Inès Longevial Julian Schnabel Theresa Chromati

Art & Culture

INÈS LONGEVIAL
//
JULIAN SCHNABEL
//
THERESA CHROMATI
//
REBECCA LOUISE LAW
//
ESCIF
//
JILLIAN EVELYN

SPRING 2018, n205 USA $9.99 / CAN $10.99

DISPLAY UNTIL JUNE 4, 2018
Spring 2018, n205
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CONTENTS

Spring 2018
ISSUE 10 32
Editor's Letter Design
205 Swiss Perfection

14 in the studio of
Serge Lowrider
Studio Time
James Jean’s Clean,
Well-Lighted Place 36 76 116
to Paint Fashion Julian Jillian Evelyn
Color and Comfort by Schnabel
Calle Del Mar
18
The Report
The Kandors
42
Experience by Influences
Mike Kelley Silhouettes and Stories
in Pejac’s World

22 126
Product 46 86 Escif
Reviews Travel Insider Theresa
SALT. Optics,
Asheville’s Mountains,
Murals, and Moonshine
Chromati 134
Carhartt WIP and
Events
Excel Blades
Superchief NY,
50 MOCA Tucson,
24 In Session LSU Museum of Art,
Jack Shainman,
Visual Development
Picture Book Carriageworks
Developed at AoAU
RFK, memory and
The Train at SFMOMA
54 96 136
On the Franco “JAZ” Sieben on Life
Six Pack with
Outside Fasoli Morning Breath
Art In the Ordinary

60 138
Book Reviews Pop Life
Miami, NYC,
Wackers, Ballen,
Copenhagen,
Bernhardt, Tal R,
Los Angeles,
Skate Fashion and
San Francisco
Artists Who Make
Books 106
Rebecca 142
Louise Law Perspective
RIP, Ed Moses

6 SPRING 2018 Right: Inès Longevial, Summer I See You, Oil on canvas paper, 24” x 32”, 2017
66
Inès
Longevial
STAFF

FOUNDER PRESIDENT + PUBLISHER A DV E R T I S I N G + S A L E S D I R E C TO R

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Juxtapoz ISSN #1077-8411 Spring 2018 Volume 25, Number 02

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8 SPRING 2018 Cover: Inès Longevial in her Paris studio, Photo by Fiona Torre, 2017
HERAKUT’s
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EDITOR’S LETTER
Issue NO 205
“I always wanted to be an artist, nothing else
interested me.” I use this as a starting point for
the Spring 2018 issue because rarely do we get
such a succinct and simple declaration of intent
that sums up all that will come after. I’m not sure
it’s a case of arriving at a particular age myself, or
maybe a few questions raised in an interview
I did a few months ago with fellow writer/curator,
Jeff Hamada, but I have been obsessed with the
timeline in which creative people just sort of…
go for it. They push away the societal pressure, or
the financial comforts of maybe being a doctor,
lawyer or hedge fund manager to become what
is at times the best thing to tell guests at a dinner
party, and the most in need of explanation. I am
an artist, and nothing else interests me.
Spoken by Rebecca Louise Law, the London-based
installation artist who you will read about later in
this issue, these words echo in the interviews with
Serge Lowrider, Theresa Chromati, cover artist Inès
Longevial, recently-graduated art school student
Abigail Muñoz, street artists Franco Fasoli and
Escif, and even one of contemporary art’s most
famed painters, Julian Schnabel. The interviews
10 SPRING 2018
in this issue are about a certain kind of boldness
in defying expectations. Regardless of the country
of your birth, or how ingrained artistic culture is
within your life, to follow through and actively
participate in the arts as a profession might feel like
an insane thing to tell parents, friends or teachers,
math test in hand. I assume that more than 50%
of the people in your life thought you were crazy
if you did this. I’m sure people told Serge Lowrider
that traditional and classic hand-painted signs
were outmoded, a career of the past. I can only
assume James Jean shocked a few family members
when his love of illustration made him one of
the most famous comic book artists ever. Inès
Longevial could have continued to successfully
focus on commercial art for the rest of her life,
but a love of fine art painting was such a constant
exploration, she is now known widely around the
world for her beautiful works. “I always wanted to
be an artist, nothing else interested me.” It makes
so much sense for so many artists.
It’s important to reiterate these words because
I wish more people in my youth had told me to go
for it. I seemed to be screaming it at anyone who
would listen, but school structure, at times, can
thwart such interests. Be an artist. Be a writer.
I didn’t have that encouragement, nor do I think
many people do. And so, sometimes I think it’s
powerful that a kid from England wanted nothing
else but to be an artist, and, 20 years later, created
a breathtaking flower installation at Art Basel
like Rebecca Louise Law did. Artists make art
because they can’t help it. Theresa Chromati,
born in Baltimore, showed paintings at Untitled
in Miami Beach this past December that flipped
perspectives and were some of the best works I’ve
seen all year. Serge Lowrider saw the beginnings of
the digital age take over design, and 30 years later,
he’s running a studio producing some of the finest
screen printing the world can buy. From Argentina
to Asheville, this magazine will always celebrate
the artists who defy trends and traditions.
Enjoy Spring 2018.
Inès Longevial, Sisters on the Beach, Oil on linen canvas, 118” x 79”, 2017
WHAT DO YOU SEE… AN AMOEBA? A MELTING EYEBALL? OR SOME
RORSCHACHIAN BLOT? SHOW US. OR DON’T. IT’S ALL GOOD.
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The Lagunitas Brewing Company • 1280 N. McDowell Blvd, Petaluma, Calif., USofA, Earth, Sol, Milky Way, Local Group, Virgo Supercluster, Space
STUDIO TIME
James Jean
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place to Paint
My studio is an old home and art gallery
originally designed by Frank Gehry in Los
Angeles. The house was on the market for over a
year—it was in bad shape and the neighbors were
worried about it being demolished. I think it was
waiting for someone foolish like me to come along
and spend two years renovating it. My friend,
the architect Dan Brunn, did an amazing job
designing a beautiful, inspiring environment to
work in, and that’s what I've been doing here for
the past couple of years.
Since I work from home, there's always a lot of
activity around with visitors, kids, and the noises of
a busy kitchen. Sometimes it can be distracting, but
I find that I need some kind of stress or resistance
to keep my momentum up. I used to work in a
huge, dark warehouse studio in downtown LA,
14 SPRING 2018
frequently alone, and the fog of depression and
inactivity easily settled in. In my new studio,
there's a large pivoting wall that closes off my
workspace from the rest of the house, but I can
easily travel between the different spaces and alter
the mood. I suppose it's like wandering between
the different chambers of the mind. The studio
opens up to a landscaped garden past a large,
panoramic sliding glass door. Hummingbirds visit
daily to drink nectar from the flowers. Squirrels
come by and nibble on bamboo shoots, and when
it's dark, possums walk along the fence and set off
the motion detectors, reminding me that I'm not
the only nocturnal animal busy through the night.
Even though the renovations are complete, I still
need to figure out storage and organization. The
space is still new, so I expect it will keep evolving
as the other members of the family learn to stop
eating paint. Consequently, I'm unable to explore
more toxic and hazardous techniques at the
moment; but the current work is produced in a
very immaculate and methodical way, so that
hasn't become too much of a problem yet.
My next solo show is called Azimuth and will be
at Kaikai Kiki Gallery in Tokyo. Since I share the
studio with my three-year-old son, I'm surrounded
by coloring books, toys, and children's books
from Japan and the US. The aesthetics of design
for children has affected my paintings as I try to
compete with the ultra-saturated colors and kawaii
iconography that surround the studio. —James Jean
Jean’s’ solo show, Azimuth, will be on view at Kaikai
Kiki Gallery in Tokyo from April 6–May 3, 2018.
Studio photo by Brandon Shigeta
DANIEL AGDAG JOHN JACOBSMEYER

FEBRUARY 17 — MARCH 17, 2018 MARCH 31 — APRIL 28, 2018 MAY 12 — JUNE 9, 2018
D A N I EL AG D AG K O RA LIE KAI & SUNNY
JOHN JA C O B S M E Y E R J A M IE A DA M S

8 8 8 NEWA RK AVENUE ŇJERSEY CIT Y, NJ 07306 ŇJONAT H ANLEVINEP ROJECT S.CO M

REPORT
Regarded as one of the most influential
artists of his generation, Mike Kelley was a
maverick in his explorations of the relationship
between American low culture and elevated
conceptualism. As the subject of one of his last
projects, he chose to focus on the fictional city
of Kandor, which he discovered while reading
Superman comics in his youth. As the legend goes,
the city of Kandor, Superman’s birthplace on the
planet Krypton, was miniaturized and stolen by
the villainous Brainiac. The superhero ultimately
rescued the tiny city, encased within a laboratory
bell jar to preserve the Kryptonian atmosphere
its inhabitants required, and brought it to his
Fortress of Solitude for safekeeping as he searched
for a way to restore it to full size.
18 SPRING 2018
Above: Kandors Full Set,Tinted urethane resin, glass, silicone rubber, acrylic, celluloid, polyurethane, medium density fiberboard, wood veneer, and compact fluorescent lights,Dimensions variable, 2005 – 2009
Mike Kelley
The Kandors Experience
The iconic construct of Kandor had multiple
meanings for Kelley. It was a metaphor for
Superman’s alienated residence on the planet
Earth, as well as an illustration of the imagined
cities of the future. For the first time ever, the
entire series of work based on Kandor, created
from 2006 to 2011, was brought together in the
sprawling gallery spaces at Hauser & Wirth,
Los Angeles. This comprehensive exhibition
combined all of the disparate elements of
Kelley’s immersion into a conjured reality which
inevitably led to his personal obsession with
social isolation. Sadly, Kelley committed suicide
in 2012 after battling depression for most of his
life. Viewing the show induces a disquieting
sensation that reverberates with a dark
foreboding presence of the artist.
All images: “Mike Kelley: Kandors 1999 – 2011,” Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, 2017, Art © Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts. All Rights Reserved / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Upon entering, the viewer encounters
an introductory assemblage of signs and
objects centered around a proposed internet
communication forum called Kandor-Con, a
direct reference to the Comic-Con community.
Kelley’s original concept was to fabricate a
creative hub based on nostalgic imagination;
however, the proposed gathering of like-minded
fans never materialized. A collaborative sculpture
of a metropolis, created from strips of white foam
core, evolved during the course of the exhibition.
Also dominating this first room is a video loop of
an actor portraying Superman reciting sections
of writer Sylvia Plath’s lauded and lamented,
The Bell Jar, a direct reference to the container
surrounding the city of Kandor, and perhaps, an
implied connection to the notorious suicide of
 REPORT

the author. Was Kelley relating a premonition of
things to come—perhaps a foreshadowing of his
own fate?
The eeriness permeating the exhibition continues
into the next room where enormous bell jars
containing multi-colored silhouettes made of
translucent resin are illuminated from below,
glowing in the darkness. Borrowing from details
in panels from the Superman comic book series,
Kelley repurposed the utopian cities into his
own striking interpretations. Since the design
of the city was never copied in the same way by
the different artists who illustrated the stories, of industrial-sized gas tanks connected by hoses
resulting in hundreds of different images of to glass jars, each one swirling with atmospheric
Kandor, Kelley chose 20 versions and created particle storms. These air chambers refer to
refined cross sections as the basis for sculptures Krypton’s life-sustaining native atmosphere and
that alternate in shape and color. the tenuous instability of Kandor. Wall-sized
video projections depict the storms with sight
The finished vessels, hand-blown in Spanish and sound, as if to immerse the viewer within a
glass, happen to be the largest ever produced container of breathable sustenance.
in this manner. Appearing as jewel-like relics
glowing mysteriously in the darkened space, In the next room, a constructed movie set is
they set the tone for the rest of the show. In other entered from “backstage.” Within the theatrical
rooms, lenticular light boxes transform from one setting, a disturbing projection, based on a found
image to another as you move through a maze picture of a high school play production, depicts

Top left: Installation view, “Mike Kelley: Kandors 1999 – 2011,” Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, 2017 Top right: Lenticular 1, Lenticular panel, lightbox, 29.6” x 45.25” x 3.5”, 2007 JUXTAPOZ .COM 19
Bottom right: Kandor 10B (Exploded Fortress of Solitude), Mixed media with video projection, sound, 900” x 600” x 114”, 2011 Bottom left: Still from Superman Recites
Selections from “The Bell Jar” and Other Works by Sylvia Plath,Video,1999
REPORT

wandering troll-like creatures stuck in a mindless
limbo, immune to the forces of urban renewal.
The omnipresent feeling of loneliness and longing
lingers in perpetual purgatory. Kelley has brought
together these seemingly incoherent connections
to represent Superman’s conflict in dealing with his
superior powers and unresolved identity issues.
The last gallery, a vast warehouse space, is filled
with the artist’s interpretation of the Fortress of
Solitude. Here, Kelley constructed an ominous
black lava-covered cave forming a molten
diorama. A pair of enormous air tanks appear
to supply air to a cavernous grotto containing
a control room secreted within the confines
of a sustainable apparatus nurturing the city.
Another wall-sized video projection features five
flamboyantly dressed characters who prod, poke
and torture each other, confined to what seems
like their own personal hell. The culmination
of the journey ends in the discovery of a jewel-
encrusted crevice that radiates like a beacon
signaling the remnants of a discarded treasure.
The Kandor series does not ultimately
uncover any deep, dark secret into Superman’s
superiority, but instead reveals the inherent
in a projection of human fantasy. The fate of
Superman and his co-dependent Kandorians
remains spectacularly unresolved. Ultimately,
it’s an irrational enlargement of a minor, mostly
unknown detail from a famous comic book, its
cryptic layers of “context” opening a window into
the tormented psyche of a notable artist’s soul.
—Gregg Gibbs
Mike Kelley: Kandors 1999 – 2011 was on view at
Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles in January 2018.

20 SPRING 2018 Top: Kandor 10B (Exploded Fortress of Solitude), Mixed media with video projection, sound, 900” x 600” x 114”, 2011 Bottom left: Kandor 7, Mixed media with video
projection, sound, Dimensions variable, 2007 Bottom right: Installation view, “Mike Kelley: Kandors 1999 – 2011,” Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, 2017
REVIEWS

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PICTURE BOOK

The Train
Light At the End
of the Tunnel
“He took an assignment and made a work of
art.” Clement Cheroux, Curator of Photography,
condenses while expanding, in response to my
question about Paul Fusco’s photojournalistic essay
on The Train, opening at the SFMOMA on March
17, 2018. He and Assistant Curator Linde Lehtinen
started with a great acquisition, photographs from
the last portfolio of Fusco, whose books range
from Chernobyl Legacy to Sense Relaxation: Below
Your Mind. Seeking to enlarge the scope of the
collection of photos taken from Robert Kennedy’s
funeral procession, the curators sought other
artists who were inspired by Fusco’s 2008 book
RFK Funeral Train. Dutch artist Rein Jelle Terpstra
has explained, “in my work as a photographer and
artist, I’m always trying to reverse the relationship
between photography and memory.” His archive
of the snapshots and amateur movies, taken by the
people who actually gathered along the tracks on
June 8, 1968, includes a wall-sized reproduction
of the route, accompanied by these personal
memories. French artist Philippe Parreno’s film
dramatizes the mourners, concluding the show,
but not the memory. The soundtrack of clickety-
clack and chirping birds wafts in and out through
fields of silence in a dreamscape, capturing the
melancholy motion of the train. As Cheroux
observed, “The view from a train is different. You
see something, the track turns and you lose it.
The train is the perfect space to talk about loss.
Now you understand why this is not an historical
exhibition, but an art exhibition.”

The Train is on view at the San Francisco Museum of

Modern Art on March 17–June 10, 2018, right on time
for the 50th anniversary of RFK’s funeral.

“Suddenly, unexpectedly, the train broke out of the

tunnel into daylight, and I was astounded. There
were hundreds of mourners crowding together on
platforms, almost leaning into the train to get close
to Bobby. I jumped up to the window, slammed the
top panel down and claimed it as my space and
photographed everything I saw.” —Paul Fusco

24 SPRING 2018
PICTURE BOOK

JUXTAPOZ .COM 25
PICTURE BOOK
Clement and Linde expanded on their
research and curation of the exhibit during our
conversation:
The chief editor probably said, “Go there and get
photos.” They were probably interested in celebrities,
of shots of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Arlington
Cemetery. He took all of those photographs but they
26 SPRING 2018
were not as great as those he took from the train.
The burial was private, but people came to the
tracks. Nothing had been organized for the people
that day. Remember, there was no Facebook. They
came to present their last respects to RFK. The
assassination was such a shock; it was the peak
of the Vietnam War. People needed an occasion to
gather and this emerged as a civic moment.

We talked about whether it was important to talk
about every aspect of 1968. The show is about an
historical moment. You remember the Ambassador
Hotel, but our subject is the train, the way people
reacted to it and to that day. Robert Kennedy had
just spoken about Martin Luther King, who had just
been shot months before, so that makes it even more
poignant. So many communities came: men in white
business shirts, nuns in habits, African American
children with flags.
PICTURE BOOK
What Fusco did was not only function as a
photographer, but he understood the potential of the
subject. Some are blurry, but that is part of the quality
and it is something beautiful. The train started at
1:00 pm; it usually took four hours. But because of
the crowds, it took eight hours. You can see the light
change at the end of the afternoon, and as the light
goes down, it becomes more blurry. The last photos
are almost abstract.
JUXTAPOZ .COM 27
PICTURE BOOK
Dutch artist Rein Jelle Terpstra purchased Fusco’s
2008 book and became fascinated, especially when
he realized that many in the crowd had cameras.
He was interested in reversing the viewpoint, in
showing the opposite point of view by collecting and
sorting the photos they took. The idea percolated in
2011, and he launched the project in 2014. First he
went along the actual train route and, at one point,
actually knocked on doors. He went to historical
societies, but couldn't find them. The level of bearing
witness was not in archives or museums; it still
resided with the people. Realizing this, he visited
train enthusiast websites and Facebook groups where
he built up trust so that people invited him to their
homes where the pictures had been held in families
for generations. What fascinates is that, although the
images from the snapshot may be blurry, imperfect
or creased, this is what makes them part of memory.
How interesting that this how history endures.
28 SPRING 2018
Perrano re-enacts some of Fusco’s photos and creates
some of his own in the 7-minute movie made in 70
millimeter. The camera is on the train, and as the
route is re-enacted, you can hear with click of the
wheels, the rush of the grass and sound of the wind.
You can hear everything moving. The actors are
standing as if in a photograph, so you engage in
the photo, in the tension between the still and the
moving. The people are standing as if in photograph,
which creates an uncanny effect because people are
usually moving in a film. This feeling of suspension,
this feeling of floating, he refers to as the point of
view of the dead. Kennedy is present, but in a very
different way.
PICTURE BOOK

JUXTAPOZ .COM 29
DESIGN

The Swiss
Handyman
Lowrider of the Alps
Serge “Lowrider” Nideger is a beautiful
anomaly. Switzerland gave him the work ethic,
precision, discipline and modesty of “just doing
your job.” His travel experiences and countless
trips to the United States helped develop a unique
visual language that is 180 degrees away from his
motherland. The result? A uniquely rich career
balanced between producing art prints for famed
artists and galleries, and developing his own
identity applied across the globe through hand-
painted signs, walls, T-shirts, stickers and, of
course, screen prints. We chatted from his studio
in Fribourg, Switzerland on a cold January day,
reminiscing about early silkscreens, starting his
own business, and the Lowrider World.

Kimou “Grotesk” Meyer: Hello, Serge! How are

you? Glad I can finally interview you. We met
back in 2001, in Geneva, to talk about my first
silkscreen. We have become very close friends
since then, and you have been the only person
printing my fine art. There have been so many
exciting creative projects since we met!
Serge Lowrider: Hello Kimou, it's going very well.
Life is beautiful.

Tell me a little bit about how you started to

print and what gave you the urge to learn the
craft? You also told me that, at the time, your
apprenticeship included sign painting, right?
I started to collect stickers around eight or nine years
old. At the same time, I discovered screen printing at
a family friend’s house who was a decorator. It made
me realize that there was a job where I could make a
living producing what I loved and collected. I didn't
need much more to realize that this was going to be
my job. After this family visit, for years I kept saying
that when I grew up, I’d be printing stickers!
Stubborn as a lion, I never changed my mind.
After my mandatory and painful school years,
I quickly found a place to do an apprenticeship
in a small company that also employed graphic
designers and sign painters. It printed signs,
banners and, of course, stickers; but also art
editions, which I immediately liked a lot. During
my apprenticeship, I loved mixing colors, learning
that a medium too big to be printed must be done
with a brush, and I quickly learned to handle the
pounce wheel. It was only in my last year there
that my boss bought his first cutting plotter.
Unfortunately, it was the beginning of the 1990s
and the computer era. I have often said to myself
that I learned my trade ten years too late!
In Switzerland, the training of an apprentice takes
place in a company with one day of courses per
week in a professional school. I rubbed shoulders
with the sign painters, book binders, and more or
less, all the trades of the graphic and art production
world, and after three years, got a federal diploma
of capacities. There is nothing better in Switzerland
to begin your professional life.
Outside of your exceptional printing and sign-
painting skills, you are a great typographer,
illustrator and painter. When did you realize
that you had creative talent and passion for art?
I am still learning every day and I am still doing
my daily exercises, so the “talent” comes from
training like an athlete everyday. As far as my
passion for art, it came later, when I started to
travel and meet inspiring visual people. As a kid,
I was drawing a lot, but all kids do it, no? When
I became a teenager, I was bombing and it taught
me how to manage scale, letters, size and space.
So, in a way, I nourish and feed a passion that has
been there since I was a little kid.
What made you realize you needed to start your
own business?
After my apprenticeship, I quickly realized that
I needed to create my own screen-printing shop
in order to practice my craft. The beginnings
were slow and it allowed me to do self-promotion
material for the studio where I learned a lot about
mediums. I explored a lot of different graphic

32 SPRING 2018 Portrait by Julian Martin


and illustration styles as well. Pretty quickly,
artists and galleries asked me to produce editions
for them. This brought a lot of excitement and
inspiration in my daily life. It pushed me to be a
better craftsman and better artist on a daily basis.
You are a crazy picker. Since I’ve known you, I have
seen your vintage collection growing so much. You
have hundreds of vintage advertisement signs,
sports memorabilia, mid-century furniture, not to
mention all types of toys. What’s the importance of
those objects in your work? They look to me like a
giant mood board that surrounds you constantly.
I see you through those objects!
Sometimes I wonder if it’s not a mental disease
[laughs]. I think it’s hereditary. My mom passed
it on. As a kid, I would go pick with her in flea
markets, estate sales and antique stores. I started
to collect by necessity to furnish my apartment
and studio when I was young and broke, and then
it grew into a full passion. I think I have a really
good eye in scoring rare artifacts. I found a lot of
inspiration in flea markets, just browsing: type on
All Lowrider studio photography by Kimou Meyer
book covers, a color palette on a vinyl, or a vintage
T-shirt.
I love to dig and I am patient. I can wait months to
score something I want. Never eBay! I am proud to
have an eBay-free collection. I guess there is also
part nostalgia in this. A lot of the objects I have
purchased have a production quality that’s long
gone with the mass-produced, made-in-China,
throwaway culture of today.
You live in the middle of hills full of cows in
central Switzerland, in a village of eight houses,
and your studio is in Fribourg, an historical and
medieval town with a rich history. How come
you know so much about streetwear, basketball,
graffiti, surfing and everything that comes from
the States? You literally know more about the
American underground culture than most of the
people I know in Brooklyn!
That’s a hard one to answer; I don’t know. I guess,
since I was a teenager, I was alway hungry and
interested to learn about what was going on in
DESIGN
the States. As far as I can remember, I was always
fascinated with it. I always lived in a rural area,
and we only got a TV when I was 14. While all my
friends wanted to play soccer, I wanted to play
basketball, breakdance, do graffiti. I was the only
kid around who was skating. In 1986, I asked
my mom to go to NYC, and instead we went to
London. She has only one memory of that trip.
All I wanted was to find the kicks that Michael
Jordan was wearing! You know, when you come
from a small village, you can’t quickly travel and
see what’s going on. That’s where this passion for
America started, and it never stopped.
It's crazy to think that you are still “young”
and in your prime but already have 25 years of
practice and experience. You were an artisan
before becoming an artist. Many artists quit
their day jobs the minute they can. In your
case, it feels to me that you don’t really care
about what’s art or what’s commercial since
your art is heavily inspired by old commercial
sign painting and all your commercial jobs are
JUXTAPOZ .COM 33
DESIGN
inspired by your personal typeface development
and illustrations. You kind of developed a
perfect balanced world for yourself to evolve. It’s
amazing that I can walk around your town and
see so many signs and posters that you’ve done
for local businesses and it’s still 100% you. Same
when I see your work in a gallery or on a wall
in Berlin or Miami, it just adds to the Lowrider
World. Do you have a need to leave a visual
and cohesive trace, or is it just a natural and
subconscious approach for you?
I don’t think it’s a need. I think it’s more of an
obligation for us kids of the 1980s. Growing up, we
were surrounded by such a rich handmade and
hand-painted graphic heritage that I feel obligated
to carry it on for the future generations. I do my
best to produce screen prints, walls and signs that
I know can last for 100 years or more. Nowadays,
nobody knows what will really happen with giclée
prints, vinyl signs, and all those hard drives full of
virtual art. Everything is made not to last, in a way.
I pride myself (and I think it’s really a Swiss habit)
to produce work that will last at least a century,
rain or shine. Whether it’s a sign for a client or an
art print, I want it to be something that can be
passed along for generations.
34 SPRING 2018
There is an observational mix of nostalgia,
emotions and anthropological analysis in
your illustrated travel diaries. It’s sometimes
a real trip, sometimes a basketball game and
sometimes just improvised. Are those daily,
illustrated notes a way to escape your daily
routine, a way to travel mentally, or simply a
personal life diary?
All of that. Some of it is based on experiences,
some of it comes from my daydreaming and
thoughts. At the end of the day, it’s kind of a visual
diary. When I travel, the pages get filled much
faster. Same for the few weeks following a trip full
of great memories. I slow down when I am going
through five months of straight screen-printing
and local work. I also draw to trigger forgotten
memories. It helps. My wife, Valérie, and I have
been traveling a lot since we were young, and it’s
a complete part of our lifestyle. I need to travel to
be inspired. Now that our kids are almost young
adults, we are looking forward to going back on
the road.
You’ve achieved so much already in your
professional and personal life. How do you see
the next 20 years of Lowrider Studio?
I see these years more focused on traveling,
sign painting and big murals. I still have a bunch
of tricks of the trade to learn, and I still want
to develop and push my typography. I won’t
completely let go of the screen printing, as I still
have a bunch of artists that I want to print, but
after so many years, I am trying to think about
preserving my health too. It’s a physical job, and
I use pretty strong inks and solvents that
I can’t avoid breathing. I want to spend more time
outside, painting signs directly at the client’s
location, painting huge public walls. So, basically,
I want to take the studio on the road and spend
less time in the shop. Since my kids are almost out,
I see it coming soon. Deep inside, I have a secret
dream that my kids, Ulla or Lee, will take over the
business. What do you think about Lowrider and
Daughter? Or Lowrider and Son? It’s sounds pretty
good to me!
Serge Lowrider has collaborated with Juxtapoz in
What In the World at Urban Nation Berlin and at the
Juxtapoz Clubhouse in Miami. Grotesk is the designer
and artist behind the Juxtapoz Newsstand and various
projects with the magazine. Get in touch with Serge
Lowrider at lowriderteeshirt.com.
FASHION

Punk rocker, beatnik, priest, witch. Leather
jacket, boots, leggings… black is basic, it’s the
convenient camouflage. But when sunshine
peeks through the curtains, you just have to fling
them open and let in the sun. California-based
Aza Ziegler lets loose the snap, crackle and pop
in her buoyant, home-sourced and made designs
that slip right on for a brisk walk or bonfire at
the beach. These are clothes that delight in color
and comfort, that feel good. Leash up the dog or
lounge on the couch, Aza’s got you covered in
Calle Del Mar.
Aza Ziegler
Just Add Sneakers
Gwynned Vitello: Looking at your Instagram
and runway looks, it’s apparent that color is
very important to you. How does it inspire or
set the mood?
Aza Ziegler: I like to think I look at the world like
a David Hockney painting. Why can’t trees be
fuschia pink, lawns cobalt blue, oceans chartreuse
green? And while everyone wears black, why can’t
sunshine yellow be my best-selling color? When
looking at a Hockney landscape, the colors he sees
feels so strangely natural that you forget they’re
not reality. When customers put on my colorful
pieces, I want them to be a bright and bold choice,
yet fit effortlessly into their wardrobe. I want the
yellow to be just the right tone of gold so all those
people who say they don’t like yellow can feel
fabulous. I want to color the world my own way,
just like Hockney.
As a child, I would assign colors to people.
I guess you could say I’ve always been attracted
to it. I also believe color is greatly tied to
emotion. There have been phases where the
colors I use are causing me more anxiety than
inspiration, and a simple change of pallete can
calm the mind.

36 SPRING 2018 Left: Aza Ziegler in the Sundown Stripe, Photo by Jordan Topf Right: CDM Locals Bria & Indira Scott, Bria (left), wearing
sundown stripe, Indira (right) wearing sundown stripe & Poppy, Varsity T-shirt, Photo by Shriya Samavai

How did your mother’s artistic soul inspire
you? I went to school with her and remember
her earthy, primal and warm drawings.
My mother is one of the most creative, stylish
women I know. I am in awe of her ability to
master anything. One day she is picking up
leather-making, the next day her bags are better
than anything selling at Barneys. And the next
day she’s making sculptures out of driftwood
she found on the beach. And then there is my
Dad, another very artistic soul. His thoughts are
free, his narrative unique. He has this incredible
ability to organize creativity into concrete plans
and visualize the fruition of ideas. He couldn’t
follow directions if he tried, and there isn’t a rule
he doesn't know how to break. Together they
have taught me the value of hard work and the
power of intuition.
Being surrounded by vintage clothing and
artifacts from your parents’ travels must have
been a natural influence, but so would growing
up in Marin County, where sun, sand and
woodsy trails demand ease and function. How
has your style evolved, and has there been a
constant that guides what you wear and design?
Everything in my house had a story. My mom
wore a tooth around her neck that she pulled
out of a sleeping tiger; there were puppets from
Burma my parents had traded for ballpoint pens.
The couches were draped in African mudcloth,
and the rugs were from a roadtrip the time they
almost moved to New Mexico. My dad would tell
me about the time he ate monkey brains in Israel,
and my Mom ate guinea pig with her bus driver
in Argentina. So, even though I grew up in this
Right: Britt Haegglund in the Hanalei Stripe, Photo by Jacqueline Harriet Middle: Shriya Samavai in the Long Sleeve Varsity in Poppy, Photo by Jacqueline Harriet
Left: Britt Haegglund in the Rockaway Stripe T-shirt & the Tomatillo Skirt, Photo by Jacqueline Harriet
small, northern California town, I learned the
expansiveness of the world at a young age, and my
head swelled with curiosity.
My mom had all these amazing clothes from
her travels, too, and she would take me vintage
shopping for my clothes as a child. My style is
very similar to my youth. Effortlessness is a huge
part, but so is adventure, always has been. After
school, growing up, we’d go up on top of Mt. Tam
to watch the sunset, or drive to the city to thrift
on Haight Street. Weekends, I’d spend my days at
the beach. I think this constant activity has added
practicality to my wardrobe, which has to be
easy to throw on, to be dressed up or down.
Did you already have a design vision when you
started at Pratt? What would you say are the
most important things you learned there?
Vision is lifelong. My vision grows and changes as
I grow and change. Pratt gave me the environment
to explore and evolve. I grew a tougher skin and
learned to work extremely hard, and that failure is
just a stop away from success. I was pushed with
a rigorous workload and challenged far out of my
comfort zone. Going in, I had a strong idea of who
I was as a designer, but I think coming out of Pratt
made me a more self-aware human being. If you
enter an education in the arts, viewing it as time
gifted to you for exploration, it’s worth every minute.
How long afterward did you stay in New York,
and how did the pace and climate of a big city on
the East Coast affect your style, and maybe even
you, personally?
I often talk about how California is such a huge
FASHION
part of my life, but New York is too. There is so
much energy that is so alive and motivating.
You’re a small fish and you have to make a name
for yourself. Things move fast in New York, so
you get a lot of things done. People are direct and
don’t beat around the bush. Style-wise, I think
it’s strengthened my belief that you need to be
ready for adventure. I always needed to be dressed
in something I could wear day-to-night and be
comfortable on my feet. I moved back to California
because I missed nature, I missed space, the things
that are deeply rooted in my soul.
What are your favorite fabrics to wear, to work
with, and are there any you just love for their
own special properties?
Viscose! I’m obsessed with it. It is a sustainable
silk-like fiber that comes from trees. It’s extremely
absorbent, odor repellent and has a luxurious
weight. The vintage athletic wear jerseys are made
of it. I just think it’s such a cool fiber.
When and how did you start using
embellishments to create pattern? Do you think
prints, for example, distract from fabric and line?
My junior year of college, I was painting my
own patterns and printing them on fabric. In
a critique, a professor suggested that I make
them somehow three-dimensional. I started
exploring quilting and embroidery. Entering my
last year, I knew I wanted to do a lot of textile
exploration. I had a huge notebook I filled with
swatches and swatches of ideas. I was coating
denim in latex and sanding it off to distress it,
weaving fabric strips together and laminating
them in PVC. I started cutting my own plexiglass
JUXTAPOZ .COM 37
FASHION
embellishments from hand illustrations.
I embossed leather and stuffed sequins between
organza. As my design aesthetic evolved,
I have moved away from prints and toward
unconventional fabrications, which I think is a
natural progression as I evolve into knitwear.
I make my own fabrics and yarns and dye my
own colors. With textiles, there is always more
to explore, and it’s the most artistic part of the
process, in my opinion. Sometimes design itself
can feel sterile because it seems so much has
“already been done.” So my fabrication being
unique makes it a critical part of my process.
Diana Vreeland declared that pink is the navy
blue of India. Apart from California and New
York, is there any place you’ve visited that really
resonated, any travel destination that really
woke you up?
Travel always stimulates color senses. I was in
Todo Santos, Mexico in June, and the colors were
unbelievable. I shot lots of film. Two years ago,
I did an amazing shoot in Marfa, Texas. And last
38 SPRING 2018 Left: Michelle Mojescik in the Poppy Sparkle Tank, Photo by Jacqueline Harriet Top right: Venice stripe, Photo by Charlotte Fassler Bottom right: Charlotte Fassler in the Stinson stripe, Photo by Aza Ziegler
May, I drove from New Mexico to California.
I laid Calle Del Mar against the deep red rocks in
Arizona. I have wish lists of colorful destinations.
I know that you’re like a one-woman band,
but it’s also apparent that relationships are
essential. It seems that the thread of community
is woven through your professional life, from
artistic inspiration to sourcing of materials.
Working alone is isolating and challenging.
However, it has been so rewarding to see how
much I can accomplish by myself. It’s also
important to know when you need help. I have an
amazing community of friends who act, not only
as a support system, but as my collaborators.
They stand in when I need someone to model or
photograph. I also have a terrific team of knitters,
who are also my collaborators. Without them,
I wouldn't be able to make the product with so
much care.
If you follow any sort of a schedule, what are the
rituals? What is essential in your studio?
I am always working. I converted my garage into
my studio and love the convenient access of being
able to work from home. I have gone through
periods where I follow a 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
schedule five or six days per week, and I really like
that. I think it’s important to maintain structure
when you are working for yourself. However, I am
focused, so I don’t have to hold to that structure
365 days a year! When I have trouble getting
things done, I know it’s time to take a long walk.
Self care is critical when working for yourself.
I travel a lot, so I’ve learned to be flexible with my
hours and work spaces.
I’m guessing that aquamarine is your favorite
color? Even if I’m wrong, I want to know the
correct answer.
I cannot possibly discriminate. I love color
in general! Right now I’m very into lilac and
chartreuse. But I would say yellow and blue are
my true favorites.
www.calledelmar.us
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INFLUENCES
The Ghosts of Pejac
Silhouettes and Stories from Barcelona
With pencil or chalk drawings as favorite
methods to tell relatable narratives, Pejac creates
poignant images that look like memories set in a
dreamscape. While the accuracy of his works was
what first got my attention, it was the ingenious way
he employed these techniques that won me over.
The Barcelona-based artist produces a versatile
range of work, from drawings and paintings, to
sculptures and major public interventions. He and
I have met on a few occasions, but it wasn't until this
conversation after opening his solo show in Venice
that I got a better understanding of his work and
relationship with the world, as well as a chance to
look inside his beautifully sensible mind.
42 SPRING 2018
Sasha Bogojev: What attracts you to silhouettes?
They are a consistent element in your public
works.
Pejac: I think that, with silhouettes, you can
connect with yourself in a very easy, fast and
honest way. And from there, you connect with
other people from yours and other cultures.
I find them to be a universal way to express what
I could be saying in a more conceptual way. The
same thing can be said in thousands of ways, and
I choose them because they’re fast and easy.
You've been doing fewer public interventions
lately. Is there any particular reason?
The last three years, I've been working a lot
out of my studio and out of the country. I've
been traveling, meeting people from different
countries, which was really great, but I felt that
I needed some time to recharge my battery. To
travel was amazing, but when you do it a lot, it
becomes a problem.
I hear the same thing from artists who travel
frequently, that you can get artistically stuck
as you have fewer opportunities to try out new
things in your studio.
In my case, it was more of the human factor. When
you travel, you meet a lot of people who want to help,
Left: Portrait by Maui Rivera Right: Stain,Santander, Spain, 2011

want to meet you, want to know about your
work, etc. I like to spend time with people when
I feel comfortable, but when you know somebody for
a few hours or even minutes, you are interacting in
both a very enthusiastic, non-natural way. I find it a
bit stressful to have that for a long period of time.
I never thought of it in that way.
Also, I'm not used to company when creating
work. But since human interaction is very
important to me, I try to be honest and connect
with people, while being honest and making the
best possible work. So trying both at the same
time makes me a little bit stressed. I'm sure I'm
not the only one feeling that way.
You use a wide range of techniques and
mediums, both in the studio and in public. What
motivates you to try new ways to produce and
present work?
People think that if you're an artist, the work you
A Forest, Charcoal and comté on paper, 79” x 51”, 2017
do is very emotionally driven, very dynamic.
But if you don't experiment continuously, it
will become routine in the end. I try to have
a new idea for each new piece, but I also like
investigating new techniques along the way. For
me, personally, I have to keep experimenting,
otherwise it starts to feel boring.
Are there certain techniques that you'd like to
try or master?
I feel that painting is the one where I keep
improving. It is like a journey—I don't know if I'll
get to the destination, if I'll have enough fuel, but
I definitely don't want to go back. With drawing,
I feel like I have more control, and the painting
process is very exciting. I love drawing, I love
sculpture, but painting—the canvas and colors,
along with the smell—is like a drug.
How often does it happen that a certain idea or
concept for a new technique just doesn't work?
INFLUENCES
In my head, it happens a lot. Continuously. What
people get to see on paper, on canvas, on a wall, or
as a finished sculpture, is the end of a very long
trip that starts inside of you. When I start painting
or drawing, that is the end, not the beginning of
the process. Before that happens, I have already
tried so many different ideas and made so many
choices. Maybe it's like a race of sperms—all the
ideas are going towards that canvas, and the one
that gets painted is the winner.
So far, you've been breaking windows and
scratching concrete. Do you have any particular
concept you find most challenging?
Sometimes I go to a new country and I try a new
technique, just for that country. That might not
sound very professional, but you can't recreate the
exact same setting and wall texture to practice.
So, in the first five or ten minutes, while I'm trying
a new method on the actual location, there is
always a crisis. But then I start thinking, "I'm here
JUXTAPOZ .COM 43
INFLUENCES
for this. This is the best choice. I can do it." So, in
the end, even with the mistakes, I'm proud about
my finished pieces most of the time. I used to be
very proud of my mistakes. Perfection is very
satisfying, but it's not so personal.
So you plan a lot of your interventions way ahead.
How much improvising happens on the spot?
I think improvisation is when one part of your
brain fights with the perfect plan. I always arrive
with what I think is the perfect plan, and then it's
like hearing the voice that wants to change, just
to see what happens. I am usually very focused
on exactly what was sketched, but in the end, the
sketch doesn't include everything that you might
find on location. You will find a structure that
you didn't take into account, hear noises that can
interact with the work, so the thing I love most
about urban art is that the improvisation isn't in
your work, but in the street itself, so you can't do
100% of your sketch.
44 SPRING 2018
What is the most important part of it for you?
The message, the concept, or something else?
I always think about this when listening to music:
is the song done after the lyrics, or were the lyrics
written after the song? In my case, I can't even get
out of my bed without a concept, in all honesty.
But once I start materializing the concept I have,
the poetic aspect of the image can become the
main thing of the piece. I work with the poetry
and beauty of the image, and I construct these
ingredients into a conceptual idea.
You seem to like using recurring imagery and
concepts, like all these different animals, for
example. Do you feel like these evolve with you,
or do you re-use them for a different reason?
I think of nature as a precious treasure. But
with the human activity, we are making it shine
less and less. Animals are universal and can be
used as a metaphor or allegory. So, I often use
animals to tell different ideas about we humans,
about how we relate with each other and with
the world. I'm a city person, and luckily, or
unfortunately, I'm more in touch with human
nature than with any other. I think we are fatal
guests on the planet: instead of paying rent, we
charge it every day.
It's like this interview. If you were to look at it
in a few years, even knowing it was the thing
you wanted to say in that moment, you might
think differently later. In art, you have the choice
to express that same thing, but as a different,
changed person. For me, it's an emotional way
to say the same thing from a fresh point of
view. That way, you can see creative evolution
as a painter, as an artist, and as a person. It's
not a way of producing work, but more of an
experiment or opportunity to see how you're
evolving.
pejac.es
Camouflage,Rijeka, Croatia,2016
TRAVEL INSIDER

Mountains, Moonshine,
and Murals
Arting in Asheville with Mike Shine
Lewis and Clark. Kerouac and Cassidy.
Thelma and Louise. It takes two to make a travel
adventure, so when Gabriel Shaffer of Red Truck
Gallery hooked us both up with mural projects
and a show in Asheville, I immediately offered to
ride shotgun on the road trip from New Orleans
to North Carolina. Being a Californian, I was as
intrigued by the journey itself as I was by the final
destination. Plus, Gabe is a funny guy, and I knew
the drive would be a kick. Our trip was a sundry
traverse of the Deep South as we jumped into
a van full of art in the bustling French Quarter,
drove across the bayou and wetlands of NOLA,
through the fields and plantations of Mississippi
and Alabama, climbing the rolling hills of Georgia
to forested mountains of western North Carolina.
We hit roadhouses, sampled some sticky BBQ, and
made good time while managing to avoid the state
police along the way.
Appalachia holds a stubbornly backwards
reputation in our country’s history. As industry,
urbanization, technology and globalism progressed
for most of the country, the isolation of the

46 SPRING 2018 All photography by Mike Shine Above: Shine’s mural, in-progress, on Lexington Avenue, Asheville

Appalachians left much of its rural culture intact.
It also left the region with high poverty rates,
helping perpetuate its hillbilly image, a perception
furthered in pop culture. The Li’l Abner comic
strip, Beverly Hillbillies TV series, and iconic film
Deliverance reduced rural mountain dwellers to out-
of-touch hicks to be chuckled at, even feared.
But if hillbillies were derided in the last century,
they are practically revered in the present.
As ubiquitous restaurant and store chains
standardize our palates, décor and fashion,
Clockwise from top left: Horse and Hero Gallery, Mural Sketch, Cletus and Jeriah mural (finished), Double Crown Bar, Opening night a Horse and Hero Gallery
we’ve become more culturally and materially
homogenized, and the appeal of our deeply
rooted traditions has re-emerged. We are
again romanticizing the arts, crafts, skills, and
traditions of our country folk. Think artisanal,
hand-crafted, urban farming, farm-to-table, buy
local, and so on. Today, hillbillies are hip. And so,
perched in the center of Appalachia, Asheville
is, not so surprisingly, urban and upscale, which
explains why it evokes the sense of a boomtown.
Peppered with artisan boutiques, galleries,
cafes, and bars, and bustling with well-heeled
TRAVEL INSIDER
tourists, it feels almost like a Colorado ski town,
but without the snow. Instead, the attraction
here is the timeless authenticity and quality of
the local folk art scene.
In addition to proximity to centuries of
Appalachian craftspeople, Asheville was also
the home of the notorious Black Mountain
College, alma mater of legendary names like
Gropius, Albers, Rauschenberg, Twombly, and
Motherwell. The town is stupid with arts and
crafts cred.
JUXTAPOZ .COM 47
TRAVEL INSIDER
Gabe and I did a Red Truck pop-up opening at
the Horse and Hero Gallery, an unpretentious
Asheville version of a hipster art gallery, which
means an emphasis on both crafts and art.
Owner Justin Rabuck has done a great job
building a place that’s part store, part social
hub, a place where tourists and collectors can
mingle and converse with local artists like Andy
Herod, Noah Prinson, Hannah Dansie, and
Justin himself.
My first project was to create a mural for a
downtown intersection wall outside the Forever
Tattoo parlor. Inspired by the town’s clash of
old and new, I painted a young Appalachian
boy holding his rooster. His face could be
interpreted to express surprise, and perhaps
even fear of the modern city that he unwittingly
helped to build.
My next project was for the founder of the
Eda Rhyne Distillery, Chris Bower, who
commissioned me to paint artworks for their
48 SPRING 2018
tasting room. It became one of the highlights
of my art travels—painting inside the distillery
and hanging out with the distillery crew, who
were a fascinating bunch. Rhett is a farmer
who grows and forages the ingredients for
their hooch. Pierce is a carpenter who fashions
the coolest recycled bar tops and walls. Andy
is a helicopter mechanic who has become the
head distiller. Chris owns two of the most
popular bars in town and is an acclaimed sci-
fi filmmaker. (Much of the distillery houses
movie sets and props. You can’t make this shit
up.) They patiently answered my questions,
and generously shared samples, leading to a
fondness for their Appalachian Fernet, strongly
spirited and herbaceous. When I asked Chris
what herbs he used, he said he’d have to kill me
if he told me. He’s nearly seven-feet tall, and
even with his easy smile and low-key demeanor,
I didn’t ask again. Chris is descended from
some notorious moonshiners, and is proudly
continuing the legacy, albeit legalized. But trade
secrets are still thick as blood in these parts.
Top left: Eda Rhyne Appalachian Fernet Middle: Shine painting at Eda Rhyne distillery Top right: Finished wall art
Bottom left: Distilling progress at Eda Ryne Bottom right: with the Eda Rhyne crew Eda Rhyne bus front
Throughout my stay, I met more and more
Ashevillians like the Eda folks; smart, creative,
entrepreneurial, often eccentric. Asheville is a
town that seems nearly devoid of chain stores,
and even established brands. It has over 100
local beers, a dozen distilleries, and countless
locally roasted coffees and cafes, all sharing the
streets, shops, and storefronts with local yarn and
fabric weavers, furniture crafters, woodworkers,
metalsmiths, printmakers and glassblowers.
It was a really inspiring visit. I made some great
new friends, learned some new tricks, ate and
drank well, and developed a new appreciation
for true folk craft. The hillbillies may be gone,
but their legacy hangs around like the burn
of strong hooch. Thanks to Justin, Ellis, Noah,
Andy, Pierce, Monica, Chris, Rhett, Micah, and
everyone who else showed us true southern
hospitality. —Mike Shine
See more travel adventures with Mike Shine at
@shinanov.
LAGUNA
COLLEGE
OF ART +
DESIGN

Artwork: Alla Bartoshchuk, Saluga, 48” x 62”, Oil on canvas, 2016

IN SEARCH OF THE REAL II:

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Reception: Thursday, April 5th 6-9 pm
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IN SESSION
The Illusion of Life
A Lifetime of Art School
Some of the most rewarding creative jobs
start with an “ah-ha” moment. As a kid, I wanted to
know how a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists got
their breakthrough, or what professor stoked their
creative fire. I wanted to know how it all started so
I could understand the profession better. Animators
and their earliest endeavors have always been a
fascination, having been nourished on Saturday
morning cartoons. I sat down with Abigail Muñoz,
who recently earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts
degree in Visual Development from Academy of
Art University, San Francisco and is currently the
2018 General Track artist at the Nickelodeon Artist
Program in Burbank, California to talk about how an
animation career develops, the years of study, early
influences and when she had her “ah-ha.”
Evan Pricco: Do you remember the first thing,
whether movie, animation or cartoon, that
really made you want to create art?
Abigail Muñoz: Animation just fascinated me
from a very young age. I mean, every kid loves
cartoons, but I was interested in the process of
how animation is made. I discovered that process
by accident one day by pressing buttons on the
remote control while watching a cartoon on
VHS tape. This button made the film play slowly,
frame-by-frame, and I could see how one drawing
led to another. I started watching all of my movies
like that, and I would notice the camera angles
and how the character changed in perspective.
50 SPRING 2018
Then, I tried to draw my own characters doing
the same kinds of actions and whatnot. So, at that
point, I knew I wanted to do something related to
animation. Oh, and my favorite films at that age
were definitely The Lion King and Balto, but I also
loved watching Pokémon on TV and imagining
that I could create my own show like that one day.
Did high school nurture your interest in art? I ask
that question because I was in a graphic design
class for three years in high school, and never
once did a teacher encourage me to pursue it.
The art class at my high school wasn’t really
serious. Sometimes we’d draw and paint, and
other times we’d be assigned fun projects like paper
collages, papier-mâché masks, and things like that.
I didn’t feel like I really learned true art
foundations until I got to college. However, my
high school years were really important because
I spent a lot of time reading about art and
animation during my own time. One of the books
that I read cover-to-cover was The Illusion of Life
by Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie
Johnston, and it might still be my favorite. Of
course, I also drew a lot, every day, because I was
designing my own story and characters at the time.
When you are getting into something like
character design and visual development, I feel
like art school is really helpful.
The classes were really challenging, so that kicked
me into shape. I came into art school with a lot of
confidence and quickly realized I was nowhere near
as good as I thought I was. I learned how to draw
characters that are solid and appealing, with really
clear silhouettes that have good construction, so
I can turn them at any angle and they’ll still keep
their shape. In regards to visual development, the
classes emphasize the importance of value, color,
and composition to convey the mood you want to
express in your story scene. They also make you
think cinematically—you have to consider where
you’re placing the “camera” in every scene, and
how that’s helping to tell your story, because every
design decision has to be intentional and supportive
of the story. And, of course, the foundations
classes were super important—you shouldn’t jump
into characters and visual development without
understanding human and animal anatomy,
clothing folds, color theory… there is so much you
gotta know, and I learned a ton in art school.
So, in 10 years, you want to be...
I often think about what it would be like to be an
art director on an animated show, but I think I’d
be pretty happy as a character designer or visual
development artist. I still have a lot to learn, and I
think that in the next few years, I’ll get a feel for what
creative roles I really like, and what to aim for next.
Check out Abigail’s work at abigailmunoz.com and learn
more about Visual Development at academyart.edu.
Monster Camp, Marty’s Family, Character work by Abigail Muñoz
ON THE OUTSIDE
Walls Are The People’s Canvas
How Street Art Can Be a Public Forum
I seem to have been involved with “walls” all
my life, both the literal and metaphorical. How
I ended up curating them instead of behind them,
I’m not quite sure, but they always seemed to
represent a challenge, and I like a challenge. This
is a little story about walls, boundaries and fences
and how they’ve impacted my life thus far.
I’ve been working on a theory recently about
how the professional cultural class working in
institutions have, like cultural bureaucrats in
public art before them, started stripping visual art
of any real subversive potential, its teeth and claws,
primarily, I think, in fear that it may get hungry
and turn on them. Can there be any other genuine
reason for the art establishment waiting until our
heroes are dead before granting them access to the
hallowed halls of fame? Basquiat’s debut London
show Boom For Real took place just last year, and
shortly after, an expo on Rammellzee surfaced.
Do we have to wait for the likes of Futura and
Saber to shuffle from this mortal coil before
gaining recognition?
Here in Norway, curator and head of the art fund
for the Norwegian Arts council, Geir Haraldseth,
went out hard in Art in America against Nuart’s
practice and street art in general. Situating it
sneeringly alongside developments in “urban
fashion” and demographically alongside local
Porsche Cayenne devotees. He created a carefully
crafted comic book caricature of Frankfurt
School thinking, a spectacle of bad taste was
washing through the city and you better watch
out. The article won him plaudits amongst
the local art set and led shortly after to the
announcement that Nuart’s government funding
was to be “phased out.” Quelle surprise. It took
me a while to process the source of the attack,
what was driving it, why an otherwise privileged
and empowered cultural bureaucrat working
in visual art would use his platform to attack
and undermine the range and interest in art
propelled by street and urban contemporary art.
Surely this would lead to increased attendance
from a broader audience at museums and
institutions, lead to greater diversity. And then
It clicked. They don’t really want diversity. They
have created a space away from food stamps and
54 SPRING 2018
frozen chips and dirty fingernails, booze and bad
sex, and great sex, and motor oil, cheap speed,
kebabs and dirty basement techno and Vermeer,
Duchamp and Caravaggio and ultimately art,
ultimately life. Ordinary heroic, getting up on a
wall dodging the third rail life; to curate life.
I saw a short promotional video on the BBC on
artist Ciaren Globel, a Scottish Steve Powers if you
will, where he admitted the difficulty in calling
himself an artist. “A bit wanky,” he said, adding,
but possibly not as wanky as “artisan”. Needless
to say, I booked him immediately. But still, it
was this typical use of humor that, in reality,
masks an issue that if resolved, I thought could
potentially solve many of the worlds problems,
and possibly prevent the march of the Right, and
if the evening news is to be believed, pending
nuclear annihilation. The solution? A simple
broadening of the terms art and artist, expanding
the definitions, and thus, removing the sense of
working class white collar shame that comes with
repeating the words outside of the comfort of your
own home. The Imposter Syndrome.
There is certainly a set of predetermined
historical and cultural biases attached to the
terms art and artist that make it difficult for
ordinary people to employ, let alone engage with
them in any meaningful way. In order to maintain
their position within the cultural hierarchy,
these biases, prejudices and stereotypes are, of
course, maintained by the art establishment.
These guardians of the canon perpetuate the
myth that only a select few adherents with special
talents and understanding can participate in the
making of art, and that vast bureaucracies either
complicit or ignorant, are required to police and
administrate it. The truth, as you know, is quite
different. Artists and curators are not “special”
people; we’re not, in fact, closer to god the creator
or even John the Revelator. Most artists are just
like you and me, working class people with
working class concerns, who worry about paying
the bills, who get up at 8:00 and work until 5:00
and like a drink or two on the weekend.
Art critic Dave Hickey has split the world into
pirates and farmers. There are right wing pirates
and left wing pirates, right wing farmers and
left wing farmers, but there are only pirates and
farmers. He tells how farmers build walls and
control territory, how pirates rip down fences
and cross borders. Many pirates recognize the
good work that farmers do, but farmers always
hate pirates. One of the ways pirates come to
recognize themselves as pirates is through the
experience of being recognized and persecuted
by farmers. I don’t really remember the blow
from the policeman that was delivered in the
elevator whilst going to be booked, how it
actually felt. But what really struck, apart from
his fist, of course, was the sheer look of hatred
on his face as he delivered it. A farmer, a cross-
burning, shoot-your-dog-and burn-the-horses-
in-their-stalls, pirate-hating farmer. I began to
slowly realize, they were everywhere, and they
were quick to prosecute when boundaries were
transgressed by marauding hustlers.
Street art is now being challenged, shut down
by the persuasive architectures of institutional
authoritarianism, undermined by the cultural
elite, sidelined as a hipster pastime and presented
as Williamsburg wallpaper used instrumentally to
gentrify swathes of run-down real estate. But dig
a little deeper. If you’re questioning the validity
of street art these days, of its power to build
communities that celebrate the true expanse of
creative possibilities in the spaces between, ask
yourself why? Who wants you to think this way?
The most direct route between art and the
public, unmediated by government-funded
institutions or career-ladder sporting curators
with a stake in the game and a finger in the
pie, is the wall in public space. They build
them, we paint them. Together. There’s a
radical commonality about recognizing and
accepting street art as part of everyday life, of
not separating and managing the wonder, but
accepting and cheering the very ordinariness
of our creations, of our art exploring our
extraordinary lives. —Martyn Reed
Martyn Reed is the founder of the Nuart Festival.
Nuart Abderdeen will take place in Aberdeen, Scotland
from April 12–15, 2018.
 PROFILE

Escif, Fuera Droga del Barrio, Valencia, Spain, 2017 JUXTAPOZ .COM 55
BOOKS
You Are Welcome Here:
Paintings by Paul Wackers
The French painter Paul Cézanne was quoted as
saying, “The day is coming when a single carrot,
freshly observed, will set off a revolution.” Amidst
the art world, we are seeing more emerging
and mid-career painters today finding new
ways to approach the still-life painting. Paul
Wackers’s body of work is a good study in this
development. Painting fascinating evolutions
of still lifes over the past decade, Wackers
advances the aesthetic of plants, ceramic
objects and almost-bookshelf compositions on
panel and canvas. A viewer can feel like they’re
stepping into a living room, and yet oftentimes,
Wackers compartmentalizes that universe quite
deliberately. After his recent solo show with Alice
Gallery in Brussels, Parts Of Everything That
Are Pieces Of Everything Are All Around Us, a
title that perfectly exemplifies still-life, Wackers
and Alice published a new monograph, You Are
Welcome Here, featuring a decade of painting
from the Brooklyn-based artist. Even as Wackers
himself has evolved to include ceramics within
his shows, the book shows not only the work, but
also photographs the paintings in environments
that resemble his subjects. “There is a personal
relationship that I have with a lot of the objects,
but I don’t know how important it is for people to
know that.” Over 240 pages, so we can, indeed,
find out what’s important. —EP
Alice Gallery, alicebxl.com
60 SPRING 2018
WHAT WE’RE READING
Ballenesque
Roger Ballen: A retrospective
Roger Ballen is perhaps the most haunting
current documentary art photographer. Born
in 1950 in the States, Ballen has worked out of
Johannesburg, South Africa since the 1970s.
His black-and-white photographs document
staged compositions that lyrically challenge
our humanity. This is the first retrospective
monograph on Ballen’s work, although
others have previously been released about
specific series. This thorough presentation of
Ballen’s oeuvre spans four decades. His most
iconic images and previously unpublished
works are accompanied by Ballen’s personal
anecdotes, which lend us insight into his
studio practice and artistic journey. The book,
most significantly, offers a deep analysis of
the qualities that make Roger Ballen’s work
recognizable and distinct; in particular, that
strange feeling we get when looking at his work,
that we have stumbled upon an incredibly rare
occurrence taking place within a perfectly
constructed chance moment captured on
film. Ballen creates ephemeral installations
that incorporate his own drawings, graffiti,
and sculpture to use in his photos and photo
collages. The book’s 300 photographs
traverse Ballen’s rediscovery of boyhood,
using his camera in the late ’70s, to his seminal
monograph Outlands (2001), to his most recent
project, The Theatre of Apparitions (2016). NYU
Professor of Comparative Literature, Robert
JC Young, has written an essay that provides a
scholarly roadmap to our deeper contemplation
of what it is to be Ballenesque. —David Molesky
Thames & Hudson, thamesandhudsonusa.com
Artists Who Make Books
There are a few ways to read the title of this
book, recently published by Phaidon and edited
by Andrew Roth, Philip E Aarons and Claire
Lehmann. It can imply “artists” who make books,
as in, for the sake of defining an artist, a book
that Picasso, Duchamp or O’Keefe would have
made. But the title infers the book itself is an
art piece, and in this survey of 32 artists who
have taken the construction of a book into their
own creative practice, the object and subject
engage in the ambiguity of classification. I
would argue that the editors here are presenting
the artist-designed and engineered book as a
compliment of the artist’s output. The book even
states in its introduction, “The art dealer and
publisher Harry Ruhé once observed, ‘Artists
who make books are generally precisely among
those who do not confine themselves to a single
medium’.” Generally and precisely—there’s
that ambiguity again. Artists Who Make Books
covers a wide range of artists and practices in
book making here, from Tauba Auerbach and
Sol LeWitt, to Maurizio Cattelan and his Toilet
Paper Magazine, to Ed Ruscha’s eclectic and
eccentric collections of babies and cakes.
There are ideas on books here, experiments in
printing, publishing and design, as well artists
engaging with the printed form in a way to tell
a narrative that doesn’t always exist in a gallery
presentation. —EP
Phaidon Press, phaidon.com
 Also available at “Finally, a book made for micro-dosing!
SmallworksPress.com
James Stanford is the artist whose photography, digital
illustration and painting has culminated in a series of works
he calls Indra’s Jewels, a group of digitally reinvented mosaics
of patterns that are influenced by the Mojave Desert
and landscape surrounding Las Vegas.”
–Evan Pricco, Juxtapoz Magazine

Pfaffl’s art is mystical and mysterious,

full of marvel and message. Drawings
composed of many threads involving
myth, psyche, and imagination.

Stanford understands the allure of

Las Vegas, the glamour, the dizziness,
and the ecstasy of it all. Indra’s Jewels
are unique patterns originating from
vintage neon Las Vegas signage.
SHIMMERING ZEN
Format 300 × 300 mm | Hardback | 264 pages | Limited Edition
Ianthe Press, London | Publisher • Smallworks Press | USA Distributor
All images © James Stanford

Now Available at

In beaches, bars, and bedrolls,

Fitzwater’s quest for Zen consumes Smallworks Press specializes in arts and culture publications. We treat each book with a
wives, lovers and friends; pursuing the commitment to impeccable production, design and marketing. With over forty years of
hounds of heaven on desert drives collective experiences, we have enjoyed collaborating with a wide-spectrum of artists,
and tequila sunrises. authors and talent.
BOOKS
Skateboarding Is Not A Fashion:
The Illustrated History of
Skateboard Apparel
1950 to 1984
This book may be 628 pages, but it also may
be the only one you read cover-to-cover this
year. Yes, Skateboarding Is Not A Fashion:
The Illustrated History of Skateboard Apparel
1950-1984 covers some very early years of
skate history through clothing, equipment and
accessory design/trends—that much will be
obvious. Edited by Jurgen Blumlein, Dirk Vogel
and Cap10 in association with the Skateboard
Museum in Berlin, Gingko Press and Vans, this
book is dense, and, we would argue, even heavy.
And seeing that Juxtapoz shares the home
office of the bible of skateboarding, Thrasher,
many of the things in this book are familiar. This
book comes from the history of skateboarding
at a unique angle. One of the greatest attributes
of skateboarding’s earliest days is the overlap
of skaters, designers and photographers, so the
words and documentation here, especially in
the 1970s and ’80s portions, fascinate, because
they don’t focus on what was to become—his
book stays right then and there. Highlights
from Illustrated History of Skateboard Apparel
1950 to 1984: “Gentlemen on skateboards,”
literally the early 1960s Makaha team wearing
suits when going from exhibition to exhibition.
Also, photos from the 1966 National Skateboard
Championships Association rule book and
competition are a good emphasis. —EP
Vans, vans.com
Gingko Press, gingkopress.com
62 SPRING 2018
WHAT WE’RE READING
Katherine Bernhardt: Swatches
Everyone was floored by Katherine Bernhardt’s
charming solo at Canada NYC, one of the most
Instagrammed shows of the new year, including
a shot of art critic power couple Saltz and Smith
sitting atop one of KB’s ruddy pink sculptures.
But now the artist’s new book is here, and you
ain’t seen nothing yet. This is the guts. See her
actual studio, her spray cans, bottles of color,
piles of weird bean bags, and most prominently,
her obsession with Swatch watches. Paying
tribute to Heidelberg Project creator and
fellow clock painter, Tyree Guyton, Bernhardt
recognizes this object as a part of cultural history
and aesthetic balance. She astutely points out
that growing up in the ’80s, “one of the only
interesting things to look at design-wise in real
life was the Swatch watch.” Latching onto the
nostalgia and reflecting on the “urgency of
time” during pregnancy, her prolific use of this
literally time-based Swatch imagery and other
pop iconography makes her work accessible,
but layered with contemplation. Bernhardt can
make any object look great, and it’s not just the
seemingly effortless technique, or the color or
content. It’s the unique way all this symbolism is
smashed together, with the artist’s personality
and interests pushing through, that makes you
want to know her. It’s a thrill to see behind the
curtain of Bernhardt’s production, how she
stacks and piles her stuff, layering cardboard
between paintings that lean against each other
like buddies, resulting in a space that looks just
like your own studio, only better. If you like paint,
color and healthy obsessions, Swatches should
live on your shelf. Get it or regret it. —KF
Karma Gallery, karmakarma.org
Academy of Tal R
Tal R is a legend from Copenhagen whose
influence stretches across all ponds. One glance
at the catalog, Academy of Tal R, published by
Denmark’s lovely Louisiana Museum, shows the
warm, cheeky, obsessive nature of the artist’s
prolific output. There are rich stories told in the
singular simple frame of his line drawings from
the ’90s that gave way to eye-popping paintings,
effortlessly diving between abstraction and
symbology. Do these paintings remind you of
other artists’ work? Sometimes influence creeps
far and wide, and the origin doesn’t claim credit.
All the feels course through Tal R’s work, with
images that evoke tiny gasps and intrigue. The
book’s interview with the artist reveals that
his first museum show happened not through
a studio visit, but by bringing curators to his
hoarder apartment full of found objects. His work
has a visual dialogue with countless other artists
because he navigates mediums and styles in the
best, most nimble and messy way. It’s as if his
every thought and whim has been materialized
through the art, every single thing he’s ever seen
and every imagination is fabricated gloriously.
You can’t call it hyperbole until you see the
book itself and submit your application to the
Academy of Tal R. The catalog closes with a two-
page spread of his 2017 lifesize sculpture, Horse
in Pajamas, not to be outdone by the book’s
portrait of the artist with his enormous dog,
Fanny. Need I say more? —KF
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, lousiana.dk
Add Fuel for Nuart Aberdeen 2017 — photo: Ian Cox
‫ܠ‬Studio Bergini
@nuartaberdeen

.co.UK
Life in the Balance
Interview by Evan Pricco Portrait by Fiona Torre
68 SPRING 2018 Soleil Bleu 1, Oil on Canvas , 15” x 22”, 2017
While wandering around in your favorite museum, there are many Evan Pricco: When you wake up in the morning,
ways a work of art may move you emotionally. Stunning ancient sculptures do you make painting goals for yourself? Are
you structured that way?
evoke wonder about how the artist achieved such perfection minus modern Inès Longevial: When I wake up in the morning,
tools. Standing in front of an early abstract painting can sometimes channel I don’t really know what I’m going to do. I try
the historical and revolutionary spirit of an artist choosing to challenge the never to do again what I already did. I gradually
find new ways to approach the color, to pose the
figurative standards that preceded. But there is always something about material and to compose. It’s quite complicated,
portrait painting that captures our attention in special ways: the who, when, because even as my vision evolves, I still want to
where, why, time of day, and conversations that were had during the process, or be understood in 150 years. I don’t know if it’s a
weakness for the present, but my biggest question
even the dialogue between artist and subject. Freud, Neel or Hockney, the great is whether my work will always have an impact.
portrait painters, create these scenarios for the viewer. An even more striking
observation is an artist’s choice to do a self-portrait. What were the feelings that I've read in past interviews that your preference
is to do nothing but paint, but you do have a
day? Why did the artist etch in time their subject, let alone their own self? background in illustration and commercial
projects. Even then, are you only thinking about
In a way, Parisian painter Inès Longevial is a revivalist. She paints portraits of painting?
No doubt!
herself, yes, but of her friends and subjects in a way that is both timeless and
of-the-moment. Her unique aesthetic channels the studio artist of the the early I know this sounds simple, but tell me what you
twentieth century, but also bears a contemporary angle that speaks to daily life like about painting.
Without real preparation and under the
in the twenty-first, whether through commercial projects with Nike or Levi’s, inspiration of the moment, painting has an instant
or subtle clothing details in her fine artwork. After a standout exhibition in late eloquence, it has as an irreducible force. I like not
2017 at HVW8 Gallery in Los Angeles, as she prepared for a solo show in early having to explain my paintings.

2018, we sat down with Inès to discuss her early start in the South of France, You grew up in the South of France where
her preference for portraits, and the romanticism of Paris. there is this historic romanticism about

Left: Drawing 2, Research for Sous le Soleil, HVW8 Gallery, Los Angeles, 2017 Right: Drawing 1, Research for Sous le Soleil, HVW8 Gallery, Los Angeles, 2017 INÈS LONGEVIAL JUXTAPOZ .COM 69
painting in that region, or the Spanish
countryside, and that seems to hold a strong
influence in your work. But you moved to
Paris, which also hold its own deep, romantic,
artist-as-career history. How much of that
storyline resonates with you? Are you
conscious of that sort of romantic history?
I don’t know if I’m aware of that every day,
and I know that this idea is controversial, but
I believe that the work of an artist cannot be
appreciated without taking into account his or
her life.

Was oil paint your favorite from the start?

The first time I started painting, I was seven
years old. My mother wasn’t there, it was a
Saturday afternoon, and I was being supervised
by my aunt. For Christmas, I was given some oil
paints. After taking out all the tubes and starting
to paint, I already had it all over me and put it
everywhere. My aunt panicked and made me
clean it with turpentine essence. After that, I did
ten years of acrylic before returning exclusively
to oil.

Were your parents artists?

No, but perhaps they were artistic and creative in
their way of living and raising up my brothers, my
sister and me.

If you can look back to the young Inès, what did

your first paintings and drawings look like?
My first painting was a portrait, I think that it was
for ease. But today, if I still paint portraits tirelessly,
it’s because I choose this ease spontaneously, which
has to do with the psychological acuity that I want
to give to my portraits.

My colleague asked this question of an artist

last month, and I really liked it, so I wanted to
ask you: who are the people you are painting
and what are they most often experiencing?
My paintings are like a personal diary.

So they’re self- portraits, in a sense?

For many, they are self-portraits.

Your subjects always have a serious pose, and

rather somber expressions on their faces,
though there is this calm and sort of quietness "This idea is controversial, but I believe that
the work of an artist cannot be appreciated
to them. I think that has a lot to do with your
choice of colors in the faces and skin tones. Are
you even aware, when beginning a painting,

without taking into account his or her life."

that there is such a reflective expression? I feel
that there is this interesting tone of serenity in a
gallery full of your work.
I am not really aware of this aspect and it was
never so well-formulated. I am not an especially
calm person, so I think the contrast expresses a In your mind, what are the elements of a stable You have a show in Paris opening in March, and
need for hypnotic serenity. Perhaps my work, like and ideal world? I assume that is where all of your energy is going
many others, is an effort to make the world look It's impossible to answer that question in a fair at the moment. What are you working on, and
like a stable and ideal form. I am looking for a way. For me, it's indefinable by words. That’s why do you give yourself particular guidelines when
kind of peaceful joy. I paint. it comes to a solo exhibition?

70 SPRING 2018 Stolen Kiss 2, Oil on canvas, 11” x 14”, 2017

Mural for Sous Le Soleil, HVW8 Gallery, Los Angeles, 2017 INÈS LONGEVIAL JUXTAPOZ .COM 71
72 SPRING 2018 Top: Sunbath 1, Oil on linen canvas, 46” x 35, 2017 Bottom: Sunbath 2, Oil on linen canvas, 46” x 35, 2017
Stolen Kiss 1, Oil on canvas, 11” x 14”, 2017 INÈS LONGEVIAL JUXTAPOZ .COM 73
74 SPRING 2018 November Self Portrait, Oil on canvas, 2016
It will be my first solo exhibition in France,
and I just want to continue working without
compromise while staying as sincere as possible.
I don’t have specifications or rules to follow like
a mathematician.

Do you have art heroes? I know you have

referenced some of the Masters in the past,
Kahlo and Rodin, for example. Are there
certain styles or contemporary references
that inspire you? Even if it’s something like
wallpaper designers, I’m curious, because you
seem to have your own unique thing going on
right now.
I keep quoting him, but Pedro Almodovar inspires
me a lot, and has always touched me. His sense of
framing and color is both natural and personal!
I also saw the ballet, Tree of Codes, which made a
mark on me recently.

Light is probably what I notice the most, even if

it’s pearly, bright, cut... this is probably the starting
point for my questions around harmony, balance
and proportions.

I really wanted to see that ballet, of course

because of the Jamie xx soundtrack and Olafur
Eliasson visual concept. What can you learn, as
a painter, from such moving art like a ballet, or
lighting design from someone like Olafur?
It looked like towers of successive magic, but
I did not try to analyze or find the tricks. I let
myself be amazed. There are, of course, lots of
games of symmetry and geometry, as Olafur’s
main vector is color.

Do you actively seek stunning light, or try

to capture specific lighting in your paintings,
or do you just appreciate its everyday
permutations?
Since I live in Paris, I have noticed how important
light was in my life. In Paris, the light is very
beautiful, but is almost always the same. I like
traveling to find new lights.

What’s the last stunning interplay of light that

inspired you?
The light of the Basque Country, pearly, perfect for
painting.

What time of day is the best time to paint?

The ideal time is at tea time or very early in the
morning.
What is your favorite part of the body to paint?
The nose. It's to smell you better.
I was talking with a painter friend from
California the other day, and he told me he just
can't escape California, like it’s always right
there in his paintings, something he can't shake,
but is proud of. Do you have that same feeling
with your paintings? Like they come from a very
specific place in the world?
I don’t know if my work belongs to a place,
certainly a little, since I'm not a nomad. I think
that part of Paris and France is in my work, and
I don’t know if it's good, but there is always a
little bit of me in everything and a little bit of
everything in me.
In 200 years, when an art historian looks back at
your work, you want them to say...
I like this question and I often ask myself secretly
without having found the exact answer.
I wish, in hindsight, it is stated that all the work
had not yet been made, contrary to this feeling
of “the end” (perhaps very European, but very
present)—that my personality, my life and my
work were undeniably linked, and that the
novelty still existed and could have a strong place
and an impact, that the questions of pure and
hard aesthetics are inexhaustible.
Inès Longevial’s new solo show opens at Galerie M in
Toulouse, France on March 13, 2018.

Biarritz, Oil on canvas paper, 6” x 8.25”, 2017 INÈS LONGEVIAL JUXTAPOZ .COM 75
 Julian
Schnabel
Painter, Director, and
Ensemblist
Interview with Max Hollein by Gwynned Vitello Portrait by Evan Pricco
A case could be made that Julian Schnabel
is the most American of painters, New York
Jewish, born and bred in Brownsvillle, Texas,
where he discovered Mexican culture and
Catholic iconography. Though he felt fenced in at
the University of Houston, the vast state spawned
a passion for big ideas and a big canvas. Back
in NYC, he entered the Whitney Independent
Study Program, showing his paintings wherever
possible and cooking at a local restaurant where
he served and slayed gallerist Mary Boone.
The rest is art history that is still unfolding.
On April 21, Schnabel brings a body of work to
San Francisco’s Legion of Honor. Director Max
Hollein, who organized this exhibit, maintains
that, “Paintings are physical things that need to
be seen in person.” Fittingly, for an artist who
is energized by painting outside, the first of
the trio is created specifically for the outdoor
court. Editor Evan Pricco visited Schnabel at his
studio, and we both got a chance to talk with
Hollein, who already organized the artist’s major
Frankfurt show in 2004
Juxtapoz: People are certainly familiar with
Julian Schnabel’s name, and they associate
him with the big broad stroke. What initially
attracted you to his work?
Max Hollein: His paintings create a particular
environment, and an important thing to say about
78 SPRING 2018
his work is that people always comment on the
scale, and I would say they misunderstand it as
some kind of act of grandiosity, of wanting to do
the biggest scale of all. But, actually, I believe it’s
different, and he would probably agree. Julian
makes paintings that have a kind of physicality
and human scale, and to that extent, the works
have a direct relationship with you as the viewer.
By definition, because of their scale, and obviously,
because of the materials that he uses, they’re really
also objects, and they are architectural in their
sheer existence, transformative of the space that
surrounds them. It’s something different than
a painting by an artist who kind of uses it as a
window to something else. I think Julian’s works
always kind of embrace you. They immediately
transform the space they inhabit. There is also
the very simple observation that the larger his
canvases, the more reduced his pictorial language
and painterly gesture get.
Can you compare that to another painter?
The exact opposite approach can be seen with
artists like Mark Grotjahn or Mark Bradford.
Bradford’s become more detailed, multilayered,
simply full with a whole lot of paint and pictorial
ideas as they get bigger. Whereas Julian’s work,
well, it gets to the point, even more reduced. He
has a very good way of dealing with proper scale
and what he wants to convey and express. It’s an
All images courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Above: View of Julian Schnabel’s studio, New York City, 2018
extremely persuasive and moving physical and
psychological environment that he is creating.
I think he has shown with his art that he can
apply that artistic sensitivity to very different
areas. Of course, there are the movies, but also
his environments; so if you go into the Gramercy
Hotel in New York, the interior of which he kind of
reimagined, you are entering rooms designed by
a painter
But he became famous from the plate paintings,
and those weren’t minimal.
I would certainly not call Julian Schnabel’s
work minimal, but if you look at the early work,
which was already extremely radical, and we’re
talking about pieces from the late ’70s and
early ’80s, the so-called wax paintings, he was
basically painting with wax, which is a very old
Masters’ technique. The paintings, again, were
like objects because these were not flat planes,
and then what he did with the plate paintings
was that he expanded the canvas even more
into three-dimensionality and transformed
the existence of the painting as something that
does not live solely on a flat plane, but has a
presence, a volume and an inherent complexity.
There were, of course, numerous influences, but
I think the plate paintings really created a base
and established a complex representation of the
world on which the artist reflects.
Top and bottom: Installation proposal of Julian Schnabel—Symbols of Actual Life Legion of Honor, San Francisco JULIAN SCHNABEL JUXTAPOZ .COM 79
80 SPRING 2018
 Though he doesn’t need to be categorized, he
is considered both a figurative and abstract
painter, right?
Some of the paintings are obviously very
figurative in the sense that you can decipher
what is being shown. But Schnabel’s work
always oscillates between reduced, gestural
abstraction and some figurative elements, and
I think you see that through all of his works.
There is no real sense to try to categorize them
one way or the other. If you look at the more
recent work, you will, again, conclude that
differentiation is not important. In a sense,
there is also no definition for a thought, a
memory, an emotional status, a word. Is it
figurative or abstract? It is, of course, both, and
none at the same time. In a certain way, the
past, things that already happened, are also
figurative components, and he incorporates
them by including materials or using textiles as
a surface in the work. He also blows up found
footage materials, like photographs, as the
starting point, and then adds a painted gesture.

Like the goat paintings?

Exactly. They’re another example, and we could
cite numerous other groups of works. In any
event, for whatever reason, people still look at
his work mainly through the perception of the
plate paintings. For some, it is possibly the only
thing that they really looked at. And this is a fairly
uninformed position regarding Julian’s general
reception as an artist. If you were to poll the art
world and ask what people think about him, you
get mixed responses.

Either the greatest painter, or the worst.

Right, and then what you encounter is that
basically a lot of people who have a particular
opinion have not actually seen much of his work.
So you have this fixed notion, which is more of
an opinion about a vague idea of his persona or
reputation, and I would say that a lot of those
people have not looked at this work in a long time.
On the other hand, I think that Julian is fairly
influential for a new, younger generation of artists.
The most obvious is Oscar Murillo, but you have
a whole other set of artists. And it’s not the plate
paintings that are the big influence. It’s really the
work from the ’90s and onward, as well as the very
early work, this absolutely stunning, emotionally
and poetically charged, yet reductionist, large
kind of canvas.

Having been involved with his work for quite

some time, it's very interesting that a whole
number of people have formed such a strong
opinion on fairly little information or exposure to
the work. When I look at Schnabel’s oeuvre, I see
one of the greatest and most important painters of
his generation. We arranged a big retrospective in
Frankfurt which then traveled to the Reina Sofia
in Madrid, and I have written about his work a
couple of times.

Julian Schnabel’s studio, Montauk, 2017, Photo by Tom Powel Imaging, Copyright Julian Schnabel Studio JULIAN SCHNABEL JUXTAPOZ .COM 81
82 SPRING 2018 Julian Schnabel’s studio, Montauk, 2017, Photo by Tom Powel Imaging, Copyright Julian Schnabel Studio
It seems that, though he’s exhibited in Europe,
here he is remembered for parties and celebrity.
Well, at least from a certain group of people, and
yes, it’s for them that he became the poster boy
for something excessive that they see connected
to the art scene development of the 1980’s.
On the other hand, he has a large and loyal
following of collectors, though surprisingly,
there is less exposure to his work here in the
US than in Europe. Even if you have a negative
opinion of the work, people will admit that he
is one of the defining artists of his time. So, in
a sense, there is an intriguing nuance about the
perception of him.

And people might just think of him as the

painter who also makes movies.
Again, after his major achievements in this
medium, some people try to pigeonhole him;
“Well, he’s an okay painter, but the movies are
great.” I would say that, regarding the movies,
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Before Night
Falls, in particular, though there are differences,
of course, they are extremely painterly—poetic,
experimental, spontaneous and persuasive. He
would insist that he’s a painter doing movies.
When I asked, “What did the movies really do for
your career?” he replied that, “Suddenly people
could start talking about what I do.” And he’s
right, because it’s hard for people to speak about
painting. Everyone can speak about movies and
their narration. Once I moderated a panel with
Albert Oehlen and Julian about painting, and
it was revelatory in showing what a different
language we need to use to describe artistic
intention. If you would have to speak about what
you like, say, about the goat paintings, it’s much
harder than speaking about what you like about
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I would say that
he is the visual artist of his time who has made
the best fi lms—but I admire his paintings first
and foremost.

Nevertheless, the genre is so different. If you

decide to do a painting, you do it, and you don’t
need anyone else. Doing a movie is a major, major
organizational effort, and you need to motivate
so many different people. And he can do that. If
you look at his movies, especially the first ones,
they’re really on a shoestring and done by sheer
dedication, vision, and force of will. You can see
that the actors playing in Basquiat are really his
friends, participating and acting somewhat for
him,so he could have David Bowie be Warhol and
Dennis Hopper play Bruno Bischofberger. And he
got the best out of them. He wants to use the best
people, and in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,
he worked with the famous cinematographer
Janusz Kaminski. Obviously, this guy had all
sorts of lenses, but Julian had this idea, for the
cameraman to fi lm through Julian’s own glasses.
So in this very typical, impromptu way, the world
is seen through his own personal lens. It’s like
when he stands in front of a painting, and makes
a white splash from the left lower corner, and
then sees how it develops into something else.
I think he uses some sort of the same artistic
elements in the fi lm medium, which usually is
not as prone to improvisation.
He’s almost reminiscent of a Francis Ford
Coppola, an expansive and operatic artist.
He certainly has an ego and a clear sense of what
he wants to get accomplished, which I have to
say, every artist should have and needs to have to
basically pave through these kinds of walls they
have before them. It’s fairly amazing how Julian
knows things, memorizes them and points them
out. He kind of digests and absorbs so much of his
surroundings and is sensitive to what’s happening
around him; whereas, some other artists certainly
are not.
Okay, he did a film on Basquiat and he’s
now doing one on Van Gogh, who are both
romantically tortured artists. But he’s not
tortured? His attraction to such iconic souls is
interesting.
I think he has this somewhat old-fashioned idea
of artistic struggle in life. I mean, he certainly
shows that in his movies, although it’s more
difficult to decode in the paintings. It’s very
hard to make artworks that are beautiful and
emotionally charged, but not be kitschy or

Top and bottom: View of Julian Schnabel’s studio, New York City, 2018 JULIAN SCHNABEL JUXTAPOZ .COM 83
 superficial, or kind of stereotypical. I think he
kind of treads on that border on purpose, which
is not always a safe space.

He still does portraits, doesn’t he?

Yes, commissions and plate paintings, as well.
Some might say this caters to the market, but
Julian, like Warhol, has a signature style for
portraiture, and one that’s recognizable for many.
And for some people who want to have a Schnabel,
that makes them very happy. On the other hand,
I would say that Julian’s paintings, in general,
given their monumental scale, their complex and
coded narrative, their challenging materiality and
different approaches and styles are almost the
opposite of what the “market” would want.

Since the Legion will be showing some of his

signature massive paintings, we’d like to know
more about them.
I feel that among his most important paintings
are probably the Treatise of Melancholia series.
These were done for an exhibition at an old
monastery, the Cuartel de Carmen in Seville;
24 paintings on olive green tarpaulin he found
in Mexico. It was an extraordinary exhibition
of major, very large paintings in a highly
connotated environment. An element that is
important about his work is that the paintings
have a history already ingrained in them
before he starts, so it’s not like a blank canvas.
His basic canvas could be the landscapes
reproduced in his goat paintings or fabric that
a street vendor used to cover his vegetables.
He just buys stuff that he is inspired by as the
basic surface material for his stretcher, which
gives his work a kind of history, a narrative. It’s
already charged, to a certain extent, before he
even starts painting.

Your show will feature some of these big, bold

pieces, right?
When he came out here to the Legion, he kind of
jokingly said, “So, Max, where are my galleries?”
We were standing in the courtyard, and I played
along, saying, “Well, we are standing in it.” That
kind of stopped him in his tracks, and he asked,
“What do you mean?” And I said, “I want to have a
show of your works in the outside courtyard.”

Because he paints these large canvases in an

outside studio which he built, and because his
paintings are so much about architecture in
their context, I thought this would be a perfect
kind of environment. And with our new overall
contemporary program at the Fine Arts Museums,
work is not supposed to be presented in a gallery
of white cubes, one, two, three, but as bold and
playful interventions using our premises in an
unusual way, sometimes creating tension between
the classical and contemporary art context.
Out of that came a new series of paintings that
Julian Schnabel custom-made, so to speak, for
the courtyard. I also felt we should exhibit three

84 SPRING 2018 Top and bottom: View of Julian Schnabel’s studio,New York City, 2018
“He likes creating an ensemble for
now, as wel l as eternity.”
seminal bodies of paintings from the ’90s to
show in the three galleries housing our Rodin
collection. So, in these galleries, we’ll present the
Jane Birkin paintings made from the reclaimed
Egyptian sails that Julian saw on the Nile, the goat
paintings and the abstract Mexican paintings
whose canvases are from Mexican fruit and
vegetable market stalls.
Paintings inspired by Jane Birkin, the actress?
The name evoked a time and mood for him. He
sometimes includes in his paintings the names
of people he relates to, that are close to him,
or just foreign words that he just heard, words
that resonate. So you will find Pope Pius IX,
Ozymandias, or William Gaddis in some of his
work, or his surfer friend Chuck, or something
Jane Birkin (Egypt), Oil, gesso on sailcloth, 204.25” x 228.5”, 1990, Photo by Tom Powel Imaging, Copyright Julian Schnabel Studio
fairly mundane or haphazard in another. Again,
some of it seems very impromptu, but it is about
the possibility of having a reaction to the different
elements that surround us, showing that all sorts
of things can be reference points, inhabiting a
psychologically charged room of reception. It is
not a diary. It’s just him being open and applying
his artistic hand to everything in life, even to the
design of the chairs in his house, or in choosing an
eighteenth-century piece as background in one of
his works because he likes creating an ensemble
for now, as well as eternity. That’s also what
I really like about him.
Well, that’s the director in him.
You’ll be visiting the studio and he’ll say, “You
need to see this painting. But you should see it
in this light—and then in that light, and then
in a third context. And he starts moving the
paintings around by himself, like on a theater
set where they take center stage and where he is
extremely sensitive to their place and relation
to the spectator.
And the Legion of Honor is his next theater.
How will you take care of the paintings in the
courtyard?
We don’t take care of them, I mean…
If it rains, it rains.
Right. Well, it’s not the most important thing that
they’re going to deteriorate. These are paintings
being part of the environment. And they will have,
so to speak, that history of having been exhibited
here at the Legion ingrained in them wherever
they end up afterwards.
Julian Schnabel is on view at the Legion of Honor in
San Francisco April 21–August 5, 2018. He is currently
working on a movie about Vincent Van Gogh.
JULIAN SCHNABEL JUXTAPOZ .COM 85
Theresa
Chromati
Grace In Her Space
Interview by Kristin Farr Portrait by Bryan Derballa

THERESA CHROMATI JUXTAPOZ .COM 87

A silver lining, a rainbow, or a sprout pushing
through pavement—there are countless ways
to analogize the subversion of negativity, but
togetherness is key for positive transformation.
Theresa Chromati’s paintings celebrate the
unparalleled power of community among
black women, and her work inspires a hard
examination of expectations as her figures are
set free to dance, be natural, and own the space
they have always deserved. She is quite literally
turning scars into sparkles.
Chromati is a Brooklyn artist who has already
lived other lives as a designer and clarinetist, and
she’s now a multi-sensory storyteller, making
mixed-media work that moves, shakes, and
expresses the depth of female bonds, among
other personal and universal tales.
Kristin Farr: What are all the mediums you
work in?
Theresa Chromati: Mainly painting and collage,
primarily acrylic paint. I use glitter, vinyl plastics,
silk fabric, and I have also played with cotton and
bandanas. I’m really interested in adding textures
and different elements. I’ve worked digitally, and
I’m working with wood now, and I’m trying to move
in the direction where the surface plays into the
context of the work.
I’m working on a series about events that happen
through the eyes of people who are stoop
sitting, spending a long time sitting on the steps,
including certain events that happen on the
street. It captures people on these steps doing
nostalgic things from my childhood, like eating
sunflower seeds. Another painting is called
Stoop Rapunzel, and it captures a young woman
walking down the steps, her hand being held by a
boy, and the mother’s looking out the door—little
88 SPRING 2018
moments like that. The wood I painted on was
shaped like a house.
I remember eating sunflower seeds. They’re a lot
of work.
They are. It was just something you did, even if
you didn’t really like them. My mom never bought
sunflower seeds, but the kids in my neighborhood
loved them, so I just ate them because it was like a
way of belonging.
The gateway to smoking.
Right, it’s the same structure. We’re clearly from
two different places, but you still have the same
memory of something that most people would
never talk about unless it came up, so I’m trying to
consider those things and put them into the work.
We should talk about glitter.
I just have a natural attraction to glitter. A lot
of what I’m trying to say in my work is about
the beauty and confidence of black women,
and depicting moments of partnership among
them. There’s also proximity to people who don’t
quite understand us or see our shine, so I like
using a shimmering medium to play into the
context. I really like texture and how one area
of the painting can be matte and one is shiny,
which makes it seem three-dimensional. I want
the pieces to have a cinematic feel when you see
them in person.
How do the fabrics relate to the content?
Silk represents quality. It’s very delicate, and the silk
I’ve used recently is yellow, so it’s bright and positive.
When is your next solo show?
In September, in my hometown, at School 33,
and I purposely chose Baltimore because the
work is about home, and the moments are
Left: Looking (2 Women With Eating Sunflower Seeds), Acrylic and glitter on custom wood panel, 24” x 48”, 2017 Middle: I Take Care of Mine, Acrylic,
glitter, and vinyl collage on paper, 47” x 39”, 2017 Right: Stoop Rapunzel, Acrylic and glitter on custom wood panel, 30” x 48”, 2017
reflective of my life in that city. It’s inspired by
personal memories, and imagination on top of
that—just things that I want to see or talk about.
I’ve realized that the things that relax me are
also considered research, so I’ve been exploring
Baltimore City on Google maps. I’ll type in an
address in a neighborhood that I know, just to
see how it’s depicted. A lot of the images capture
people, so I take screenshots of people on stoops
for consideration.
What else about Baltimore comes through in
your work?
I’m feeling some kind of way that’s driving me
to create something nostalgic that talks about a
specific community, but my overall focus is on
partnership among women. Body language and
other references come from women who grew
up in Baltimore City, my mom and my aunt,
women on my block. They are just ingrained in
me and how I see the idealistic woman. I often
make this alternate dimension world, but in
my last show, Strange Noise on the Rooftop, there
are images of women standing on homes, and
some of them are single-family homes, or row
homes with a specific brick pattern that I’ve only
seen in Baltimore. Certain elements pop up,
but I wouldn’t say all my work is about the city,
because that would box me in. But I do currently
focus on the emotions and the structure of those
communities where I grew up.
Are you still doing design and illustration work?
I do quite a bit of freelance work for Vice, and I
used to do a lot of posters. I went to undergrad for
graphic design, but I didn’t feel like I was being
challenged, so I surrounded myself with peers
who needed illustrations. Some friends were
throwing a really inclusive and diverse music
festival called Kahlon, and I was the overall
BBW (Between a Braider’s Weaving), Digital print, glitter, and fabric collage on paper, 48” x 72”, 2016 THERESA CHROMATI JUXTAPOZ .COM 89
visual person, creating the brand identity. Noisey
came down and covered it, and it was something
really special that helped me at an early age. This
was my introduction to sharing my work, which
started as posters or album covers.
It was an interesting way to see reactions through
comments online. I’ve been developing my
characters since I was 18, but I kept them really
private. One had arms but no legs, so she walked
on the arms. That’s one I’m working with more
and more. I didn’t use her much at first because I
didn’t know how she survived.
How come she has no legs? She also has six
fingers.
Sometimes I do extra fingers. She’s just odd,
and to me, that’s enough explanation. I want to
continuously show diversity with black women,
and maybe you don’t quite understand her,
but that’s okay because she’s breathing and she
deserves space.
Do many of your characters recur?
I have like a little vault of people that I can
reference, and I try to reference myself. I think
it’s safest that way. Most of the characters are
depicted with masks, and they also have pussy
lips, and those are both examples of armor.
They represent something you have to put on
before you walk outside, referencing how what
you see is not the entire person, just a shell of
90 SPRING 2018
a person, and it’s about that identity. It’s also
protection against harm. As a black woman, I
feel you need a protective layer just in case, so I
often show them doing happy or joyous things,
though they’re still wearing these elements.
It’s protection against anything that could take
your balance away. It’s also a source of pride, the
armor, but now I’m showing women without it in
really serene places.
Tell me more about how the pussy lips are
symbolic.
The foreground of the paintings is the beauty
and confidence in the relationships of these
black women, despite the negative things that
are in proximity to them. I made the pussy lips
based on the whole situation that black women
have full lips and have been really made fun
of and tortured because of that, and to see
that exaggerated lips have now become such a
phenomenon across races feels really odd. So, the
pussy lips in the paintings are armor, but also my
innate feature that I wear proudly, and it’s at the
center, where your vagina is, so that’s a connection
for women, and it’s a really loaded image.
It’s not exactly self-portraiture, but your own
image is related to the work.
There are definitely elements that are directly
from me. I haven’t figured out if I’m making
self-portraits or not. Right now I’m saying no, but
there are definitely elements, like scarification
Reclining Woman (Wig Connection), Acrylic, glitter, vinyl, and silk collage on paper, 71” x 40”, 2017
and keloids, the hair and the feet. There’s tons of
elements, but I think they survive without me, so I
don’t know if that still counts as a self-portrait.
I always ask figurative artists what their
characters would say out loud.
I create soundscapes because I want to get closer
to relating a sound of the environment I’m
tapping into. When people view the work, they
can hear that and get closer to that reality. Humor
is a strong part of my work, and I like to add
whimsical qualities. In the soundscapes, I use my
own voice, but it’s really distorted.
Tell me more about what you want to
communicate about the experience of women.
I want to talk about the beauty of black women
because I look at my relationships, and it’s one
of the most beautiful things when you have love
and support, and you balance one another. I show
the relationships with a sense of community I
haven’t felt anywhere else besides with women. It’s
important to show. Depictions of black women in
media throughout history are not often aligned with
what I see as important, so I feel it’s my responsibility
to create as many positive and realistic images of
us as possible. I also want to show how we get hurt,
and how we support, how we laugh and get dressed,
literally everyday things that I find so special.
Tell me about your BBW show and if that’s been
a theme all along.
That was my first solo, and I was focusing on where women can completely be themselves in Boot Wearer, and it showed a white woman trying
reclaiming an acronym that is oversexualized their entirety. The idea of home as a structure on a boot, but it was literally skin, like a whole
in porn—Big Beautiful Women. I thought it is a metaphor representing ignorance, pain, leg, and that was an example of trying something
was interesting and funny to reintroduce the misunderstanding, misogyny and all these on. It’s a whole leg from a person, something from
acronym and focus on black women, but not in things that can place a woman in a space that their body that they needed, and this person is
an oversexualized way. There is a painting with she does not want or need to be placed in. So I just trying it on.
a woman braiding another woman’s hair, and a depicted women on top of houses to show the
piece with a couple where the woman is in front idea of being close to this structure but also Also, in my Tea Time series, which was a public
and very grand, and the man is behind her. It’s overcoming it. installation, women were protecting their serene
titled Behind Bae’s Worth, and I wanted to show a spaces, and everyone was surviving in a teacup
woman being confident, but also having a partner I was thinking more literally, that it was about or a tea kettle, and I wanted to relate this twisted
who gives the space for her to shine, and he’s not people invading your space. love of tea. I enjoy tea, and it’s calming, and it
being demanding or controlling. I’ve had experiences that felt like my energy was became this important thing in my family. My
being sucked out of me for entertainment, just dad’s side is West Indian, and a lot of Caribbeans
What does your work say about space and to make other people feel comfortable. I’m not that were colonized by the British admire things
identity, and how they are linked? focusing on things like that now, but when I did that were left there. Drinking tea is something I
The space I’m creating is a positive environment the BBW show, there was a piece called Beneficial wanted to question, so I depicted all the women
in teacups feeling great, basically showing us as a
community of black people who are often placed
in spaces that aren’t our intended spaces, but in
order to survive, we make it okay. We do what
we can to survive in this space that wasn’t even
intended for us. The women are finding ways to
be calm, but there is another portion of the piece
where one of the figures is carrying a carton of
milk, and a few of the angel-like protectors are
saying no to mixing their tea with milk. It was
more about having black tea. The whole thing
was twisted.

My focus is the space being taken, actual objects

being taken, and what it looks like when so many
things from your community have been taken,
and you are still trying to successfully find
comfort within a very uncomfortable situation.
There’s always someone trying to take, and there
are so many forms of taking. I’m interested in
nostalgia. If I only made work focusing on being
wrong, I’d be doing myself a disservice. Overall,
I want people to see that, despite these negative
things happening, this woman in this piece is
still going.

You said people often ask who’s behind the mask

in your paintings.
Right now I’m just showing fractions of who’s
behind the mask, and I’m not ready to show the
whole face. I have a smaller piece that shows only
the legs and feet of a woman standing in front of a
mask, which is on the floor, so she’s looking down at
it. It’s about looking for this self that you have to put
on in order to go out. This woman, while in this safe
space, is feeling something when she is faced with
putting on this persona. It’s the contemplation right
before she bends down to pick it up.

Tell me about the patterns and design elements

in the stages you’re setting.
There’s always something happening, and it’s
so busy in the environments where I feel most
comfortable. My community is constantly
innovating, and all of that is inside me when it’s
time to pick colors and create movement. I want to
get into creating more depth in the work, because

Artist clothing collaboration with Print All Over Me, Linen dress and digital composition design by the artist, THERESA CHROMATI JUXTAPOZ .COM 91
Campaign images by Theresa Chromati x Maroon World
92 SPRING 2018
Dancing With The Stars, Acrylic, glitter, and vinyl collage on paper, 77” x 24”, 2017 THERESA CHROMATI JUXTAPOZ .COM 93
94 SPRING 2018 BBW (Beneficial Boot Wearer), Digital print, glitter, and fabric collage on paper, 48” x 72”, 2016
I feel like people don’t consider the depth of my
community and the history. I’m really excited
about pushing that forward for however long
I have on this earth to do so.
I’ve put basic insecurities into the pieces, and
it’s helped me in the process of seeing them as
beautiful. It’s been therapeutic. I have big ol’ feet
that are kind of strange, with wide toe gaps, and
it’s odd but interesting, so I’ll make figures that
look like that, too. The hands have become more
stylized and fluid, and it felt natural to mimic that
same style in the backgrounds.
I use keloids on a lot of the figures, which you
can’t really see in the photographs. I have a
keloid, and it’s hereditary, a scar on my chest.
There are certain trigger areas where you can
get this type of scar, and people with more
melanin are more susceptible to forming them.
Your skin heals too quickly in certain areas. My
grandmother had one from putting perfume on
her chest, which irritated the skin. The same
thing happened to my mother, so, growing up,
they always told me not to do the perfume thing,
and I never did. But I scratched my chest one day,
and it didn’t heal properly, and the scar started
to grow. I was upset, but at a certain point,
I realized I had to find confidence with this scar
that’s right at the center of my chest, and I started
to find the beauty in it. My mom has it, and my
STOP! Someone’s in here (Woman Takes a Shit), Acrylic, glitter, silk fabric and vinyl collage on paper, 60” x 40”, 2017
grandmother did, and she’s no longer here, so it
feels like this weird connection. I put them in the
pieces because there’s no right idea of beauty or
perfection. All of these things people would see
as imperfections, I’m trying to find confidence
within them, and I make the keloids with globs
of paint or glitter.
There’s not a lot of research on them and there’s
no treatment, because if you mess with it, it could
keep growing. A lot of women have it and don’t
know what it is. Dermatologists would just want
to remove it, but the whole reason you have it is
because your skin can’t take trauma, so it just
grows back larger. You have to do research about
how to holistically treat it. They’re not a focal
point of the work, but it’s something that can start
a long conversation.
What’s something that feels really important to
you, but less important to other people?
I’m really big on storytelling, even for the smallest
thing. I want someone to create a seat for me in
the space, I want to know where you were and
what you ordered, and all this backstory, so I
can be immersed in that environment. I think
I get that from my grandmother, because she’s
from another country, so when I was younger,
stories would be super detailed because they were
about places I’d never been to or seen. So when
people tell me things, I expect that same kind of
storytelling, and people do not feel like doing that.
If someone says they had a great time, I’m like,
“What conversations did you have? What was the
vibe? Who performed? What did it look like?” If
you had a good time, I want to be placed there. But
other people are like, “I just said I had a great time,
so that’s it.”
What’s your ideal party?
I often feel like every party I go to falls short
because I’m looking for something I’ll never
get in this time period. I often wish I could live
through other time periods, and mainly for the
parties. I want to see something strange, and the
DJ has to be constantly playing a diverse range
of music. I want lighting, installations, animals...
not to be a cliche, but something like Studio 54,
clubs in New York from the ’70s and ’80s. I’ve
never been to my ideal party, and I always have
this vision.
There’s a movie called The Great Beauty, an Italian
film from 2013, and within the first few minutes,
there’s a party that looks really great, so I guess
it’s possible. I’m still searching for that, but I’m
not sure it exists in this day and age. I just like
spontaneity and random things, and I like to be
surprised. I don’t want just one shock factor, but
many different ones.
theresachromati.black
THERESA CHROMATI JUXTAPOZ .COM 95
Franco
Fa s o l i
A History
of Jaz
Interview by Gwynned Vitello Portrait by Todd Mazer

Trying to define jazz is fraught

and elusive, and so is any attempt to
pigeonhole the multimedia artist known
as Jaz. Born Franco Fasoli in Buenos
Aires, the painter-sculptor-collagist,
bred in the tradition of opera, draws and
draws from the fusion and confusion of
life. We sat down together at the Juxtapoz
Clubhouse during Miami Art Week and
talked about the beautiful noise.
Gwynned Vitello: I have to admit I was skeptical
when I read that you first studied at the Instituto
del Teatro Colon. That’s like going to school at
the Met or La Scala.
Jaz: I studied at the opera house right after
I finished art school. It was like my secondary
school, where you go between 12 and 18 years old,
and I finished as a ceramicist. Right after that, I got
interested in building props and stage design, so
I got into the opera house. They have an institute
for people to work in different areas of the theater,
like music, dance, clothing and stage design, which
is what I was interested in. It combined many skills
I liked, such as painting and sculpting, but with a
particular purpose. I was always interested in the
theater because of my family; half of them worked
at the Teatro Colon.
My husband’s family was from Argentina, and on
one side, the children were named after operas.
My grandparents on my dad’s side worked at
the Teatro Colon, one a piano player and one a
dancer. Both uncles worked there, one a stage
98 SPRING 2018
builder and the other, an archivist. My mother’s
parents both paint, and they teach graphic
design. When I was a kid, I was skilled in art
and liked stage design because it was a good
combination where I could put many skills in one
direction. Then I taught stage design at Teatro
Colon after I finished my own studies.
What an opportunity to work in such a gorgeous
building, like an inspiration in itself!
It was amazing to work and study there from
2000 to 2008, when they started renovations.
And, at the same time, I had a stage design
company I had started with other students.
For ten years, we did scenography for anything
you can imagine: film, theater, parties and
advertising. We would build anything you
wanted, so it was an incredible ten years for a
young man to work with the masters of stage
design in Argentina. They embraced me, so it
was exciting in terms of knowledge and different
ways to work. Learning all those skills helped me
create languages for each. So the art background,
stage design and graffiti just mixed together—
and boom!
Most graffiti artists don’t start out this way. How
did your family react?
For me, it was a kind of self-rebellion, a way to
clash against my background, a way to escape
the heavy tradition. My family was fantastic,
and my grandfather became a super fan. When
I started to paint graffiti in the ’90s, there wasn’t
too much information about it in Buenos Aires,
and there wasn’t any danger around it, so I had
their full support.
That was then, and…
It’s not like that anymore. Graffiti exploded many
years ago, and now the government is everywhere,
cleaning it up, giving big tickets, putting up
barriers. Now it is really hard, not like when we
started and they gave us walls and paint.
Did the ornamental style of Fileteado have an
influence on you?
Bienvenido, Collage on canvas, 71” x 51”, 2016
Top: 20 x 21 EUG Mural Project, Eugene, Oregon, 2017 Bottom: One Against One, Mural Ist Festival, Istanbul, Turkey, 2013 FRANCO “JAZ” FASOLI JUXTAPOZ .COM 99
100 SPRING 2018 Collaboration with Conor Harrington, São Paulo, Brazil, 2015
We did grab that emblematic culture for our
graffiti and tried to create our own style; it was
very naive. At the beginning of the movement,
we got all that culture from Buenos Aires and put
it in our own style. It was so easy, so cool.
Tell me more about how you started.
With graffiti, I started when I was a student, even
before stage design, when I was fourteen or fifteen.
I was really into skateboarding, BMX and hip-hop
culture. In our city, it was a small scene, but I had
my drawing skills and we all knew each other.
Graffiti came from outside, especially from Brazil,
because of that first generation of artists like Os
Gemeos. They came to Buenos Aires because it
was close, an empty city and easy to paint. They
came, and we saw those crazy yellow things, and
started to check the early internet, like Art Crimes
and graffiti.art. We tried to understand what it
was, and I remember that with my first, I knew
to put my name. I would put bands’ names. We
started out bad, but we really wanted to find out
what it was.
Shoe Thief, Rabat, Morocco, 2015
"What do yo u k no w about graffiti,
abo ut a gr o up who really risked
their lives, and yo u, just going
ar o und tagging? "
I can’t imagine a more political and artistic place
than Argentina, so I am surprised it started
somewhere else.
The dictatorship finished in 1983, and I was born
in the dictatorship. The ’70s were extremely
violent and the streets were dangerous. Painting
in the street was nearly impossible. Graffiti
you saw in the street was extremely political,
but you were risking your life. I remember
presenting myself as a graffiti artist and having a
conversation with some older artists, one of them
an art historian. He said, “What do you know
about graffiti, about a group who really risked
their lives, and you, just going around tagging?”
I realized I had started out in a democracy where
everything is chill. I realized how strong it was,
working in a public space in those times, and why
it started so late.
Also, in Argentina. the hip-hop culture isn’t as big
as in other countries. It’s more rock ’n’ roll, even
now. In that time, even Chile was much stronger,
and it was a connection we made because of the
language and proximity.
Then you lived in the Palermo Hollywood
neighborhood of Buenos Aires. What was that
like?
FRANCO “JAZ” FASOLI JUXTAPOZ .COM 101
Again, it was hip hop that influenced me. It was
a very small district, and we knew each other
so well. The first hip hop jams were super small,
super ghetto, with only one place to party.
Everyone was really connected, and for me, I felt
a good vibe. We had a good relationship with all
the artists and the scene, Then it exploded and
became a different situation.
You were into hip hop, but at the time, you were
painting classical musicians.
I was still working in stage design, and my next
steps were to go beyond graffiti and use different
materials. 2003-04 was when I decided to use the
shittiest materials I could find, and that was, like,
the real beginning.
Maybe that’s partly a result of your background
in set building.
I always tried to stay with the concept. When
you work in a public space, you should keep it
like that, push that aspect. So I started to work
with materials I would find in the walls or on the
street, the least I could use and the cheapest. The
spray can materials became super professional
and specific, so I decided to use the shittiest stuff
102 SPRING 2018
I could find. I wanted to go back, to find another
language that fits better with a public space. In
the beginning, I tried to use a simple style, more
typical, like Fileteado, and realized I could use my
chosen materials to show my relationship with my
city. Gradually, I moved away from the streets and
into the studio, but I used the mentality from the
streets to have a dialogue with the pubic space.
Did you have any ideas that just didn’t cut it, any
materials that absolutely did not work?
Almost everything didn’t work! I liked the fact that
they had an ephemeral feel. Tar was one of the best
because it was very cheap and disappeared! It gives
a chance to work in a pictorial way. I remember
going to paint with a bucket of tar for maybe two
dollars. I would go to the gas station, grab the
cheapest gas and dissolve the tar with it. I did a lot
of pieces with just those two materials, including
many big walls. With the sun and environment,
the piece disappeared little by little. I would use
dust from the ground, brick, a lot of coal, also a lot
of limestone because, in Argentina, the advertising
was done with limestone. There is a whole culture
around the people who do political pieces with
it, and I did a project with them. What they do is
illegal, so they work at night, same as with graffiti.
I went to their studio and did some pieces in that
style. Little by little, the materials took over my
work. That gave me the mood to work with paper,
and now I’m also working with bronze.
And when you work in sculpture, you fabricate
the whole piece, don’t you?
For me, I have no problem with other people’s
methods. I understand how contemporary art
works, but I’m an artist who really needs to be
involved in the process. That’s the main thing
driving me. I like to draw from my palette of skills
and mix them to see if I can find my own language
using them. My friend from Italy 2501 asked me to
make a sculpture with a machine he had. I had it in
mind to work with bronze for a long time.
Which led to you moving to Spain.
I moved to Barcelona particularly for love. My
girlfriend lives there. I had tried to work with
bronze in Argentina, but it was too expensive.
I asked some friends in Europe and the States, and
especially Zio Ziegler from San Francisco, who
gave me a hand and advised me. I found a place
in Barcelona, and that opened another part of my
Madrid, Spain, 2015
brain. I continued to work in sculpture with other
materials, fabric, polyurethane and ceramics, and
had a dialogue with those materials. That gave me
another problem in my mind!
But I know you’re still painting.
I’m doing more collage than anything, but still
painting and sculpting a lot. Before, my work was
divided between inside and outside. Now it’s more
Top: Primer Territorio Libre de America, Collage on paper, 315” x 157”, 2016 Bottom: Pantalón, Bronze and fabric, 2017
divided between 2D and 3D; so again, I’m excited
about all the possibilities.
What’s the difference between working in South
America and Europe? Of course, Barcelona is
now a whole other story.
Before, Barcelona felt divided, but now it’s
divided in a bad way. There are acts of violence
between the ones who are independent and
the ones who are extremely nationalistic
isolationists. While it’s still a developed
European city with the good vibe of Barcelona,
it’s even more intense because it’s small and
concentrated. There is the good vibe of tourists,
but also police helicopters hovering overhead.
So you went from Argentina to this?
Ha, every time I put up a video of the riots, all my
friends from Argentina say, “You went all the way
there to see the same thing?!” But I like struggle. If
you ask anyone from Argentina, it’s love and hate
at the same time. Now that I live in Spain, I would
miss that energy at some point.
That’s evident in so much of your work.
Constant struggle seems to be the theme.
I talk about society, as well as my struggle, personal
struggle through societal struggle. As a mixed
media artist who works in many different ways,
I talk about Argentine society through my subjects.
But it is extremely personal at the same time. I have
always been interested in history and feel so lucky
to have the chance to visit other countries and see
the clash of the different realities. Geographically,
Argentina is far from everything, so I see what is
happening, but from a distance. I do feel the loss of
the vibe that used to surround me.
Have you ever lived, say, in the country, some
quiet, grassy, green place?
I was never interested in quiet places. I love those
places to visit, but I love the mess! Mexico City
is my favorite place in the world (next to Buenos
FRANCO “JAZ” FASOLI JUXTAPOZ .COM 103
104 SPRING 2018 El Agradecido, Collage on canvas, 43” x 51”, 2017
Aires) because it is so insane, so bizarre. In just
one corner, you have more information than any
other place you could be. I was just in Mexico
and spent some time with a documentarian.
There are so many fascinating rituals. He told us
about a procession for the sun, which involves
a tradition of massive hammers mixed with
gunpowder. In the middle of all this smashing,
there is the interaction of religion and history.
The Aztec and Mayan roots are so deep. Mix that
with religion, and it’s insane. I could live my
whole life in Mexico confounding about these
things. In Bolivia, there is a tradition where they
fight for the growing of the crops, a prehispanic
ritual, where the flowing of blood is said to
enhance the yield.
Despite the political turmoil, Barcelona is
generally more calm, a city where every day
I can see the same thing happening. I prefer living
where anything can happen at some point.
The horses you paint show so much strength
and energy.
I love the beauty and stamina of the animal. It is
Pretencion de Grandeza, Collage on canvas, 71” x 51”, 2016
also related to subjects that my family of artists
worked with. There is a childhood connection,
and also with tigers, for example.
Your painting of the tigers in the bedroom,
the one with the long red nails, tells a vivid,
mysterious story.
Like someone looking through the plant into the
situation, I used that to show the animal side of
the person, as well as their inner energy. Also, it’s
a naive way to talk through childhood, to make
nicer the subjects of violence. The animals turn
into metaphors.
I find collage as a juxtaposition of all these
things, a more formal way to work with color,
paint and scissors. I make the collage with paper
covering the whole surface, then paint over in
oil with the same colors. After several layers,
I scratch the surface and remove parts of both.
I’m still learning and recently worked this way
on a massive scale, a 10 x 26’ collage. All these
clashing situations, but at the same time, a fragile
mural hanging by wires. So I’m exploring all
possibilities of the collage.
How do you feel about working alone?
I used to share a studio with two other artists
for ten years. We were friends, traveled together,
shared information, shared a good vibe and grew
up as artists. I miss that collaboration. The studio
in Buenos Aires was a massive clubhouse with
people coming by all the time. If someone needed
a place to stay, needed paint, we would hook
them up. The whole neighborhood got painted
and embraced us.
Art is never removed from your life, is it? Do you
ever go out and maybe paint a landscape? Do
you ever have down time?
Art is where I find a place of calm. But I do have
a singular project where I record every bed that
I ever slept in since traveling as a muralist. It
is totally different from any other part of my
work, and not at all commercial. The act of
photographing those beds is a diary of all the
craziness, a way to see those places, to remember
those places. I already have more than 100.
I exactly remember all of them.
www.francofasoli.com.ar
FRANCO “JAZ” FASOLI JUXTAPOZ .COM 105
Rebecca
Louise
Law
Painting on Air
Interview by Alex Nicholson Portrait by Fabio Affuso
REBECCA LOUISE L AW JUXTAPOZ .COM 107
Standing amid a suspended cloud of thousands
of flowers cascading from the ceiling, I realized
that an installation by Rebecca Louise Law can
be appreciated with eyes closed as well as open;
physically looking at it is just one aspect of the
experience. Recalling the wonder and innocence
of a childhood spent outdoors, of lying in a field
or playing in the garden, Law seeks to transform
the physical senses evoked by being in nature
into a work of art. “I wanted to paint in the air,”
she explains, and “I needed a material to help
me do this.”
Using the flower as sculptural material allows
Law to create a space where the viewer can
experience being inside the art, absorbing
fragrances and textures, observing not only
the beauty and colors of life, but the eventual
decay, death, and preservation. Maintaining
a “no waste” policy, every part of the material
is repurposed into a new work of art. “I have
always longed to create an art that enables
human kind to have a serenity within nature,”
Law said of a recent UK exhibition at the Kew
Royal Botanic Gardens, “transporting them
into a space without the constraints of time
and where there is still life in death.” After
108 SPRING 2018
suspending a decade’s worth of preserved
materials into one sculptural piece at Chandran
Gallery in San Francisco, Law spoke to me from
Malaysia where she was working on several
permanent encased artworks, completing the
final stage in the cycle of her creative process.
Alex Nicholson: In the introduction of your
exhibition and book, Life in Death, you discuss
how your father was a gardener and the attic
of your house was always filled with flowers
dried by your mom. How did she use the dried
flowers?
Rebecca Louise Law: My mother and father grew
flowers in an allotment in our village. They
would sell small bunches of dried flowers at the
front garden gate of our home. My mother often
made art, cards and decorations with dried
flowers, too.
Do you garden as well? Or are you over working
with flowers by the time you get home?
Growing up with the luxury of having a gardener
as my father made me lazy in the garden. My
father often prunes my tiny garden, and I have no
problem with letting it overgrow time and time
again. My home is full of dried flowers, and if we
ever have fresh flowers in the house, they would
have been bought and arranged by my husband.
Do you recall a specific moment when you
realized that you wanted to be an artist, or was
it something more gradual?
I always wanted to be an artist, nothing else
interested me.
What is the process for sourcing all of the
flowers you use? Do you use local farms in the
countries where you work?
I like to source the flowers locally, and a lot of
research will be put into this. My ideal is to have
site-specific artworks that come from the land
that I am working in. Most of my installations
are locally sourced, and I love finding out what
the local cultivated flowers are. Sadly, for some
artworks, I have to import the flowers. On these
occasions, I use flowers that I have sourced myself
in the UK. If I need expertly dried flowers, they
come from a farm in France, and for any other
flower, I have a supplier in Holland who will hunt
high and low for all species, dried or fresh.
Your studio is next to the Colombia flower market
in London. Do you often visit other markets
Dahlia, Dahlias and copper wire, 2003, TIC Space, Newcastle
The Beauty of Decay Series, Fine art archival pigment print on Hahnemuhle stock, 2016, In collaboration with photographer Rachel Warne REBECCA LOUISE L AW JUXTAPOZ .COM 109
110 SPRING 2018 Top and bottom: The Canopy, 150,000 mixed flowers, 2016, Melbourne, Australia
around the world? Do you have a favorite?
I once visited a flower market in Hanoi and loved
watching people balance mountains of flowers on
their bicycles and motorcycles and head off into
the morning to sell them throughout the city.
The last market that I went to that amazed
me was in Doha. The baskets of dried herbs
and flowers were abundant, next to stalls of
falcons ready to adorn a sheikh. Hong Kong is
incredible for its markets, and the bird market
is unique. Owning a bird for decoration upsets
and fascinates me. Some markets make you
feel like you have traveled back in time. I think
my favourite is Spitalfields antique market
in London on a Thursday. I love antiques and
finding old, beautifully crafted objects.

From funerals to weddings, there are so many

traditions surrounding flowers. They convey
such a wide range of emotions, from sorrow to
happiness and love. How do you draw on these
varying rituals and traditions in your work?
Each work is made with sensitivity to the
emotions that a flower can evoke. People have
responded with total elation or also deep
sorrow. Flowers are used throughout history
to mark an occasion, happy and sad. These
moments usually last a day, along with the
flower. I preserve every flower to hold on to
these moments, and by postponing decay,
I want to create a space that the viewer can
revisit, a place that may trigger a past memory
or emotion again and again.

With different flowers having different

meanings, depending on the culture, where
have you encountered a wide variance of
cultural differences in what a certain type of
flower symbolizes?
Every country has a native flower and its own
symbolism connected to it. White lilies represent
death in some countries and life in others.
I’ve struggled with bringing dried flowers into
cultures who observe the tradition of Feng Shui,
as they are thought to have a negative energy.
There is much debate about this, and many
patrons have argued that my work gives life
rather than death.
I was able to visit your first exhibition at Chandran an art exhibit. In your book, you recall wanting to
Do you have a favorite ritual involving flowers Gallery multiple times and watch the flowers bottle the excitement and freedom you feel being
that you’ve encountered in your research? slowly change. At your current exhibition there, surrounded by nature. Was sense of smell an
After working in Greece, I can’t walk past any Intertwine, the flowers are already preserved. The experience you were referencing?
herbs without brushing them through my dried flowers have a very different sense of beauty When I swapped my paints for flowers, the main
hands. China gave me so many floral teas, and to them. Can you describe the different energies draw of the flower was its many dimensions.
I love trying new teas. I think the Japanese tea emanating from fresh and dried flowers? Suddenly I could use a material that changed in
ceremony is the most sacred ritual I have learnt. A dried flower holds time. A fresh flower holds shape, texture, colour, and smell. I loved natural
My own ritual is lying under an artwork once I’ve a moment, and both are equally special. The art and I was excited to create something that
finished and just taking it in. beauty of a dried flower is being able to revisit it could evoke more than one sense, a physical
and observe it as a preserved object of the earth, a experience. I am not an expert on scent, but the
I was drawn to lay on the floor under all the perfect form of nature that holds onto its fragility. smell of my installations always takes me back
flowers too, I’m glad to know that’s one way they to my own childhood. I’ve always wanted my
were intended to be experienced! Do you have a The fragrance of the flowers is something else you installations to either transport the viewer back to
favorite flower? don't really consider if you aren't able to visit the their own memories of nature, or show the viewer
The Garden Rose (in a garden). installations in person. Scent is not often part of my own experience of nature.

Top: Balthasar Van der Ast, Fine Art Archival Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle stock: Mixed flowers, shells, model figures, insects, butterflies and props REBECCA LOUISE L AW JUXTAPOZ .COM 111
32” x 22”, 2014, Photo by Tom Hartford Bottom: Balthasar Van der Ast Decayed, Fine Art Archival Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle stock: Mixed flowers, shells, model
figures, insects, butterflies and props, 32” x 22”, 2014, Photo by Tom Hartford
You have mentioned that transitioning from
painting to working with flowers allowed you
to express your ideas much more fully. Do you
still paint?
I still paint. I’ll always paint.

From a distance, the flowers appear to be

floating, but once you get closer, you can clearly
see the wires holding everything together and
suspending them in space. When did you first
start hanging flowers from the ceiling and
tying them together with copper wire, and what
sparked that idea?
In 2003, I created my first hanging installation,
inspired by the flowers hanging in my parents
attic as a child. I had been experimenting with
hanging objects for a few years before I knew what
direction I wanted to go. I wanted to paint in the
air and I wanted my art to be three-dimensional.
I needed a material to help me do this. First,
I found the flower that could be preserved in an
array of colours and forms, and then in 2004,
I found copper wire. I have used this material to
hold all of my artworks together ever since and it
has never let me down.

Have you experienced anything in your own

installations that has surprised you, something
you didn't expect to feel or see?
I’m always humbled by the simplicity of working
with nature’s beauty.

The cycle of life is something you emphasize

in these pieces, and you also try to save all the
materials. A flower in nature loses its petals
and eventually return to the earth, as does all
life. Could you elaborate on the difficulty of
flowing against that natural cycle and holding
onto and preserving the materials? What is the
hardest part of manipulating a natural material
to your own vision while trying to maintain its
organic form and lifespan?
It feels unnatural to hold onto a material that is
intended to enrich the earth, so I suppose
I felt slightly guilty postponing this natural flow.
However, this new knowledge in preservation
has also provided so much to learn and poses a
challenge that continually keeps me focused. It is
incredibly difficult working with a material that
is dying and decaying. Timing is everything.

I recently read a book, On Trails, where

the author talks about how our idea of "the
wilderness" didn't really exist until we
needed to escape to it from something else.
And there is an often-quoted moment in the
documentary Burden of Dreams where Werner
Herzog, reflecting on life in the jungle, says,
“Taking a close look at what is around us,
there is some sort of a harmony. It is the
harmony of overwhelming and collective
murder... And we have to become humble
in front of this overwhelming misery and
overwhelming fornication, overwhelming

112 SPRING 2018

The Iris, 10,000 fresh irises, 2017, NOW Gallery, London, Photo by Charles Emerson REBECCA LOUISE L AW JUXTAPOZ .COM 113
114 SPRING 2018 Top: Helipetrum Sanfordii, Antique brass cabinet, mixed flowers and copper wire, 2015, Photo by Tom Hartford Bottom: Yellow, 2016, Columbia Road Flower Market, London, Photo by Rachel Warne
growth, and overwhelming lack of order.”
Because most of us don't spend our lives
in such a struggle to survive, nature is,
understandably, often a romantic concept, and
flowers especially, so does this other side of
nature, one of chaos, struggle, and death, work
its way into your work?
I always wanted to create an artwork that would
consume the viewer in nature. But to fully
be immersed in nature can be unpleasant, so
there needs to be balance and control. I think
the fantasy is much nicer than the reality. I’ve
played with fully immersive installations and
I rarely find a viewer who would step over
this boundary and completely lose themselves
in nature. I would like to push these natural
boundaries further and experiment more with
the human interaction in order to be fully
consumed in an artwork.
How do you plan installations? Do you create
detailed drawings of what each space will look
like? How do you keep track of inspiration,
ideas, and concepts?
My installations are dreams, and slowly
Still Life, 2016, Broadway Studio & Gallery, Letchworth, Photo by Katherine Mager
realized. Because working with flowers is so
expensive, my thoughts are much further ahead
than my physical work. If I have a patron who
cannot visualize the concept or work, I’ll draw
sketches and detailed plans. But I love to have
the freedom to create without restraints. I have
a constant notebook that holds many thoughts
and dreams.
I assume flowers catch your eye in all sorts of
things. Are there films that have inspired you?
I’m inspired by physically being in nature, and
have never found a film that can capture this
fully, even in my own work. However, I love film.
12 Years a Slave, Life is Beautiful and Farewell My
Concubine have never left my mind.
I’ve heard that you’re working on a film yourself.
Tell me about it.
I was given a book at university called The Sinful
Priest by Emile Zola. The whole book was written
using flowers and nature to describe a story. I found
the use of flowers in words so inspirational that
I wanted to capture an essence of the book in
homage to this inspiration. A friend offered to help
me make this possible by directing one chapter
with me, a scene where the heroine dies. It is a new
medium and I have learnt a crazy amount about
films, so I still feel completely out of my depth. I saw
every scene as an installation and it was hard to let
go and allow everyone to have a part of the art. The
film is a short entitled “The Death of Albine” and it
will be released in March 2018.
Do you still spend a lot of time outdoors? Where
are some of your favorite places to be outside,
physical places that inspire your work?
I love to go to remote places in nature. This year
I went to the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The
islands are so beautiful, completely inspirational.
Today I walked through the jungle in Malaysia.
I’m overwhelmed by old trees.
If logistics and money were not an issue, what is
your dream project?
The Tate Turbine Hall. I have an installation
in my head that I have dreamt of making since
University.
rebeccalouiselaw.com
REBECCA LOUISE L AW JUXTAPOZ .COM 115
Beyond the Mold
Interview by Eben Benson Portrait by David Broach
118 SPRING 2018 Hard Pressed, Latex on wood, 18” x 24”, 2018
Monumental shifts undulate all around, and
at any given moment, we’re part of intersectional
and structural changes that happen without
our conscious consent. Three years ago, Jillian
Evelyn was living in Boston working for footwear
giant Converse, choosing aesthetics and designs
for their wide array of shoes. By the end of 2017,
Jillian had moved to Los Angeles, having just
sold out her show at the Juxtapoz Clubhouse in
Miami, a number of solo shows under her belt, and
a mounting buzz humming behind her rapidly
growing career.
It’s possible that Jillian had it all planned out,
that she knew she would thrive upon leaving.
However, it takes a lot of faith and honesty to
move away from the safe path and bare your face
to the harsh wind of criticism that comes with
making and selling art. But still, three years in,
here she is.
When I interviewed Jillian for our website last
September, we spoke about the contorted figures
in her work, their discomfort, her shift from
acrylic to house paint, and how color choices
come from the gut. Looking back, that statement
about color provides insight into how she chose
to leave a stable design job for a solo career. In the
same instinctual way she envisions her unique
selection of colors and surfaces, she banked on
that intuition to emerge from the flock in middle
America to become one of the freshest painters in
the LA art scene.
I surprised her as a kid, and she recognized that
I had a unique way of seeing things, and she’s
always been very supportive.
With a background in footwear design, what
aspects of working in commercial design jobs
have spilled over into your current work as a
full-time artist?
At the time, I don’t think I knew how impactful my
career in footwear would be on me or my art.
Working for brands like Converse and TOMS, I
learned a lot about the DNA that makes a brand,
how to merchandise a product line, and the
importance of storytelling. The experience gave
me a good foundation, but I always felt a bit out
of place because the work didn’t feel like a full
expression of me. The experience of being unable
to fit into a mold and feeling a bit like a fraud
ultimately broke me. As I decided to work on my
art full time, I took what I had learned and used
these feelings to drive my expression. You can
only try to fit into a mold for so long.
How do you feel that branding, especially
personal branding, plays a role in being an artist
today? The concept is often met with a lot of
suspicion, but it’s nearly impossible to avoid.
It’s probably impossible to avoid because it often
just happens naturally. One of the things that
characterizes an artist is that they go after a
style that feels unique to them, and that specific
style can come to be defined as a brand. It’s
been happening forever, but now we just have
an established term that’s associated with the
world of advertising. The tricky thing is being
conscious about how you’re being positioned
without thinking too much about what other
people think. You have to work hard to stay in
touch with yourself and not let others intrude on
that process.
In what ways do you feel that your femininity
is expressed in these paintings, and how much
do you feel like you're exploring femininity in
general?
I am a female artist and, like any artist, I’m
exploring my personal experiences, so it’s just

Eben Benson: Since our last interview, a lot

has changed. You’ve been in a number of
exhibitions, you showed work in our Juxtapoz
Clubhouse, and you’ve got more on the horizon.
You’re hustling. Tell us what your day-to-day has
been like, trying to keep up with all the changes,
and tell us about some of the projects you’ve
been working on.
Jillian Evelyn: Honestly, its been bananas, and I
think I may be a little bit in shock. I have shows
lined up with my favorite galleries up to 2020, and
here I am being featured in a magazine that I’ve
admired for more than a decade. All of my dreams
are coming true all at once, and it’s slightly
terrifying, but I’m doing my best to not to think
about it too much. Each morning, I wake up, drink
some coffee, and make a list of what I need to
accomplish for that day. If I focus too far out, my
anxiety becomes paralyzing, so it’s really about
focusing on one painting at a time, and how I can
make that one better than the last.

When did you start drawing?

I’ve been drawing as far back as I remember. My
mom has this story about when I was three or four
and started drawing a vase with flowers, and the
way I approached it, she had no idea what I was
drawing until I was totally finished. She says that
I had a way of seeing things that was different. It
wasn’t the way most kids would draw something.

Connections, Latex on ceramic, 2017 JILLIAN EVELYN JUXTAPOZ .COM 119

natural that my work would explore femininity.
I grew up with three older brothers in the boonies
of Michigan, and my mom always used to try to
get me to dress up, grow my hair long, and be
more feminine. I was really aware of the classic
concept of femininity and I knew it wasn’t me. I’ve
been cutting my hair off since I was five years old,
and I’ve been navigating this world of what I’ve
been told being feminine is versus what being a
woman means to me.
In my work, I break down the body into
shapes—a mix of curves and sharp edges to
create an image of what being a woman feels like
for me. We aren’t all soft around the edges and
the body doesn’t have to represent something
sexual. We have these limbs to hold us up and
keep us in place. But that’s just my work now, and
I know my feelings towards myself will evolve.
I’ve been talking to my partner about having
kids one day, and I know that experience will
bring a whole other view of what it feels like to
be a woman. I’m really looking forward to my
personal growth and how it will continue to
affect my work.
I feel like it's not mentioned enough that
you're adept at painting on a wide array of
surfaces and structures. What are some things
you love about painting on materials other
than canvas?
A lot of my work is about one’s connection to their
physical and mental state, so I love to be able to
120 SPRING 2018
explore different surfaces that help exaggerate
those feelings. I also started painting on other
objects as a way of repurposing them. Since I come
from a product background, I am aware of how
much waste comes from mass production. It’s my
way of giving a new purpose to something that
may have ended up in a landfill.
Many of the women you paint smoke, although
you don’t. What’s the idea behind the cigarettes?
I’ll have a cigarette every so often. Growing up,
my mom smoked, so I’ve been close to it for a
good chunk of my life. For me, smoking is a way to
represent fear and anxiety, or trying to calm fear
and anxiety.
Do you feel you were raised in a traditional
atmosphere? Would you say your life has
diverged from the path that you or your family
expected?
I grew up in a very blue-collar household in
Michigan. My entire extended family worked
in the automotive factories, and my parents
actually met at General Motors. Work ethic was
very important in our house. My dad worked a
lot and still does to this day. He currently builds
houses, and I don’t think many people get to say
that every house they grew up in was actually
built by their dad. My mom is a kitchen designer
at Home Depot, and it’s been pretty neat to watch
my parents work together on designing a home.
Two of my brothers followed a similar path as
my dad, and are both tradesmen, and my other
Left: The Spot, Latex on Wood, 18” x 18”, 2018 Right: The Young Guitarist, Latex on wood, 24” x 36”, 2017
brother is a cop. Growing up, I definitely felt
like the black sheep, but the more I step back and
look at my art, I realize I’m not that different.
I paint with house paint and I use wood as
canvas. I enjoy picking up paint at the hardware
store because it reminds me of visiting my mom
at work or spending time with my dad on job
sites growing up.
What are some things that you appreciate
about coming from that background, and what
were some challenges? Having grown up on a
dairy farm, I always felt like the arts were this
exclusive club that was off-limits to working-
class kids like me.
I can only speak about my experience, but
I learned a lot about perseverance through
my parents’ work life. Some years, we would
have money and things felt comfortable, and
then others I’d wake up and our car was gone
because it had been repossessed. The automotive
industry paid well but there were so many layoffs
while my parents were working. They never let it
get them down, though. I’ve watched my parents
lose their house and go through bankruptcy, but
all they did was say, “Oh, well, at least no one
died,” and found another way to pay the bills.
So, yeah, my parents didn’t own art or take me to
museums, but they taught me some lessons that,
in the long run, feel more important. I learned
that you can accomplish a lot and overcome a lot
as long as you persevere.
In going to art school, is there something you
wish you would have learned during that time
that you didn’t?
I had a good experience in school, but one thing
I wish I would’ve learned is that finding your
own style is so much about finding yourself. In
school, and for much of my career, I spent so much
time trying to figure out how I fit in to what was
established, and I didn’t realize that there could
be this other path. I eventually learned to stop
Works in progress, 2017
avoiding who I really am and embrace it instead.
That’s a lot of what my art is about—trying to fit a
mold and the struggle to do so.
What drew you to California, and what are some
of the benefits and detriments about moving to
Los Angeles?
Los Angeles really inspires me. Even though
I’ve lived here for a few years, I still get excited
when I see a palm tree or the mountains as
I drive along the highway. Plus, I’m surrounded
by artists and creatives that I respect and who
inspire me. Artists are naturally products of their
environment. My upbringing in Michigan shaped
me, and Los Angeles feels like a place where I can
fully express myself now.
What are some things that you find exciting
about being an artist today?
When I walk into a gallery, most people don’t
JILLIAN EVELYN JUXTAPOZ .COM 121
 " We aren’t all soft around the edges
and the body doesn’t have to represent
something sexual. We have these limbs
"
to hold us up and keep us in place.

122 SPRING 2018 Leave Me Here, Latex on wood, 20” x 18”, 2017
The Giver and The Taker, Latex on wood, 30” x 30”, 2017 JILLIAN EVELYN JUXTAPOZ .COM 123
124 SPRING 2018 I’m Still Here, Latex on wood, 20” x 30”, 2017
assume I’m an artist—even when I’m standing in
front of my own work. I’ve had people treat me like
I’m a fan or someone who is working the event.
It’s exciting for me to have the opportunity to flip
these assumptions and gradually erode popular
expectations for women, especially women in
creative fields.
What is one movement in art today that gets
you excited? Are there any particular groups
of artists focusing on a concept that you think
opens new doors and explores new ideas?
I’ve been seeing a lot of artists use 35mm film
or disposable cameras to capture their lives.
This excites me because there’s an intimacy to
the images. There’s a certain detachment that
comes with the images we see every day on
our phones, and I look forward to more people
exploring the feelings that exist in the honest
moments of our lives.
In our Winter 2018 cover story, Kerry James
Marshall said, "It's a complete miscomprehension
Modern Daze, Latex on wood, 18” x 12”, 2018
to believe that you don't need to do the same
things that Rembrandt was doing," in reference to
traditional mastery of the craft of painting. How
do you treat reverence for the style and technique
of the classical Masters? And how much do you
find yourself drawing from them? What is the
dialogue between technical skill and concept
for you, in both your own work and the work of
others?
When I was working full-time, I only had nights
and weekends to paint. It was easy for me to lose
sight of the importance of preliminary sketches
and planning. The Masters were meticulous and
would create multiple studies to create the best
piece, or to get the lighting just right. Whether
you work full time or experience the pressure
of needing to post consistently on social media,
it’s easy to skip the most important steps. I
fell victim to a lot of bad habits and I’m still
working to go back to enjoying the process.
Kerry James Marshall is certainly correct, and
this year I’m looking forward to focusing more
on the process.
What are some activities or techniques you use
to stay grounded?
Podcasts and audiobooks! I don’t have that much
time to sit down and read anymore, so if I’m not
painting, I want to spend my free time actually
living my life. Audible has become a huge part
of my routine. I also feel like a better version of
myself if I always have a book in rotation.
Where to from here?
All over the place! I have a few group shows that
I’ll be in this year, and a handful of solo shows in
the works for the next couple of years. But I am
also hoping to do a lot more beyond the gallery
realm as well. I would like to collaborate with
local furniture makers, ceramicists, and maybe
even some brands! I’d also like to create a line of
items that are slightly more affordable but still
locally made in limited runs.
Jillian Evelyn will have a solo show at Superchief NY,
opening June 15, 2018.
JILLIAN EVELYN JUXTAPOZ .COM 125
The Wall And I
Interview by Sasha Bogojev Portrait by Daniel Muñoz San
It's safe to say that back in 2011, be it Spain,
Brazil or the US, the world was a much different
place. Whether we are talking about political
climate or even the microcosm of traditional
street art, the world has accelerated into a digital
blur. During that year, Juxtapoz was presented
with the opportunity to interview Spanish street
art icon Escif for the February cover story. That
was the artist’s last published interview until
now, where, once again, we find ourselves lucky,
anticipating the thoughts and philosophies of one
of Street Art’s beloved and important voices.
Escif’s unconventional visual language manages
to find new routes for the expression of his witty
opinions on politics, society, or just the personal
experiences of living in the twenty-first century.
When you have a conversation with the Valencia-
born artist, you are bound to touch on the most
unsuspecting topics. Honest and humble when
reflecting and, at times, entering the realms of
existentialism or quantum physics, Escif charms
with the poetry of his words, often a strand of
suggestions that leads to a thoughtful conclusion.
Such suggestions define the critical position he's
taken in life. Welcome to Escif’s world.
128 SPRING 2018
Sasha Bogojev: Is there a particular reason why you
took such a long break from the media?
Escif: I don’t consider it essential to know the
opinion of an artist to get close to the work. Many
times, knowing the motivations of the painter
limits our own experience about it. Or maybe it
is just that I'm lazy with interviews and prefer
to spend my time sunbathing, eating paella or
drawing in my sketchbook. On the other hand,
I think that an interview can be a good excuse to
communicate and share ideas beyond your own
work. Maybe this is the reason why I have agreed
to do another interview with Juxtapoz, seven
years after the last one.
It’s been 20 years since you started painting in
the street. How has your motivation changed,
from those early days and the first non-graffiti
works, to what you create nowadays?
Everything has changed, many times. Myself, too.
I try to be aware of these changes and force them
into my working process. When I settle for a long
time in certain patterns or style tricks, I realize
that something is not working. When I paint a wall
without risk, without fear, without doubts... when
I feel too sure of what I do... then an alarm goes
off in my hypothalamus, indicating that my ego is
gaining ground. It is time to question myself and
look for a different consciousness in the new cells
of the body. Everything changes all the time. It is
the universal law of nature.
Do you still see the wall as a, "friend to which
you are able to tell your problems and share your
reflections," as you stated in the last interview?
A wall can be a very powerful channel to
communicate with the world, but it can also be
something else. Painting a wall is talking to it,
knowing it, discovering it. Although it seems like a
paradox, I want to think that the moment I paint a
wall is an intimate moment of meditation in which
everything disappears and only the wall and I are
left. The mind disappears, the body disappears, the
people disappear, the city enters a silence. Only the
wall and me. It is then that I allow myself to share
my concerns and problems with it, knowing that no
one else will be able to hear us.
It may happen that many people see the
painting, but they will not be seeing what
I experienced with the wall. They will be having
their own experience through that moment
Prevención de Plagas, Valencia, Spain, 2017
Crash, Charleroi, Belgium, 2014 ESCIF JUXTAPOZ .COM 129
 of contemplation. Their own reading of what
they saw will come out of that experience. It is
different. Even if there were a thousand people
watching me eat an apple, and everyone would
be taking pictures of that moment, none of them
would be able to feel the mixture of acidity and
sweetness that is generated in the contact of
my teeth with the flesh of the fruit. It really is
something very intimate.
What you are saying is quite opposite from
what we see around us. Street art has grown into
a global phenomenon of massive proportions.
How do you feel about that, or do you even pay
any attention to what other people are creating?
I don’t believe that street art has grown. The
propaganda, the marketing and the
institutionalization of street art have grown,
but street art is disappearing. I think it is
necessary to separate art, art history and the
art market. Although they are three fields that
communicate and sometimes confuse, they are
based on very different values. Art has nothing
to do with painting large walls or making
millions of dollars. The cranes have climbed
so high that we painters have forgotten that
painting comes from the earth.
130 SPRING 2018 Top left: Switch, Katowice, Poland, 2012 Top right: Breath project, Rendered image by Felix Artagaveytia
Bottom right: Sofá, Dakar, Senegal, 2014 Lower Left: Say It With Flowers, Watercolor on paper, 2016
So who working in the street nowadays do
you personally consider to be making actual
street art?
Actual street art is created by people who don’t
care about art: wall painters in Senegal, sign
painters in Mexico, Pixadores in Brazil, political
painters in Greece, homeless in United States and
outsider people all around the world who really
believe that what they are doing is a tool to change
their context.
You criticized the trend of contemporary street
art many years ago with your street works. How
do you perceive it now?
I try not to criticize anyone or anything. If
I have ever done it, I take this opportunity to
apologize. What I do try is to take is a critical
position. I think that is something different.
I do not believe in good and evil. The position
of telling someone how things should be, I find
that uncomfortable. It would be very naive
and overbearing on my part to do so. Reality is
perfect as it is, with all its contradictions. The
only thing I can aspire to, with many chances
to make mistakes, is to build a personal
opinion based on my own experience. That
opinion is reflected very often in my work.
I realize that the values that pushed me to go
out to paint 20 years ago are very different from
those that push me to paint nowadays. Before,
it was less ambitious, less egocentric and more
free... but also more naive. Over time, I have been
gaining experience and awareness, but I have
lost spontaneity. Today, I have the possibility of
painting large murals in big cities, but I find it
difficult to go out to paint at night in dark alleys.
I can sell drawings for thousands of dollars, but
I have trouble finding time to paint something for
my father. Twenty years ago, without knowing it,
I was advocating the street as a space of freedom.
Today, without knowing it, I am defending the
privatization of the little freedom that remains
on the street. It is one of the contradictions that
I have to face. My fight on the walls, as in life itself,
is a fight against myself. Winning is so easy, and
so difficult, as accepting with love and compassion
that this fight only exists in the conscience. The
mind, which limits our existence, only exists in
the mind.
Is getting involved in unique projects like the
Breath project in Italy part of that fight? Are you
happy with how that turned out, and can you
tell us about how it's developing?
The idea of Breath is to plant five thousand new
trees on a mountain that was deforested three
hundred years ago. The goal is not to plant trees
to make a drawing, but to make a drawing to plant
trees. To use art at the service of the mountain
and not vice versa.
Nowadays, we all use mobile phones and we get
fretful when we run out of battery. In the same
way, nature also needs to be recharged. Our
civilization consumes more energy than the Earth
produces. We are depleting the planet's battery,
but we still worry about our mobile phone.
Breath is a complicated project because we play
with parameters that are difficult to control. The
ground, the climate, the pests, the cattle. These
Credit War, Watercolor on paper, 2015
elements can play in our favor or against us. In
any case, getting to plant almost five thousand
trees with the support of more than five hundred
people has already been a success for us.
It feels like your work has always been more
about message than artistic or decorative
value. Do you think you chose art as a channel
to pass on a message?
Painting is a means of expression and therefore
"ACTUAL STREET
ART IS CREATED BY
PEOPLE WHO DON'T
CARE ABOUT ART."
always has a message. The message can be
as radical as painting something beautiful in
a poor neighborhood, or as nice as painting
something violent in a wealthy neighborhood. The
"decorative" paintings are the ones that have the
most things to tell. Silence is full of words. I try to
nourish my paintings of content in order to avoid
others doing it for me.
There is a certain dose of humor or at least
absurdity in your work, which I personally
relate to. Is that something you aim for, or does
it happen accidentally?
I don’t get the joke, ha ha.
Do you mean you don't see the joke in your
work or…?
I mean... you don’t get the joke in my joke.
Could you please elaborate on this?
You doooooooooooooooon’t get
the jooooooooooooooke in my
jooooooooooooooooke. [laughs]
Fair enough. We’ll move on to your painting
technique. You've been always self-critical about
it, and to me, your passion and ideas are what
make you a great artist.
Technique is a very dangerous tool. It allows
you to be more precise in the way you express
yourself, but it takes spontaneity away. It is very
easy to be entrapped by technique because, in
itself, it is very seductive, very comforting to see
that you know how to do things that others don’t
know how to do. The danger lies in forgetting that
it is a tool and not an end purpose. Someone who
knows solfeggio perfectly will be able to make a
perfectly pleasant structured song, but this does
not make him a musician.
Painting, like music, plays with the balance
between the mind and the stomach. The mind
gives us the technique and the stomach gives us
poetry, the irrational, the emotional. Sometimes
I try to run away from technique and become
a house painter, only to let poetry have more
weight in the work. In a world governed by the
ESCIF JUXTAPOZ .COM 131
132 SPRING 2018 Top: Blood for Oil, Valencia, Spain, 2016 Bottom: Luz en la Noche, Errekaleor, Spain, 2017
dictatorship of the rational, poetry becomes a
miraculous balsam.
You said previously that, "galleries can appear
as decoration stores." Though rarely exhibiting
at galleries or institutions, you did shows at
the Power Station of Art museum in Shanghai,
and the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art in
Russia. How did those exhibitions come to be,
and what is important when showing indoors?
The first objective of an art gallery is to sell.
A gallery is a store, and a store, in my opinion, is
not the best place to develop your creativity. I'm
not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying that
I don’t think it's the best place. The best place to
develop your creativity should be where you feel
free, without market pressures, without social
responsibilities, without the weight of your story.
Sometimes museums give you these conditions,
and that is very inspiring to work with.
How does it feel for you to institutionalize your
work? What are the pros and cons of working
for a selected group of viewers?
Nowadays, institutionalizing
your work is not just about
working inside a museum.
When you paint a giant wall
in a big city, supported
directly or indirectly, by a
government, your work is
being institutionalized.
I would dare to say
that 95% of the murals
Left: Life is Elsewhere, Watercolor on paper, 2015 Right: Green Yoga, Watercolor on paper, 2016
that we see today on the internet are endorsed by
institutions. I'm not saying that this is good or bad,
but I say that it is very different from what we saw
only ten years ago.
Art on the street is moving away from its roots.
In my opinion, free art takes place far from
institutions because it is uncomfortable for them.
It opens doors that the power wants to keep closed.
Free art tends to be violent and transgressive
because it questions the values of an oppressive
society. It's hard to recognize it, but free art frees us,
changes consciousness, expands the universe.
When you paint on the street, your work interacts
with a complex context full of stories. You are
modifying the daily life of many people, and that
carries a very great responsibility. You don't paint
for you and your friends, much less for the internet.
You are painting for a city, for a neighborhood, for a
community, for families that you do not know and
that you will never get to know. It is very hard to
carry this knowledge, but it's also very liberating.
When you work indoors, it’s very different. The
people who face your work are people who decide
to do it. This allows you to play other
cards, go a little further.
You've always been
focused on pointing
out injustice, corruption
and irregularities in the
system. How does it feel for
you personally to see what is
happening in Catalonia and
Spain nowadays?
What is happening in Spain
is very similar to what is free, and boredom is totally forbidden. In other
happening elsewhere in words: everything is business and amusement
Europe, which is very similar to should be the sole focus of people. That’s the way
what is happening throughout to avoid possible disturbances in the system. If
the West, which is very similar you don’t like what you see, connect your phone
to what is happening in the rest and buy some new likes.
of the world. We are afraid of the
unknown and there is nothing How do you think things will progress from here?
more unknown to human beings At this very moment, while I’m answering
than the reason for their existence. We your questions, a huge glacier turns into water,
do not know what the meaning of life is. an executive eats papaya in St. Petersburg, a
That is the great question for the history of disoriented sparrow cannot get home, a new
mankind. There are those who try to solve phone goes on sale and a young person gets upset
this enigma with the expansion of love and because someone tagged him on Facebook in
curiosity for others. There are those who settle in an unflattering photo. Undoubtedly, humanity
their fear and frustration and reject everything will disappear one day and the universe will
that is alien to them. Such fear is responsible hardly pay attention. Perhaps if Mr. Anyone
for violence, homophobia, sexism, intolerance, managed to detach himself from his ego and love
wars, the destruction of the planet. It is the fear what he discovers in the mirror, he would stop
of accepting that our beloved "I" is only a lucid looking at his phone so much. Maybe then we
dream that will disappear with our death. could appreciate the millions of stars up in the
sky. Maybe then he will lose his fear of death. It
Do you feel that the times we live in are could be the beginning of a beautiful story and
especially inspirational for artists? maybe, why not, we could talk about it in the next
Not really. There is so much input into daily life interview... in seven years.
that we easily get blocked. Capitalism is based on
two big rules: nobody should offer something for streetagainst.com
ESCIF JUXTAPOZ .COM 133
EVENTS WHERE WE’RE HEADED

There Will Never Be A Gallery Big Enough @ Superchief Gallery NY

March 10–April 1, 2018 superchiefgallery.com
There may never be a better title for a group art show. Superchief Gallery, in both its Brooklyn and Los
Angeles locations, has always had a raw, unabashed curatorial eye, at times a beacon of outsider art, but
also an intelligent epicenter of underground art and performance. From shows with artists from Sarah
Sitkin to Swoon, gallery founders Edward Zipco and Bill Dunleavy have created a perfect haven for their
artists. And, in a clever turn of phrase, Superchief NY’s next exhibition, There Will Never Be A Gallery Big
Enough, is the perfect moniker. The concept centers around each artist making a few new works, and the
gallery picking through the artist’s classics and pairing them together. The show will feature Jillian Evelyn
(featured in this issue), Lee Trice, Lil Kool, Lolo YS, Mike Diana, Alex Yanes, Jose Mertz, Baghead, Nomi
Chi, Kristina Collantes, Bonethrower, Homelesscop, Yu Maeda, Miguel Ovalle, PoshGod, Coby Kennedy
(whose assault rifle vending machine sculpture can be seen here), Ghostshrimp, John Felix Arnold, Ron
Wimberly, Boykong and more. To commemorate the opening of the show, Juxtapoz and Carhartt WIP will
host a Spring 2018 Quarterly release party on March 9, 2018. There may not be a gallery big enough to hold
all of this action, but we’ll give it a try.

Slang Aesthetics! @ LSU

Museum of Art, Baton Rouge, LA
March 8 – June 17th 2018
lsumoa.org
If it weren’t for Robert Williams prolific
influence, not only would there be no Juxtapoz,
but it’s possible that there would be no need
for Juxtapoz. Williams’ effect on the art world,
especially the world of lowbrow and pop
surrealism, is profound, and it has directly and
indirectly influenced most of the artists and
galleries you see here today. That being said,
it’s no surprise that his work is touring around
the country, making stops in California, Arizona,
Arkansas, and now at the LSU Museum of Art
in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The exhibit, titled
Slang Aesthetics! will feature works, old and
new, that showcase Williams’ distinct and
bold style. He incorporates absurd, figurative,
and popular imagery to confront, and at
times, discomfort the viewer. This technique,
formed as a reaction to the shifting energy of
counterculture, demands engagement, and
ultimately has succeeded to get our collective
attention. (I mean, you’re reading this, right?)

134 SPRING 2018


Rose Eken @ MOCA Tucson
Through March 25, 2018
moca-tucson.org
Rose Eken’s replicas are delightful and
endearing, ranging from everyday household
objects sculpted from clay, to 100 tiny cardboard
guitars. For her exhibition at MOCA Tucson,
she filled three rooms with household detritus,
exploring domesticity, creativity and the
accumulation of tools and tchotchkes in spaces
that look like they might belong to (surprise!)
a couple of artists. There is The Kitchen with
its glorious, tidy wall filled with a cook’s every
accoutrement hanging on hooks; then The
Studio, with no detail overlooked—messy
buckets, brushes, and paintings leaning against
the wall. And finally, The Music Venue, where
everybody chills and empties bottles of booze
while shredding. The details are obsessively
realistic, with crushed packs of cigs next to
ashtrays full of butts, a Marshall stack, guitar
pedals, and even a punk’s studded leather vest
hanging on the wall. Disbelief is suspended as
you stumble into a private space, lurking over
the details of someone’s immortalized mess
without being conscious that every single object
was sculpted by hand. While the optics are not
exactly trompe l’oeil, the feeling of realism is,
and this work follows the tradition of elevating
everyday objects in art, but with a signature style
and genuine attention to detail. Objects are
innate in our existence, and documenting them
through art is the stuff of future anthropological
finds. We’re lucky Rose Eken is the one to
craft the legacy of creative types through their
detritus. Bonus: Rose Eken’s next big show
opens April 20 at one of our favorite spots, V1
Gallery in Copenhagen.
WHERE WE’RE HEADED
Hank Willis Thomas
@ Jack Shainman Gallery, NYC
March 29–May 12, 2018
jackshainman.com
Hank Willis Thomas opens a new exhibition at
Jack Shainman Gallery in New York this spring,
investigating reflection with mirrored materials
and darkroom printing experiments. What first
grabbed us was a preview image labeled To
Be Titled (Woman Biting Cop). In a timely and
relevant exploration, Thomas sources protest
imagery from the twentieth century, enabling
viewers to face their own participation in
demonstrations, willingly or not, as the reflective
surfaces stare back. The source imagery is
isolated, cropped, and abstracted, so that only
a gesture, or a shift in movement is captured,
symbolic of swift, focused efforts to motivate
change. Success by protest is often indiscernible,
and yet there is still a reminder to maintain hope
and band together, much like Hank’s shining,
neon-lit statement, Love Over Rules, recently
unveiled in a new public art installation in San
Francisco. Revered by his peers, Hank Willis
Thomas has ushered many other artists into
the light when given the chance, continuing to
surprise his attentive audience with powerful,
community-focused work, the kind that can shift
perspectives and promote the truth we should all
be standing for.
EVENTS
Katharina Grosse: The Horse
Trotted Another Couple Of
Metres, Then It Stopped
@ Carriageworks, Sydney
Through April 8, 2018
carriageworks.com.au
This is what Katharina Grosse does and does so
well. The Berlin-based artist creates immersive,
site-specific installations that explore color and
abstraction in building-sized scale. Her works
are more like experiments in architecture and
painting, as she drapes large paintings across
the floor of a massive exhibition space, or
creates an almost psychedelic experience as
she did when painting an abandoned bunker
bright red near Fort Tilden in Queens, NY. A
foreign aesthetic looms ahead and you want to
jump right in. Grosse's newest project kicks off
2018 with a bang. The Horse Trotted Another
Couple Of Metres, Then It Stopped is her new
project at Carriageworks in Sydney, Australia.
Using over 8,000 square metres of painted
fabric that intertwine around the building
and infrastructure, the monumental work is a
jaw-dropping moment where the viewer steps
inside a painting. As Grosse notes of the work,
"It describes that moment when you go into the
kitchen because you wanted to get the car keys,
and then all of a sudden you don’t know why
you are there… and in that moment, you realize
something else about yourself, something that
you can’t describe…" The most effective art
installation should function in this way, to evoke
a new appreciation for the act of observing and
experiencing. In The Horse, Grosse once again
strides at the forefront of inventive techniques in
contemporary art.
JUXTAPOZ .COM 135
SIEBEN ON LIFE

Six Pack
Enjoyed with
Morning Breath
Doug Cunningham and Jason Noto,
aka Morning Breath, met as in-house designers
at Think Skateboards in SF in the mid '90s.
There they began collaborating on graphics, a
practice that would not only lead to a successful
design house and fine-art career(s), but a lifelong
friendship. I caught up with MB recently for a
quick six pack (of questions) to see what's good
under their hood.

Michael Sieben: You guys have done a ton of

album-package design work. What's an album
you've worked on that might surprise people?
Morning Breath: Honestly, people who follow
us based on Morning Breath's aesthetic would
probably be surprised at many of the albums
we've worked on because most of them don't
incorporate our signature style. But to be
specific, you'd probably also be surprised that
we did AFI's Sing the Sorrow and Kanye's Late
Registration. Throughout our career we've worn
many hats. Sometimes we're hired based on our
aesthetic and other times we get the job based on
our reputation in art direction and design.

Do you have a preference between commercial

work and personal work, or do you enjoy
balancing the two?
We find satisfaction in both, so I guess we enjoy
the balance. A good project is just as rewarding as
a painting that we really dig.
If you guys hadn't met and started Morning
Breath, what do you think you'd each be doing?
I'd probably be running a restaurant and Jason
would be sitting behind the counter of a record
store.
If money was no issue, what would be your
dream project?
Our dream project would be illustrating and
designing for our own print-based products. We've
had numerous conversations about making classic
novelty items in the tradition of SS Adams.
What are you guys currently excited about,
work-wise?
Last year was busy and we're currently in the
early stages with some new clients. We're still
working out the details, but hoping it will be
something rad. As is the nature of doing graphic
art for a living, you don't always know what that
next project is going to be like; but I guess we're
just excited to get into something new.
What's the best piece of advice you received
when you were younger?
Only show what you really want to do. You get
approached for work and shows based on what
you present, and if it's just filler or something
that you did in the past and you no longer want
to get that type of work, keep it out of your
portfolio.
Morning Breath’s new book, By the Skin of Our Teeth,
is out now via HarperCollins.
morningbreathinc.com

136 SPRING 2018

POPLIFE DOWNTOWN MIAMI, FLORIDA

The Juxtapoz
Clubhouse
1 As part of the Juxtapoz
Clubhouse experience with adidas
Skateboarding in downtown Miami
for Art Week, Polaroid documented
the artists, gallerists and friends
who made the whole project come
to life. Faith XLVII and Chop em’
Down Films’ Zane Meyer were both
subjects and participants in the
portrait taking.
2 Olek was all shades and all smiles
in front of Jessie & Katey’s colorful
mural.
3 European connection.
Switzerland’s Serge Lowrider
with Germany's Urban Nation
crew: Michelle Houston and
Samuel Walter.
4 He matches! Buff Monster in
signature pink.
5 Legend in the house. Ron English
with wife Tarssa and Eric Allouche
of Allouche Gallery, NYC.
6 Strike a pose. Jillian Evelyn
mega-mirroring her art.
7 Shepard Fairey was still in
avid mode over his fantastic The
Damaged Times newspaper made
in conjunction with his solo show in
Los Angeles. He created a special
newsstand for the Clubhouse
release.
8 After tirelessly working on their
epic installation in the Clubhouse,
the Low Bros chilled.
9 We can only assume Franco “JAZ”
Fasoli is looking off to the distance
thinking of some beautiful opera or
stunning bronze sculpture…
10 Urban Nation brought Mimi
Scholz and Mateus Bailon, who
both completed massive paintings
on site in the Clubhouse . . .
11 … as did Rachel Harris, who also
provided some military chic and was
cheeky for to the occasion.
12 And what is a Clubhouse if the
cool kids don’t come to hang out in
front of your murals?

138 SPRING 2018 All photos by Polaroid

POPLIFE NYC, COPENHAGEN, LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO

CANADA, NYC
1 Stormtroopers, swooshes and cigs…
Katherine Bernhardt opened one
of our favorite shows last winter,
Green, at Canada in NYC.

Jack Hanley Gallery,

NYC
3 Polly Apfelbaum (left) had work
in the playful group show, Spieltrieb,
at Jack Hanley. The great painter
Peter Saul and his wife Sally were
there in support.

Eighteen Gallery,
Copenhagen
2 Meanwhile, across the pond
and then some, in Denmark, Todd
James’s Interior at Eighteen Gallery
was another standout exhibition of
the winter season.

LA Art Show,
Los Angeles
4 There aren’t many people more
enthusiastic about the arts than
Cheech Marin, and we loved
catching up with our friend in Los
Angeles during the LA Art Show.
5 She’s got her own Tim Burton
biopic and now… the Littletopia
Lifetime Achievement Award.
Margaret Keane accepts the honor.
6 Like a kid in a candy store, or an
internationally famous graffiti artist
doing a live installation at an art fair,
Saber had it covered.
7 Juxtapoz founder, Robert
Williams, Red Truck Gallery and
Littletopia curator, Rachel Cronin,
and Travel writer/artist/bon vivant,
Mike Shine, could easily start a band.

Hashimoto
and SPOKE Art, SF
8 A crew of homies in town for Pop
Perspective at Spoke Art, San
Francisco: Miles Ritchie, Skinner,
Jonathan Wayshack, Woodrow
White, Kate Franklin, Ken Harman
of Hashimoto Contemporary and
Dasha Matsuura.
9 It’s a family affair: Woodrow
White, Mimi Pond, Wayne White
and Lulu White at the opening
for Woodrow's Babel Video at
Hashimoto Contemporary.

140 SPRING 2018 Photos: Jessica Marie Ross (1, 3), Sasha Bogojev (2), Birdman Photos (4—7), Shaun Roberts (8—9)
PERSPECTIVE

Ed Moses, RIP
The Legend of California Cool
In October of 2011, Juxtapoz brought bullet-proof, and if you want to see him as outlaw
together two renegades of the art world, Ed Moses or bad boy, I guess that could apply. But he was in a
and Robert Williams, for some gab and gossip. It group of artists that, for the first time in the history
was a memorable exchange, and now, especially of the West Coast, set the trend for West Coast art.
so, since the passing of Moses at age 91 on January A lot of famous luminaries set the style out here,
17, 2018. We revisited a couple excerpts from that and for the first time, New York had to realize that
conversation so that you too can have a taste of there was another place in the United States that
Ed’s pluck and process. was very prominent and held its own without
just copying New York. They took on a number of
Robert Williams: Ed is a generation ahead of me. He modes of art in the late 1950s and ’60s.
came up through a very famous group of artists
in Southern California promoted by Walter Hopps Ed Moses: I just fall into things. I’m just flopping
from the Ferus Gallery. So his credentials are around like a fool most of the time. I don’t have
ideas, I have notions, and they’re built on paint
and canvas. Then I start moving the paint and
canvases around, then multiply the canvases and
nail them up on the wall, move them around, and
come up with this kind of image. I discover things
moving things around. We’ll start in the painting
room, and then around noon, take them into the
viewing room, kicking and screaming. Then I go
to lunch, take a siesta, come back and look at what
I’ve done. So I never know what I’m doing in the
sense that I don’t have an idea.

142 SPRING 2018 Portrait of Ed Moses and Robert Williams by Andy Mueller, September 2011
 The Art of
Skateboarding
- VIVID ARTIST DRIVEN GRAPHICS -
- SUPERIOR WOOD DECKS CRAFTED BY PS STIX -
Artwork by Chris Parks of Palehorse Design

Te c h n e S k a t e b o a r d s . c o m
@ Te c h n e S k a t e b o a r d s
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Spacegoth
Ink on Paper
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