Rome Lecture 1
To understand the middle and how to get to the end, it would
be a good idea to go back to the beginning. This is where the first glues start
to take shape .Here is a glue for you. It is my first work of art. A pencil
drawing entitled (1) “Spiders on Mommy’s dress”. Here is my mother screaming
for her life while spiders crawl towards her open mouth. I was 3 years old at
the time. And still have vivid memories of doing this drawing.
Now let’s fast forward to 1968. I have just graduated Rhode
Island School of Design and was coming to NYC with my painting thesis (2) a
piece of sculpture. A fountain actually made out of clear plastic that once you
were inside you became the statues of the fountain. You were in a cylinder attached
to a large plastic bubble. And although you are surrounded by water you did not
get wet.
My next project
was a (3) “Water Bug Vibrating life preserver”. It was a life preserver in the
shape of a water bug implanted with vibrators so it would reach over and relax
you while saving your life at the same time. After that I became excited about
the world of kinetic art, and created a piece called “Dead birds Fly again”.
This is where I would take a dead bird and tie a wire around its neck and
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attach the other half of the wire to a motor and turn it on.
The bird would literally fly again. Continuing to investigate the dual nature
of life and death I came up with the “Suicide Egg”. This is where you would
take a large light weight plastic egg and climb to the top of a tall building secure
the egg to the building, get inside and break it open and be born a splat on
the earth. And then there was the (4) chair that pumped blood, warm blood. I
wanted to make living furniture. Furniture that was alive.
One of my favorites from this series was a (5) the blood
filled cross that had stamped on it “Bite me and drink what you love”. It was an invitation to vampires to
destroy themselves. They were drawn to the blood but couldn’t get past the
shape of the packaging. Namely the cross.
For some reason the atomic and sub-atomic world became a
great interest to me. So I created the first and only (6) Atomic Bicycle. The
Atomic bicycle was based on the old style and out dated idea of what an atom actually
looks like. And it was made for those people who like to ride around in an
obsolete concept of the universe.
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Eventually I decided that as I was living in Soho where all
the galleries were, that it was time to take a more active role in using what
the galleries had to offer namely art. If someone could find art in a hardware
store surly one could find art in a gallery as well. At least that was the theory.
I started with a “Time wasting event” (7) That‘s where I
would measure, photograph and record the amount of time wasted by showing
people my work. So I went to galleries and met with the owners and showed them
the Atomic Bicycle, blood filled cross etc. Eventually he or she would say, “What
are you working on now?” And I would say “Well I ‘m doing a time wasting event
where I measure, photograph record the amount of time wasted by showing people
my work. (8) He is Jack Marachi of the Jack Marachi Gallery having his picture
taken at this type of event.
Eventually I
made it uptown to the Betty Parson’s Gallery on 57th St but the
director was too busy to waste time with me. This taught me a very valuable
lesson. I decided to stop wasting time and start doing events in these
galleries. The first one was called (9) “Dandruff Exorcism” where I would make
a pattern of dandruff on a piece of black paper at 7 galleries and 3 museums.
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It was announced
in the papers and flyers were posted around town. I made sure I included the
Betty Parsons Gallery. When I got there the director was very excited to see
me. It seems someone had called up and wanted to buy my dandruff. And he was
only too happy to sell it. So on the third Saturday of each month I would do an
event in the galleries.
I would put up posters etc.to get the word out. I enjoyed
working with the art in the galleries. When 420 West Broadway opened which was
a building that housed Castelli, Sonnabend, Weber and Emmerich Galleries I did
an event called Sold! I placed red dots near all the art work indicating they
were sold. My part of the work was the red dot. I eventually sold some red
dots. So I felt it was a success. Another event was called (10) “The Longest
Carrot in New York City.” The carrot was displayed on a Dan Flavin Florescent
light piece. (11) or near a Picasso and other places. In another event I danced
(12) on top of Vito Acconci’s Seed Bed at the Sonnabend Gallery. Vito was
underneath and I was dancing around on top.
In “Sound off
Art” I hit art with a tuning fork and amplified the sound. I also performed a (13)
Rags to Riches interpretive Ballet entitled “Bango Bango.” I wore old clothes
and would take them off to reveal a tuxedo underneath. After a while
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there was a spirit of cooperation with the galleries. Sonnabend
would flick the lights off and on to let people know the show was about to
begin. The events themselves only 2 to 3 minutes.
Eventually I was approached by gallerist Joe LoGuidice to do
a show at his Broome St. Gallery. I felt if I could do a performance that
created an object I could have a
pretty interesting show. I began looking for inspiration. A
few blocks down from my loft on the corner of Canal and Broadway was a Chinese movie
theater and for a couple of bucks you could watch 3 or 4 Kung Fu Movies for the
whole day, the kind where they would fly around and attack each other with
swords and things.
One movie in particular really grabbed me. It was about a
master who had given up the sword. The villagers would come to him and beg the
Master to stop the bad guys who were destroying their village. The Master
refused. Finally the bad guys kills one of his daughters. The Master is in his
house when he gets the news and is so mad he thrusts his arm into the wall all
the way to his arm pit and pulls out his sword. He had hidden it so far in his
wall that only if the situation was so totally out of control he would gladly wreck
his house just to get his sword. He was beside himself to
say the least. Very impressive indeed.
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So I wanted to embed
my pencils and brushes in the wall of the gallery and I would have to be so
upset that I would have to punch a hole in the gallery wall if I ever wanted to
paint or draw again. But if you entered the gallery you would see nothing on
the walls. Everything would be inside the walls. Eventually I realized I didn’t
think I could pull this off.
So I was going around the house with pencils in hand saying
over and over “Where can I stick these?”
“Where?” Finally Eileen my wife at the time said, “Hey just stick them
up your butt and be done with it!” I said, “You got a point!” And an art
movement I called “Rectal Realism” was born. I began doing portraits in this
fashion. One of my subjects was Andy Warhol. He liked the idea. We set up a
time at the factory so Andy would sit for me. The video machine was set up with
Glenn O’Brien and Vincent Fremont doing the honors. It took about 40 minutes. (14)
(15) (16) and it came out looking like him (16a). He liked it. I liked it. And
it ended
up in the show that I did at the LoGuidice Gallery. Also
Included in that show was a half-ass painting done half with my hand and half
with my ass. It was called “The Mark of Zorro”. It was a big 5 feet by 6 feet
“Z”. At this time artists were doing a
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lot of crazy things. Having themselves shot and crucified etc.
So for me this show.
fit right in. Then I decided to offer artists way out of this
behavior. So I created a six week course that was called “Art Therapy for
Conceptual Artists”. (17) (18) (19) and would help them to get back to making
simple objects like paper mache’ crocodiles, big wooden spoons as a way of
finding peace within themselves. To me like it says on the poster. “Art and
Therapy go together like Art Therapy”. It was a viable alternative. First it
was a 6 week course but it eventually became a one off book (20) then was
published 30 years later by Rollo Press. At the moment he book is completely
sold out. I am waiting for a second edition.
Now I grew up in Texas riding horses, mainly quarter horses.
But my next idea had to with race horses. I got this idea that I would do a
series of drawings and become a jockey, wear the drawings under my silks, win a
race and produce a winning drawing. I would putting the winning drawings in an
exhibition entitled “Win a Place to Show”. Of course I did not realize what a
dangerous idea this was. Horses and riders put themselves in tremendous danger
at every turn. I began as an exercise boy. I would take the horses around the
track early in the morning just to warm them up. I never got to the level of
(21) (22) jockey. I was pretending to
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be a young kid doing this and after going through a few
railings and getting runaway with in a complete fog at the Atlantic City race
track. I decided I was crazy to carry on this behavior and came back to the
city and founded a New
Wave modeling agency called LaRocka Modeling Agency. I
started putting on shows at the Mudd Club and found a lot of interesting faces
there.
Has anyone here seen the movie “Liquid Sky”. Most of my LaRocka
( 21) (22) (23) models are in that
film. Anne Carlisle played the male and female lead. The
directors Nina and Slava Zuckerman created a cult classic. I
was happy to be involved. The movie captures the wildness of that era both with
the bizarre costumes, people and plot line.
I drifted away from the clubs and back to the painting
studio. Here are some samples from the 80’s. (24) (25) (26) Butler of Babylon,
Portrait of Desi as a young ma, Suzy, Milk bottle, Punk Vase, Bon Jovi the
silly goose, Ordinary Cat Extraordinary Woman among others. Eventually I switched back to kinetic
art in the 90’s creating Apparitions. (video) I wanted to make something that
could float in the middle of the room.
It was low tech. Just a car antenna spinning with
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strings and things attached to it with images projected on
it. (27) (28) I floated Buddha heads, martini glasses, Hopi figurines etc.
In 2008 I was offered to do a show at the Warhol Museum in
Pittsburg. I was doing eyeball
portraits and other photo images at the time. (29) (30). Also included in the 2
room show was the Warhol portrait along with related items and a video of the
original portrait session. (31) (32).
After this show I continued to explore photography. I created
“Closet Portraits” I would go into someone’s house and go into their closet and
put my camera on the floor and put it on a timer. The camera looks up and takes
a picture after I have shut the door. (33) (34) the camera has an up shirt or
up skirt point of view that few have seen before. It looks very intricate but
in fact that is just how the clothes are. They have been waiting for their
close up for so long.
I had a show of Closet Portraits of people like John Waters,
Debbie Harry, Brigid Berlin and Billy Name among others.
Next I photographed things that glowed. But I had to keep
picking the lint and string that was on the velvet background. Eventually I
found out the lint and string
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was fun to photograph as well. So I did a series with just
the lint and string called “Hair on Black Velvet”.
Recently I moved from NYC to Sag Harbor. It is very peaceful
and creative place. I started out stacking dimes and then eventually started to
paint again. This time a series called “Fictitious Fruit”. Oil on canvass 18×24
inches. The fruit got its name because some are real and some are plastic. You
decide if you can tell which is which.
Thank You