy hadn't thought of!).

In the 1980s I drew all of my stencils, nowadays it depends on the stencil. Often I still draw the stencils because I am inspired by photographs that are not of a quality that lends itself to the stencil making process. I also use xeroxed copies on occasion, but not very often. I like the "handmade" aspect of the stencil, in both the preparation and the final image. Stenciling, though an antiquated medium, also has a very modern look and is ideal for street art, which is why so many street artists employ it. I also prefer black and white—I do not like colorful stencils much.

Street art is ephemeral and it is very important to keep a memory of what has been done in the street. It is important to me that my fine art reflects the street or urban/public landscape in some way. I try to reproduce the ambience of the street where I often work at night when shades of black and white are dominant. I use the same characters in the street as well as in the work I produce intended for the gallery.

No. I don't work in the streets of Paris anymore because I know each and every inch of Paris. I love to work in places I don't know because these locations allow me to get in touch with a new atmosphere, new lights, and new people. If I continued to work in Paris I would have the instinct to do the same thing over and over again, without making any progress.

Originally published on Fecal Face February 18, 2008

Sept 11 Time Cover by Lyle Owerko

     On September 7th 2001 while on a plane flying back to New York from Dar Es Salaam the previous 5 weeks flashed through my mind. I had been photographing everything from elephants fighting each other, to documenting street clashes to driving my friends through a storm of tear gas and burning tires during a riot. The reason to go back to New York was to shoot an Ad campaign. Part of the trip home meant changing planes in Johannesburg. The layover continued my preoccupation of being torn about flying home. While sitting in the transit concourse I watched a molten orange African sunset burn an unforgettable hole in sky outside the lounge windows. Every day in Africa delivers a unique visual which makes it so hard to leave. It is a constant razor's edge of tragedy and beauty. Leaving was if I was abandoning all that was poignant and tangible in my life. Yet, I felt I had to be in New York for a purpose.

Four days later, just after 8:47am on September 11th found me sprinting through the neighborhood of Tribeca chasing down the source of the worst sound I've ever heard in my life. The final destination was the World Trade Center complex, now marred with a gaping hole in the north tower. Within minutes of reaching the complex another plane began its suicide approach. It struck the Towers looming above me with a punch beyond description. In defiance of the fireball and ensuing shower of glass and steel I managed to click off a series of pictures. Within 10 minutes of leaving my apartment I shot the image that made the cover of Time magazine.

Over the next couple of hours I filled multiple rolls of film with assorted images of people leaping from the Towers and absolute carnage beyond words. Most of those images have remained in my archive silently frozen in memory of that day. What the images will never convey is the aural soundscape I have inside my head. It's hard to reiterate the screams and shouts of horror that erupted from the crowds of onlookers as they viewed the ballet of death occurring above the street that morning. Even now, which is over six years past the event, my ears scan any sound I hear out of the normal in New York. Is it a shout of pain? Is it danger? Did that sonic boom come from a jet in peril? Everything goes through an internal assessment filter making sure my perception is right. The day of 9/11/2001 completely stole my innocence, as it did with many others. Though I've seen many horrible things before then and many after, I've never been in a situation where I felt so helpless to contribute. There are many instances where I've passed up on taking pictures to simply to err on the side of helping, but that day was overwhelming. All I could manage to do was click the shutter to document something I had no cognition of and probably will never fully assess. I remember the policemen yelling at me that morning and encouraging me to keep shooting and keep documenting what was going on around us. They understood the importance. In the images of that morning I hoped to capture the dignity and grace of the people who jumped and to somehow define the decision they made with integrity and peace.

They are not easy pictures to look at, especially when our daily world is an oversaturated media landscape of manufactured realities and the new rising class of "celebritocray" - where disingenuous shock and awe on camera leads to fame and fortune. Stepping out of that bubble and looking at the tangible "real" of the actual moment between life and death is very hard, it forces us to come to terms with so many things including our own mortality. I simply hope these pictures pass on through the generations as an informative tool for future members of this planet to see and understand that all life is precious and beautiful. And yet to grasp how easily innocence can be snatched away in the blink of a second. -Lyle Owerko

© Lyle Owerko, all rights reserved

owerko.com
wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyle_Owerko

Small Moon, 5 x 3 inches. Gouache and spray paint on postcard, 2011

JT: I grew up in Colorado near Boulder. Until I was aged 14 my dad was a pastor in Christian churches. The earlier church where he was assistant pastor was very much like the famous "Evangelical" churches that are featured in the documentary "Jesus Camp". There were miracles, spectacles, speaking in tongues, a pool for baptizing. Sometimes church members would line up around the stage and my dad would lay his hands on their heads and pray. When this had gone on long enough, the person would be knocked over by the power of God, falling into the waiting arms of deacons to lay on the floor crying from the experience. I was suspicious, so one time I got in the line. My dad put his hands on my head, I think my arms were in the air, and then I fell.

There I was, laying flat on my back asking myself if I had been knocked over by supernatural force or what? I went up knowing I was going to fall so was this a real thing? I had my doubts. Somehow I always felt like I was being tricked, and I still feel like that sometimes. Now I mostly feel like other people are being tricked and I'm not, but I catch myself back on the other side of that line occasionally. When my dad started his own church the theatrics were toned down a little, but the belief was notched up. No fakers. I think I could fill a book with the stories from my childhood and the lessons I learned from questioning my surroundings, this is just a teaser. My love for skateboarding and punk rock lead me to the Bay Area and I moved to LA to attend grad school at UCLA.

Still Life with Sculptural Element (Water), 60 x 60 inches. Oil on canvas, 2010

JT: I love LA. People are very free to express themselves here, and not just in a politically correct, socially accepted way. Anything goes. "Beto's" is my favorite food truck. It's on Jefferson near Burnside from 7:00-11:00pm and I highly recommend their tacos al pastor. The food is not sketchy.

JT: UCLA was really great. I pretty much stuck with the painting faculty, they offer a genuine painting program where you go into the studio and work. I think it's what people expect from MFA programs but rarely find. I was very inspired by Lari Pittman, Roger Herman, and Don Suggs and worked with them repeatedly. UCLA a real gem! The library is AMAZING!!! Because I was a grad student and UCLA is a research institution they let me check out as many books as I want and for like 2 months at a time. I still have a lot out even now! I'll have to return them soon though as I'm moving to NYC.

Outer Space Series 1, 12 x 8 inches. Gouache, graphite on gessoed paper, 2011

JT: I was still in school for the last show, and I had nothing to do except paint! It was so nice. There were paintings in that show that I really felt were good and others that I was suspicious of, in spite of the ample time I had to work. Now I have to work full-time to pay for my studio practice and bills and every moment I have to make art is precious. It gives me a different appreciation of the dedication I have to this conversation of art. I feel very privileged to make art with my spare time. It doesn't hurt that I enjoy my work at the wood shop very much as well. I'm glad to do both kinds of work.

It’s been great! We really love it in Los Angeles...quite quickly it felt like home here, which was something we didn't expect! But the transition was really smooth for us. After a few months to settle, and just once we wrapped our heads around some of the small differences like allowing 40 minuets to get somewhere - even if its 5 miles away -and learning to use inches and feet over centimeters and meters!

There is definitely more pluses than minuses! I think the main pluses are the weather and the people. We have met so many great people here that have become very close friends. And the constant sunshine and blue skies is just ridiculous! I don't think we will ever get sick of that!

At the moment, yes. We can definitely see ourselves being here for many more years...But you never know what the universe has in store.

It was different for both of us. I started painting graffiti in the mid 1990's. I had been painting pieces for years before returning to Art School and learned how to paint with acrylics.

Myla on the other hand, had been painting with a brush for most of her life, and it wasn't until we met that she started using spray paint.

I'm not sure... We really love painting graffiti and it’s such a big part of our overall influence and style. Painting graffiti letters is so important to us, and we love painting big characters on walls too. The way we go about painting with spray paint is similar to our brush paintings, but also completely different.

The characters are the same, and the content, but outside we paint with heavy lines and strong bold colors. Whereas on our paintings with acrylic, its a lot softer and harmonious approach. With subtle colors and no outlines...and we love working that way too!

San Francisco Art Institute graduate, Damon Soule's newest paintings take what he's been doing for years further into a mind bending reality. Beautiful.

FFDG is a small space, so it's a great place to put together a cohesive experience. That's all you really have to worry about.

Aw man, that's always hard. I usually just describe it as crazy paintings. If I was painting things that I could describe in a simple sound bite, I would be disappointed with myself.

NYC is great because you can always get something to eat nearby anytime of day. Portland is cool because people are relaxed and know how to have fun. No one'ss really trying very hard there which I find refreshing.

I love the community vibe in the Bay Area. It feels like things are really happening which I didn't get in NYC. That may be just my perception but since that's how I feel, I had to come back here. As far as I'm concerned SF rules! However, I like to keep it fresh and that means not getting too comfortable.

Keep it personal and challenge yourself. If you get bored, flip it upside down. Life is short, so don't get stuck in a rut.

My name is Water McBeer owner and founder of The Water McBeer Gallery, a small gallery space dedicated to art excellence. I have also been a prominent art dealer for over 28 years. I received my BA in business economics and my MFA in art criticism from the San Francisco Art Institute and went on to become the most successful art dealer in America. I was raised by my teenage parents in a small hippie commune in Northern California hence the name Water. At the age of 14 I inherited my distant grandfather's extraordinary art collection of over 500 pieces from the most important artists of the 20th century. I own the most valuable art collection of any private collector in San Francisco and my extraordinary Self-confidence, determination and belief in personal freedom have made me the most successful art dealer and gallery owner in America.

Well, I've done just about everything, made billions of dollars traveled the world, won a game of golf against Bill Clinton, partied with every celebrity, own 15 cars, a 195 foot yacht, 3 mansions and so it was the only thing left to do.

My grandfather collected everything from Van Gough to Duchamp and over his lifetime built up an impressive collection among the collections trophies is Pablo Picasso self-portrait yo, Picasso. His collection was worth 1.5 billion dollars. He had an eye for great art. I not only inhereted his collection, but his impeccable sense of taste.

Sadly San Francisco stands no chance against LA or NYC. It is my goal to show world class artists in my gallery to highlight San Francisco's artists among the rest of the art world so that they may shine bright in a sea of art darkness. I am here to save San Francisco from its artistic doom and stimulate the art economy with my wealth and power.

I foresee a future of endless possibilities for the Water McBeer Gallery and its artists. I am investing in the future of the San Francisco art community, a future of great wealth and boundless creative expression.

I do it all in the computer.

The print with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the San Francisco LGBT Community Center

Photoshop. I could probably do it in illustrator way better, but illustrator and I don’t get along.

I don’t mean to sound like a geek, but it involves a series of math that I have to do. There’s a tool in Photoshop under the analysis menu called record measurements, where you can record each pixel. I lasso one row of pixels and it tells me how many pixels it is. Let’s say it measures 256px across in Photoshop and my actual canvass is 55.5 inches wide. I’d divide the two numbers; find out how big each pixel is, and then make custom rulers out of tape that equal those measurements. I make an x/y axis and cover the piece in tape - I don’t grid it out in pencil. I use an x-acto to cut the lines out on the x/y axis, pull it out, and paint it in. Eventually, I got to the point where I was making them like a manual screen-print, I would see where the color would be and paint huge blotches to save me a lot of time. It’s all math.

The lines wouldn’t be perfect because all types of weird shit can happen to lenses since they can get bumped or curved.

That’s a lie. This girl I was hooking up with at the time had this TV show on the style network and was friends with the rapper R.A. Thornurn who was the produer and co-writer of Bad Biology and I knew of him since I was doing hip-hop music at the time, believe it or not. Anyways she asked me if I wanted to audition and I thought I’d give it a try even though I didn’t really think I’d get it, but I ended up getting the role which was cool.

Chief Sneed. I’ve had like 7 different names and they’re all bad.

Hell yeah. You can actually find some beats I produced for a record that we put Jay Z vocals over - which everyone and their mother has already done. Rob Swift from the X-ecutioners did all the cuts on it, which is cool. It’s called Native American Gangster because the vocals were taken from the American Gangster record that Jay Z did and the fact that I’m a quarter Cherokee Indian. My family lives on a reservation in North Carolina.

David Young V’s show “Make an Effort” opens Saturday July 9th, 7pm at White Walls Gallery on 835 Larkin St (@Geary), San Francisco.

Yeah, my father is David and it goes back five generations, but it got restarted, so it really goes back about eight people. The original David Young III got killed so his brother named his son after this guy. So the son became the first in my line.

No, there wasn’t a lot of artistic people in my family.

It’s all I really know, I’ve been doing art for so long...I’ve always wanted to do it. I’ve been doing it my whole life and I never want to stop. I was always drawing on the backs of my papers and on tests during class. I loved free drawing sessions, I always had fun in art class. I never really liked art projects, I always just liked drawing whatever I wanted to draw. Honestly I don’t think I was ever that good at it, but I just enjoyed it. I didn’t decide to take it seriously until I was in college, I didn’t even know what a fine artist was but if it let me do anything I wanted to do, then I’ll try to be a fucking fine artist.

Well when I was 18 I was doing these Micron pen drawings but they were totally different in nature, they were much more intricate than the work I do now, and they were more fantasy based. After that, I really got into abstract art using charcoals as well as murals. I was really into de Kooning, Pollock, Basquiat, Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky and other 20th Century Abstract art. I was obsessed with that for a number of years and I was just continually making abstract work.

I'm Nick Mann, I live and work in Oakland, CA when I'm not traveling. I'm currently 23 years old.

I got into visual art through playing music and growing up in the Pacific Northwest. I've been playing guitars since I was 10. Painting has channeled some of the same creative visions/moods that I previously expressed through music. After I had slowed down my post-high school musical output, I wanted to change my creative process. Painting and drawing both indoors and outdoors gave me room to breathe artistically. I really got into making visual artwork probably around the age of 19.

My ideals are to live a balanced, well-traveled life in harmony with our universe and mother earth. I think that it's important to let our creative visions grow and be open to change. When we put a block on these visions or translate them into symbols of what's hip and safe, problems arise within our souls. My work is made through a process of intuition and mistakes. Through this intuitive process, each piece has potential to develop and grow on its own. Once I finish a piece, I look at it as a manifested symbol of my subconciousness at any specific moment or phase in my life. Upon the completion of a piece, I am also able to rationalize its meaning and relevance to our universe. The best art speaks a universal language that communicates to beings of every culture in and out of this world. A balanced, holistic life is contingent on listening to our subconscious side while coupling it with rational insight. This dichotomy is illustrated universally with Lunar (female) and Solar (male) energies.

Recently: Big Blood, Michael Gira, Thou, John Fahey, Michael Hurley, Des Ark, Godspeed, Diane Cluck, Sun Ra, Blind Blake, American primitivist guitar music, world music. I play guitar on breaks from painting.

Interview By: Daniel Rolnik - daniel[at]fecalface.com

I was the creator, executive producer and production designer on “Teacher’s Pet.” During the series and the feature film, I was there every day working with my wonderful crew. Originally, I drew and painted the original characters, backgrounds, etc., to establish the look and feel of the series. Then I oversaw my amazing team of artists to follow and execute the episodes. I worked closely with my director Tim Bjorklund who wanted to make sure the series looked like my hand-painted work, so all the backgrounds were painted on canvas. Tim was an amazing animator. I am not an animator. Our storyboard artists, timing directors, etc. created a template and we sent them oversees to our talented animation studios, who would sent over rough animation. We edited, recorded, and produced music and dialogue here in the States. Does that answer your question?

When I started back in the ‘90s, Nickelodeon actually came to me asking if I had any interesting ideas for an animation series. I lied and said yes, then came up with a dozen ideas to pitch. We actually made two fully animated pilots for the same series “Louie n Louie,” but unfortunately, they weren’t picked up. Then I did decided at that point (after doing well in illustration) that I would concentrate on pitching for TV shows and moved back to LA from New York, where I got an agent who got me meetings with TV executives. How do you pitch a series? You sing and dance and put your heart on your sleeve. Cartwheels help too.

Does it have to have “weird” in the title? Is “Memento” weird? I love that movie. I love how it is set up and how it is played out. I often feel like the main character in Memento.

No. I don’t like to sketch things out. I need to feel spontaneous, vulnerable, and organic when I create. The last thing I want to do is work everything out and just follow through. That said, I draw in my sketchbook all the time. I work through my themes in my sketchbooks, but I only use them as an emotional template. So I put ideas down and see what stays with me. But I don’t usually paint those images directly on canvas. In fact, I have about 50 sketchbooks that have been archived recently, made since I moved back to LA in 1997.

The four new paintings and graphite drawings I am working on for the show touch in a satirical way on the delicate and controversial subject of genetically enhanced and modified plants and organisms. The subject raises serious issues about the long term implications of corporate modified products intended to both enhance and streamline products designated for mass consumption. Monsanto along with other companies are producing both products and organisms that have already been introduced into the environment and are causing major disturbances in ecosystems worldwide. The fear is that these genetically engineered plants and organisms will have a devastating and irreversible effect on the natural balance in these living systems. I have taken a few of these ideas to an eco-surrealist and absurdist extreme.

I have mixed feelings about the state of the world and our future. The balance between our ability to sustain or destroy all life on Earth is a condition and mindset we have adapted to since the invention of the atomic bomb, and now with the threat of catastrophic oil spills and what has become very clear the dangers of nuclear power. I think the crisis in Japan though originally caused by the tsunami is a loud awakening that there are certain technologies that we are still learning to control, and in this case it seems clear that we should step away from the path to reliance on nuclear power. At the root is the power of corporations, driven by profit and not by that which is both good for the environment and in this instance safe for all living organisms. The film Gas Land touches on this very well. I am speaking about alternative environmentally safe sources for generating power, like solar, wind, and water. I have serious doubts if we will see this kind if change happen in the US anytime soon, as we are witnessing the rise of the right wing and the growing influence of the tea party movement, and the fall of the power of individuals and the rights of unions. I am terrified, just today the federal funding for NPR was cut, all I can do is try to pay attention, be active where and when I can, and vote. Though they make me mad as hell, I do find listening to progressive left wing radio stations both liberating and encouraging, and that there is a large majority of people out there who want to see a real change in this country and not towards the extremist right.

Getting back to the point, in reality the world will die with the sun, I am sure by then we will have found another planet or two to call our new home. In the meantime, with the environmental crisis escalating and civil wars breaking out all over it feels like the world is having a mid life crisis. This could just be the fact that the Internet and viral sharing of information is at a level the world has never seen or witnessed before. The ripple effect is stronger now than ever before, its like the video footage of birds swarming and flying in undulating masses, that’s a metaphor for the virtual world mind, it flows and moves and is directed by emotion. It’s the cerebral cortex of the world, and its beautiful, seeing the exchange of information and thoughts on a global level gives me hope. Except for the viral buzz surrounding Charlie Sheen, someone should help him unplug and get onto the therapists couch. So when a catastrophe occurs we are virtually enveloped by it, it is amplified and then the news stations quickly turn it into a Hollywood production and mythologize it. This is the structure of how future events will play out in the public sphere. I find it interesting to compare different news stations and study how they deliver and filter the same information. That is why again with the attempted muffling of NPR we cannot allow FOX News to emerge as the sole source of world news. I tend to listen to a lot of audio books while I work and have been turning more and more Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Naomi Klein and others who address issues of the adverse effects of the balance of power related to profit, progress and production. At the moment I am both horrified and ecstatic about the events in the world, revolutions, uprisings, natural and man made disasters, on and on. I keep waiting for a moment to catch my breath but I think those days are gone. I am however hopeful on the level of the green movement, and civil, and workers rights, there is a sense of coming together on a global level, and it will be interesting to see if the human population can organize and work together to influence and change the way certain governments and corporations operate to serve the interest of the many instead of an elite minority.

It was in the early 90's with the art crew Artfux and Ron English, when he began crushing the streets, modifying street signs, developing "slap in the face" billboard campaigns, and using his art as a tool for the social consciousness and awareness. Since his pioneering days Jorge Rodriguez Gerada has expanded his artistic horizons, his geography and his ability to go big with incredibly photo realistic illustration on walls, streets and whatever medium he can get his hands on around the world.

In the words of a true poet Gerada says; "Charcoal fades away and becomes a memory, like the warmth after an embrace". With that in mind, Fecal Face is proud to bring you the boundless art and ideals of Jorge Rodriguez Gerada. - Manuel Bello

I come from a Cuban exile family that moved to the States when I was three years old. I grew up in North Plainfield, New Jersey and moved into Manhattan when I was 19. I became one of the founders of the New York City culture jamming movement with the group Artfux. We were altering a lot of billboards and did a good amount of guerrilla art actions. By 1997 I stopped working with collectives and started to experiment more with urban semiotics by altering street signs as well. In May of that year I was interviewed by Naomi Klein for a Village Voice article that was later included in her book “No Logo”. Unlike my previous direction, I was purposely avoiding names and logos that have been engraved in society through advertising. I became disillusioned with the culture jamming movement because some of the major players involved at the time began using it as a stylistic device for personal media attention. It became apparent that it was just part of their marketing plan to sell a clothing line or toy line later in their careers.

Thanks to Daniel Rolnik (danielrolnik[at]@gmail.com) for conducting this great interview for Fecal Face.

One of the most prolific and recognizable artists alive today, Ron English has bombed the global landscape with unforgettable images, on the street, in museums, in movies, books and television. English coined the term POPaganda to describe his signature mash-up of high and low cultural touchstones, from superhero mythology to totems of art history, populated with his vast and constantly growing arsenal of original characters, including MC Supersized, the obese fast-food mascot featured in the hit movie “Supersize Me,” and Abraham Obama, the fusion of America’s 16th and 44th Presidents, an image widely discussed in the media as directly impacting the 2008 election. Other characters carousing through English’s art, in paintings, billboards, and sculpture include three-eyed rabbits, udderly delicious cowgirls and grinning skulls, blending stunning visuals with the bitingly humorous undertones of America’s Premier Pop Iconoclast.

Trial and error. I had a gig painting landscapes a long time ago at one of those production houses where they taught me a lot of techniques. I also worked for a few different artists, so I had to learn how to mimic their styles.

I did some paintings for Rohhny Decone, Larry Rivers, Marcus Darvy. When I first moved to New York in the 80’s I was a ghost painter. Yeah, it’s a good job to work and you get paid.

Oh yeah. It’s funny because I always get what I wish for, but it’s kind of like the old genie in a bottle thing – I wish that I could have people see all my paintings and the paintings I would make [for those artists] would end up in museums, it’s true. I always forgot to ask “could I sign them” but it’s not really your thing. It’s like if you go on tour with the Rolling Stones and you’re the bass player, you’re not really in the band and you don’t think you’re in the band –maybe after 30 years or so you think you’re in the band like Ron Wood [guitar]. It’s funny because it’s someone else’s art, they’ve built their own language, and if you went to art school there’s a certain amount of that stuff that you can just do. Their art was more about their concepts and I did it because I wanted to learn a lot of techniques.

Well Mark was probably the ultimate situation because initially there were only 3 other painters working with me, but later there were like 40. Guys were coming in from Russia and Poland, people who were trained as master painters and knew all the technique. And even from day one Clark Decarro was a classically trained painter from Canada, so he showed me how to make glazes, but it’s interesting to do something with someone sitting right next to you and where you can say “Why is this not working” and they’ll be respond by saying “here’s what you’re doing wrong”. They’re all there with you and I think that’s the best learning environment - when you can’t overcome something and there’s someone to show you how to do it right there. There are always bumps in the road, eventually you can figure it out on your own, you can read books, there are a lot of things you can do. If you want to get somewhere you’re going to get there, but it’s always nice to have a set of directions.

I have two assistants. One assistant comes in one day a week and stretches the canvasses and the other guy pretty much does everything - like all those weird houses with the comics all over them that are in the paintings. He puts together the houses and then puts the comic book collages on them and then he’ll set up the shot. When we were at Art Basil last week painting a big mural he took lined up and shook all the spray paint.

I mean all that time it takes to do that stuff slows us down and the fact that they are doing all that for us is just amazing.

Sometimes they put too much pressure in the cans, so you turn them upside down and relieve some of the pressure. If you turn them upside down it just sprays, it doesn’t release the paint. And, as soon as you’re done spray painting you turn the can upside down so paint wont dry in the tip and ruin it. It’s also good if you want to do fine lines to make the pressure [in the can] super low. You never quit learning, you just don’t.

One of my friends learned a lot of his techniques from reading books, but I’m just not much of a reader.

I caught up with Corey earlier this week and asked him a couple questions that hopfully aren’t duplicative and the one question that everyone who has seen it wants to know, “When can we get the DVD?” The film is multi-layered and while skating plays a central role in the film, if was replaced by, let’s say pogo-balling it would not have hurt the main content of the film. Although, it would have been pretty funny to see Steve Olson on a pogo-ball.

Interview and photos by Isaac McKay-Randozzi

I have a film called Machotaildrop that is playing at the SF indie fest.

The screening will be held at the Roxie theater.

I have been there a few times. We actually shot a small piece of the film there with Frank Gerwer. Who hopefully knows about the screening. He is a very hard man to get a hold of. Frank if you read this we would love to see you there!

Well we are hoping for both. I am learning that getting a film out for people to hold in their hands is a very difficult task when you don’t really own the entire film. Others have there hands involved so we are dealing with higher powers.

Interview by Daniel Rolnik (danielrolnik[at]gmail.com)

The Heroes & Villains project got started in Los Angeles around 2005. Roman Cho (my co-photographer) and I knew it would be a long-term project and turn into a book, but we weren’t quite sure who would be in it. We just knew who the first people would be and it just kind of snowballed from there.

I was photographing a lot of street artists prior to the project because they were friends of my husband, who was an avid collector of Sheppard Fairey’s work. I’d go with the artists on their missions and because my husband knew them they didn’t put up too much of a stink about me being there. I went to their houses, hung out, took some photos, and it developed into where I gained their trust and was able to take their portraits. Because the street-artists didn’t want their identity revealed, I would always reassure them I was just taking portraits for a personal project and I was going to keep them to myself for now.

As time went on, Roman Cho and I were looking for personal work to do because I wanted to shoot more portraits but couldn’t find the time. Roman was assisting photographers and I was a pretty busy lady working full time at a day job as well as freelancing. We had worked together before when I was at an ad agency and we complimented each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We felt that working with another photographer would motivate us more to finish the project. He initially thought of photographing comic book artists to compliment my portraits of street-artists, but we started to notice there was an overlap between the styles that was indefinable.

And Travis Miller, Jordan Crane... it was LA, it was a particular niche of artists all hanging out and doing their thing.

I actually ended up working with David Choe for a very brief time. He had a comic book for sale at an ice cream shop that I used to take my daughter to. My husband and I bought it and brought it back to the agency where we worked. The creative director loved it and hired Choe to illustrate something. I don’t know if he ended up working with them much more than a day. It was most likely his first and last foray working for the man. That was in 2004, a really interesting time because street-art was getting co-opted by movie studios who were trying to do subversive ad campaigns. It became pretty clear that the street-art movement was starting to get a lot more attention. I certainly wasn’t there at the beginning of any of this happening, but I was for sure at the right place at the right time to explore it to the fullest.

Ron English called him Rembrandt with a Spray Can... He's damn talented.

I moved over in May. The transition has been amazing, the winter is taking a little adjusting, but it's been a great experience, I feel really at home in New York.

We have a culturally ingrained system of ego destruction called tall poppy syndrome, which basically cuts anyone who's head rises above the crowd off at the knees. It helps keep us all pretty down to earth, but it's a blessing and a curse, especially when you're in a creative field.

Ron has been someone I've looked up to for a long time and to have him be so supportive of my move to New York and of my work has been amazing and very surreal.

Very good question!! But somehow I can’t find an answer to this, strange isn't it? It might be the reason that I don't search I just find.

For me it is the north coast of Spain, between France and Portugal. The irregular coastline gives many different kinds of beaches. Every evening I decide the best beach for the next day by looking at the wind and wave forecast. I drive to this beach with my van and the first thing in the morning after waking up is surf. Spain is the only south European country where it is legal to sleep at the beach in your car. I never go to Mundaka though…

I don't believe in convincing. I just work with women that like and enjoy to be naked. I’m also interested in wired, non-fashion, non-porn and politically incorrect photos.

Interview by Daniel Rolnik

I prefer to own cats since they use a litter box, unlike dogs that need to go out on “walks”, a process that should be more accurately termed “shits”… Nevertheless, I appreciate dogs and enjoy their idiotic enthusiasms.

I mostly listen to different online stations so the mixes are always different. These days I have been listening to Sir Coxson Sound, Twilight Circus, BLOOD, Alien Dread, Yabby You, Sound Ministry, Mentor Kolectiv, Dublab, just a whole mess of weird stuff. There are a few strange stations that play “Ethnodub”, a hybrid dub from India and other off beat places featuring Jahtari Riddum Force, ah Seal, Zomby, Jah Batta & Bullwackies All Stars, Ustad Sultan Khan & Sunidhi Ch, Kid Gusto, Sanchez Dub and Phat Boy Singh.

First off I just wanna say that I seldom try out color combinations on the computer, I prefer to work with “real” colors in “real” light. Anyway, I print out the line drawing then project it onto the canvas with a large opaque projector. I use Photoshop CS5 or CS2 depending on what computer I’m using.

Name: Lola Dupre, Age : 28, Location, between several locations in Scotland, my main studio is in Glasgow and I also work and live in two remote studios in the far north of the country. I consider Glasgow my home town, but I was born in Algeria. And spent my childhood in Paris France and London England.

I have always created collage, since I was 9 or 10. But I spent most of my teenage years experimenting with papier-mache and this was my real initiation into photomontage. With papier-mache I made 3D forms, the surface of which was composed of many pieces of paper stuck down upon paper. I was always very interested in this accidental photomontage and it led me to my first experiments towards the photomontage style that I do today.

Indeed, I use multiple prints of the same image, printed on (typically) A4 and A3 paper. And I also generally print a few different crops of the same image, so that when they are combined in one piece you have several sizes which can be manipulated together. The process itself of mapping out, and sticking down each individual piece does take a long time, I guess my average working time would be between 20 and 30 hours per image.

Using the right glue, brushes and scissors you can get pretty quick, and with a bit of practice you dont smudge any glue. If you think of some of Jean-Paul Goude's work with Grace Jones, this is what I do, just with more pieces.

PR: We are proud to announce Mark Mulroney’s second show at Ever Gold Gallery, “I’m Trying Really Hard.” It will be a show of reasonably tasteful works that address contemporary issues such as malnourishment and decorative pumpkin carving --> Mulroney is represented by Mixed Greens Gallery in NYC and Ebersmoore Gallery in Chicago. He has also shown in Copenhagen at V1 Gallery, National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, and Park Life in San Francisco --> He currently lives and works out of Rochester, NY.

Buffalo is a fine place indeed but I live in Rochester also known as Rock City or Smugtown USA, although since the riots in '64 and factories closing down a lot of that smugness has worn off. Living here has been quite an adjustment but it has been good for me. I don't see any other artists and I don't go to any shows. It is pretty hard to get caught up in all the petty competition when you just sit in your room and work. Also minor league baseball is the greatest thing ever. My wife and I pack sandwiches and ride our bikes to the Rochester Redwings games.

-----
Glen Friedman is showing works from two of his books, Fuck You Heroes and Fuck You Too, at the 941 Geary Gallery in San Francisco starting tomorrow night, Nov 6th. These photos have been touring the world for the better part of a decade and half, and so they’ll be familiar to many of you already. The point of the show, then, may not be to see these photos for the first time, but to see them again and be reminded of why they’re so firmly a part of this culture (skateboarding, punk rock, hip hop) that we love so much. Additionally, we’ll get to see some of Friedman’s collaborations with Shepard Fairey.

In advance of the opening, this Saturday, November 6th, I spoke with Friedman over the phone (after an elaborate ritual by which I contacted his publicist, who then e-mailed Glen my contact information, who then called me from his blocked number—a level of secrecy and intense concern for privacy I’d never experienced before [maybe I’ve been interviewing the wrong people so far?]). What I took away from our talk was part awe at an inarguably legendary photographer (one whose work I personally admire and find greatly inspiring), and part confoundment due to Friedman’s lack of humility and his bitter disdain for art he dislikes and for any criticism of those he holds in high esteem.

In short, during our brief chat, Friedman lived up to every expectation I’d held; every anecdote of pompousness seemed to me truer after having spoken to him, but likewise, my appreciation of his doggedness and artistry was also more actual and, in a way, deserved. At the end of it, the idea was only reinforced that there’s no true answer to the question of art vs. artist. Whether or not art can be separate from its creator, we live in a world of copyrighted images and brand names, and our discussion of a work of art takes place within a framework of context and intent. Regarding something and being able to appreciate it based purely on aesthetic grounds is noble and maybe the only true measure of its value as art, but our valuations remain colored by our own biases. But still, but still, Glen Friedman has made some of the most beautiful and important and inspiring images of the past 30 years. They’re even in the Smithsonian.

Anyhow, here’s the first part of the interview. Take from it what you will.

GF: There will be two new photos added at the last moment, that I literally took this month, or in October, two photos that I took that I thought were pretty cool, to show people that I’m still doing it sometimes.

GF: They’re just music photos. I have been shooting skating stuff as well, but I didn’t put one of those in the show. I just liked the music stuff. One of the music shots [was] this really young band that I don’t even know what to make of them at this point, but I had a really good time at the show so I shot some photos and I got a picture that I think is my favorite photo of the year, or one of them anyway, so I figured I should put it in the show because it’s so bad ass.

*Vancouver based Lucas Soi opens Cradle Stories at The Shooting Gallery in SF on Saturday, Oct 9th. Niall spoke with Lucas and touched on his working method, living and working in Vancouver and how the work in Cradle Stories focuses on suburban teenagers and the dark undertones prevalent.

Oh yeah?

Oh cool. Growing up in West Van is crazy. It's great, but you definitely grow up with a warped sense of reality; you're totally ignorant to how other people live. It's this weird combo of beach town and retirement community. The only people you find in West Van are babies, teens, MILFs and old people.

I think being young, you're closer to conception than to existence. Meaning you're really closer to death than life. If you're fourteen years old, surrounded by your parents who are, say, triple you’re age, you're closer to "just being born" than to "everyday life". So destruction, which is a kind of creation in reverse, is closer to your understanding, maybe? When you're growing up you're always looking backwards, comparing what you can do now to what you couldn't do before. There's not a lot of forward thinking, no matter how many adults are helping you navigate the way. So maybe the darkness that you see in these drawings is just the connection all youths have to that unknown place where we come from, and where we go when we die.

The exhibition opens at Grand Central Art Center on November 6, 2010 and runs through January 8, 2011, then will be presented by Flagstaff Cultural Partners at the Coconino Center for the Arts, Jan. 22 through Feb. 25, 2011.

We recently had a chance to do a quick interview with Jud Bergeron about the works presented in the show through email.

Joe came to my studio in NY 3 times and each time we would just make stuff, sometimes ceramic figures that we would pass back and forth until we liked them, sometimes wax figures that we would cast in bronze, just stuff. Joe would go back to AZ and we would talk everyday and send hundreds of phone pics and the work just sort of evolved. It became a call and response sort of thing, I would think of strange situations to put these figures in and then we would change the idea a hundred times until we hit on what felt right.

I would say that the 'higher power/helplessness' feeling you are sensing is probably a function of where we were in our personal lives at the time. When we started working my son (Fletcher) was around 6 months old and I was still coming to terms with being a new father. Also, the country was in shambles and the art market had just taken a nose dive so there was this feeling of 'oh shit! How am I going to support this family?' Joe had things going on in his life as well and we were not only creating art together but it seemed like we were counseling one another as well. I would describe these figures in the most basic sense, they are dealing with their environment. We really wanted these pieces to be truly sculptural in nature yet still maintain the narrative that is so prevalent in painting and in doing so what we ended up with were these environments or situations that these figures inhabited and the goal was to create beautiful pieces that left the viewer with questions and a smile.

Johnny Ryan's utterly unpretentious taboo-tackling is an infectious and hilarious bombardment of political incorrectness, taking full advantage of the medium's absurdist potential for maximum laughs. In an age when the medium is growing up and aspiring to more mature and hoity-toity literary heights, Ryan builds on the visceral tradition that cartooning has had on our collective funny bone for over a century. Johnny was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in shitty Plymouth, just a mile away from the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant. He now lives in Los Angeles with his wife.

"Generally speaking, [Johnny Ryan's] comics are really dumb & infantile, and prove beyond a doubt that chemical pollution, television, video games, pop music, etc. is making us all stupider by the minute..." – R. Crumb

SP: The work is a barrage of symbols and signs. It’s dense stuff that also seems fit to just be “in the moment”, not only as some mutilation of the bizarre nature of things but also embracing the ways of seeing to varying degrees. You know, as drawings, comics strip and other visual forms. My current works are like celebrations to living at the start of a very weird age.

My conceptual framework hurtles into these different directions and they always seem organic and mine. I’m producing floorshows and farewell concerts with the FRIENDSHIP FRIENDS FOREVER (rainbow band), making videos under the TELEVISION FOR GHOSTS / 2084 FLOORSHOW umbrella, and making images that relay the totemic themes behind all the other work. I shuffle around in formats but the big difference is how close they are to me, personally.

Before I moved to SF I was just a writer, and words just made so much sense to me. Then they seemed phony, manipulative and limited in a world with hypertext in it, a world with so much goddamn subtext to what was lurking under in it’s big storm of changes, in its unconscious birthing of memes. Words were meaningless in the face of the connections between them, in the changing face of how books were produced, in the questions concerning the changes in information retrieval itself. This was big to me - the new ways of experiencing “stuff”, from how we communicated these changes to the part that images play with culture and memory. So I went from writing dialogues to making data maps.

Then I got into imagery again, especially the Medusa, the representation of the incomprehensible. That’s what got me into The Tormentors – relationships - the walls between things breaking down. It was car crashes. Have you ever seen one? It's like that Raymond Carver story "Popular Mechanics", it's a raw moment of chance and horrible corrupted beauty. Things change irrevocably. Well, the drawings... They're my landscape of these feelings - the innate vile beauty of car crashes, the taste of sweat, the medusa's gaze, sexual fantasies, self representation, time and memory - that whole gag. What's the personal side of a good sinner?

SP: Hey man, are you going put some cool hyperlinks?

SP: It’ll make it all so much clearer.

SP: Cool.

I was born in Santarém, Portugal and moved to Lisbon one year later. I grew up in a middle-class suburbs on the south side of Lisbon. I remember feeling like a bit of an outsider as a kid. I started getting involved in graffiti and skateboarding and hanging around in the street with my friends and creating all sorts of different things. I have also been very lucky and had many opportunities to travel beginning at a very young age.

I currently live near the Beach in the south side of Lisbon (Caparica) but I have my studio in the centre of Lisbon where I spend most of my time.

My new show is inspired by all things Kawaii and my love for Japan. Kawaii is a Japanese term that means supreme saturated cuteness, delicious adorable things. When I see something that is Kawaii, I get a warm feeling in my tummy and I want it and must have it!

The show is very influenced by my trips to Japan. I love all the amazing fashions I saw there on the street. I love the toys, advertisements, food, charms, gardens and I love the people! The first time I heard the term “Kawaii” was when a girl on the street in Tokyo pointed at one of my heart candy tattoos on my arm and said, “kawaii, kawaii!!” I right away asked my friend who is studying in Japan what that meant, and I loved the idea of it. I have been working on this show for over a year now and I have never felt so strongly about paintings or a subject.

Aiyana Udesen: FCA is three kids that draw for a living and don't have bosses. We make sure that none of us is slacking off.

Aiyana Udesen: A package of unfinished art ends up on our doorstep. We decide how to screw it up and then send it back.

Aiyana Udesen: They always have the same name. Future Colors of America.

A short interview with this Philadelphia based artist whose show opens at White Walls here in SF on the 14th of March.

Alex does a lot... For the last 10 years or more he's been producing zines through Cantab Publishing. He creates wonderful mixed media works incorporating silkscreening processes... He's a somewhat recent graduate of Rhode Island School of Design. He's a member of Philly's artists collective Space 1026 which we've been fans of over the years. He's also Fecal Face's new Philadelphia corespondent, and the good news is that he's going to be showing some of his newer works here in San Francisco for his solo show "And Another Shall Rise To Take Her Place" which opens Saturday, March 14 at White Walls (3/14 - 4/3). We conducted this short interview through email to see what he has in store for the show.

It is going to be about 30 new works on paper.

27

With "And Another Shall To Take Her Place", I don't know, I was trying to title the show something that eludes to some destruction, in that whatever came before has fallen, but also speaks to an idea of an eventual renewal and rebirth. It is a sentiment that implies both defeat and optimism at once, and that idea is something I am interested in.

I have taken to calling them "disaster drawings", but I guess that is just a simple way for me to distinguish this body of work from other things I make. I'm not quite sure how I'd describe them beyond that, other than I hope they are kind of quite drawings.

I think using a silkscreen really allows you to achieve a look that you just can't get with paint and a brush. I really like the way, with silk screening, you can overlap transparent colors to really build up a texture while keeping the surface flat. I can't make it look that way with any other method. And I like doing it.

There are two major places I use silkscreen in my work. First, a lot of the grass fields that appears in my drawings are silk-screened. I try to be real scientific about the way the transparent inks layer. There are so many variables from what mesh count you use, to what brand of ink you have, to how you pull the squeegee, you need to be scientific about it. My grass pattern starts with a hand painted positive I use to create the screen, from there I made a whole bunch of test patterns to see what different color combinations look like, and by keeping track of which color comes goes over what and which ink I use, I am able to control how the grass will look.

I also use silk screening to create the flooded cityscapes. They start as book pages, then I mask out the buildings that I want to appear above the waterline. Over the whole page I do a "rainbow roll" (I think split pallet is the technical term) of ink through an open screen to get the flat transparency at the bottom that fades into an opaque color at the top. Then I am able to paint in reflections and other details. Over that I do anywhere from two to five more pulls of ink through various screens to create the waves before I remove the masking that I put down at the beginning.

I think the re is a mis-conception that somehow incorporating printmaking into the process is a time-saver. It really isn't, I mean, while the time you spend actually sitting in front of each piece might be slightly shorter, the preparation, planning and experimentation easily makes any time difference negligible, but the benefits still outweigh the downsides. I need to use these methods to make the images I want.

Cantab Publishing is a small 'zine publishing company I have been running for about eight years now. I have always been interested in printed material as a means of distributing ideas, and Cantab is just the name under which I try to do that. I think that the form of a book is really a great way to share ideas and visions; the combination of text and image in a format with a beginning, a middle and an end can be really compelling. Having said that, I don't really have a set plan for Cantab, or a mission statement (or a business plan for that matter), other than I like making books and this is my venue to do that. Xeroxing and silk screening images and giving them to friends has been something I have enjoyed for a long time. I think I was in like 6th grade when I made my first Xeroxed comic to give to kids in class. I have a bunch of zines almost ready to come out, they have been like 90% done for months, and hopefully they will actually be finished by the end of spring. That is really my next focus once White Walls is up.

For those who don't know, Space 1026 is an 11-year old artists collective in Center-city Philadelphia. It was started by a bunch of RISD grads and other kids from Philly living in Providence in the late 90's. It was loosely modeled after a space up there called Fort Thunder. 1026 was founded by kids who wanted to have a similar place to make work and have shows in Philadelphia.

I have been there for about a year and a half. About 30 of us share the top two floors of 1026 Arch street, where have studios along with a print shop, a small retail store and a collective run art gallery. It is non-profit in the sense that we don't make any money, but we are not a 501(c) or anything as organized as that. It is really just a nice way to work around other like-minded people, not to mention it makes rent cheaper. The gallery space we run is really a great opportunity to show good art in Philadelphia without the constraints of trying to run a commercial gallery. We invite artists from around the country (and sometimes world) to show in our gallery on a monthly basis. We look at proposals a few times a year and decide on what we show as a group. We are excited to be able to show people with very little experience one month while the next we might have people like Andrew Schoultz or Monica Canilao showing with us. Over the past ten years, we have shown Ed Templeton, the Fort Thunder kids, Paper Rad, Matt Leines, Steve Powers, Daniel Johnson, Alex DeCorte, Shepard Fairey and so many others.

Right now we have a really exciting show featuring Michelle Blade from San Francisco (who I am sure Fecal Face fans are familiar with), Jeanette Mundt, Suzannah Sinclair and Erika Somogyi, who are all living and working in Brooklyn. We also have Bill Daniels, Matthew Palladino and Derek Weisberg coming in the next few months; I know those three all have strong ties to the Bay Area. It seems like Phila and SF have a nice back and forth these days.

I've only been living here a year and a half or so, but I really like this city, and there is a whole lot going on here, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to share.

I think art school is really about who you end up there with and what you focus on, one of those things you can control, the other you can't. I was lucky to end up around a really strong, motivated group of kids, which was lucky, and Providence, as a city, was a really interesting, good place to be at the time (I'm sure it still is). R.I.S.D. as a whole was great, but in retrospect, I think I should have majored in Printmaking.

I'm trying to get up earlier than I have in the past, bike to 1026, check e-mail and ship Cantab orders. Then I usually do some printmaking and finally work on drawings starting into the afternoon and into the evening, then go home and put on a movie and work on masking the flooded city pieces (like I described before) until I'm ready to go to sleep. But there is really a lot of flexibility to that schedule, some days it feels like I don't get much done, but that's okay every now and then. The past few weeks have been busy getting ready for White Walls, trying to get the work photographed and figuring out frames, then this week, after the work was shipped, I have been focusing on getting the 1026 gallery ready for the next show which opens on Friday the 6th.

I just got a copy of Springsteen Live at the Hammersmith Odeon in London from 1975. I have also been getting a big kick out of watching old videos where the artists are just clearly out of their mind on drugs. My two favorites are Van Morison singing Caravan from Scorsese' The Last Waltz and Rod Stewart singing You Wear it Well in these crazy yellow tights. He falls down when he tries to curtsy and then walks on and off stage a few times, but it is still an amazing song. Other than that, it is just the usual diet of classic rock radio peppered with a little Talking Heads binge every now and then.

I'm bad with titles, which is why most of my work is untitled. There is a certain poetry that needs to goes into titling stuff, and I'm no poet. Having said that, I really enjoy the ambiguity that can come with an untitled piece.

Some photos into the silkscreen process

*If you're in or near San Francisco, be sure to see Alex's show which opens this Saturday @White Walls.

{moscomment}