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.

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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.