Defy the

Ordinary,

Create the
Extraordinary
Visit academyart.edu/juxtapoz to learn more.

Featured student work by Jonas Yuan | jonasyuan.com

©2022 MATTEL
Mister Cartoon
@misterctoons
CONTENTS

Summer 2022
ISSUE 34 134
Design Events
222 Natalee Decker’s Diego Rivera, Jamel
Sinewy Mastery Shabazz, American
Modernism, CAN Art
Fair, Barbara Kruger
10 38 70
Editor's Letter Fashion 110
The Enduring Mythos ARYZ Maya Hayuk 136
of Lee Alexander Sieben on Life
14 McQueen A Six-Pack with
Studio Time Henry Jones
Heesoo Kim’s Retreat
44
in South Korea
Influences 138
Tania Marmolejo’s Pop Life
18 Global Folk Art NYC, LA, Istanbul,
The Report
Carter Flachbarth’s
86 118 Miami, London, Milan
and more
Cinematic Canvases 48 Jaime Muñoz Shara Mays
Travel Insider
Israel’s Visionary 142
24 Ethiopian Jewish Artists Perspective
Product WAONE Interesni Kazki
Reviews Unites His Friends
Keith Haring, 54 for Ukraine
Mister Cartoon and In Session
Legion Paper ArtCenter College of
Design’s Progressive 94 126
Approach
26 Faith Ringgold Kate
Picture Book Pincus-
Natural Magic with 56 Whitney
Thomas Jackson On the
Outside
John Fekner History of
Broken Promises

60 102
Book Reviews Alvin
John Waters, Armstrong
Felipe Pantone and
Martha Cooper’s
Box Set

6 SUMMER 2022 Right: Jenny Holzer, Kind of Blue, 2012, 9 LED signs with blue diodes, 0.9" x 120" x 576". Text: Laments, 1989. Permanent installation: Modern Art
Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, Texas, USA © 2012 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Collin LaFleche
78
Jenny
Holzer
STAFF

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Juxtapoz ISSN #1077-8411 Summer 2022 Volume 29, Number 03

Published quarterly by High Speed Productions, Inc., 1303 Underwood Ave, San Francisco, CA 94124–3308. © 2016 High Speed Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in USA.
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8 SUMMER 2022 Cover art: ARYZ, El festejo, 6 color lithograph, 2022

EDITOR’S LETTER
Issue NO 222
“Anyone can fly. All you need is somewhere to go that
you can't get to any other way. The next thing you
know, you're flying among the stars.”
—Faith Ringgold
We started the Summer 2022 issue just as
Russian troops were entering Ukraine and a new
era of war was beginning in Europe. As it turns out,
we’ve been thinking a lot about movement in recent
years, not just as a restriction due to a pandemic, but
the multifaceted nature of how we perceive the way
we transport ourselves and our culture to another.
There have been many wars, of course, but social
media has presented an immediacy that forces
us to confront the plight of the people of Ukraine
and their subsequent mass displacement. Along
with a pandemic and a fragile global supply chain,
it has sparked new energy about the concept of
movement in terms of stasis and activation. Talking
about social justice, labor, refugees, self-care, self-
realization, inclusivity and even cars, sports, dance,
fashion and film all have aspects of movement at
their core. Fortunately, artists are currently engaging
in wide-ranging, critical conversations, interpreting
what it means to get from point A to point Z.
10 SUMMER 2022
The Summer 2022 quarterly is our opportunity
to delve into movement as an evolving and elastic
concept. Jenny Holzer, ever anti-authoritarian and
the consumate representation of how and where
we challenge power structures, is the epitome of
moving language through our institutions and
public spaces. Southern California’s Jaime Muñoz
creates stunning airbrush works that feature
his Toyoteria concept, highlighting social and
economic inequality as he depicts migrants in
Toyota trucks taking themselves to work each day,
providing the lifeblood of our economy. The five
Jewish Ethiopian artists who immigrated to Israel
describe their exodus in stunning works that
now appear in major contemporary art spaces,
spurring more conversation about where and how
we move. Designer Natalee Decker fashions self-
described “fantasy mobility devices,” in speaking
of liberation in their own practice and life. Alvin
Armstrong’s majestically raw athletes pay tribute
to sport and body in what he calls an attempt to
evoke “rhythm paintings.” While John Fekner
has moved throughout NYC as a street artist
with bold aesthetics and streetwise poetry, ARYZ
has reimagined the ancient ground of European
Above: Faith Ringgold, Drawings from Tar Beach, 1991, Acrylic on canvas paper (nineteen sheets), Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York
churches, transforming them into a ballet of
vividly colorful, contemporary energy. And then,
of course, Faith Ringgold, epitomizes movement
as transport to social and racial freedom— “I have
watched freedom being restricted everyday of
my life. I don’t mind struggling. At least, here in
America you have the freedom to struggle.”
Perhaps that is the perfect way to think about
movement in 2022, as an attempt and aspiration.
Movement can be hope, empowerment,
understanding, struggling, a search for freedom
and an escape. And often, it's a desire and the
implementation of change. This issue is our chance
to look at how circumstances force us to examine
ourselves and create ways to communicate,
converse and take action. Here is where to begin.
Enjoy Summer 2022
 Jiyoun Lee–Lodge

Andrew Alba Aïsha Lehmann

Mitch Mantle

Matthew Sketch Wren Ross

YOU MAY
FIND Fidalis Buehler

YOURSE LF
MAY 20 / JULY 9

801-355-3383 412 S. 700 W. SLC, UT modernwestfineart.com @ modernwest fineart @ modernwest fineart modern west
STUDIO TIME

Heesoo
Kim
A Retreat in
South Korea
“My studio in Yangsu-ri, about 25 miles east
from central Seoul, is near the confluence of the
north and south forks of the Hangang River. The
area is quite out of the way, even by local standards.
Two structures stand on that plot of land—my
abode and my humble studio. I moved here to
begin painting in earnest. At the time, the studio
structure was bare-bones, with only the framing and
essentially nothing else. It was not appropriate for
use as a studio. Work in the studio was possible only
in the Spring and Fall; bugs and other crawly things
festered in the summer, and the frigid cold passed
right through the structure in the winter. Over time,
I put up boards and improved the walls, roofing,
and installed a heater, resulting in the present setup.
That is not to say that the studio is complete by any
measure. My paintings were nascent but they are
growing; my studio grows with my paintings.

“A farm is nearby my studio. Viewed from the

front, a large mountain is in the background of the
studio building, and a river passes through the
foreground. It is a picturesque location, but very
few, if any, would saunter by such a secluded area.
It might have inspired or accommodated my works,
but there are moments that the remote location
can feel unbearably forlorn. It is certainly not
what people imagine when they hear ‘mundane.’
This sentiment is amplified at night, like a dense
fog of seclusion settling in. It is the place where
I began painting, and continue to paint today,
but I have been considering bringing change to
my workspace. I think it’ll be good to have some
change reflected in my work. On that trajectory,
moving my studio is another possibility I have
been considering. There is this trap of mediocrity
that can ensnare things that grow stagnant or stay fixtures myself. All the worn-out objects in the about working in this space. Sometimes I second
in one place for too long, be it paintings, spaces, or studio that you can see, I made myself. guess and question the decisions that led me here.
artists. I hope I know when it is time. Regardless, I strive to continue growing as a painter.
“Most waking hours, I am in my studio. The There is so much in my painting that can be better.
“My easel is the thing I’m most attached to; I made work draws me in, and I become immersed in it This aspiration is what drives me to try harder, to
it myself. When I began painting, my budget sometimes during the day, and other times at night. cling to it, and even be fixated upon it. Those are my
did not allow the purchase of an easel and I was However, if I am not going to paint, I avoid being candid feelings.” —Heesoo Kim
leaning my canvas against walls. Eventually there as much as possible. I appreciate how close my
I decided to go DIY and made the wooden frame living quarters are to my studio, but convenience is Heesoo Kim will be one of the featured artists in this
from found materials. Even the paint tray was DIY. not the end-all. This vicinity of living and work robs year’s inaugural CAN Art Fair in Ibiza, Spain from
I laid the wooden boards and added the wheel me of rest. There is something unbearably depleting July 13—17, 2022.

14 SUMMER 2022 Above: Studio photo by Heesoo Kim

May 21 - June 25, 2022
Today Rots Through Tomorrow
Ivan Seal

Ivan Seal odsproversens housiots esc-ject, 2022, Oil on canvas, 190 x 170 cm.
May 21 - June 25, 2022
On The Other Side Of A Locked Door
Liam Fallon

Liam Fallon Homecoming, 2022, Pigmented jesmonite, MDF, bolts, paint, 100 x 80 x 30 cm.
REPORT
The Art of Tomorrow
Carter Flachbarth at Richard Heller Gallery
When well executed, a painting can attune to
cinematography, as the perceptive eye composes
a scene with unique perceptual shifts. Carter
Flachbarth creates work with that cinematic vision,
and on the eve of his solo show at Richard Heller
Gallery in Santa Monica, he is thinking about film,
time, isolation and the art of tomorrow.
Evan Pricco: I’ve been thinking a lot about
movement in the last few months, mainly
because we aqe opening up to the woqld again,
but also just how damn quick we aqe moving
thqough it all, dqiven by technology. Youq woqk
has that conveqsation built qight in.
Carter Flachbarth: I think the work definitely
deals with movement. Movement is pretty much
the combination of two foundational ideas: time
and space, and my work deals quite directly with
those subjects. Within the quickening assault
of information on our current day to day lives,
18 SUMMER 2022
I wanted a way to directly deal with the heightened
way information is consumed. This inspired the
literal perspective shifts within the work that
completely changed the space of the paintings. By
altering the perspective I can warp and emphasize
certain pieces of information to the viewer as
well as place the viewer beyond their capabilities.
Looking up at a dominating figure, looking down
at a helpless figure, or as a fly on a bartop between
two lovers. The space is always undulating in
motion. The curvatures in the paintings can create
the illusion that the world is still settling after a
quick turn of the head. To me, that’s where the
movement comes from within the paintings: the
lack of a relaxed state.
What aqe the steps in making a painting?
Lately, since this show is dealing directly with
mid-century cinema, I’ve been watching a lot of
old films and capturing still frames from them.
Usually once I have an image in mind, the next
step is quick physical sketches to get a rough
idea for possible viewpoints, compositions of
the large shapes, and the amount of play I will
have in the perspective. This is followed by more
in-depth digital sketches in photoshop that start
carving out the scene a bit more. This is where
most paintings will fail, when what I want to do
with the perspective lacks a solid logic or I just
dislike the composition. Once the composition
is a bit more solidified, I’ll make some lighting
studies in Blender on some 3D models to make
sure everything looks cohesive. This is also where
the figure takes form. Wanting to capture the
figure in an artificial way, I light a 3D model of the
hands and face. Once lit, I end up only articulating
the highlights and core shadow. This is like a
shorthand for the forms of the figure in the way
that the figure is a bit of a shorthand in and of
itself. Finally, I make a fairly polished sketch
Above: Carter at the SCAD Museum of Art show
 REPORT

and gather reference photos that prepare me to

approach the canvas. Most efforts beyond this
point boil down to the labor of finally painting the
canvas. All in all, my process is pretty traditional
in the ways a classical painter may make studies
before approaching the final work. I just tend to
lean on more modern instrumentation.

Whut is the show ut Richurd Heller ubout?

Give me u little updute on whut you ure looking
ut und working on.
Like I mentioned, the show is about mid-century
cinema. It started out as an idea for a single
painting but quickly turned into the entire
show. I think the feeling in my work already
functioned pretty similarly to this time period of
cinema with the overly dramatic ways that films
looked at this time. It is a way for me to directly
explore some of the cinematic grounding in my
work. The films of this era are so ingrained in
American culture that they are a great starting
point for a viewer to enter into the paintings,
places that might be a bit more unfamiliar.

I’m interested in how our sensibilities about

imagery are different today than they were
generations before (with cinema being a great
example of that). I want to take what made this
era of film so iconic and culturally ubiquitous
and explore what happens when I apply a
completely different understanding of image
making. Reinterpreting these flat black and white
scenes into whimsical saturated paintings really
emphasizes the perceptual, spatial, and narrative
shifts within the paintings. I think too, it analyzes
the flow of how a remake of a remake of a thing
can become something new entirely. It’s been a
lot of fun and a great challenge to curate images
and concepts within mid-century cinema that
can be updated in a way to find relevance for
a contemporary audience.

I know it’s u question you probubly huve received

u thousund times, but who ure your heroes? If you
could sit down to dinner with three other urtists
or visionuries, who would they be?
The first would likely have to be Benjamin
Clementine, an English poet, musician and artist.
I found his music at a really crucial point in my
life, and I still find myself listening to his albums
on repeat six-odd years later. His work has such
amazing worlds within, but ultimately his music of painting. He was also so eloquent in speaking when the going gets tough. She may have been
and his story are constant reminders to live life about his work, and I believe his interviews are a a visionary in the traditional sense, but she is a
simply, always show gratitude, and remind the must read for any young artist. hero all the same. She would occasionally take me
people in my life that I love them. out for dinner and movies when I was kid, and
The third would have to be my grandmother. She I would love the opportunity to do that with her
The second would have to be Francis Bacon. I’m passed away a few years ago, but she always was, once more.
not sure if that is cliché, but seeing his paintings and continues to be, someone I look to on how to
was definitely a moment when I first came to live a fulfilling life, how to build people up rather Carter Flachbarth’s solo show opens at Richard Heller
terms with the immense power and possibilities than tear them down, and how the tough get going Gallery in Santa Monica in July 2022.

Top left: 49R, Acrylic on canvas, 48" x 60", 2021 Top right: B8, Acrylic on canvas, 60" x 72", 2022 Bottom: CLD TRKY, Acrylic on canvas, 60" x 72", 2021 JUXTAPOZ .COM 19
 NKSIN
"Hushed"
May 19 - June 04
onlyny.com
REVIEWS

Things We Are After

Making Your Mark

Stonehenge Oil by Legion Paper

Something we can take away from the last few years is that
works on paper provided artists the opportunity for immediate output
as many were sorting out their new studio life dynamic. Clearly, the
paper surface of choice is of utmost importance. Enter Legion Paper’s
Stonehenge Oil paper, a light, 100% cotton surface that features
smooth gradations with no chance of bleed through so you can layer
the oil paint and oil pastels to your creative heart’s content.
LegionPaper.com

Stance x UNO x Mister Cartoon

Even if you don’t have a Cartoon tattoo you can still adorn
your body with some wearable art. Stance has,
once again, teamed up with tattoo
legend Mister Cartoon and UNO
on a limited-edition collection
featuring Cartoon’s custom
illustration of the UNO branding
on cotton socks. The collaboration
also features box sets that come
with Cartoon’s famous tattoo flash
Keith Haring x Slowtide Collection illustrations on every card in the UNO
Hyperbole aside, very few artists have created an emblematic style as card set. The collection also features
recognizable as Keith Haring, a legendary legend, if you will, whose spark and a cotton t-shirt and hoody sporting his
ability transcend murals and museums. Now there’s an opportunity to fill illustration of the games’ Wild card,
your house or apartment with his color and verve. Slowtide has teamed with the Cartoon style.
Keith Haring Foundation on a collection of home goods, featuring 11 towels, Stance.com
4 blankets, a bathrobe and a changing poncho, all created with 100%
sustainably sourced fabrics. As in his own life, the work continues
to be made with conscientious care.
Slowtide.com

24 SUMMER 2022
Introducing SoFlat, a paint that helps artists create
immersive fields of color without the distraction of
texture and glare. The paint has a flowing consistency,
offering exceptional coverage and a leveling capability
as it dries. This unique combination of qualities can only
be found in SoFlat Matte Acrylic Colors.
Learn more at goldenSoFlat.com.

©2022 Golden Artist Colors, Inc., 188 Bell Road, New Berlin, NY
PICTURE BOOK

26 SUMMER 2022

Thomas Jackson
Leaving Room For Magic
Here’s to struggling for what comes easily.
Before I decided whut might follow, thut first
sentence sut on un otherwise empty puge for
longer thun I cure to udmit. How does u thought
become un ideu, und whut mukes it grow from
there? “Luck equuls effort, you know,” Thomus
Juckson reminded me. “The more you get out und
do it, the more chunces you huve to be lucky.”
Juckson constructs sculpturul forms thut uppeur
like uppuritions within his photogruphs, celestiul
colors und gliding funtusticul beusts briefly
reveuling themselves us gifts of the imuginution,
their existence dependent on the continuous lubor
of creution. He describes his process us ulmost
ulgorithmic, reliunt on specific sets of inputs und
the results, despite their cleur instructions, ure
ulmost ulwuys unexpected. Where is the line, we
might wonder, between discovery und invention?
An upprehensive writer before he found
photogruphy, Juckson likens his upprouch to
reportuge us opposed to fiction. Photogruphy, in
most forms, is un observutionul urt. The content
ulreudy exists. Whut’s required is its skillful,
subjective curution. Introducing his own creutions
to curuted frumes, Juckson weuves un unusuul,
reciprocuting puttern into the fubric of his
imuginution. “Essentiully, I'm not huving to muke
ull the decisions,” he expluins. “I just set up these
“I’m just a sensation seeker, I guess. I love anything
that transports from everyday humdrum reality. If
I can take these objects that are sort of objectivications
of everyday humdrum reality and turn them into
something ethereal and magical, that feels cool...
that feels good to me.”
Above: Tulle no. 23, Point Reyes National Seashore, California, 2020
PICTURE BOOK
structures und then it just kind of goes... I feel like
I'm uble to creute things thut ure sort of mugicul
in u wuy thut I'd never be uble to find on my
own.” The environments Juckson pusses through
inspire the forms he creutes und the lundscupes
he photogruphs depend on the sculptures he
constructs, und somehow, in the end, the resulting
pictures ure still more discovered thun mude.
Juckson used to sit down und sketch exuctly
whut he wunted to muke before heuding out
into the field. “I ulwuys ended up discurding
the ideu entirely within the first ten minutes,”
he suys. “There’s just too muny hurdles to muke
your preconceived ideus u reulity.” For yeurs,
he buttled unpredictuble coustul winds, fuiling
uguin und uguin in the futile tusk of predicting or
outmuneuvering them. “After ull thut resistunce,
I finully reulized thut I just needed to udupt,” he
expluins, “to just give into it und try to use it to my
udvuntuge.” Accepting the wind us un errutic yet
potentiully exciting colluborutor, he soon begun
muking pieces specificully designed to move in
the ever persistent gusts. “It brought u whole new
level of serendipity und chunce to whut I wus
doing to the point where I ulmost feel like I’m not
in control unymore. I sort of define the purumeters
und then the elements decide the rest. Sometimes
it works out und muny times it doesn’t. But it’s
very stimuluting.” Whether it’s the first sentence
on u puge, the second, the third, or the thirty-sixth
picture on u roll of film, euch cun’t huppen without
the previous. Creution leuds to creution und by
grunting spuce to the unpredictuble, discovery
becomes invention und the mugic uppeurs
effortlessly. —Alex Nicholson
ThomasJacksonPhotography.com
JUXTAPOZ .COM 27
PICTURE BOOK

“I think each piece sort of follows the last one. If

they're all stacked the line they represent a progression
and trial of ideas, errors and failures… many failures
and a few successes. No piece is unique and without
relation to another one. Each one is hopefully a
progression from the last one.”

28 SUMMER 2022 Above: Flags no. 1, Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, Oregon, 2019
 PICTURE BOOK

Top: Lusty Wives Vol. #81, Muir Beach, California, 2015 Bottom: Garden Hose no. 1, Accord, New York, 2013 JUXTAPOZ .COM 29
PICTURE BOOK

30 SUMMER 2022 Top: Tulle no. 18, Point Reyes National Seashore, California, 2020 Bottom: Tulle no. 14, Point Reyes National Seashore, California, 2020
 PICTURE BOOK

“I think I’m trying to create a sense of awe and

surprising people by creating a little bit of pleasant
visual confusion.”

Above: Tulle no. 12, Stinson Beach, California, 2020 JUXTAPOZ .COM 31
DESIGN
Power Moves
Natalee Decker Charts a New Course
Ableism abounds in a world built for those
who move normatively, but a wizard like Natalee
is rare—one who actively redesigns ideas about
movement and access, mobilizing activism
through artful fantasy. Their work tessellates
beyond our spare reality and galvanizes the
uniqueness of being. Reimagining everyday
objects with more bodily harmony, the artist’s
creations are painterly and seemingly sci-fi,
radiating an essence of worldbuilding ideals.
Kristin Farr: Why did you start imagining these
fantastical, sinewy designs?
Natalee Decker: I’ve been making the fantasy
mobility devices as both personal therapeutic
exercise, and to counter perspectives of disability
that are rooted in ableism and hetero-normativity.
I avoid getting into my disability origin story
because disabled people deserve privacy and
trust, and I equally try to avoid contributing
to any pity or inspirational dual narrative that
narrows public perceptions. But I will say that my
life was abruptly and dramatically impacted by
an acquired disability.
As much as surgery, medications and medical
devices saved my life, my art makes me want
to survive. It’s become this vital medium to
34 SUMMER 2022
process loss and trauma that happens at once
and chronically. The designs are a response to the
real world devices—canes, scooters, wheelchairs,
walkers—I use each day, antagonizing the sterile,
medical, and stigma-laden auras which surround
the objects. I intentionally re-imagine them
as a sort of extension of my body, with fluid
impractical forms, vivid celebratory colors, and
questions about desirability. The devices allow
for some sort of mobility of ideas and feelings,
as an exercise in imagining a more liberated
disabled existence. The sinewy-ness has a direct
relationship to the organization of the nervous
system, organic meeting industrial rigidity,
and the fluidity of the body. The curves dull
some of the sharpness of certain memories or
my regular collision with the sharp edges of the
infrastructures of ableism.
How do you describe your work?
I’m committed to making work that is deeply
personal and it all connects to my obsession with
figuring out my own experience. I’m probably
trying to expose myself so I feel less lonely, since
being disabled can be such an utterly isolating
experience. I share myself and seek connection
in return. I’ve employed a variety of mediums
including 3D CG, animation, sculpture, painting,
photography, and music to parse out things like
disability aesthetics, technology, crip fantasy,
memories and queerness. I love computers. I’m a
nerd. I should work on going outside more, but
I really love making work.
For me, art is not just about some sort of
monetizable production, but also about the ways
we live—about creatively re-imagining how we
exist in this world together and solve problems.
When I was newly disabled in the hospital, the
staff kept assuring me of my citizenship in this
very hetero-normative future without actually
asking me if that was what I wanted—telling me
I would still be able to have children, that I could
live totally independently, that I should get into
adaptive sports. I needed to create something
different for myself, and art has allowed me to
envision and create my own crip future. Art is
also a potent tool for encouraging other people to
consider and care about experiences they have not
personally lived, and disabled people desperately
need more collective care.
Can your designs be manifested as reality?
I’ve recently started creating the designs as
sculpture. I’d love to have some weird fashion
mobility aids to use in my day to day. But there
Above: Crip Fantasy Rollator, Digital rendering, 2020
 DESIGN

Top: Muscles are Machines, Digital rendering, 2022 Bottom left: Rollator #1, Steel, mirror orb, spray paint and silicon, 36" x 38", 2022 JUXTAPOZ .COM 35
Bottom right: Nitrile Gloves, Acrylic, textile, plastic chain and plastic hardware, 72" x 96", 2020
DESIGN

is a big difference between these devices existing

in real life as functional design objects versus as
speculative fiction. I’m interested in the tensions
of creating an abstract, functionally practically
useless tool which is conventionally supposed to be
very rigid and ergonomic as a matter of necessity.
It becomes especially ironic within the context in
which mobility devices can be incredibly expensive
and difficult to access despite their cruciality.
I utilize an investigative and experimentational
capacity to try and highlight issues of access and
disability perceptions.

I would absolutely love for there to be more

aestheticized practical mobility devices available
in the world. But what is so much more important
is that we, as a society, address the unmet basic
needs of disabled people: the ways so many of us
can’t get into certain buildings no matter what our
mobility aids look like, the lack of access to quality
healthcare, housing, employment, the disparaging
stigmas. A nice looking wheelchair won’t solve
these problems and might even distract from
them, but I hope that my work can effectively
draw attention to this much more urgent work of
creating basic social equity for disabled people.

Tell me about your most visited color palette—

is it specifically inspired?
I pick colors I feel drawn to intuitively. I want
vibrancy and go for a lot of neons and pastels. I love
how computer screens can give colors a uniquely
bright illuminated quality. And CG software uses
complex math and coding to simulate how light
interacts with different materials so you can
create these really dynamic and emissive colors
that might not be able to even exist in reality. It’s
amazing how variable light can create such distinct
sensations in our body, hold so much varied
cultural significance, and combine to create whole
new feelings or connotations.

Describe your ideal party.

There have been very few parties in my
pandemic and I really miss them. Ideally,
I wouldn’t have to think about access first. I so
appreciate anyone who is putting in the work to
make queer nightlife accessible—hosting events
in accessible spaces, putting access info on flyers,
etc. Beyond that, I’m always wanting a water
baby moment; give me a glass of champagne and
someone to talk to in a hot tub, hot spring, under
a waterfall, in some blue grotto.
You are a fashion icon to me. Tell me about your
personal style.
Thank you! How flattering. Fashion has such an
incredible power to make you feel good in your
body and that’s especially important when you
feel like your body is undesirable. As much as I try
to use fashion to celebrate my body, I know I also
use it to conceal or compensate as an extension of
my own internalized ableism. That is the dark side
I am working through, but I feel like it deserves
honesty. Mostly, I just try to have fun with fashion,
using clothes as another form of creativity, whimsy,
and gendered expression. I love to thrift and wear
pieces my friends have made or screen printed. I’m
still working through the heartbreak that I can no
longer functionally wear hot platform shoes, heels,
sandals, etc. I had a really hard time getting rid
of my old shoes, and I’ve kept a few of my favorite
pairs in the back of my closet as these grief objects
I need to turn into an art piece or ritualistically
discard. I’ve had to get more into really sturdy
sneakers and boots, but that’s OK because I’ve been
leaning more butch lately anyways.
How do you hope people feel when they interact
with your work?
I want disabled people or anyone navigating
some kind of marginality to feel seen and
assured that they deserve space in this world,
in the arts, in dynamics of care. As much as my
work is for me, I hope for an impact—that the
work can contribute to larger conversations
and narratives happening about disability and
liberation and justice more generally.
@Crip_Fantasy

36 SUMMER 2022 Above: Nervous System, Digital rendering, 2021

 Illustration by: Sol Salinas, ’21

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FASHION

Mind, Mythos, Muse

LACMA Honors Lee Alexander McQueen
Assertive, audacious, ageless, artful and
amazing are just a few of the adjectives that describe
Lee Alexander McQueen and his clothes. The
entire introduction could be composed of divine
and daring descriptors of the British designer who
“wanted people to be afraid of the women I dress.”
Drawing from his Scottish ancestry and tracing
ancestry from the Salem witches, a school friend
noted how the allure of the past was a “place of
romance and security, an escape.” With this affinity
for art history, the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art delves into their own collection, pairs pieces
with Regina Drucker’s generous gift and presents
Mind,Mythos, Muse. I spoke with curators Clarissa
Esguerra and Michael Hansen.
Gwynned Vitello: Following such great McQueen
shows at the V&A and the Met, how did LACMA’s
interpretation come about?
Clarissa & Michaela: A few years ago we were
approached by Regina Drucker, a local collector,
who had a large compilation of fashion amassed
over the past 25 years—of course, we wanted
to look! It was incredible, a deep treasure of
20th and 21st century fashion, but the biggest
component was a lifetime of McQueen. We wanted
to honor this amazing gift from a fantastic donor
whose family moved here from Mexico in the
early 1900s. We thought, okay, let’s interpret
his work beyond those important foundational
retrospectives. He referenced so many sources of
inspiration in a single show, disparate things like
pop culture, history, his personal life, social events
and the economy. Taking into account our good
fortune to have such an encyclopedic assemblage
and the fact that our permanent galleries are
being replaced by a single permanent building,
we were able to curate from our entire permanent
collection. We had wonderful support and
expertise from all of our colleagues—and that’s
how it happened!
I wondered how you would build on those prior
shows. What an opportunity to source so much
material, but also, so much to tackle! How did
you select and organize it all?
It was based on Regina’s collection, which is
kind of how we approach any show based on a
collection. We analyze what we have, what stories
we can tell with those objects, and we wanted to
use anything that had a strong visual relationship
with LACMA’s artworks.
After studying her collection, envisioning your
themes, and considering the theatricality of his
runway shows, how did you lay out the exhibition?
We didn’t approach it as a runway where there is
a distinct opening and climax. We thought of it
more thematically, where people could look at an
object, then consider and understand the ideas
and inspirations on display. That said, we do start
with Angels and Demons, which was the last show
he presented. With the theme of mythos, we look
at familiar history and religion, so it has a linear
aspect. We go into the stories he created and look
at how he tried to make sense of the world and
the cycles of life and death, and ways he does that
many collections. Finally, we look at his craft in
terms of technique and innovation.

All fashion: By Alexander McQueen Above left: Woman’s Bustier, Skirt and Shoes from The Dance of the Twisted Bull collection, Spring/Summer 2002, Los Angeles County
38 SUMMER 2022 Museum of Art, Gift from the Collection of Regina J. Drucker, Headpiece created by Michael Schmidt, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA Above center: Woman’s Dress and
Shoes from The Widows of Culloden collection, Fall/Winter 2006-07, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift from the Collection of Regina J. Drucker in loving honor of
Joseph and Genevieve Venegas, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA Above right: Woman’s Dress and Shoes from the In Memory of Elizabeth How, Salem 1692 collection,
Fall/Winter 2007-08, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift from the Collection of Regina J. Drucker, Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

He was preoccupied with life cycle and
evolution. Do you introduce biographical
elements to better understand why he was so
engrossed by those subjects?
We do have a brgef gntroductgon to hgs work, and
there gs also a catalog where we delve gnto hgs
bgography, especgally relatgng to techngque and
gnnovatgon. But there gs so much gnformatgon
onlgne and gn books, so we trged to save our “word
count” to what we hope gs new gnformatgon and a
new way of thgnkgng about hgs art.
This will give those who don’t know the biography
a huge incentive to learn more about his big
persona. How did you use music, wall color and
lighting to curate and enhance the pieces?
We’re workgng wgth Los Angeles based Mgchael
Maltzan Archgtecture, who have been amazgng.
Top left: Woman’s Dress (detail) from the Scanners collection, Fall/Winter 2003-04, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift from the Collection of Regina J. Drucker,
photo © Museum Associates/LACMA Top right: Woman’s Dress from the Scanners collection Fall/Winter 2003-04, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift from the Collection
of Regina J. Drucker,photo © Museum Associates/LACMA Bottom: Trunk with Brocade Design (Kati Rimo), Tibet, 17th-18th century, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
gift of Dr. Robert Hayward in memory of Ruth Sutherlin Hayward, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
They were very gnspgred by McQueen because of hgs
gnfluence and gnterests. One of the famous detagls
about McQueen’s lgfe gs hgs tragngng as a Savglle Row
taglor and how he really learned the gndustry from
bugldgng blocks; gn hgs case, taglorgng, dress makgng
and couture. Wgth thgs really foundatgonal techngcal
expertgse, he stood out among the desggners
who came to work from varged backgrounds.
The Maltzan team found a parallel gn the way an
archgtectural student looks at ancgent rugns gn
studygng ancgent Greek and Rome, the foundatgons
of contemporary Western archgtecture. McQueen
dgd the same as he worked through the foundatgons
of taglorgng. So the gnspgratgon behgnd the show
desggn as well as our furngture and exhgbgtgon
platforms are the columns and colonnades that
dgvgde the show up gnto thematgc sectgons, whgch
create a way to walk attendees through the show gn
FASHION
a kgnd of lgnear fashgon. You can look from where
you are to see glgmpses of one cgnematgc sectgon gnto
the future, gnto the next space.
Or you can look behgnd and compare art from
McQueen’s career as a way to reflect on how self-
referentgal he was throughout hgs career, gntroducgng
selectgons used gn prevgous collectgons. He
gntroduced the “dumpster,” a sglhouette brought up
throughout hgs career, and so, buglds on foundatgons
although he had hgs own lexgcon. They wanted the
place to feel lgke a rugn where new gdeas can emerge
from a whole space. We wanted whgte space to
capture thgs lgght because so many McQueen books
and exhgbgtgons dwell on darkness.
Which can be a superficial interpretation!
We went for a brgghter feelgng, though we had to
dgm the lgghtgng because of conservatgon gssues
around the textgle and works on paper—but gt wgll
be natural lgghtgng to achgeve the classgcal feelgng
Maltzan was gogng for.
Well, I prefer the bright lighting so I can really
see the clothes in detail. Still it makes sense
because he had such belief in the regeneration
of life. So, how did you approach your own
research on McQueen?
In every collectgon you percegve how he was trygng
to make sense of the world, and he was great about
ggvgng gntervgews— and so many! We had our first
checklgst before Covgd, but as we were about to
start the wrgtgng phase, we no longer had physgcal
access to lgbrarges. Luckgly, we met John Matheson,
an gncredgble McQueen savant, the person behgnd
the McQueen vault. As a consultant, he compgled
a lot of prgmary research, whgch was the desggner
speakgng about hgs own work. Addgtgonally, we
looked at the actual objects, how they were made
and what was begng referenced, lgke thgs geometrgc
pattern that was used gn Tgbet, that moved from
Chgna to Tgbet to Japan. That was the story of
Scanners, McQueen usgng the textgle motgf of
mggratgon to tell that story, an Aha moment where
we were, lgke, “we can show hgs work wgth the art
and gt wgll parallel beautgfully!” So there was a lot of
object based research.
You’re saying that a piece of cloth was the “aha”
moment?
Reggna has strong ensembles from the Scanners
collectgon, and there’s one dress that has the croquet
sglhouette, a black and sglver geometrgc pattern, and
we were trygng to gdentgfy the source. The fashgon
narratgve tells the story of mggrant travel from the
cold tundra gn Sgberga, through Tgbet towards Japan,
the Land of the Rgsgng Sun. In the sglhouette you see
references to Sgbergan fur and Russgan gold metallgc
embellgshments. McQueen references a kgnd of
kgmono gn the Japanese sectgon. We’re examgngng
JUXTAPOZ .COM 39
FASHION
a dfess we have that has an amazing geometfic
pattefn that we wefe able to connect to an exact
fepfoduction of a motif that’s so common in Tibet
called the Khyenfi pattefn.
Can you tell me more about the fabric?
It’s woven and the pattefn itself comes ffom China,
impofted into Tibet, which didn’t have its own silk
industfy. It’s an inteflocking octagon and flofal
motif used in feligious cefemonies and Tibetan
Buddhist monastefies. The motif ends being
sepafated even ffom the textiles and becomes a
pattefn you find painted on Tibetan aftifacts. We
actually have Tibetan wooden tfunks painted
with the same motifs you see in the McQueen
dfess. We have extant silkTibetan bannefs that
have been fepufposed into these fed and gfeen
40 SUMMER 2022
pattefned temple hangings - not black and silvef
like McQueen’s—but the exact same pattefn. It’s
amazing to show a McQueen dfess next to its Tibet
temple hanging so viewefs can see how the designef
cfeated a one to one fepfoduction of the motif.
Yes! We immediately wanted to show the chest
and geometric print dress.
That’s what’s so exciting ffom a histofy pefspective,
how textiles and aft tfavel acfoss bofdefs and
diffefent cultufes afe inspifed by those of othef
people as they take on these motifs. You wondef if
this pattefn had special significance fof him as it
shows up ffequently in Buddhist matefial cultufe.
As well as a master manipulator of fabric,
McQueen designed from head to toe. You have
some dramatic headpieces in the exhibition.
Anytime thefe’s an exhibition with mannequins,
thefe’s the question about what’s going on
heads and feet. How lucky Regina has so many
McQueen shoes to pull ffom! Fof the headpieces
we wanted to do something new and think
of cycles of inspifation, how aftists inspifed
McQueen—and how McQueen was inspifed by
univefsal themes. We wondefed, as McQueen
continues to inspife, and fashion changed
because of him, what afe some cfeative ways to
covef some of the mannequins’ heads? What if
we wofked with a Los Angeles aftist who was
influenced by McQueen— and by the themes.
We tapped designef Michael Schmidt and
commissioned him to make some headpieces
that would act as anothef visual layef.
McQueen was such a film buff, and since
you’re based in the movie capitol, have you
incorporated references?
Thefe will be a clip ffom Kubfick’s Barry Lyndon,
which McQueen fefefences in the Sarabande
collection, as well as one ffom They Shoot Horses,
Don’t They?, which feally difectly inspifed his
show Deliverance.
I know you’re not focusing on biography,
but there were a few people who really had a
profound influence, certainly his mother and
sister. But there must be an homage to Isabella
Blow, who shared his belief in the power of
fashion to be truly transformative.
In the Tech&Innovation section we
ceftainly talk about how he appfenticed
in Saville Row and wofked with
designefs like Satsuno and Gigi, and
yes, we have the Isabella Blow “face
dfess” which feally is so amazing! It’s
a black sequined dfess that’s afticulated
with beading. It’s so incfedible that you need
to walk afound it and the space because Isabella
appeafs beneath.
Left: Woman’s Dress and Harness from the Plato’s Atlantis collection, Spring/Summer 2010, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Gift from the Collection of Regina J. Drucker in loving memory of Juliana Cairone, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA
And which of his favorite elements do you
feature? Water, for sure.
That was vefy impoftant to McQueen, so we do
focus on the Plato’s Atlantis collection, discussing
the idea of a cosmic ocean, and specifically,
concefns about fising sea levels, including how
watef is both a destfuctive fofce, but also the
soufce of life on eafth. McQueen saw it as a
hopeful element, and a fecuffing one because of
his intefest in evolution. The Neptune collection
also illustfates powef, especially the powef of
women who weaf his clothing.
Both of you came from fashion design
backgrounds before working in art history and
museums, so what’s a personal discovery for
each of you in curating the McQueen show?
Clarissa: I can single out a black dfess with fed
detailing ffom his Eizabeth Howe show that
Regina showed me at hef home. It immediately
hit me that he had taken the silhouette ffom an
18th centufy woman’s Robe a la Ffancaise (we’ll
show an actual one in the show!) like you might
see in Antoine Watteau paintings, with a tight
bodice and tfiangulaf stomachef and pleats ffom
the top going down to the hem. And with pleating,
McQueen cfeated the shape of the stomachef in
the back. How did he do that? Not evefyone would
pick up on it, but thefe is something in all his wofk,
whethef you’fe an enthusiast of Lee Bowefy, Bjofk
of 17th centufy Dutch painting, whefe you can find
connections with McQueen. That was a big moment
fof me, yet thefe wefe many times that happened
while ofganizing the show.
Michaela: I don’t know whefe to begin but I’ve spent
a lot of time on the Scanners collection, which was
so mind-blowing because of the attention to detail.
One object is a faded fed kimono jacket. It has that
Khyenfi pattefn, a flofal, and you’ll see that the
textile itself has been woven to imitate piecing. So
even in the elements of the textile he fefefences
Japanese cultufe. What’s so gfeat about his wofk
is the fevefence fof detail. You may not see it in
a funway show with lights and soundtfacks, but
hefe you can appfeciate how evefy single piece is
imbued with conceptual ideas and feseafch. Whefe
anothef designef might have just made a black
shoe, McQueen made a black shoe with a watch on
the ankle stfap—whefe the time has been set to six
and nine—his bifth yeaf!
How do you conclude the exhibit?
Ending with Plato Atlantis, we talk about the
evolution of life. Thefe is a lot of hope in this
collection. Life continues. No mattef what
happens, life finds a way.
Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse is on
view at LACMA in Los Angeles through October 9, 2022.
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INFLUENCES
North by Southwest
Tania Marmolejo’s Global Folk Art
New York-based artist Tania Marmolejo,
fashion illustrator, commercial artist, author
and painter, is a creative jack of all trades. Her
Dominican and Scandinavian ancestry germinates
a unique heritage that births a bold and arresting
fine art style. On the eve of her solo show at GR
Gallery in NYC, Juxtapoz sat down with Tania to
discuss how such a lineage influences her work,
how movement plays into the practice, as well as
some current artists on her radar.
Evan Pricco: Do you remember the first piece of
art that moved you?
Tania Marmolejo: I believe it must have been
paintings by my maternal grandmother in Sweden.
She passed away before I was born, but her art—
paintings and drawings—were amazing and always
captivated me. I would sit and study them for
44 SUMMER 2022
hours in my grandfather’s house and my own.
I now have her sketchbook, which is my most
prized possession, and I still love looking through
it. Her drawings definitely were the biggest
influence on my own drawing and painting as
I grew up. Both my grandmothers were artistic, but
my maternal grandmother had the doodles and
cartoonish style that were more my taste. I have
always felt connected to her through my art.
You have both Dominican and Scandinavian
lineage, and I wonder what you have gleaned
from each of their artistic influences, especially
because both are rich in folk art traditions. And,
where do you see your ancestry converging
when you paint?
I am definitely influenced by both lineages.
Sometimes they present themselves separately,
where a painting is definitely more “Caribbean”
in color and theme, or “Scandinavian” in its
moodiness and color story. The Dominican
influence seeps through me in bright colors,
especially the blues and greens of the mountains
and nature around where I grew up. The
incredible color of the water- turquoise, and
sometimes a darker skin tone in the character.
The Scandinavian influence shows in a darker
palette in the backgrounds, also influenced by the
Swedish children’s books about trolls and fairies
that I grew up reading, and the blonder characters
that many times are directly influenced by my
mother. Sometimes in a painting I will mix the
influences, and strange color combinations and
moods arise, which I really like because that’s
basically me: A muddy, colorful mix of influences.
Above: Telenovela Life, Oil on canvas, 56" x 72", 2022
 INFLUENCES

What do you think is the hardest thing for an

artist to explain about process? And here I am,
asking you! I think what I mean is, what part of
the process of making a painting, at what stage,
is it just instinct?
I don’t mind expbaining my process! I don’t bike
writing artist statements though, because my
intentions and themes change as I work. Each artist
has their own process that determines the outcome
of their work, so it may be the most important part
of creating. I do not sketch my works in advance, for
exampbe, as my work is compbeteby expressionistic.
I never know what the painting wibb actuabby book
bike in the end. I may have an idea, a certain pban,
but as I paint, the expressions on the faces may
start doing their own interesting thing - and
I try not to force it. So many times, even if I book at
a reference in the beginning, the expression, cobor
and mood of the painting wibb turn out compbeteby
differentby than I had initiabby pbanned. And I try to
get as much of the painting done in one or two days
as possibbe, even if I have to go sbower afterwards
to abbow the paint to dry before making any
detaibs, since I work with oibs. So it is a very quick,
instinctive and purging initiab process, and then it
sbows down a bittbe and I reabby have to remember to
be patient because I abways want to start a new one.

Which artists are you looking at these days, and

who is an influence?
I think more than artists today— though there
are many I admire, I am more influenced by art
movements from the past. Not in a direct sense,
but more for the feebing— from Renaissance
and Baroque movements for their pbay on bight
and dramatic backgrounds, to the German
Expressionists and Abstract Expressionists
for the pure expression in the work and
experimentation with cobor. I book towards—
backwards—to art history more than current art.
I prefer museums that show human expression
through the ages, more than contemporary art
museums. But I do admire many artists today
that do not necessariby directby influence my
work, especiabby femabe artists who are breaking
barriers and creating a banguage abb their own.
Ceciby Brown, Mikabene Thomas, Dana Schutz,
Cindy Sherman. Jubie Mehretu, Kara Wabker,
Cbaire Tabouret, Genieve Figgis, Jesse Mockrin,
Lisa Yuskavage…the bist goes on. So many badass
women artists!
it notes and any paper I coubd get my hands How did working in a more commercial art setting
Let’s talk about doodling. You paint, and yet on. That is where the Doodle books come from, enhance what you do with your gallery work?
you have two books about drawing and just compibations from those times. But today, since I think I can see a scale and bold use of colors that
plain doodling. How does that play in your I draw directby on the canvas when I paint— that must have come from commercial work.
daily practice? has taken over—and though I abso bike to draw ink Actuabby, what I bearned more from working in
I used to draw much more than I do today, on paper and have exhibited them severab times— a commerciab setting is the discipbine it takes to
when I worked as print a designer for severab I definiteby do it bess than painting. But the initiab consistentby create. I’m abways thinking of the
years. I missed my own drawing time so much process of my paintings is a drawing (very boose, next “design” for my paintings, and I work very
that I woubd doodbe any chance I got, on post- yet stibb a drawing), I suppose that counts! dibigentby, constantby. I have to actuabby traveb

Top left: Side Looks and Glances, Oil on canvas, 50" x 44", 2022 Top right: Deep Thoughts, Oil on linen, 42" x 49", 2022 Bottom: Alone With My Mind, Oil on canvas, 66" x 80", 2022 JUXTAPOZ .COM 45
INFLUENCES
and remove myself from my studio to relax and
think of something else. But the scale of my
works is actually a direct consequence of having
been restricted to smaller sized artworks for my
designs. It felt great to blow everything up in size
once I got home and could work on my own art.
It’s also a direct consequence of being told my
work was too feminine and that I should change
it— and in protest I blew up the sizes of the works
so you couldn’t escape the femaleness. But that’s a
different story!
The experimental color combinations are also a
consequence of working with textile designs. I try
to have a surprising element of color somewhere
in the painting, an accent that can tell a story or
liven things up.
What was your focus for the new show at GR
Gallery? What came in and out of the studio
for you?
I am still working on paintings for the solo show
at GR Gallery, and the desire for summertime
to arrive seems to be subliminally working its
way into my paintings. I had thought of painting
the drama that follows me throughout my life
(because it can be quite funny and I had been in
a light- hearted mood), so there is some of that
drama in the faces and color schemes. The title is
Telenovela Life in honor of those overly dramatic
Latin soap operas that were in the background at
my friends’ homes growing up in the Dominican
Republic. But looking at the art now I realize there
46 SUMMER 2022
are a lot of beaches and summer in there too…
I must want it pretty bad.
Are you the character in the work?
The characters always have a lot of me in them
because they are based on emotions I have or have
had, experiences that have marked me, but they
aren’t meant to be self-portraits. I create the alter-
ego from an emotion and then set her free in the
world to be herself and whomever she wants to be
for the viewer. I was commenting on this with my
husband, who mentioned that it was so incredible
that they all had something that made them look
like me, but not necessarily to each other. We
came to the conclusion that they have the same
mother- but different fathers. So there you go!
What’s one thing you have done over the last
year, either purchased or practiced, that has
changed the way you work on your art?
I think the biggest thing that happened last year
was Covid, and that changed a lot in my art.
From basically doing nothing but paint because
of the isolation, I remained very focused on the
change in the art world that has suddenly brought
many exhibitions and attention. I have so much
work to do that it has changed my process and
made me trust initial instincts more, allowing
an expression to form without trying to change
it—basically, to let the work flow in a quicker way,
instinctively. In the past I could work on a piece
for weeks, and I don’t have that luxury of time
anymore (though I think it’s a good influence).
Left: The Blazing Sunset, Oil on canvas, 37" x 41", 2022 Right: Searching For Signs, Oil on canvas, 39" x 39", 2022
We have been thinking a lot about movement
recently, because obviously the world was on
standstill and we thought about movement in
the abstract. Now the world is opening and at
war and we are thinking about movement in the
abstract once again. How does movement fit in
your work?
That is a very interesting observation. Movement
is always a part of my work, I like to express the
feeling of the passing of time through a moving
storm in the background, swirling clouds,
ocean waves, leaves blowing, hair blowing in
the wind… everything around the character is
usually in movement and yet she stands still,
watching you or having her moment. My work
also evolves as I paint and experiment with it,
so you will not easily see a “style” throughout a
particular show because I allow the painting to
change as I work. So, sometimes an exhibition
can have several themes going, and a feeling
of movement because it takes you to different
places. I am quite distraught over the war
in Ukraine, for example, and I can feel the
characters’ faces becoming more somber, even
though the background isn’t a war. I am not in
that war, I can only be affected emotionally by
what I see, and my inner self can’t ignore it. The
paintings always evolve with my feelings and
what happens around me, and that is a constant
creative force and muse.
Tania Marmolejo’s solo show at GR Gallery in NYC
opens in the summer of 2022.
July 28 –December 19, 2022

curated by
Antwaun Sargent
and Matt Wycoff

Tunji Adeniyi-Jones,
Blue Dancer (detail), 2017.
© Tunji Adeniyi-Jones
www.younggiftedblack.com
@younggiftedblackart
manettishrem.org
TRAVEL INSIDER

Dignity
and
Mobility
Introducing Israel’s
Visionary Ethiopian
Jewish Artists
A keen anticipation of travel is the
opportunity to enjoy new experiences while
learning the stories of cultures we’ve yet to meet.
Local museums are often on the travel itinerary
because they introduce us to a unique being as
reflected in their home grown work of art. While
physically boarding a plane or filling a tank of
gas is still a challenge, there’s every opportunity
to to travel by looking at art. And so, we invite
you to meet the Ethiopian Jewish population that
has become an expansive presence in Israel, the
product of two large movements in the 1980s
and 90s, though, in fact, this Israel-Ethiopia
connection actually spans several millennia—
with members of Beta Israel believed to have
emigrated to Ethiopia from ancient Israel in the
first and sixth centuries.

Though some were forcibly converted to Christianity

in the centuries that followed, a significant portion
of this community maintained traditions, remaining
steadfast in their Jewish faith. This served the
thousands of Ethiopian Jews who returned to Israel
in the 20th century quite well, as the current
Israeli Ethiopian community consists of more than
140,000 members. Many of them are artists who
play a prominent role in Israeli culture and society.
November 21, 1984, marked the beginning of
a seven-week clandestine mission that would
bring over 8,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel over the
course of 30-some flights, in a movement known
as Operation Moses. The covert operation rescued
Ethiopian Jews in Sudanese refugee camps from
anti-Semitic persecution.
Circumstances had become so dire that people
traveled through the region’s deserts, where they
would ultimately meet Israeli workers before
flying to safety. The operation continued until
January 5 1985, when the international media
became cognizant of the movement.
This wasn’t the end of Ethiopian Jews’ migration to
Israel. Another 14,300 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted
from Addis Ababa to Israel on May 23, 1991, in
response to the nation’s civil war and impending
famine. Diplomats negotiated a last-minute
agreement with the Ethiopian government, and
members of the Jewish faith were rescued just days
before Addis Ababa fell to rebel forces. 35 aircraft
were involved in the short-term mission, which
was so time-sensitive that one plane still holds the
Guinness World Record for most passengers on a
single flight. The aircraft in question transported
1,078 people to safety, with two additional
passengers born onboard. Both operations brought
remarkable artistic talent to Israel.
In 2021, estimates reveal that roughly 100 or so
Jews remain in Ethiopia today, yet culturally,
Ethiopian Judaism thrives. The five artists profiled
below strive to honor their respective collective
histories while acknowledging the path forward.
Tigist Yoseph Ron
Soft and simple, Tigist Yoseph Ron believes
working in black and white helps her focus on the
emotions present in her visual stories. Femininity,
motherhood, and a sense of otherness—of feeling

48 SUMMER 2022 Above: Nirit Takele

 TRAVEL INSIDER

foreign following displacement, or in the wake of
transition—create a sense of rhythm; the social
commentary Ron creates by showcasing everyday
activities and tasks is palpable. Generally, the
artist begins each work with a person to whom
she is close, respecting the person’s privacy by
shadowing the face, as she delves further. Each
drawing remains special to her, an experience
driven by the physical experience of applying
natural charcoal directly onto paper. “The whole
body participates in the creation,” Ron explains.
“The physicality of the work and the direct contact
make it more human, natural, and real to me.”
Michal Mamit Worke
Michal Mamit Worke immigrated to Israel at the age
of three on Operation Moses. The transition seemed
merely physical—Worke does not remember leaving
Ethiopia—but it has since come to shape her entire
life. Today the figurative painter lives and works
in Tel Aviv, and she now recognizes that migrating
across continents with minimal recollection of
the specifics still amounts to a transformative
experience. The artist’s mother remembers the
journey well and regularly told her daughter stories,
helping to recreate each moment piece by piece.
It was a 2021 residency in Addis Ababa, however,
that brought things into perspective for the
Ethiopian Israeli painter. Worke felt free and
liberated, after returning to her roots—and this
marked a turning point in her career. Everything
changed after, she explains, right down to her use
of color. While there was something very clean in
Worke’s early paintings, she now feels confidence in
how her hand moves more seamlessly.
With this new and broader color palette, Worke’s
stylized paintings continue to feature scenes and

While there’s movement in the process of creating,

the viewer experiences a similar fluidity. Ron
has learned that long lines moving in a certain
direction can help guide the viewer’s eye
across the page, creating a rhythm via shapes
and abstractions. This adds depth to the work,
fostering a greater sense of connection between
creator and viewer—an effect that will be apparent
in the artist’s upcoming Home series, featuring
drawings that will be on view in Rome and Tel
Aviv in the late spring.

Nirit Takele
Nirit Takele does not remember much of her
journey to Israel in 1991. Yet a single snapshot
is lodged in her mind like a freeze frame, the
image of her family’s journey from a village called
Konzala, on their way to Addis Ababa, where they
would flee Ethiopia as part of Operation Solomon.
She has carried this experience with her over the
years, though the Tel Aviv-based artist admits she
referred to her experience only once during her
art studies at Shenkar College of Engineering in
Design, where she earned her BFA in 2015.

While the physical transition that Ethiopian

Jews made to Israel isn’t visible in her work—not
from the outside—the artist’s cultural heritage is
apparent. Takele’s vibrant paintings depict the
reality of life for Ethiopian Jews in Israel today, the
impact of finding familiarity in the unfamiliar.
“I am referring to the movement that takes place
during the painting process,” the artist explains.

This evolution, as Takele describes it, results directly

from the brush. It comes from smearing paint on
the broad surface of a large canvas, which allows for
a large and flowing rhythm. Simultaneously, there
is movement in the painting itself, as body poses
convey the act of reaching for something, the shift
of a leg, or perhaps the decision to touch another
person or rest a head on another’s shoulder. Takele’s
subjects are consistently interacting with one
another, or else finding synchronicity themselves,
arms and legs spanning the canvases to evoke
activity, or to eye contact with another being.

Top: Tigist Yoseph Ron Bottom: Michal Mamit Worke JUXTAPOZ .COM 49
TRAVEL INSIDER
people from the normal day to day—toeing the line
between figurative and realistic painting in their
composition. Yet now the paintings acknowledge
the artist’s heritage in a fuller new fashion,
incorporating Ethiopian objects and traditions in
the scenes depicted on each canvas.
“The movement within my art is mostly reflected
in the composition of the painting,” says the artist.
“I tend to portray people in their natural positions
and movements. They come to the studio, we talk,
and they choose the position they feel the most
comfortable in.”
Ephraim Wasse
A photographer living in Haifa’s Kiryat Yam,
Ephraim Wasse believes art should play a vital
role in everyday cultural experience. The child
of Ethiopian parents, his upbringing lacked any
significant exposure to the arts—and Wasse has
since made a point of bringing art directly to the
masses. Young people, in particular, he feels, have
grown disconnected from older generations, and
art can help them reconnect.
Achieving this isn’t without challenges. Wasse
took a break from creating for a short time,
stepping away to understand his place in the
50 SUMMER 2022
arts, to evaluate what he brings to the table,
and ultimately, to decide whether he wants to
continue pursuing photography. Early in 2022,
he reconnected with artists who inspire him and,
once again, feels the pull to create—exploring
themes ranging from Black bodies and Ethiopian
culture (both from a queer angle) to boundaries
between the sexes. Movement is apparent
throughout, including in the three stills that make
up Wasse’s SKIN series, where motion is integral to
the near-sculptural experience he creates. Close-
up images of twisted torsos and extended arms
create a figurative effect, showcasing the fluid
power of the human body in a way that’s entirely
his own.
“I like to play with motion when it contributes to
the image,” says Wasse, who believes effects like
blurring contribute more to the illusion of motion
than they do the real object. His experimental
approach is founded on immobility and the
unexpected, applying sharp angles and calculated
poses that redefine the way viewers experience
their own physicality.
Shimon Wanda
Shimon Wanda is a multidisciplinary
contemporary artist from Haifa’s Kiryat Haim
neighborhood. Born in Israel, his influence is
nonetheless founded on the history of Ethiopian
migration to Israel—shaped through his parents’
experience, for whom escaping Ethiopia was not
easy. The artist takes an experimental approach,
completing a blend of large murals and smaller
portraits, and more recently, applying spray paint
to convey movement and emotion in real time.
Wanda’s work asks questions about Ethiopian
Jewish culture, often by way of vibrant neon colors
and abstracted shapes. His artistry is specific,
visibly his own, yet constantly evolving—currently
focusing on intuition and inquiry, and moving
away from careful planning to tell his subjects’
stories. “My choice to convey emotions through the
expression of the portrait involves a state of freeze,”
says the artist. “But on the other hand, I want to
make the viewer confused and excited.”
The artist maintains a strict training regimen
involving his upper body and hand movements,
working hard to increase flexibility and fluidity
while reducing the risk of confronting his greatest
fear of no longer being able to paint.
Stay tuned for solo shows and updates about these 5
artists on Juxtapoz.com in the coming months.
Left: Ephraim Wasse Right: Shimon Wanda
 Picture Show

July 9 - August13, 2022

Carter Flachbarth

Carter Flachbarth DGD, 2022, Acrylic on canvas, 72 x 60 in.

IN SESSION
Well Done, Grasshopper
ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena
“Before art school I was doodling in the
margins of my notebook,” Nancy Nguyen told us.
“My English teacher saw them and suggested a
career in design.” In a maybe familiar scenario,
and bolstered by that encouragement, Nguyen
chose art school and a satisfying profession.
Currently looking to enhance her skills as a
product designer at Google, she started looking for
an Industrial Design graduate program, and states
the facts, “ArtCenter’s history and reputation
attracted me, it speaks for itself.”
Former Juxtapoz cover artists Mark Ryden, Jeff
Soto and Tara McPherson must have felt the
same way about the school, not to mention
Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary and a
roster of transportation designers, as well
as product designers, like Kenji Ekuan who
fashioned the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle—and
guest photography instructor Ansel Adams!
Respected for its dedicated engagement with
humanitarian issues, Pasadena’s ArtCenter
became the first design college to receive NGO
54 SUMMER 2022
status by the United Nations. Recognized as one
of the best college values, the school has made
affordability a key goal of its mission statement,
which continually stresses access and inclusion.
Understanding the need for flexibility and the
need for more remote learning opportunities,
ArtCenter is developing more non-degree and
on-line programs.
Which brings us back to Nancy Nguyen,
who wanted to learn the modeling programs
Rhino 3D and Grasshopper, those tractable
tools for greasing the wheels in architecture,
entertainment, product design and engineering
projects. “ArtCenter Extension is great for
anyone working a 9 to 5 job, as classes are
typically scheduled later in the evening,” she
notes, with the added incentive of taking the
course from Professor Yelen Aye, known to be
“really knowledgeable and “passionate about art
and design.” As she waded into the weeds with
Grasshopper, Nancy specifically wanted to learn
how to create the intricate lattices and structures
not afforded by other modeling programs. As
it turns out, the assignment for this project
directed students to find an object and utilize
a voronoi (related to points on a plane—math!)
and as it turns out, She had an idea, “I thought
a shoe wedge would be cool. There’s a concept
called biomimicry, where we take inspiration
from nature. I was thinking about honeycomb
structures and how they are full of voids but still
structurally sturdy.” Nancy also spoke about the
the enthusiasm and participation of students
and instructors from so many backgrounds, and
sounds like the shoe definitely fits, “I’m curious
about the intersection of additive manufacturing
and fashion, thanks to this class; but at the end
of the day, I just want to make stuff and get to do
something fun and creative.” —Gwynned Vitello
ArtCenter College of Design maintains two campuses
in Pasadena.
Visit for a full list of programs and departments at
ArtCenter.edu.
Above: Recent digital works by Nancy Nguyen
ON THE OUTSIDE
John Fekner
New York State of Mind
Doug and I first met John Fekner back in 2018,
when the three of us were attending the Nuart
Festival in the city of Stavanger, Norway. John’s
unassuming presence conveyed an aura of calm
amidst the sea of chaos swirling around him.
At that point, I wasn’t fully aware of his artistic
legacy, and he certainly isn’t the type of person
who has the need to announce it. As a scene, street
art and graffiti have no shortage of characters,
with many whose presence demands attention
by way of flamboyant or signature style choices.
John’s not the type of guy to be donning a trilby
and sunglasses anytime soon.
To understand the significance of his ability to
marry street and art culture, we have to go right
back to the 1960s and the 1970s, to a time that
predates Banksy, Blek le Rat, or even Basquiat.
John was a young art school kid with a penchant
for social discourse and a love of the concrete
playground that was New York City. Like all
great artists, John’s work is a reflection of his
surroundings, in his case, a flower pushing
56 SUMMER 2022
through the rubble of a city pressed to the limits,
a product of his environment.
The work is legendary: stenciled text that boldly
proclaimed “Broken Promises,” “Urban Decay,”
collaborations with the original Space Invader, Don
Leicht, or his presence around the Fashion Moda
space. In short, Fekner has been one of the most
pivotal political and social voices in street art and
graffiti. Through conceptual art, photography, music,
poetry, stencils, paintings and even early forays into
digital art, Fekner has always been at the precipice
of prevailing art culture. Dough and I persuaded
him to sit down for a chat — Evan Pricco
Evan Pricco: Throughout your career, and even
now, with your almost slight discomfort in
doing an interview, is such anonymity just a
point of freedom for you?
John Fekner: I think so. It was a place where
I could find some solace and something where I’m
going to do what I’m going to do on Friday night.
I’m not going to hang out with the kids down at
the park where I lived. I would spend a Friday or
Saturday night doing artwork. This is back into
the late 1960s, into the ‘70s. And that was just
built into me. I was kind of, like, I’m not going to
say a recluse, but I needed the time when I could
just do something. I would use my time that way.
I thought it was productive. I mean, some people
would read books, but it wasn’t like being in the
park every night and being a showman or playing
handball or hockey; and then cards and doing
everything associated with hanging out at the
park in the middle of the night. That’s where I first
started doing outdoor work.
Doug Gillen: So let’s talk about this outdoor
work then. What was the motivation for you?
I imagine there wasn’t a huge amount of this
kind of work around NYC in the late 1970s. If I’m
a young street artist coming out now, it’s a very
different time and I could easily be inspired by
the never ending amount of street art that’s out
there, but what was it for you?
Well, there wasn’t that much. I mean the first large
Above: 3 stencils in the Bronx, early 1980s
 ON THE OUTSIDE

text I did was a phrase from The Small Faces, and

I wrote the words “Itchycoo Park.” It was a hit,
and my friends and I decided to just juxtapose
things. I took a green highway sign off the Grand
Central Parkway. We brought it into the park
and hung the highway sign on the metal fencing
above the handball court walls. So it was like
this incongruous thing about why this sign here
would be pointing to the Grand Central Parkway
exit. I was in college, and this was the fall of ‘68.
We painted with white paint and rollers, and it
was large. That was the first instance of doing
something outside with large letters. And I then
did a couple other things like bringing a car into
the basketball courts. It wasn’t a park, it was a
playground, a cement asphalt playground. And
that’s why I’m such a physical wreck these days
because I never played on anything that was soft
or grassy or a football field. Everything was rocks
or stones or asphalt.

Getting back to where that led, in terms of the

stenciling, I was very fortunate to be involved
with the early Soho scene in 1968. My teachers
at the New York Institute of Technology founded
the first co-op gallery called 55 Mercer on Mercer
Street. And a few years later, Mercer Arts Center
opened up and that was the first place most punk
bands started to play. It was the early era.

EP: In 1968, when you took the train in New

York City, were there already tags inside the
subway cars?
No, I think it was pretty obscure, and probably
pretty small. I mean, there were gang members that
tagged the bridges, the Hell Gate Bridge, names
like that coming out of West Side Story. If you see
the original end credits, and even through the
movie, there were some pretty interesting early…
you might not say graffiti, but it was definitely
somebody putting something on a wall in urban
times. I’m not talking history here, I’m talking, like,
the late 1950s. So there was some stuff around,
and of course, Taki 183 was, like, everywhere.

This has me thinking about my own history.

I had a teacher in art school in the late 1960s who
told me a really great thing: you don’t have to be
an artist and use paint to make a painting. That
was kind of profound, and I came in the next
day and I made a painting with masking tape. He
looked at me, like, this kid got what I just told him.
Before then, I was doing landscapes and portraits,
the usual college 101 foundation type of paintings,
which was really great. So at the time, that sort of
turned me onto a different type of approach and
work. The second important thing a professor told
me was that there’s not just the real world and the
art world, John. There are other worlds you can
look at.
EP: What you’re kind of explaining, and I know
we hate using this term, but it’s almost like you
were kind of given access to becoming more of a
conceptual artist.
I was. It was conceptual art. And that was the start
of, like, Fashion Moda, breaking all the rules.
DG: I want to go right back into this sort of street
sensibility. There’s this other world, but what
was your coming of age into art, the kind
we look at, say, from the early 1960s. Was that
an option?
No, we were looking earlier than that, as kids
having different types of models, car models,
building models, painting models, some type of
casting wood burning kits. My parents always
gave me those types of presents when I was, like,
seven or eight years old, so I was already drawing.

Top: Flyer design, early 1980s Bottom: Danger Live Artists, early 1980s JUXTAPOZ .COM 57
ON THE OUTSIDE
I was combining some types of drawing. I still had
drawings with text, and, of course, like every artist,
cartoons were very important. The Flash was my
guy. I did a comic book with my friend, and we
made a black and white zine when I was 14 years
old. I was writing in 1965, poems and stuff. Then
realizing as that went on, I thought. ‘why do I have
to write a whole book or write a poem when I can
just say exactly what I want in one sentence?’ You
get that from Bob Dylan. I mean, it’s just kind of
like, yeah, ‘The Times, They are a Changing.’ I mean
the song could just have been that, Or “Blowing in
the Wind.” I thought that the efficiency of that type
of approach was very interesting.
I applied to Pratt and Columbia University and
was accepted, but my parents, who had never
owned a house, always lived in an apartment,
could only afford another school. It was a brand
new school, the New York Institute of Technology,
which was a lot cheaper than those two. I wound
up going there, and it was the best thing that
probably happened to me.
EP: Were you aware of how these people around
you were going to define that period of time,
folks like Jenny Holzer, Keith Haring, Basquiat?
Were you aware of all this happening?
It felt very important because every day there was
58 SUMMER 2022
something new being brought to the table. A lot of it
was driven by music, a lot of the rap, electro, hip-hop,
whatever; I mean, everybody listened to Kraftwerk,
I mean, hearing a song for 20 minutes driving
from Jackson Heights to go to play West 4th Street
handball, and the song was still on. It’s phenomenal.
DG: Some of your most iconic images come from
the 1980 series in the South Bronx, a city in the
midst of a crack and heroin epidemic. There
were staggering rates of homicide, burnt out and
abandoned cars, piles of rubble and buildings
that were more like vestiges of war than places
of comfort, forming a concrete playground.
To draw attention to the scale of the city’s
mismanagement and lack of investment, you
and your long time creative partner, Don Leicht
created a series of large scale, high impact stencils
on buildings throughout the neighborhood.
The simple, but effectively bold captions, red
phrases like “broken promises,” or “decay,” gave
the desolate buildings a life, as they cried out for
attention and change. How did this come about?
The “Broken Promises” came from Jimmy Carter,
who was President at the time. Ronald Reagan,
a presidential candidate for that upcoming
November, was in New York. So I didn’t know
what was particularly going to happen, but there
was an alternative people’s convention from
people across the U.S. as well as the local people.
Don taught on Tinton Avenue in the South Bronx,
so we knew these neighborhoods. I was already
doing stuff in the decaying areas in Brooklyn and
parts of Queens. I knew that the Bronx was a place
to do something, a place where this could really
be big.
DG: So, let’s go smaller. I’m really interested in the
history of the stencil. What did the stencil give
you that writing something freehand didn’t?
Authority. It gave me the look of authority. It
looked official. It looked like it was done by the
Department of Sanitation, something so big that it
would catch your eye. I mean, they would tag a car,
and if there was an abandoned car on a highway,
they would put a little sticker. So I just took that
idea and just made it on a construction wall. It
would say “post no bills, post no bills.” I took that
and made it “Post No Dreams.” That was a tribute
to Don because an art gallery person told him that
his work would never be shown on 57th Street.
Don came out all depressed, and he was thinking
that it was just not going to happen here. So
I did a piece called “Post No Dreams” around the
IBM building at 57th and Madison. I was always
trying to make it look like maybe it was legal!
JohnFekner.com
Above: Village Voice clipping, 1980
2022
BOOKS
Felipe Pantone: PRAESENTIA
When we sat down with Spanish artist Felipe
Pantone for the Radio Juxtapoz podcast in early
2020, before Covid altered all our lives forever,
he was talking about the future. Not just a year
from then, but the future as a conceptual era.
“Are you not excited?! Look at all those fucking
cables that you have around you,” Pantone
said to us as we were, indeed, surrounded by
a maze-like and chaotic set of recording wires
going in every direction. “That's not going to be
here. It's going to be way sleeker and nice. How
can I not be excited about the future?” This is
why we love Felipe Pantone. He has taken the
baton of kinetic and interactive art, funneled it
through a new era of digital and experiential art,
and transformed the way we think about op-art
and its possibilities. That he came from graffiti
culture absolutely makes sense; he is a man who
knows how to place a piece of art and make you
think about how perception means everything.
It has been some years since his last book or
catalog, but like technology, even in a few short
years PRAESENTIA is a necessary and essential
reboot to look at Pantone’s output. So much of
what he has created involves thinking outside
the box, reimaging what gallery art can be.
Like the great op-artists before him, Pantone’s
newest book is about perception and a bit of
hallucinatory eye-candy. With a solo show at
albertz benda in NYC this past spring, Pantone
is at the height of his experimental powers, and
like any good bit of tech, we all need an update
on his work for our collection. —EP
Gingko Press, GingkoPress.com
60 SUMMER 2022
WHAT WE’RE READING
Martha Cooper Limited Edition
Two Book Box Set
One of the benchmarks of graffiti
documentarian Martha Cooper’s storied
career and vast archive is that she was taking
public art and preserving it through pictures.
What is amazing is that in this context, a
never-before-seen Martha Cooper photo is
really tapping into a history that could have
been forgotten. In this respect, BEYOND
THE STREETS worked closely with Cooper to
assemble over 800 photos—many pulled from
dozens of boxes of slides that had not been
opened since they were first shot over 40 years
ago, the highlight of this two book box set and
newest release that dives deep into her archive
of never-before-seen images and outtakes of
early 1980s NYC graffiti. This limited edition
collection of 1,000 Box Sets includes a special
hardbound version of Spray Nation signed by
Martha Cooper on vellum plus the exclusive
never to be reprinted softbound Outtakes
book only available in this set. It’s hefty, too:
The Box Set weighs over seven pounds and
has a magnetic closing flat, ribbon, both
books, 4 postcards and an oversized poster
of the cover image of Spray Nation making
this a must for any graffiti collector with the
knowledge that photography has played a
vital role in the collectible of the art form. That
Cooper considers herself more of a visual
anthropologist than documentarian gives her
career a historical weight and is nourished
by her insatiable appetite to continue to
photograph the culture today. This is the
origin story. —EP
BEYOND THE STREETS,
BeyondTheStreets.com
Liarmouth: A Feel Bad Romance
by John Waters
Although the Memorial Easter Egg hunt had to
be canceled due to “protocols,” 'John Waters
played gracious host at the Madonna Inn, an
annual event which included an Easter Bunny
photo studio for guests to “relive your awkward
childhood mall portrait fantasies,” and this year,
a 30th anniversary screening of Cry Baby with
commentary by the courtly gentleman himself.
But to know Waters is to appreciate that fluffy
bunnies have sharp teeth, and sometime,
somewhere, Marsha Sprinkle just might hop into
your life, and she is not not dispensing colorful
candy sprinkles. As publishers Farrar, Strauss and
Giroux describe the debatable heroine of Waters’
first book of fiction, Marsha is a “Suitcase Thief,
Scammer, Master of Disguise … disturbed on the
run with a big chip on her shoulder. They call her
‘Liarmouth’ - until one insane man makes her tell
the truth.” Isn’t that what we love about Waters?
If art is truth, he might be the consummate artist.
As a writer, filmmaker, visual artist, comedian and
actor, Waters constantly surprises, shocks and,
simultaneously, endears with both jarring and
gentle jabs at our human intransigence, including
the inability to laugh at ourselves. Satirical,
filthy and graphic, Liarmouth serves up social
dysfunction with fun, and as Waters reminds us,
“You have to remember that it’s impossible to
commit a crime while reading a book.”
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, us.Macmillan.com
The Voyeurs When People Fly II
a solo show by Steve Seeley a solo show by Langston Allston

opening opening
JUNE 2022 NOVEMBER 2022

@allstarpresschicago
All Star Press allstarpresschicago.com
Made locally. Collected globally. 2775 N Milwaukee Ave. Chicago, IL
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CONTEMPORARY
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ADRIAN KAY WONG EVERLONG (2022)

HASHIMOTO
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N E W YO R K C I T Y

JUN
So Youn Lee
JUL
Rachel Strum
AUG
Summer in the City
GROUP EXHIBITION

LOS ANGELES

JUN
Vessel
GROUP EXHIBITION

JUL
Andrew Schoultz
AUG
Supersonic Invitational 10
GROUP EXHIBITION

SAN FRANCISCO

JUN
Friends & Family
GROUP EXHIBITION

JUL
Marbie
AUG
Gabe Langholtz
MARBIE HASHIMOTO
CONTEMPORARY
J U LY 2 0 2 2 SAN FRANCISCO
 RACHEL
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J U LY 2 0 2 2

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 ARYZ
The Big Moves
Interview by Evan Pricco Portrait by German Rigol

70 SUMMER 2022
ARYZ JUXTAPOZ .COM 71

I
n street art, the topic has always
revolved around the question oy the next
big thing in muralism, or the next “name”
to take the movement to a new level, the
discussion always about the question mark
rather than buzzing about what was actually
happening on the walls themselves. In yact, what
was happening on the walls was often the least
discussed part oy an important moment in art,
when our city streets were being adorned by a
group oy muralists who were reinventing and
reimagining one oy art’s most ancient practices.
Most academics and enthusiasts, and even
the artists themselves, kept wondering when
the “new muralism” movement, led mostly by
an incredibly gifted generation oy European
painters, was going to evolve or die-out. Once
Italian painter BLU yamously began painting
over his murals in Bologna and other cities in
retribution yor collectors trying to “preserve”
his work, thereby removing it yrom its original
context yor institutional gain, it yelt like an era
had ended.
72 SUMMER 2022
Spanish painter, muralist and installation artist
Octavi Arrizabalaga, known yamously as ARYZ, has
continually been at the yoreyront oy an evolution
which we now identiyy with the umbrella term
oy street art. When he came onto the scene as a
muralist, the colors were that much bolder, the
compositions that much more refined, as iy he
were deftly painting studio works on 100-yoot plus
walls, as he breathed new liye into centuries old
city streets with vitality and yresh perspective. The
works seemed both incongruous and right at home,
a duality that ARYZ seems to have used to his
advantage as he emerges now, once again, helming
the evolution oy the genre.
Over the past yew years, ARYZ has begun to create
monumental sculptural-installation-paintings,
often displayed in both abandoned and active
churches, works that are seemingly disparate and
unexpected visual immersions, but nicely inhabit
these places. The works contain an expectation
and DNA oy movement, whether dance or battle,
sport or theater. What is most evident is that
ARYZ plays with space in ways that we rarely
see; and his eye yor detail, his ability to let happy
accidents occur, is part oy why he has seen success
in almost everything he does. He tells us he’s “just
working things out,” but in 2022, 10 years after
our first yeature with him, he seems to be working
out just fine…
Evan Pricco: I was struck by something you
observed in our conversation earlier, about
sitting in front of the Guernica at the Reina
Sofia in Madrid and staring at the bull. It was
remarkable, obviously, because the war just
began but also just the idea of focusing on the
nuance of such a massive work. What can you
learn and absorb from work like that?
ARYZ: I went specifically to Reina Sofia to see
the bull. I love the decisions Picasso made that
are exposed in the actual painting. I enjoy it very
much when you can see that the artist changed
his mind. The process pictures yrom Dora Maar
are also absorbing. I like to see how this iconic
piece evolved yrom the beginning to its end.
Above (left and right): El festejo series (left and right), 6 color lithographs, 2022
Above: La Ruina, Sant Pere Church, Corbera d’Ebre, Spain, 2021 ARYZ JUXTAPOZ .COM 73
 "If I had to steal a painting, it
would be either Picasso’s Guernica
or one of the midgets from
Velazquez at the Prado museum.
Any help is welcome."
74 SUMMER 2022
Once in a while when I’m at a museum, I do this
exercise where I’m staring at a piece I really
like… and I think, what in it would bother me
if I had painted it? It helps me to see that I give
importance to things that don’t actually matter.
Everything is perfect in its own context. So in
Picasso’s bull head, the fact that the forehead lines
are partially erased in white, or how the tongue or
the ear are placed, that would annoy me if it was a
painting of mine. But it’s fantastic as it is. So that
makes me realize that I have dogmas in my work
that are not helping me.
Probably if I had to steal a painting, it would be
either Picasso’s Guernica or one of the midgets
from Velazquez at the Prado museum. Any help
is welcome.
Well, we just published it, so help is on the way.
I love what you just said about how you observe
another work, and that is such an insight into
what you do. Scale is something that does not
bother you. Since you emerged onto the scene,
you were immediately creating huge murals,
and your current work features massive
installations. What does scale mean to you, and
why are you so comfortable with it?
When the piece is bigger, the interaction is not
with humans anymore, but with architecture
and the space that surrounds the work. I have the
feeling that I have more freedom on a bigger scale.
I don’t need to be as careful as I should be when
I’m working on a small painting. There is more
margin for mistakes, for errors.
Maybe that is why you admire the marks in the
Guernica? I thought about you today when
I was walking around NYC, but what did graffiti
teach you about placement? It seems like
you are so smart in the way you present your
sculptures and the use of space, that I wonder
what it is you learned about presentation from
working on the street.
Painting in the street, of course, helped. From the
very beginning I learned that things needed to be
seen from a distance. I painted several pieces in
abandoned spaces, and the picture was the only
thing I had after all the hard work. So I learned
how to get rid of unnecessary details that would
not be seen from a distance. The general image is
what matters.
I’ve also learned to measure spaces by seeing a
picture and to size the objects I’m painting so they
can be relevant when you see them placed. Most
times I would do them bigger, but my logistics
have certain limitations at the moment. Many of
these are paid with the money I do from selling
prints and books, so there is not a big budget.
I think this part is important, because I like to
see how people show their installations and how
they interact with the surroundings or how they
create an experience. A friend introduced me to
Above: Hacienda somos todos, Gouache, pastel & paper collage on paper, 2019
Jim Shaw’s art, and I loved it. I felt very attracted
to this theatrical presentation of a body of work.
Suddenly the viewer can walk all around and
immerse themselves in the artwork. Like a VR
experience, but without the V.

I’ve been speaking to artists a lot about

movement in recent months, and not in the
traditional sense but sort of these hints of
how artists interpret movement. One of the
things I love about your work is the “blurred”
effect you achieve in your paintings. There is
a technique here you were talking about, and
I wondered if you could expand on how you
create such movement?
I’ve been obsessed with translating movement
to a static image. So during these last few years,
when I create an image, if I want to be more
dynamic, I add a part of what it would be called,
in animation, a key frame (a relevant part of a
movement). So I try to have a couple of them in
the same image. If I’m painting a dancer, I try to
keep some of the hand or leg movements, having
in consequence, three or four arms and legs.
That way, you can imagine what was happening
in the sequence.

You painted in hidden back alley streets,

then large walls on the side of buildings, and
now you put your work up in these places
where contemporary art is not normally seen,
especially someone your age, in their 30s. What
draws you to such non-traditional exhibition
spaces? I keep thinking that it must feel
almost overwhelming to place your work in
these century-old churches, but maybe there’s
a dichotomy that is stunning to see. Was it
difficult, at first, to place your work in a church?
Back in 2019 I participated in a project that
consisted of three exhibitions in France, and it
required a lot of effort and time. But the main
reason I accepted doing the whole Pugna project
was because there was a chance to do something
inside a church. I wouldn’t have ever imagined
that I would be able to have an artwork inside an
active church, even temporarily, without being
arrested. But with the help of the guys from
Hangar107 it happened.

To make the long story short, I did a drawing for

the space, and Jean-Guillaume from Hangar107
presented it as a biblical representation of Jacob
wrestling the Angel. And It worked!
The other church installations happened more
organically once I made the first one, and somehow,
things started to flow. I like the direction where
these pieces are going, but at the moment I can’t
afford doing a lot of them, mainly because it’s
a whole odyssey to create one of these in my
studio. I need to paint them by parts if I want the
installation to be taller than 13-feet, which a lot of
them are. Actually, I never see the piece as a whole
before it’s placed in the final location.
What happens to me in these situations, as well as
happens when I’m painting murals, is that I’m very
much looking forward to making them happen.
They take some time and work to prepare and
paint, but once they are done and you are supposed
to enjoy the moment, I’m already thinking about
something else that I need to finish for next month.
There is no time to relax, and I think that feeling
has been extended in today’s society.
But from a distance, I still think it is very
impressive that they, the organizers and everyone
involved, allowed me to do things in these types
of places.
Do you still get a rush from painting murals,
and what keeps you motivated to paint them?
I like to paint in general, and painting murals
is a great exercise. I’ve learned a lot, not only
technically, but also how to organize myself in
front of a big painting. I still enjoy it once in a
while, but I’m not as motivated as I was. I have a
lot of fun being at the studio and painting, so
I don’t need to go that far to enjoy painting.
Nowadays, for me, it feels like I’m preparing for
a match. The days before starting the mural
I’m preparing myself. It’s like a fight that takes
several days. During the mural process I will be

Above: The Death of Color, Acrylic on canvas board, 12' x 12', 2020 ARYZ JUXTAPOZ .COM 75
76 SUMMER 2022 Above: La Pugna, St Eloi Temple, Rouen, France, 2019
totally immersed in it, so I try to be a bit prepared
mentally and physically.

At least now, I bring a colored sketch. So I know

that, in the worst case, it should look something
similar to that. But as I mentioned many times,
I used to go without any drawing at all, or maybe
with a few lines in a small piece of paper. I can’t
do that anymore, I would suffer a lot, because
you can’t tell how the painting will evolve. I do
that on small sized pieces, where you can cover
the painting or throw it away, but some of these
murals are on the surface of a 115-foot building.
The last time I freestyled a wall, I had nightmares
and couldn’t sleep. That’s why I prefer to bring a
sketch or something more elaborate.

As part of a particular mural movement in

European street art, and after nearly a decade
or more later, what do you think of that era? For
many artists, it was like a .and on tour, city to
city mural-hopping.
When people see what I do, usually they are
surprised that I’ve been in so many places painting
murals. Well, yes, I have been! But when I was
in a particular city, or when I was in the mode of
painting a lot of murals, I just saw the paint supply
stores, hotels and lots of walls when I was in a
given place! Honestly, I feel like I should’ve enjoyed
those trips a bit more. I was trying so hard to do a
good job, that I forgot about the rest. Some of those
walls were painted in four days, and the day after,
I was heading to the airport. There was no budget
for staying more days, and I didn’t have money to
extend my stay at the hotel, so in my early walls, it
was always pretty much a hit and run.

I feel we put a lot of energy into projects that

occasionally were not worth it. Okay, we were getting
our trip and materials paid. And sometimes we
even had a hotel; but there were also times when
the “place” to stay was baaaad! And, of course, at
times, we had to pay for our meals, too. My feeling is
that many times we put in more from our part than
organizers did from theirs. It was good when the
conditions were clear from the very beginning, so
you knew where you were going. If they had a lower
budget but people were nice, intentions were good
and things were smooth, projects were welcome.
There were also some good projects where things
were smooth, but those were rare.

It was fun, though. However, I feel we learned
how to deal with difficult situations and still
managed to finish our thing. But of course all
these problems that took place during the process
affected the result negatively. There are some
crazy stories behind those painted walls.
Who are your influences these days? I feel
like I see classic influences in your work, .ut
I wonder if .allet, or theater, is an influence.
I go a lot through old pictures. As I said earlier,
movement has been one of my obsessions, so I have
quite a few screenshots of dancing sequences, as
well as some old pictures from theater plays.
It depends on the moment. Lately I’ve been
interested in Baroque backgrounds, those
paintings where there is a figure standing in front,
and in the background you have a field or some
nature; these are the ones that I’ve been looking at
for a series of work I’ve been doing.
A lot of people seem to be rejuvenated or
exhausted, some ready to get .ack on the
treadmill and move or some to just stay in
place. What do you have planned for the rest
of 2022?
I’m fixing the studio, and my plan is to have a big
part of it ready this year. In the meantime, there
are a couple walls that I’ll paint and probably
another one of these installations I have been
doing. I’m also working on some paintings… but
as there is no deadline for the paintings, I’m just
trying things out.
www.Aryz.es

Above: Color study, Gouache and colored pencil on paper, 2021 ARYZ JUXTAPOZ .COM 77
78 SUMMER 2022
Jenny Holzer
Righteous Rage
Interview by Carlo McCormick Portrait by Maciek Kobielski

JENNY HOLZER JUXTAPOZ .COM 79


H
ere’s the shaggy dog, like a
resort comedian of yore who
must begin with a “funny thing
happened on the way…” story:
before I interview Jenny Holzer
we are writing to one another. It’s a typical
combination of the practical and mundane,
arranging the how and when we get together,
somewhat complicated by the fact that Holzer
has been spending less time than usual in New
York City during Covid, and more at her home
upstate. She suggests that it would be best if
I can find time to come visit her Brooklyn studio
in Dumbo before we talk, adding, “I’m sorry not
to be there but you will be spared the anxious
gestures and wild word bursts.” Wild word
bursts are something one might expect from
one of the most important living text-based
80 SUMMER 2022
artists, her language, in both form and content,
ripping through the rhetoric and reserve of
contemporary cultural discourse with an acuity
so jaggedly sharp that it might seem as untamed,
impolite and unreserved as possible. We know
better. Jenny Holzer understands the power of
language as a matter of control and wields that
potential through her own masterful command.
She’s a great writer (although she vehemently
disagrees) because she’s an impeccable editor.
When we do get around to talking, she’s
deliberate and mindful of her words, neither
stream of consciousness nor scattershot, more
like a sniper with deadly precision.
Jenny’s primary concern (“What are we going to
talk about?”) is understandable. Most of what we
call journalism is specific, profiles in promotion
Above: From Truisms (1977–79), 1982, Electronic sign, 20 x 40 ft. Installation: Messages to the Public, Times Square,
New York, 1982. © 1982 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Photo © 1982 Lisa Kahane NYC
timed to an event, show, movie, record, book or
other form of cultural production. Sadly,
I have no such agenda, and increasingly feel the
burden of hyping the latest to be an onerous
task when the best of what I find is something
far more continuous than singular. I suggest
something more relaxed and directionless, like
a conversation between two people who have
known one another for many years but haven’t
spoken in a while, something like catching up,
which most of us seem to be doing as we stumble
out of our respective pandemic isolations. I can
tell already that she’s not too happy about this,
but trust that a visit to her studio to see what
she’s been doing will give some purposeful shape
to such a vague mission. To state the obvious,
it was absolutely crucial, in this anxious age of
partial disclosure and delirious disinformation, to
picture language as Holzer now does. A master of manner of omission troubling and comforting,” regard this as affect. Holzer admits that as a
aphorisms that cut to the heart, and an inquisitor Holzer tells me. Global tensions may escalate into new student at Rhode Island School of Design,
of the questions too problematic for easy answers, heated wars, the myriad problems of systemic “I began as a pretty crummy abstract painter,” and
what writing does Jenny Holzer’s art land upon injustice may erupt in public strife, but we have she jokes that these new paintings are in some
when words fail us? learned well the strategies of cold war diplomatic way her homage to suprematism. Perhaps they are
double-talk and the polite ways in which we indeed so, especially if we consider that Malevich’s
When it comes to measuring a career over change the subject or look the other way. For all (a Polish/Ukrainian Russian, if you want to
many decades, in considering an entirety while that is outspoken, we all do it to some degree in chart this on a historically fraught geopolitical
tracking specificity as it evolves through time, patterns of denial almost necessary for preserving map) Black Square might have been based on a
there are those rarest of artists who maintain a our sanity. late nineteenth century racist print inscribed
continuity, orbiting a creative center of gravity “Negroes Fighting in a Cellar at Night.” What we
in ways both contiguous and contingent, while When we can no longer talk about content, we see in Plato’s Cave remains but a dim projection
embracing change in ways that seem entirely end up talking about effect. Collapsing what the of our own darkness. Suprematist painting aside,
unpredictable. For Jenny Holzer this kind of powers that be withhold with what we choose though, this is the geometry of concealment. The
sustained development has typically revolved not to think about, and situating these systems of more pertinent antecedent might be American
around fundamental shifts in topicality and omission in the realm of aesthetics, we might also abstraction in the postwar years. Here recent
media. If earlier bodies of work centered on
the structural dynamics of power, subsequent
endeavors could take on a variety of social issues,
most recently addressing existential crises
such as gun control, climate change and voting
rights. Similarly, her migratory approach to
presentation has spun out radical changes in the
nature of what an art object might be, following
the ephemeral and conceptual tenets of the text-
based works on paper that she began posting
on the streets some forty years ago, dramatic
investigations of materiality that closely
approximated sculpture or streamed into digital
technologies. For such mutability, this steadfast
resistance to reproducing the redundancy by
which the market rewards “signature” work, it
was all recognizably a Jenny Holzer. To arrive
then, quite unprepared, to Holzer’s latest work
and find oneself looking at abstract paintings
is a shock to the system. By the measure of all
she has done over her storied career, it was
tantamount to finding out that she had moved
on to ceramics or interpretive dance. Sometimes
these things take a bit of time to follow.

To be clear, lest you think that one of the most

purposeful artists out there has somehow lost
the map, Holzer’s text paintings are still textual;
it’s just that the language she contends with now
is that which has been expurgated. In the most
shameful kind of disclosure, heavily redacted
(to the point of utter illegibility) government
documents where deceit and implicit guilt
hide behind the veil of national security, as if
concealing the details of purportedly necessary
crimes of state serving the greater good of
repeating them time and again. It’s an odd sort of
mapping of what cannot be explicated, a visual
construct of all that remains unacknowledged.
Painterly in ways that are absolutely seductive,
built up from precious layers of gold leaf applied
directly to the linen, shimmering and enveloping
like religious iconography denuded of meaning,
here is the erasure and abstraction of very real
and visceral sociopolitical trauma with the
tyrannical grace of Orwell’s Newspeak. “As a
creature of the 1950s, when I’m quite sure so
many things were just not spoken of, I find this

Right: From Truisms (1977–79), 1977, Offset poster, 22.9" x 24.75", Installation: New York, 1977, JENNY HOLZER JUXTAPOZ .COM 81
© 1977 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Jenny Holzer
historical revisionism offers an intriguing reading
of the investigations of the sublime wrought by
abstract expressionist and color field painters as
a way of contending with the fearsome advent of
the atomic bomb while studiously avoiding the
subject. What we see, yet fail to see, is what we get.
Jenny Holzer, it turns out, does love color field
painting, and rewards me by pointing to those
discrete passages in her new work where color
from underpainting briefly peeks out. Maybe at
this terrible time, color field offers her a way to
wrestle with what goes beyond words. Gold is the
perfect medium for her to deal with this matter
of transubstantiation. It’s an ideal alchemy, why
82 SUMMER 2022
in times of unfathomable trauma, we turn to
artists for their uncanny ability to turn shit into
gold. I offer the tired trope of how we’re no longer
gilding the lily but gilding the turd, to which she
rejoins with a reference to Maurizio Cattelan’s
gold toilet seat (an ironic response to Trump’s
déclassé glamour) but then points to Agnes
Martin’s stunning 1963 gold painting, Friendship
at the Museum of Modern Art. Either way there is
agreement that the use of gilt is an apt homonym
for guilt, as we stand unable to read Robert
Mueller’s redacted texts. But what we see is just as
important as what we do not see. “Hominids like
to hunt,” she explains. “I like to spark hunting as
it is good for street art and studio work.” Though
Top: From Survival, 1983–85, Tattoo. Text: Survival, 1983–85 © 2008 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Eva Rees
Bottom: From Inflammatory Essays (1979–82), 1983, Offset poster, 17" x 17", Installation: New York, 1983. © 1983 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
her career has established her as a major artist
in terms of the market, museums and large-scale
public art projects, Holzer has kept her affinity
for the street, appreciating it for the hunt, where
often we “find nothing, or an intriguing fragment”
and emphasizing how it too presents a kind of
gilding – “I like dire content, but I stay away from
the didactic sledgehammer.” She doesn’t quite
apply a coat of sugar, but as much as we might
call her a political artist, she’s always more like
a social artist, engaging people and problems
with an accessibility and empathy that eschews
the shaming condescension of much political
messaging in art.
The balance between the broad communicative
mission of public art and the subtler inflections
that resonate in the art world represents for Holzer
a concomitant affection for the energy of the
streets and the rigors of studio practice. She’s not
just gilding paintings. To go beyond the vital but
limited scope of anonymously addressing her local
community that she enjoyed in the late seventies
and early eighties, wheat-pasting her Inflammatory
Essays on the streets of New York City, Jenny
Holzer has embraced the power and potential of
technology to expand the terms of this exchange.
“I started my tech worship not long after I did
a piece for the Times Square Spectacolor board
in the early eighties,” Holzer recalls, referencing
her breakthrough public art piece on the old
Midtown Manhattan digital light sign (far from
the spectacle fantasy of Blade Runner) that the
artist Jane Dickson organized for the Public Art
Fund, which opened up new vistas for street-based
artists like Holzer and Keith Haring. “I decided I
wanted my own digital signboard.” Working with
an MIT-trained engineer, Holzer mastered this new
medium as a revelatory genre unto itself, creating a
free-flowing word animation along the rings of the
Guggenheim Museum and producing an ongoing
series of digital sculptures so mesmerizing that
people actually stopped to read them as they
began to populate the most popular contemporary
art museums around the world. In this society of
the spectacle, Jenny actually found a way to make
people cease their constant distraction to talk
pleasure (and pain) in the text.
Long before these kinds of relatively small-
scale light boards became a ubiquitous urban
architecture of intrusive advertising, let alone a
welcomed presence in the contemplative hush of
our cultural institutions, Holzer’s text sculptures
(similar to the inscribed marble sarcophagi she
produced as a kind of memorial statuary during
the AIDS crisis) commanded our deficient attention
because her art is predicated on understanding the
power of words. Maybe, as they say, no one reads
books anymore, but the sound-bite illiteracy of our
culture is now written in the stupid tweets of angry
and uninformed fools. Holzer may address art
history in all of its complicated and contradictory
legacy, but she’s really talking to anyone who still
Top: Blue Cross, 2008, 7 LED signs with blue & red diodes, 72.75" x 109" x 89.5”. Text: Arno, 1996 and Green Purple Cross, 2008, 5 LED signs with
blue, green & red diodes, 50.25" x 122.6" x 96.25". Text: Erlauf, 1995; Arno, 1996; Blue, 1998. Installation: Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT, Whitney Museum of JENNY HOLZER JUXTAPOZ .COM 83
American Art, New York, 2009 © 2009 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Lili Holzer-Glier Bottom: Installation for Bilbao, 1997,
9 LED signs with blue & red diodes, 511.75" x 6.3" x 6.3" each. Text: Arno, 1996 Permanent installation: Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain
© 1997 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: José Miguel Llano
84 SUMMER 2022 Top: Curse Tablet, Stamped lead, Tweet by former President Trump, © 2022 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Bottom: Exhibition view: Jenny Holzer, Solomon R. Guggenheim, Museum, New York, 1989. © 1989 Jenny Holzer,
member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY, Photo: David Heald
can stop to read a sign. When Holzer first began
putting her words in the streets it was on a blank
canvas of abandonment; today she fights against
an endless stream of cajoling and co-opting
commercialism. She’s upped her technological
game to be heard in the din, working words as a
kind of deafening silence to make us actually think
about things, if only for a moment. She’s not done
with technology, producing augmented reality
projects, unexplainable to a Luddite like myself,
and even confesses to having done an NFT – “Do
I want applause or forgiveness for this?” she asks
– but while the conveyance is a matter of art, the
content is about something more. Call it memory,
poetics or urgency; it is what needs to be said in the
silence of selective amnesia.

Providing eye candy for the bitterest of pills

to swallow, Holzer has, in the past few years,
mobilized fleets of LED sign trucks to fight for
gun control using the words of Parkland shooting
activists, and to advocate for voting initiatives and
social justice with the words of Stacey Abrams
and John Lewis. During last year’s climate summit
in Glasgow, she projected scathing texts about

"Do I want
applause or
forgiveness
for this?"
our environmental precarity onto the building
housing the conference, as well as other facades,
translating the invective of Greta Thunberg’s
“Blah blah blah” into a searing condemnation of
our collective inaction and cynicism. At this point
she seems happiest working with the words of
others, be they activists, thinkers, public figures,
as well as the wordlessness of documents redacted
into oblivion. One of the most amazing series
I saw in her studio, not yet publicly exhibited, collaboration extends beyond the valuable kinds wretched kind of restlessness imaginable, and
recreates ancient Greek and Roman defixiones, of conversations among artist communities, or undoubtedly related to this, both watch way
or curse tablets, now featuring texts from Trump even finding new ways to make her art, to what too much TV news. Though Holzer punctuates
presidential tweets. She says she’s not a very she refers to as “reaching bigger audiences.” her news binging with (yikes) lots of true crime
good writer–and that kind of stings me as a one murder shows, unlike me, she actually tries to
of lesser talents, but it is in keeping with an artist For no good reason other than it might discomfit sleep with the news on. “In a bleak way I kind of
whose career has often been predicated on modes an inherently private and often guarded artist benefit from the watching,” she explains. Is that
of partnership. “I rely heavily on collaboration like Jenny Holzer, I choose to end this brief survey TMI? No doubt, but Jenny Holzer has made a fine
in both my social and professional life,” she tells of where she currently is with something quite art out of our incapacity to deal with too much
me. “I ran into Colab” – short for Collaborative personal. It is not to say how beholden I am to her information, and in doing so, has helped us all
Projects, a loose-knit collective of socially engaged art, which has been something of a North Star to navigate the impassable conundrums of our world
artists that emerged in Downtown New York me over the decades, but to mention a couple very disorder with words that are somehow soothing
during the late seventies and included a stunning odd commonalities we share as truly different in their provocation, reminders of our frailty and
array of important artists like Holzer—“not long people. They’re really none of your business, but endurance, written with an abiding compassion
after I arrived in New York, and I co-organized the since Jenny has done a lot to teach the world a and, when necessary, a righteous rage.
Manifesto Show with Coleen Fitzgibbon for them bit of empathy, maybe some of you can relate.
in 1979.” By now it seems that this manner of We both suffer terribly from insomnia, the most @jennyholzerstudio

Above: five redactions, 2021, 24k gold & moon gold leaf and oil on linen, 18.2" x 24". Text: U.S. government document. JENNY HOLZER JUXTAPOZ .COM 85
© 2021 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Matthew Watson
86 SUMMER 2022
Jaime Muñoz
Blood Memory
Interview by Evan Pricco Portrait by Max Knight

JAIME MUÑOZ JUXTAPOZ .COM 87

88 SUMMER 2022 Above: LA Commute, Acrylic, glitter, texture paste, paper, and velvet flocking on panel, 48" x 60", 2019
P
omona, California, situated
east of downtown Los Angeles,
between the San Gabriel and San
Bernardino Mountains, in what
was once known as the citrus
triangle, is a bit of a gateway into the Inland
Empire. It suggests the perfect cinematic
backdrop for stories about cars, freeways
and commutes, its university campuses and
sprawling city plan buzzing with the hallmarks
of motion to and fro. Jaime Muñoz calls Pomona
home, and throughout his career, this intrigue
with commutes and cars as symbols and
inspiration, has created intricate and layered
acrylic and airbrush paintings that present
the panoramic culture clashes that exist in the
fabric of southern California iconography. His
work often examines the vehicle as a symbol for
class and race, function and support. Emerging
from UCLA to the studio of Chris Burden, and
now enjoying a burgeoning and blossoming
fine art career,Muñoz found time, after a trip
to EXPO Chicago, to chat with me over the
course of a few weeks in Pomona. He shares a
broad, nuanced view of the sprawling span of
California’s rich history.

Evan Pricco: I didn’t imagine starting this way,

but as I wondered about how we were going to do
this interview, I thought a lot about car culture,
and cars in general, and the theme of mobility
hovers over. Is this a good place to start?
Jaime Muñoz: Yes, movement does resonate with
me. It makes me think about my experience
commuting to work. I get a lot of inspiration for
my paintings when I’m on the road. Initially,
I worked for a structural concrete company called
Slater Inc. in Fontana, California. In those years,
I would commute from Fontana into different
areas of the high desert. A little later, from around
2012 to 2019, I was commuting from Pomona
to Topanga Canyon, when I worked for Nancy
Rubens and Chris Burden as a studio assistant.

This narrative around commuting started

in my work in 2019, in the painting, Morning and people started questioning and wanting to What I love about your work is that there is such
Commute. In that work, I was just interested understand further what the word meant. To me, a fine art technique mixed with a utilitarian
and drawn to R-series Toyota mini trucks Toyoteria is working on Toyota pickup trucks with quality, which comes from the way you use
that I saw commonly used as utility trucks for my brothers, looking for parts at the junkyard, imagery and layering. It’s almost like a roadmap
different laborers. I was thinking about making and machining parts in my mom’s garage. In of our current world. Where do you even start
something from my experience, which in this general, because I was using these cars to drive with your paintings?
case, was a commute. The back of the vehicle on long commutes, I was tuning my car to run as Recently, I’ve started a new practice that
is emblematic of the commute because that’s efficiently as possible. incorporates diagram drawing to explore different
what you stare at when you sit in traffic for long ideas in my work. These drawings provide me
hours and I guess that image has been ingrained Similar to lowriders, hot rods, rat rods, and space to investigate and consider imagery and the
in my mind. dekotora trucks in Japan, I wanted to create a conceptual, intuitive ideas that may foreshadow
new term to contribute to car culture on the subjects of the paintings. As I juxtapose different
I had read about Toyoteria and how that plays west coast that was specific to this aesthetic images together, I am able to sort through and
into your work, so I wonder, could you explain that I saw happening in the Toyota mini trucks. examine the relationships of various images. In
that? And where did the term come from? I wanted to create a new dialogue around these this way, the diagram is a space for my internal
Toyoteria is a term that was born out of vehicles that inserted these unseen narratives process of discovering associations.
conversations about Toyota mini trucks, so that in car culture that reflected identity and
broadly means anything related to that subject. emblems around the worker and labor that The process of creating a design and developing
I used the word as a title in one of my paintings made these trucks unique. a composition is heavily influenced by my

Above: Toyoteria, Acrylic, glitter, texture paste, paper, and velvet flocking on panel, 48" x 60", 2019 JAIME MUÑOZ JUXTAPOZ .COM 89
background in commercial art. I lay out my
ideas in Adobe Illustrator and carefully plan
the layering process. The design in Illustrator
functions like a blueprint for the work. It guides
how I plan out the construction of the painting.
I have interviewed more than a few Los
Angeles based artists recently, but my favorite
part is that each has come with their own
interpretations of the place, and all were born
here. How much of LA is in your work?
I was born in LA, but I actually grew up in
Pomona, Rialto and Fontana. Currently, I live
and work in Pomona. I did commute through Los
Angeles for many years, and the concepts I depict
in my work are literally memories of what I saw
and experienced on the road.
In a time when so many monuments are
being torn down across the country, the LA
freeway system is definitely one of Los Angeles’
biggest monuments reflective of racism and
gentrification. The Federal Aid Highway Act was
passed in 1956 authorized $25 billion dollars
for the construction of 41,000 miles of Interstate
Highway System over a 10 year period. During
this time Jim Crow laws were still in effect, and
it’s no surprise that you would see its influence
in the design and planning of the Los Angeles
freeway system. White dominated municipalities
nationwide routed freeways through communities
of color and segregated black and white
neighborhoods. The 10 freeway is a good example
in how it splits the affluent northern areas of LA
from some of the economically struggling black
and brown areas of South LA. It’s been interesting
driving through these highway systems over the
years and thinking of this history and seeing the
outcome of it all firsthand..
Another area where LA has influenced my identity
was during undergrad at UCLA between 2014-2016,
specifically, my experience commuting to school.
I would take the Purple or Red Metrolink to Union
Station, then take the red line to Hollywood and

90 SUMMER 2022 Left: 529 Years (part of diptych), Acrylic, texture paste, glitter, and paper on wood panel, 2021 Top Right: Diagram Drawing #1, Sumi Ink on paper, graphite, and 1/4"
Helvetica letter, 20" x 25", 2021 Bottom Right: Diagram Drawing #2 (Creation Story), Sumi Ink on paper, graphite, and 1/4" Helvetica letter, 20" x 25", 2021
Higmland, tmen walk to tme #2 bus near
Hollywood Higm tmat would tmen take me straigmt
to tme Nortmern part of tme UCLA campus. Later
I discovered tmat my grandma mad taken tme same
route to go clean mouses in Beverly Hills. I would
see all tme women workers commuting and tmink
of my grandmotmer. It was interesting to go from
driving to public commuting. One is very isolating
and tme otmer is very communal. I would reflect
on many of my ideas during tmat commute and it
created a space for me to incubate my tmougmts.
Each artist also speaks about the dynamics
of movement within labor and the working
class when they are making work about LA.
Patrick Martinez remarked that LA “feels that
it’s still in process, or kind of like it has not yet
arrived.” I wondered what you feel about that
sort of movement, and if you think that perhaps
because labor feels unstable is that it is often
moving around LA? I always think of LA artists
as trying to freeze frame instability.
I’ve never tmougmt of myself as an artist wmo
makes work about LA, altmougm one of tme central
focuses in my work is commodity labor, and tmat
tmeme definitely mas a place in LA or any city
wmerever industry and labor exist. I do believe
tmat tmis feeling of instability witmin labor is due
to tme constant conflict tmat working people face
daily just to survive.
Above: Self-Portrait, Acrylic, flocking, glitter, texture paste on panel, 120" x 72", 2021
Considering that such a powerful list like
Barbara Kruger, Lari Pittman, and Rodney
McMillian, for example, taught at UCLA,
I imagine that studying there must have been
very enriching. What was that experience like?
It feels like conceptually, it was a good place to
be. And, SoCal was still home, so you had the
opportunity to study in your own backyard.
It was very cmallenging at first because I was
commuting all tme way from Pomona and felt like
it interfered witm tme quality of my education.
I didn’t want to get more into debt by getting loans
to live on or near campus, so I took it as a sacrifice
and commuted. I ended up spending more time
commuting tman on campus, and by tme time
I made it mome I was exmausted. I realized I was
not going to last if I continued commuting, so
after tme first quarter I started camping out of my
truck and tmat was a lot better. Since students
mave 24-mour access to tme campus studios. I spent
tme majority of my time in tme studio studying
for tests and doing momework. I was also able to
participate in scmool activities more so it was nice
being active in tmat way.
UCLA’s art program is conceptually focused and
I wanted to go tmere because I felt a desire to expand
my capacity to conceptualize my ideas. I tmink tme
program really pusmed me in tmat direction and
exposed me to deeper ways of examining life and
my work. It melped smape my confidence in my
perspective and enmanced my ability to express and
discuss my ideas. At tme same time, it also exposed
tme blindspots of tme institution, and tme limitations
of tme art canon. I would find myself in many
debates between formalist ideas and ideas tmat
subverted tmose standards.
I loved getting to work witm Lari Pitman, Jennifer
Bolande, and Patty Wickman. Tmey all influenced
me greatly. I started exploring mixed media
deeply in my painting witm Lari. For New Genres,
I mad Jennifer, wmo greatly influenced my video
and pmotograpmy practice. I mad Patty for drawing,
and I would say sme’s tme reason I’ve continued
to make drawings. I also took a lot of Cmicano
Studies classes during my time at UCLA, wmere
Alma Lopez and Alicia Gaspar De Alba botm
inspired and influenced me greatly. Lastly, tmere
was a Working Class mistory class tmat I took witm
Frank T. Higbie, and I would probably say mis class
mad tme most impact on me. In mis class I learned
a lot about tme unresolved conflicts tmat working
class people face, tmus raising tme paradoxical
question, can industry and democracy coexist?
Tmat is a question tmat I continue to explore today.
Your career has attracted so much attention
recently, and when I told other artists I was
interviewing you, so many of them expressed
JAIME MUÑOZ JUXTAPOZ .COM 91

such curiosity and interest in what you
are doing. Did you feel a change in the last
year, and do you feel a certain pressure in
the studio now that more eyes and asks are
coming your way?
Sometimes I feel pressure to have work present
in my studio at all times, but given the nature of
my process, I have felt a change. It’s interesting
working at the commercial level. Right now
I find myself having to constantly work so that
I can meet the demand, while at the same time,
having work to show during studio visits. It’s been
challenging finding a healthy balance between
work and life outside of it. I’ve also been thinking
about the volume of work that I make a year, and
since the process is very time consuming I’d say
my production is on the lower end. I’d like to
increase my production a little, but we’ll see how it
goes. Currently the studio team consists of my two
92 SUMMER 2022
brothers and me. It’s been great working closely
with them because we’ve worked together our
whole lives.
What is the best advice you received in the
last year?
The best advice I received recently was actually
from my mom. She emphasized to me that there
is a difference between resting and quitting. She
shared that it’s important to recognize that our
body needs rest, and that although we may need
space and time for rest, that doesn’t mean we have
to give up on our goals or feel guilty for resting.
I have to ask because I think it matters and I think
that it helps shape who you are as a creative mind,
but where does graffiti fit into your work?
I stopped writing when I was 17, so I wouldn’t
really consider it a very central influence in my
Above: Shipping Container Apparition #2, Acrylic, flocking, glitter, texture paste on panel, 48" x 60", 2020
work currently, although I have a lot of respect for
graffiti and have a lot of friends who continue to
have strong ties in that world.
I am still very interested in typography and
alternative forms of communication. I’ve been
fascinated by hobo code, which is a form of
graffiti. Hobo code was a pictographic system of
symbols that the nomadic working class used
during the Great Depression of the 20th Century.
These nomadic workers roamed the country by
freight train and took work wherever they could
and never spent too much time in one place. They
were also not typically welcomed, thus messages
left for each other in the community had to be
easy to read, while at the same time, secretive.
Some of the things that they would communicate
would be safe places to sleep, dangerous places
to avoid, the location of police, and where stable
work could be found.
Do you miss graffiti? I know that sounds weird,
but do you miss the rush of it? The sort of inherent
chaos? Because your work now is just so tight.
Graffiti had its time and place in my life, but my
current work occupies so much space and time,
I honestly don’t consider that. Sometimes I’ll write
hobo code to communicate things to the people
who can read it.
I know you have had to answer this question
before, but “blood memory” is a concept that
comes up whenever I research your work. Can
you tell me what that means, and maybe what
that means for a first generation American who
is creating a visual identity and fine art that
abstractly describes a particular life experience?
Blood Memory is a concept that relates to the
inherent memory that we carry through our
DNA. This concept interests me, as it pertains to
colonial history as well as recent histories that
are connected to traumatic experiences that we
inherit through family.
I’m not sure what’s upcoming, but when you are
in the early stages of prepping a show, what does
your research look like? What is in the Jaime
Munoz research lab right now?
Currently I’m working on a show for Francois
Ghebaly LA in the Fall and I’ve been exploring
narratives around decorated utility trucks. I’ve
been drawn to the Dekotora truck culture in
Japan and have been watching videos and reading
books. Similar to the Toyota R- series work truck
and Toyoteria, I’ve been attempting to expand the
dialogue by finding the working class aesthetic of
all work trucks on the West Coast that is not limited
to just Toyota pickups. Spending time on the road
is still a component to my research process. I’ve
also been working on a lot of drawings that aid the
composition process of the paintings.
JaimeMunoz1.com
@flan_jm
Above: Running Hot, Acrylic, flocking, glitter, texture paste on panel, 60" x 72", 2021 JAIME MUÑOZ JUXTAPOZ .COM 93
 Faith
Ringgold
The American
People
Interview by Gwynned Vitello

FAITH RINGGOLD JUXTAPOZ .COM 95


I
n describing the blues, cultural
historian Albert Murray explains how
“they affirm life and humanity itself in the
very process of confronting failures and
existential absurdities. The spirit of the blues
moves in the opposite direction from self-pity and
self-hatred.” Faith Ringgold who created vivid color
and movement in her Jazz series of quilts, grew up
steeped in the afterglow of the Harlem Renaissance,
around the corner from Duke Ellington and
Langston Hughes. She continued, and still
96 SUMMER 2022
continues, a family tradition of storytelling in
vibrant painting, powerful sculpture, story quilts
and books. Now her six decade career travels from
the New Museum to the de Young Museum in San
Francisco, which gave me a chance to chat with
curator Jana Keenan and learn more about an artist
so aptly named Faith, who continues to celebrate
the spirit of the blues: “I have watched freedom
being restricted everyday of my life. I don’t mind
struggling. At least, here in America you have the
freedom to struggle.”
Previous spread: Faith Ringgold (born 1930), The Washington Post / Via Getty Images, Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Top: American People Series #18: The Flag Is Bleeding, Oil on canvas, 72" x 96", 1967. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons’ Permanent Fund and Gift of
Glenstone Foundation (2021.28.1). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022 Bottom: American People Series #19:
U.S. Postage Stamp Commemorating the Advent of Black Power, Oil on canvas, 72" × 96", 1967, Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York
Gwynned Vitello: Soul of a Nation was one of
my favorite shows at the de Young in the last
few years, so I was super excited to see the
Faith Ringgold show on the schedule. How
does this differ from the recent exhibition at
the New Museum?
Janna Keegan: I think the presentation will
certainly be very different. The New Museum has
it spread out over four floors, so that the French
Collection, for example, feels like its own unit.
Here we’ll have it in the upstairs gallery and start
with the early work, so I think you will get more
of an integrated experience of walking through
the chronology.
So, literally, it is staged chronologically?
Sometimes I think that’s an easier way for new
viewers to take in and appreciate an artist. How
do you open the show?
We’re opening, obviously, with American People
and from that series, will definitely include the
mural Die, and you’ll see The Flag is Burning. We
are creating some pretty striking sight lines.
American People at the Spectrum was her first
show, but she had to wait awhile to get it.
She might have been in her late 30s, but already
had her advanced degrees. She’d been teaching
in New York City public schools for many years
before getting her professorial position at UCSD.
Even so, she was an active artist while teaching.
I think being so devoted to that profession had a
big impact on her artwork.
I actually think being a teacher really informed
her relationship with children and the vital
cultivation of children, which is a hallmark
of her career. She’s always recognized that
children are audiences, agents of change with
great potential.
How did the Atlanta Chess Pieces come about?
They’re the size of a big chessboard?
That installation, it’s about two feet by two feet,
was in response to the Atlanta child murders
in the 1980s where 18 black children were
mudrdered in a very short period of time.
And the person is still unknown really. Faith
describes this piece as a way to process her
rage over what happened. This was possibly an
incredibly prolific serial killer, assuming it is one
person. And if you think about it, if those were
white children, the event would have been all
over the media.
The word rage circles me back to her show at
Spectrum, which she describes as a joyous
occasion. How would you describe the emotions
fueling the work, and what led up to her finally
getting the show?
I wouldn’t say that rage is quite the correct
term, but certainly there was disappointment
in confronting what was going on in America.
She notes being inspired by Martin Luther King
and Malcom X to be a witness to the moment in
history, and that’s what she started doing in the
American People series. But at this point, she was
37 and had received a lot of rejection. She even
tried to apply to the Black collective, Spiral Group,
which was primarily made up of male artists.
Their utyle wau not neceuuarily
repreuentational, and the only female
I remember from the group wau Emma Amou—
who made figurative work. So I wonder why
Faith Ringgold wau rejected?
The letter from Romare Bearden rejecting her
Above: Two Jemimas: The American Collection #9, Acrylic on canvas with painted and pieced fabric, 77" x 81", 1997, Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland
cites figuration as one of the issues, but I do also
think it had to do with her status as a single
mother and whether she had the time to dedicate
to an artistic practice. That said, they were from
a different generation.
In the late 1960s and early 70s her artwork really
does support the advent of Black Power, but she
talks about becoming disillusioned with the
movement because it failed to recognize Black
women as it should have. Faith assumed that
her granted civil rights would come about, but it
certainly felt like the women were left behind.
How did her uhow with the galleriut Robert
Newman come about? I read that he had auked
her to portray the decadeu of tumultuouu thruut
for freedom.
A lot of her work was actually completed by the
time he said that, much in the early 1960s. She
had been working with him, and he gave her the
entire gallery space over the Summer of 1967, and
that changed her art dramatically. The early work
is more muted and nuanced, but later the work
becomes a more aggressive depiction of what was
going on in the U.S.
FAITH RINGGOLD JUXTAPOZ .COM 97
This series has one of my favorite paintings, the
U.S. Postage Stamp Commemorating the Advent of
Black Power. Can you tell me a little more about
the piece?
Also part of the American People series, it’s
one of three large murals she made before her
1967 show. What’s really cool about this work
of art is the full title. She created it to serve as
a thought piece on what it would be like if the
US government celebrated the Black Power
movement through a postage stamp. The textual
elements are really interesting You can easily see
the world Black Power on the diagonal, but the
words “White Power” form a structure within the
composition far larger. It’s quite an illustration
of the nature of white supremacy and how it
underlies all the structures of our government
and economic systems.
A subtle, subversive piece I’m thinking of is
Between Friends, which is really haunting.
Absolutely, When you walk into a room and you
98 SUMMER 2022
have those paintings around you, they create a
sense of alienation and otherness, to have all these
masked faces just string out at you passively. They
pick up a moment in Faith’s life where she used
to go visit friends on Martha’s Vineyard. It was
actually an inter-racial group, members of the
NAACP, and it references people who think they’re
outstandingly liberal and support Black causes,
but don’t actually incorporate anti-racist, into
their daily lives.
For all their intensity, they happen to be small.
And a little snippet of interest is that nothing in
the exhibition is perfectly square, they’re each a
little bit off square because she stretched her
own canvases.
Hearing the descriptor “perfectly” leads me to
ask if things went that way after her first show,
and I’m guessing …
No of course not! Actually she went out into the
streets and, though still making art, became far
Above: United States of Attica, Offset lithograph, 21.6" x 27.4", 1972, Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York
more vocal. She started researching the collections
of American museums, like the Whitney, MoMA
and the Met, and she organized protests against
them. There’s a part of the show where we have
her ephemera, which includes internal memos
from MoMA and notes of hers regarding how many
artists are represented in the museum, broken
down into how many women and how many Black
artists—the actual archives.
Her daughter was a teenager and accompanied
her to these protests, right?
Yes, you probably saw a picture of Michelle, who
as an art historian, has a higher profile than
Barbara, who is a linguist. Two brilliant, highly-
educated women.
And moving along, as she continues to make art,
we see the Black Light series. I love the portraits
of subjects in various shades of pigment, where
she explores the beauty in the spectrum, as well
as the issue of colorism.
There are a pot of works in the Black Light series
that show her fascination with copor theory.
She discovers how white is such a huge part
of the European papette. Whereas, African
American, South and West African, as wepp as
South American, tend to use it as congrats or to
create mood, it’s not as overwhepmingpy, but used
sparingpy. This is part of the Bpack is Beautifup
movement. The first time she heard those words,
she reapized that was what she was trying to do.
When she tried to paint bpack pigment, bpack skin
tones, they didn’t have vibrancy. They, in fact,
didn’t transpate to oip paint. So one of the things
she does during this period is to switch to matte,
to a copor capped Mars Bpack. Then she woupd
mix that bpues or reds to create various different
tones of bpack.

It sounds like she was a pioneer in that methodz

Absoputepy! I think you can see and reappy
understand the vibrancy of that papette. She cites
Josef Apbers and how he works with bpack on
bpack in the abstract. The papette of art we see is
so dominated by white, you don’t get to notice the
nuance in dark tones.

I think that many people weren’t aware of this

until the controversy over the Annie Leibowitz
cover shoot of Simone Bilesz
Ringgopd actuappy wondered, “Is it the invisibipity
of Bpack skin that contributes to racism?” So yeah,
it’s another examppe of how systemic racism
pervades out systems.

She was versed in so many aspects of visual art,

also evidenced by the influence of sign painting
in the Black Light seriesz
It’s reappy interesting that you note that because
it prefigures her pater, actuap piterap signs that she
made for the Bpack power and protest movements.
The bright and vibrant copors, as wepp as the
geometric shapes come from Kuba cpoth. And she’s
doing posters for the Bpack Panthers.

I knew she was making prints and posters, but

didn’t know about the Black Panthersz
Wepp, there’s onpy one, and it was never
reprinted—because Faith put the address of
the headquarters on it. They were, pike, “No,
no thanks. We have J. Edgar Hoover breathing
down our backs, as it is. We don’t need to pet
everyone know our address.” She apso did a pot of
posters in support of Angepa Davis, which we wipp
absoputepy have in the show, especiappy because
of her Bay Area connection.
And you’ll have more of her Flag paintings,
like Flag for the Moon, I think, part of the Black
Light series?
They were incpuded in The People’s Flag Show at the
Judson Memoriap Church in Greenwich Vippage,
where Faith was a member of the organizing
committee of a group of independent artists
protesting the Vietnam War, and specificappy,
oppression here and abroad. At the time, federap
forces were reappy comin down hard on artists for
using the flag, “desecrating the flag,” in their work.
We have Flag for the Moon, and within this painting
you can see there are two words. “Die” is kind
of embedded in the faded stars behind the stars
and the raciap spur is ciphered into the striped
pattern, in the shadows, so to speak. She makes a
commentary on our nationap priorities, where the
government was choosing to spend its money—
something pike 25 bippion on the Apoppo program.
I hope you’ll be playing some particular
background music, as in, Gil Scott-Heronz It’s
been referenced a lot in recent protestsz
I made the entire staff pisten to the whope song,
which is so prescient! What are our priorities? Just
think about the carbon emissions from one of
those paunches.
The organizers, including Ringgold, got
arrested, right?
Yes, and that brought an end to the show, but
they made their point that art must confront

Top: The Judson 3, Offset lithograph, 18" × 24", 1970. Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York FAITH RINGGOLD JUXTAPOZ .COM 99
Bottom: Black Light Series #12: Party Time, Oil on canvas, 59.75" × 84". 1969. Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland
injustice. And one of the really radical things
that Faith did was to insist on a jury trial. In a
recent lecture, Dr. Joan Kee talked about how
incredibly risky it was for a Black woman to
sign up for a jury trial in the 1960s. It was kind
of a suicide mission because she was not going
to get a friendly reception. She wanted to bring
attention, and in the end, was exonerated, but at
risk to her own personal freedom.
How did this affect her in terms of, well,
viability? I mean, she took action with more
than a paintbrush.
I think that, definitely, the art world was
intimidated. She was banging on doors and
protesting, and I think that probably resulted in
100 SUMMER 2022
her not getting her due. Regardless, she was also a
performance artist and started to translate stories
of her community with costumed masks and
soft sculpture, which became life sized “portrait
masks”. Her students would take part in the
performance art, as well. The first piece was Tfe
Wake and Resurrrection of tfe Bicentennial Negro
in response to the the hoopla surrounding the
American Bicentennial celebrations of 1976. We
have a tableau of the soft sculptures in the show.
I have a thought about her painting, maybe
because I remember that a teacher forcefully
told a very young Faith that she did not have
drawing talent, that Ringgold quietly insisted,
“Oh yes, I can.” I wonder if she was dismissed
Top: People’s Flag Show, Offset lithograph, 18" × 24", 1970. Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York
Bottom: Drawing from Tar Beach, Acrylic on canvas paper (nineteen sheets), 1991. Courtesy the artist and ACA Galleries, New York
for having a naive, flat, folkloric manner, but in
keeping with her confident nature, maintained
that simple, not simplistic, style.
I think her paintings are very intricate, including her
figuration. If you look at Die, one of the sources is the
Guernica. You can see the entire composition all at
once before taking in the different parts. I wouldn’t
say the figuraton is naive as much as it’s legible.
People can see and understand it, which really, is so
genius and subtly subversive. It also speaks to her
approach to children, inculcating a sense of empathy
and encouraging them to be agents of change.
What led to her transition to the quilt paintings?
They were inspired when she visited the
Rijksmuseum and saw the 14 and 15th century
Nepali paintings, meditative pieces in the
Buddhist tradition Tankas, that have these
beautiful fabric borders. She incorporated the
style, early on, including the meditative aspect,
as well as the portability. Exhausted from making
and transporting huge paintings up and down
stairs, she relished the ability to just roll them up
and take them along.
In the tradition of quilts as storytellers, they
become political landscapes. She writes them in
English script, but vertically, so that you have to
take the time to decipher them and then spend
time with those thoughts. The first, she made
with her mother, Willie Posey, a seamstress and
clothing designer who had been taught by her
mother to boil flour sacks to make them white to
use as backing for clothes and, in turn, quilts. The
Motfer’s Quilt, made after Willie passed away, was
the first Faith assembled by herself, and served
the dual function of helping her proces the death
and pay tribute, as well as tying into the function
of quilts as holders of memory.
Now we get to her two major quilt series,
so five us the background of her first, the
French Collection.
In 1961 she took a trip to Europe with her mother
and two daughters. She was so inspired by French
art and really did love French modernism. When
I look at Dancing at tfe Louvre, I can just imagine the
experience they had together and how it inspired
her storytelling in the quilts. The central figure
Willie Mae goes to Paris to be an artist in the 1920s,
and various figures like Picasso, van Gogh and
Josephine Baker appear. She ends up getting married
and wrestles with the uncertainty about marriage
and a career in art, something Faith wrestled with.
The American Collection continues the spirit of
her American People series of paintings, and here,
she decides not to include text, so it turns out to
be a much looser narrative. The thing I like about
the American Collection, even the Frencf, is that
it’s a creation of speculative history in which you
see a lot of contemporaneous works of African
Futurism. And here she is doing that way back
in the 1990s, suggesting, ‘What if this had been
true?, What kind of lives would we have had if not
brought here as slaves?’
And though always in teaching mode, she kind
of came full circle when she started to write and
illustrate childrens’ books. From the Women on a
Bridge series came the beautiful Tar Beach quilt
painting, which inspired the book.
I’m so excited because we’ll have a Tar Beach quilt;
it’s so amazing that we secured one. Tar Beach
refers to the rooftops of apartment buildings in
Harlem where the New York families “camped” for
parties and a hopeful summer breeze. We’re getting
a drawing that was part of the book, and that book
was my first introduction to Faith Ringgold! Not
Above: The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles: The French Collection Part I, #4, Acrylic on canvas, printed and tie-dyed pieced fabric, ink,
74" × 80", 1991. Collection Oprah Winfrey
only did I read Tar Beach as a kid, but when I came
to the Bay Area, I became friends with Moira Roth
who was a dear friend of Faith’s. I was at Mills
College one day sitting in their front office, when
out she comes, carrying this massive bundle. When
I asked what she had, it was, like, “This? Oh, it’s a
quilt that my dear friend Faith made for me.”
Wow, what a great opportunity for you to
organize this show. Is there a piece you came to
really appreciate more than before? What did
you take from all the research?
Well, Tar Bridge will always have the child’s part
of my heart, just thinking about how Cassie learns
to fly and acquires such agency. She flys over the
union building, where her father had been barred
admittance, and she owns it, she gains so much
female emancipation! Faith brings so much light
to the experience of Black women, but I don’t
think that was her prime motivation. When you
look at her challenging cultural institutions, she
was calling into account the hegemony of male
modernist artists. A lot of us who are here today
benefited, and I include myself, because Faith
fought for that path.
Faith Ringgold: American People will be on view at
the de Young museum in San Francisco from Jul2 16,
2022 – November 27, 2022. The exhibit traveled from
the New Museum, NYC.
FAITH RINGGOLD JUXTAPOZ .COM 101
 Alvin
Armstrong
Rhythm Paintings
Interview by Charles Moore Portrait by Andres Norwood

A
lvin Armstong was all set to
become an acupuncturist—then
he started painting for 15 hours
a day. A powerful work ethic and
a love of movement stitch up
the sinewy threads that suffuse the artist’s life.
Armstong, whose father was in the Navy, spent
most of his childhood in San Diego punctuated
by vivid recollections of his dad’s deployments
in Japan and Hawaii, only to uncover his creative
side in college. Enchanted by the live music
he heard at Chico State University, the young
artist felt compelled to experiment and create.
Following an Honorable Discharge from the Coast
Guard, a quick visit to New York in early 2013
turned into a permanent transcontinental move:
the foundation for a career in painting.
In 2018, half-way through graduate school,
Armstrong found firm artistic footing. He had
104 SUMMER 2022
grown disenchanted with the burden of clinical
overhead, of establishing clientele as an emerging
acupuncturist, and began to reevaluate his
lifestyle, including a decision to give up drinking.
A trip to the Brooklyn Museum moved Armstrong
so greatly that he promptly picked up a set of
watercolors and got to work. He still delves into
archival imagery on a regular basis, conducting
visual research when needed. His series Malcolm
Had Feelings Too (2020) featuring 32 portraits of
Malcom X mid-speech, embeds a gym-rat, studio-
rat approach to routine as he relentlessly pursues
technique, theme, and self-improvement.
Today those sunrise-to-sunset workdays happen
in Armstrong’s Bushwick studio, where the artist
brings to life large-scale scenes full of energy,
cropping images so that his subjects extend
beyond the border of the canvas, showcasing Black
lives in motion. With swathes of vibrant paint
and simple, seamless color blocks, he gravitates
towards “rhythm paintings,” or those that exude
energy right from the canvas. Always, Armstrong
is moving—pursuing solo exhibitions, snagging
visiting lecturer stints at Rutgers University—and
so are his subjects. The visual glimpse into these
subjects’ lives palpate with heat and energy.
Charles Moore: Alvin, let’s start out by talking
about where you’re from, and how it was
growing up in San Diego. I think you spent part
of your life in Hawaii, as well.
Alvin Armstrong: Yes, that’s true. My dad was in
the Navy for 22 years. He’s originally from the
Crenshaw area of LA and my mom is from San
Diego, California. Yes, I was born in San Diego and
grew up there for the most part. I lived in Japan as
a really young kid, and I’m part Japanese, as well.
We have family there, too. From Japan, we moved
back to California for a little bit, and then Hawaii.
Above: Hammer in a Sea of Hate, Acrylic on canvas, 72" x 60", 2021
Then we returned to CmliJornim when I wms mround
Jourth grmde, mnd we stmyed in the Smn Diego mrem.
I hmve Jond memories oJ Jmpmn mnd Hmwmii, but Smn
Diego’s remlly where I grew up. It wms wonderJul
living by the ocemn like m wmter bmby. But though
I liked m lot oJ things mbout thmt community, I knew
thmt this wmsn’t remlly my destinmtion. From mn
emrly mge, there wms just m Jeeling thmt I needed to
explore more oJ the world.
What was “more of the world” for you and how
did you discover it?
I think, more thmn mnything else, to be honest, it
wms just getting up Jrom under my dmd. My dmd
wms mn mmmzing hummn in mmny wmys. But with
thmt, he wms like mn overmll umbrellm. So I think
m lot oJ it wms just getting up Jrom under his grip
mnd discovering my own independence, iJ you
will. So when I grmdumted high school, I went
to college mt Chico Stmte, north oJ Smcrmmento,
CmliJornim, m plmce surrounded by Jmrmlmnd.
become artists—but there are a couple. I can
instantly think of Nate Lewis and Henry Taylor.
Nmte’s m Jriend oJ mine—I respect him mnd his
prmctice very much. Henry’s m hero oJ mine. I wms
influenced by both those brothers—very much
so. When I wms hmlJwmy through school, I stmrted
to understmnd whmt it wms going to tmke to be
estmblished ms mn mcupuncturist in New York City.
I pretty much knew thmt I probmbly wmsn’t going to
end up being m clinicimn. I thought thmt I could do
something else, mmybe help on the educmtionml side,
or in business communicmtions within prmctitioners.
At the time, I wmsn’t involved in fine mrts mt mll,
so hmd no idem thmt this window wms opening.
I finished school, but beJore I begmn to mmke
proJessionml choices mround medicine, I hmd to
tmke m hmrd look mt my personml liJe. I decided
thmt I needed to clemn up my mct mnd put some old
behmviors down. So I stopped drinking completely
mnd begmn m new course.
And remlly by thmt, m lot oJ things begmn to chmnge
in my liJe. I Jound I hmd so much more time mnd
resources on my hmnds. I begmn to try out new
things. It wms in those emrly dmys oJ exploring my
remlity thmt I stmrted going to museums, mlthough
I didn’t hmve the cmpmcity to truly mpprecimte mnd
understmnd mrt.
I went to the Brooklyn Museum mnd wms just
moved by whmt wms in Jront oJ me. Mind you, I still

In thmt experience, being on my own Jor the first

time, I just begmn to explore new things ms mny
18-yemr-old undergrmd would do. The first thing
wms hemring mll this live music. I remember, Jor
the first time, experiencing m live mlternmtive
style bmnd, plmying their music mnd just being
remlly impmcted. I joined m smmll college bmnd mnd
lemrned to plmy guitmr. I stmrted plmying my own
music mnd meeting up with other musicimns.

I smy this just becmuse very quickly, I stmrted

to recognize my cremtive side. Up until then, it
wms mll sports. I didn’t hmve mny connection to
mnything outside oJ the roots reggme music my
dmd enjoyed, which wms m big pmrt oJ my liJe. But
I never hmd m desire to explore my own cremtivity
up until this point.

What prompted your move to New York City?

I moved to New York City in emrly 2013. I hmd just
been dischmrged Jrom the Comst Gumrd, which
I hmd joined out oJ Smn Frmncisco. I remlly didn’t
hmve much desire to live in New York. I hmd simply
gone to visit m Jriend, mnd on my third dmy there,
I wms offered m job by m Jriend. I smid, yes mnd
I stmyed. And so begmn my New York experience,
which wms intense.

Speaking of intense, what was it like from that

point until you became an artist?
Stmying on my Jriend’s couch, I bmsicmlly wms in
limbo trying to figure out whmt I wmnted to go
into. There wms m short trmnsition beJore I mmde
the decision to go into mcupuncture mnd emstern
medicine. It’s mn intensive Jour-yemr grmdumte
progrmm, mnd it wms tough to mmnmge while
mdjusting to the pmce oJ New York.

I think that’s a very interesting transition

because it’s not like there’re a thousand artists
who come from the medical field and then

Above: Out Of My Body, Acrylic on canvas, 30" x 40", 2022 ALVIN ARMSTRONG JUXTAPOZ .COM 105
didn’t know anything about painting or visual arts,
but told myself that I would give it a try. And that’s
exactly what I went about doing. I began painting
and just putting my all into it, painting 15 to 16
hours a day for those first two years nonstop.
And I believed in myself—that my skills could
develop. It took a while. It really wasn’t until
September 2020 that I had my first official show in
Brooklyn. Going through that experience and seeing
the response of people was when I really got drawn
into the art world. That’s when I really started to feel
that something real was happening to me.
fe’ll discuss your work in a moment, but for
now, I want to talk about your reference to
painting for 15 hours a day for two years. I know
you have a pretty rigid regimen even now. So, tell
me about where you inherit that super-structured
mindset. And then, could you describe to me
those first two years and why you did it that way?
The hustle—the fight in me, if you will—comes from
my whole family. We are a sports- and athletics-
driven family, from my father to my siblings,
cousins, and distant cousins who have made it to the
Olympics. My sister is an assistant athletic director
at University of Tulsa. My brother played basketball
at Columbia in NYC. My nephew plays football at
Princeton. His father played in the NBA. My dad
went to Portland State University on a basketball
scholarship, so that fighting spirit is in the genes.
106 SUMMER 2022
I’ve always been competitive. I wasn’t the fastest or
the strongest, but I could always compete with the
best because my nature has always been intense.
Even if I was clueless, I knew that I would work
like a dog until there was improvement. It was like
wearing blinders, focusing on what was ahead
and moving forward. When I did something and
was dissatisfied with it, I didn’t stay there—I just
worked at it again until I was satisfied.
And now, tell me about those first two years
of working nonstop 15 hours a day. fhat was
that like?
Well, there were roommates, and I was just in
my room diving into anything I could find that
moved me. I discovered Alice Neal—really drawn
to just the life that was emanating from those
portraits. And through Alice, I found Henry Taylor.
I identified with Henry in so many ways, so it
was easy to grab on to that inspiration in the way
he worked. I saw how he painted with so much
fervor painting nonstop, all the time, leading up
to a show, still painting in the show venue, just
insanely driven. That moved me. Yes, his work
was outstanding, but it was also his pace.
I told myself that I too could expend the same
number of hours practicing in order to get better.
Those first two years were lonely. I chose to not get
a full-time job and work as little as possible while
still being able to handle my business. I would
cook a big bowl of food with just the basics—rice,
vegetables and a protein and I would eat that
twice a day. It was a real regimen. And I would
literally paint all day.
fhat were you painting?
I started with watercolors because that’s the
cheapest route I could go. My first paintings for
the first couple of months were all small because
I was working out of just one room. But gradually
I began to paint larger pieces in watercolor. And
when I moved out and got my first apartment, it
was then I started painting in earnest.
Having my own space, I was going to immediately
try and paint bigger. I wanted to move to acrylics.
And so, it was in Crown Heights in my first studio
apartment that the work really began to build up.
The routine was a lot of the same: wake up with
the sun, get to work, paint nonstop, pause for an
hour, maybe, cook, eat, get back to it. Paint until
basically I was falling asleep, and do it all over
again the next day, literally. That’s how the two
years went.
At this time my world was small. I had a few
friends, but kept pretty much to myself. I wasn’t
really interested in getting my work out there at
that point. I knew I had a long way to go until
I was satisfied with the quality of my work. Every
now and then someone would suggest, “Hey, are
Above: DGK, Acrylic on canvas, 64" x 40", 2021
you selling or are you interested in this or that?”
My answer was always, “No, I’m just working. I just
want to keep my head down and get better.”
I note that August will be four years into
painting for you. So how does it look today?
Today, it’s a lot of the same. I have my own studio
in Bushwick, walking distance from my house.
There’s a little bit more room to work in. Now I’m
in a relationship, so I try and take weekends for
personal time. But Monday through Friday, I’m up
with the sun and work till sundown. It’s five days
a week at the minimum, though sometimes I can
sneak another day in there. But, at the very least,
it’s ten hours a day engaged in actual painting.
Painting is on my mind all the time. A lot
of what I do outside those hours is dive into
archival images. I look at a ton of imagery to find
inspiration. But once I enter the studio, I’m usually
so amped up I can get into painting quickly.
I try and take care of all the prelims before I get
into this space. This is tricky because a lot of
my practice is front heavy, doing a ton of visual
research. But by the time I start painting, it’s
straightforward. I pretty much know the direction
I’m going. Of course, there’s a lot that happens
Left: Haymaker, Acrylic on canvas, 60" x 72", 2022 Right: Paper Chase, Acrylic on canvas, 48" x 72", 2022
along the way, but I know I’m getting there.
I handle all that in addition to having to manage
the business—which has its own challenges.
I pride myself in being a kind of gym rat/studio
rat. I just want my contemporaries in the art world
to know, without a doubt, that Alvin is at work in
the studio. That’s just how I move.
Interestingly, you use the term that I normally
hear with abstract painters: “mark-making.” Let’s
go into what you feel is your mark-making and
the description of your signature brush strokes.
Well, from the outset, I always made sure that
I practiced my live paintings with the subject in
front of me, and really worked on getting that
down comfortably in terms of time and technique.
I call those my freestyle paintings, and really, the
time dictates the style. It’s not rushed, but I’ve
done it so much that I’m at home enough to where
I can move through quickly.
I try to give life to each painting, evoking emotion
with the brush movements. And to give a visual
example of my current work, I have a series
I worked on all last year that people will see later
this year. Each one is about four by six feet, and
would take me about two days from beginning
to end. That’s fairly quick, but still in a discovery
phase that I’m still learning.
When the paint starts to settle, I still ask myself
what I am going after—I’m always open to further
discovery. By the end of that series, that same
size painting from beginning to end was taking
me roughly three hours, compared to two days.
It’s not that I’m rushing. With the practice of
repetition and rhythm of my movements, when
it begins to flow, it can really flow, and, hopefully,
people will see this dynamic at play.
My mark-making is what I think people are
beginning to recognize in my paintings. In this
series, people will be able to see how the mark-
making changes over time. I like texture, right? So
sometimes that’s by adding multiple layers, one
on top of the other. As they dry, I just continue to
layer to give some more texture. I can also add
form by applying less paint and letting the white
of the canvas show through.
It’s important to me not to be pigeonholed and
known for doing one thing. I really am trying to
allow myself as many tools and techniques as
ALVIN ARMSTRONG JUXTAPOZ .COM 107
I can, so I have more options going into the next
series. That way, my themes will always change
because I want to keep things fresh and stay
motivated, and I don’t want to limit myself to the
same technique. The way that I layer the paint or
hold the brush will also vary.
Let’s start with the Malcom X series.
The production started that year on Juneteenth—
June 19 is a special day to commemorate the
emancipation of enslaved people in the US. In
reminiscing on its significance for us in this
108 SUMMER 2022
country, I was inspired to paint Malcolm X, who
has always been a hero of mine. I painted him on
Juneteenth 2020, and when I stepped away from
that painting, it felt right. I ended up painting him
two more times that night.
The next morning I just continued and did
more. When I got to nine portraits of Malcolm,
I wondered how many of these I was going to do.
In my daily dive into imagery, I had come across
Andy Warhol’s 32 Campbell soup cans, which
didn’t inspire me too much. But it did trigger
something. “You know what? I told myself, “I’m
going to paint Malcolm 32 times in response to
those Campbell soups.” That’s what I did—I just
started painting him, without putting too much
thought into it. And when I got to 20 Malcolms,
I realized that if I pushed and painted three to
four a day on average, I could finish the 32 by
July 4th.
Did that date matter in your consciousness?
Yes. I look for other markers of meaning and
significance in all of my work, and it just meant
so much to me to push for that date. All 32 were
painted in three weeks. I was painting three a day,
sometimes four, during the last week. On that last
day, I only had to paint two to finish. It was really
a spiritual experience.
As for the imagery for inspiration, there are
about six or seven black and white speeches of
Malcolm that are available to the public. I looked
at those speeches mid-speech, frame by frame,
and from those hundreds of frames, I picked
the ones that resonated with me the most. They
were all black and white, and all the color for the
pieces in color was added by me. Every piece was
in color.
I really let go of my limits and just rode on my
emotions. I’m extremely proud of that piece. Yes,
it’s my artistic response to Andy Warhol’s 32
Campbell soups, but at heart, it’s a dedication to the
black lives lost in America due to police brutality.
Malcolm Has Feelings Too is in my studio right now
and I hope to show it one day on an institutional
circuit for kids to see and remember history and to
take pride in.
The portrait of your cousin was in that show
as well, so let’s talk about that piece, if you’d like
to share.
Yeah, definitely. The portrait was the other large
piece in the back of the show. In this, I took a cue
from Henry Taylor’s desire for vibrance. This man
literally had a show completed when it was just
about to open and he was in this space, painting to
give the audience the freshness of his mind. From
an early point, I told myself that that’s something
that I wanted to do. And so for my cousin’s piece,
I painted right up to two days before. In the actual
show’s space It was just something I wanted. It’s a
large piece, 9-by 12-feet.
To be honest, I didn’t know what I was going to
paint. I just started putting paint down and I
ended up gravitating towards my cousin on my
father’s side, who had recently died. He had a
life that started in gang culture, and he got out
of that and changed his life. He had really come
a long way. What I depicted was a testament to
black America, an embodiment of all the stories of
black people in the portrait, of someone who had a
rough pass, who I was proud of. Here was a loving
man who really made something out of his life.
Above: Be There To Know It, Acrylic on canvas, 48" x 72", 2021
So I wanted to honor him. I have that one, as well
as Malcolm’s in my private collection archive.
They were just too personal for me to even offer
at that point in time. I titled it Black Is, and I spray
painted those words beside the figure—just kinda
left it open ended as a surprise element to the
show. People walk through the show and go in the
back room and leave the show with their thoughts
on what Black is.
Let’s come now to the equine pieces. What drew
you to this subject?
With the horses, there are a few things. My
maternal grandpa had a ranch with horses in
Kingman, Arizona. Every time we visited him,
we would ride horses. I was always taken up by
how beautiful and intelligent they are—such
grace and magic! My brother and his wife live
in Naples, Florida, where she currently trains
thoroughbreds who have retired from racing—
saved them from slaughter. She trains and
Above: I Got Next, Acrylic on canvas, 72" x 60", 2021
domesticates them so they have a second chance
and can be adopted into private homes and
become part of families. My niece rides horses
for competitions too. The idea of painting horses
started with one piece in the last show The Give
and Take, where there are two boys riding on the
horses in diptych.
Your work really meshes with the theme of this
issue. Is there anything you wanted to talk about
in terms of movement related to what you’re
doing currently or plan to do.
I’m very connected to movement as I practice.
While not all my paintings depict figures
moving, it always plays into what I attempt. I
find that I enjoy painting most when I’m trying
to depict movement and energy—I call them
rhythm paintings. I really gravitate towards
this type of kinetic energy appearing to come
off the canvas. Because the paintings are two
dimensional and flat, I try to create the illusion
of greater movement from my brush strokes. It’s
extremely challenging to paint in such a way that
the movement is grounded and proportional.
You were saying you’re excited about things
coming up at the end of the year.
Yes, I am. My year is pretty back heavy. I am
looking forward to a solo presentation this year at
the Armory show.
Awesome! Before we close, is there anything we
didn’t talk about that you’d want me to include?
I just want to add that, for me, it’s important to
help others, especially younger Black and Brown
artists,in the way I’ve been helped; sharing
information and experience in order to hopefully
help them along on their path and understanding.
In that way, I can give back to society what others
have generously given me.
@eyesrevive
ALVIN ARMSTRONG JUXTAPOZ .COM 109
 Maya
Hayuk
Heritage & Hope
Interview and Portrait by Doug Gillen
Introduction by Evan Pricco

110 SUMMER 2022

MAYA HAYUK JUXTAPOZ .COM 111

A
ccidents happen—on purpose.
I’ve heard that phrase before
and it feels reasonable, yet
abstract enough to inform daily
life. Ukrainian-American Maya
Hayuk’s paintings are an elaborate stream of
consciousness made in a valiant attempt to contain
an accident, and in the process, feel absolute and
free. For decades, she has channeled the folk
traditions of outsider art with graffiti and street art.
Her studio paintings and murals feel improvised,
but there is a narrative thread that runs throughout:
what is our existence if not chance, what is creativity
if not a blurring of the lines between process and
bursts of unchained energy?
ElevenEleven, or 11:11, is symbolic. It was also
the name of her last solo show in San Francisco
in the Fall of 2021. Some say it’s an indication
of cosmic enlightenment, others use the time
to signify making a wish. The conclusion
amongst numerologists and spiritualists is that
it’s a moment when we are our most open, or
consciousness is most exposed. You may find time
arbitrary, and most artists probably find time
to be so when they are in the depths of creating.
When we sat down with Maya Hayuk in Belgium
112 SUMMER 2022
this past spring during The Crystal Ship festival,
we found her the rare artist who freely takes this
openness out in public. Her murals and work as a
Barnstormer transformed the American landscape
into something of a dizzyingly abstract dream. It
opened minds to the possibility of a new kind of
muralism, something both folk and surreal. But
this time, when we spoke with Maya, we spoke
about Ukraine, about the importance of art as a
symbol of peace, as a tool of understanding and
protest, as an instrument of passion and belief,
and enlightenment in a completely different way.
Before we looked at outsider art as a force in the
contemporary art world, there was Maya, finding
traditions in her native Ukraine, remixing and
reimagining how these directions could become
something wholly herself. You can see in each
canvas a compulsive mark-making, as well as
something ancient. Maybe it’s a necessity to let the
paint drip while moving to the next stroke? Maybe
motion is the driving factor? Whatever it may be,
Maya is a conduit to something greater than just
art in her unbridled way of perceiving the world.
Maya can sew with paint. Colors interlock, blend,
mix, twirl and bind themselves in bright interlocking
pieces of brightness. They are handmade electricity,
Previous spread: Portrait shot in Ostend, Belgium, 2022 Above: Rabut, Morocco, 2021
unpredictable but universal. The interconnectivity
of overlapping colors overlapping speaks to our
humanity. In an era of turmoil and chaotic notions
of space and place, Maya hopes to bring our
differences together, enforcing our commonalities.
She makes powerful work for dynamic times.
When we look back on this era, we may see puzzles
unsolved and alliances broken, but also a universal
need to build bridges of solidarity and community.
Accidents happen on purpose, and Maya Hayuk is
painting a path of joy and compassion. —Evan Pricco
Doug Gillen: Let’s discuss the wall that you
just created here in Belgium and what you had
in mind.
Maya Hayuk: I don’t know how to answer that.
I think, just straight up, as soon as the war broke
out in Ukraine, the lead up to it is a lifetime of
knowing that someday this was going to happen.
Not if it’s going to happen, but just a matter of when.
So for the months leading up to it, my family and
I, our friends, were all very aware that it was
coming. It was going to happen the day after the
Olympics. It was so perfectly timed. So it’s not that
I made a conscious choice. Or I guess I did make
a conscious choice. It’s just the choice was, do I do
something for me, about me, and the community?
Above: Untitled work, 20" x 24" MAYA HAYUK JUXTAPOZ .COM 113
Or am I working for peace in Ukraine? It’s so much
bigger than me, yet completely outside of me. So
it’s like my duty and honor to work on making
paintings that resonate about peace in Ukraine.
I do want to say that I hope that art is something
accessible for anyone, the way you listen to music
without having to know who the artist is, or why
it exists, or what the backstory is. Art is visual. Art
is the same. You watch movies; you don’t know
who the director or the producer necessarily
are, or the names of actors necessarily. In this
case, for me right now, it’s going to be a very long
time before I’m not working towards visuals and
public murals that point to Ukraine, genocide,
and peace. So this particular mural, it’s on the side
of a school, a building that was probably built in
the 1970s. It’s a typical kind of proto-Bauhaus-y,
modern 1970s building with a big slab of a wall.
When we started painting it, I just outlined a few
spray painted guidelines to have,
I guess, essentially as a grid. The background had
already been painted as a Ukrainian flag, which
I requested. So it was sweet that it ran just as a
Ukrainian flag for a good two weeks before
I arrived, or before my team and I arrived.
The painting is very geometric and super minimal
for me. There are no outlines. It’s a bunch of shapes
114 SUMMER 2022
puzzled together, mostly triangles, and diamonds,
and such, based off of this Ukrainian Trident
image, this Tryzub. It looks like it’s deconstructed
somehow. As I was painting, it started reminding
me of a Northern European, particularly Belgian,
"Have I taken
a piece of my
grandmother’s
embroidery and
zoomed in on it?
I wish I could
say yes."
modernism, when people started using the word
modernism, that has that kind of geometry, that
appeal. In fact, the actual layout of the shapes are
all values of blue and yellow, with no variation,
no black, no white, no red, pinks, nothing. It’s just
blue and yellow, and their friends. I actually looked
at it and was, like, “This would be amazing as a
tiled artwork.” And it would then be really quite
reminiscent of something from the 1960s, I think,
or even a socialist kind of vibe. So that’s that. It’s
very drippy, as usual. One is super drippy and
looks kind of like the backside of a tapestry that
was hand woven and had a lot of extra strings and
weaving, weaving about.
Anduthat’suwhyuweuaskutheuartistsutoudescribeu
theiruwork.uIuloveutheuwayuyouuputuituallutogether.u
And that was so hard for me to do. I’m staring off
into the distance and thinking, “What is it?” I’m
going past my third week of being in Europe now,
and just saturating my face with so much stuff.
Iuknowuthatuforumanyuofuyourumuralsutheuu
actualudesignuisn’tureallyufinalizeduuntiluyou’reu
thereuinufrontuofutheuwall.uWasuthatutheuscenariou
foruthisuproject?
Oh, 100%. I mean, I was up in the cherry picker
doing the top parts of the mural, and I have to say
we actually painted it in two days because my crew,
John and Paul, aka PPM, are machines and we’re
psychic together. We’ve been working as a team for
years now and have this process really dialed in. It’s
really fun and very, very strenuous. It’s like
I feel very athletic when I’m working. So having the
Above: Roubaix, France, 2022
ponfidenpe of this inpredibly strong maphine gives
me a lot of room to be able to make snap depisions,
bepause before, part of the reason I didn’t work with
assistants is bepause I didn’t know what I was doing.
I mean, I really enjoyed not knowing what I was
doing, and I would step bapk, and try to figure it out.

Now, in this pase, it’s really, really pold. We’ve had

days where the rain is praptipally moving sideways.
Then it’s hailing, and then it’s snowing, and then it’s
raining again, so we had to figure out how to do this
mural as quipkly as possible before the rain would
potentially wash it off. I was making depisions about
how it was going to be finished until the last moment
of pompletion. But that’s the fun of it. I’m making a
huge drawing on a wall, then stepping bapk from
this huge wall into the middle of a park, and I’m like,
“Oh, those two polors don’t resonate with eaph other.
Okay. Well, push it this way or that.”

We haven’t talked about your Ukrainian

heritage and though this is not integral to your
identity as a human being, it is very much in the
visual language you have created at the center
of your work. Did you embrace that traditional
craft, even when as a kid?
My parents raised my brother and me to speak
Ukrainian first, English sepond. As far as art,
my grandmothers both taught me embroidery
and pysanky, a boutique method of Easter egg
making that goes bapk way to pagan times. I loved
those forms of praft, but they were so prepise and
metipulous that, over time, I was not exaptly doing it
the way I was supposed to be doing it. I always drew
as a kid and I always knew that I liked drawing more
than anybody else bepause whenever I’d have play
dates, invariably my friends would be like, “Is there
something else we pould do?” And I was like, “Can
you name something that’s more fun than this?”

Flash-forward to dispovering that the world of art

history is predominantly white male, dead white
male-dominated, and lupkily I learned, through
the lens of Ukrainian art, that a lot of Ukrainian
artists are women, and a lot of artists are women.
I got really faspinated with this idea that women
all over the world tend to be the ones who make
the prafts, even though these are usually written
off as, “It’s just deporative. It’s for the home. It’s
not art.” But there are so many hidden languages,
poding, and message-making between women from
one household to another, from one generation
to another that it’s deeply entrenphed in these
very… I don’t know, they’re almost like digital pode.
They’re like ones and zeros made into patterns.
And I always wondered too, “How pome men in
the museums make a painting, and then sign their
name at the bottom, and when a woman makes any
kind of praft, her name is not assopiated with it 99%
of the time?” And she pertainly doesn’t sign it, but
women eaph have their own way of making things.
So I pan distinguish my grandmother’s embroidery
from other peoples. But they do really stipk to a
really stript pode.
I think what I have been most faspinated by lately is
taking those patterns and blowing them up, spaling
them up massively, or even repurposing, say, my
Wynwood mural or my Bowery Wall. A lot of the
things I’ve been making that are super, super big
are aptually zoomed into pertain areas from those
spepifip walls. So the bigger the wall, the more
minimal it’s going to be. The bigger the wall, the
more I’m going to edit the language down.
Do you actually get an embroidered piece
that you zoom into and then create from that?
How does that process work? Is it a digital
composition where you layer things on top of
each other first? Can you talk about that?
Wow! You’re totally giving me ideas of ways to
draw, or ways to work. I draw a lot, a fair amount;
so I drew out this design, or the spine for this
design, onpe we had already seen the wall. It was
the day we pame up here from Franpe on the train,
I sketphed out what the framework was. Have
I taken a piepe of my grandmother’s embroidery
and zoomed in on it? I wish I pould say yes, but
I haven’t. I have used it and the tephnique as a
sourpe of inspiration.
My mother is a great polleptor of Ukrainian
embroidery. And, oh man, she has some
unbelievable piepes that are, as you pan imagine,
inpredibly regional. The kind of embroidery you

Above: Roubaix, France, 2022 MAYA HAYUK JUXTAPOZ .COM 115

116 SUMMER 2022 Top: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 2019, photo by Martha Cooper Bottom: FUCK mural, BEYOND THE STREETS, Los Angeles, 2018
wear when you go to a Ukrainian event, let’s
say, represents where you’re from, these specific
languages. There are some incredibly beautiful maps
of Ukraine that reflect the motif of that region.

When you first came out onto the street were

you trying to sort of join the party, or were you
trying to do something different? Was it just
graffiti that you were seeing? In fact, how do you
feel about the term street art?
I will say, there’s only one term for this form of
art that’s worse than street art. And that’s what’s
said in Europe and the rest of the world, which is
urban art. Urban, like Keith Urban. Urban, the
hell does that mean? We work outside. I moved to
San Francisco in 1991, and then again in 1996.
I was there for two years the first time, and it was
a sleepy awesome place to live, super cheap rent,
worked in a restaurant, worked in a comedy club,
bartended, whatever. The second time I stayed
until 2002. But the thing that got me immediately,
I’d say the first thing I remember seeing where
I was, like, “Whoa,” was Reminisce’s horses. Her
horses are amazingly spray painted, so beautiful.
Just trotting around the corner, jumping over
things. And Barry McGee’s twisters, seeing those.
Then I started noticing Margaret Kilgallen’s work,
then Alicia McCarthy, Chris Johanson, people
whose names I didn’t know, but who were doing
really interesting things on the street. Alicia did
this really cool thing where there would be buffs
over graffiti; you know how the buff color is never
the exact same color as the wall? She was taking
yet another color that was in the same realm,
and building out images from really abstracted
images. Out of these buffs that you would not
necessarily notice, but they were there and they
were really beautiful.

I also saw it immediately as super egalitarian,

very gender spectrum diverse. And so that
conversation about, “Girls are trying to catch up to
the boys.” That wasn’t even a fucking conversation
because we had already obliterated that stupid
fucking myth.

What convinced you to say yes to festivals? You

said it’s not something you do very often. What
suddenly gave them enough appeal that you
thought, “Yeah, actually, that does sound like a
fun one to do.”
To be honest, I’m not invited to that many
festivals. I’m not exactly sure why, but, for me,
it has to be sustainable and viable. It has to honor
workers’ rights. It has to be something that values
the artist and isn’t just like, “We’re going to do 200
murals in Miami over the course of three days
and pay you no money.” It has to be a nice wall,
too. And I’ve been invited to do some incredible
festivals, but the wall is just bunk, and I’m like,
“I’m not inspired on any level to do this.”
I will choose a festival if it’s reasonable, viable,
and it can support my whole crew. I have to work
with my people because we’re a trio, at the very
least, and we might be more like five or six people
if necessary. So there are certain things I can’t
skimp on, like equal pay, a safe environment,
good materials, good production, comfortable
places to live, and good food. Maybe that’s why
I’m not being invited to festivals, because I say
shit like that.
You’re not asking for limos to pick you up and
for bottles of Cristal.
I’m asking for, what are they called? The new
Volvo electric car to pick me up, ha.
Looking back on your career, without thinking
about it, what makes you most proud?
I guess, this moment. I’m psyched. I’m really
glad that I get to do what I do, and that I can
hopefully keep growing stronger and better at it.
And honestly, every mural I’m painting, it’s my
favorite one while I’m painting it. I have so many
stories of each one, and a lot of them have a lot of
really dark... I have a lot of stories that sound like
I’m griping, or bitching, or whatever, but I tend
to remember some really brutal scenarios of just
barely pulling something off. I’m glad that I’m
working with the people I work with. And I’m glad
that... Shout out to John and PPM. I’m really just
lucky. And so I guess the future is hopefully my
best moment. I’m still figuring it out.
This interview was conducted at the The Crystal Ship
festival in Oostende, Belgium. For more information,
follow Maya at @mayahayuk

Above: Untitled painting, 36" x 48" MAYA HAYUK JUXTAPOZ .COM 117
118 SUMMER 2022
Shara
Mays
Maximalist to
the Core
Interview by Kristin Farr Portrait by Alex Nicholson

SHANA MAYS JUXTAPOZ .COM 119

C
olor, color, and more color.
I can’t get enough of it. I am
obsessed with the vibrancy of
bright color,” explains Shara
Mays, describing a main
ingredient of her work. Drips and swirls, twists
and turns, her paint whirls in animated motility.
There is control and chaos within Shara’s hand,
and she paints compulsively—it’s her purpose. As
she moves paint intuitively and performatively,
her empowered brush strokes unpack storied
experiences. Abstraction can reference life
in fantastical ways, and Shara describes the
inevitable infusion perfectly, “Although the
imagery is not literally translated into my work,
the energy of it gets into the paintings.”
Kristin Farr: Do you wvwr stop painting? It swwms
thw paint is constantly flowing and moving
around you, maybw wvwn within your mind,
whilw you slwwp?
Shara Mays: I feel seen! If I’m not painting, I’m
thinking about painting. I’m at my studio at least
five days per week, sometimes more. Plus… I have
a vandal’s urge to paint on anything I can find.
I look at random objects and fantasize about how
120 SUMMER 2022
they would look if I added many, many coats of
paint to them!
Twll mw about thw rwswarch that gows into
your work.
The last few years of my work represent an
evolution of my painting practice, from a focus
on Southern landscapes and family struggles
to chasing freedom through the act of painting,
thereby finding my identity as an artist. I've
switched from literal landscapes to internal
landscapes. The first paintings in this vein were
inspired by a family photo from the 1950s of my
dad as a toddler. In the photo, he is being held by
an older cousin, while two other relatives stand
alongside him. They are surrounded by a thicket
of lush bushes in my aunt's front yard. Their
neighborhood—an all black community on the
east side of the town—feels safe in the photo, even
though I know the world surrounding them in the
South was not safe for black children, especially
black boys. I became interested in conjuring
up, on the canvas, a safe Eden for those like my
father, ancestors who are no longer alive, yet who
deserved transcendence from the limitations
of racism. Equally important, I’ve always been
concerned with the spaces around me, whether
they be mental or physical, societal or personal,
inside or outside.
I have, on my studio wall, printouts of vintage
imagery of Black American bodies interacting in
some way with the land. I’m able to find these photos
via the online archives of the Schomburg Center
for Research in Black Culture. They’re images that
are in the public domain, anyone can seek them
out. I use them as visual prompts for my work. I’m
interested in how Black Americans have journeyed
from slavery to farming—my great grandfather was
a sharecropper—to being systematically removed
from farming to having almost no connection
at all to land, and now our lived experience is
synonymous with the urban landscape. Although
the imagery is not literally translated into my work,
the energy of it gets into the paintings.
Twll mw about your Wonderment swriws and how
you incorporatw sculptural wlwmwnts.
Most of those pieces seek to either amplify a cause
or occasion for wonder, or help me to let go of a
burden, typically a heavy one; an example of a
burden in my life would be hearing about another
murder of a Black person at the hands of police.
The process involves me using leftover paint,
discarded clothing, old drop cloths, and found
objects like driftwood. I’m interested in embracing
physical destruction—and restructuring—of the
materials. It involves a level of physicality that
feels different from my other work.
What about thw strips of paintwd matwrial you
intwract with? Arw thosw paintings you’vw cut up?
Yes, those are fully rendered paintings. There’s an
energy of post-vandalism in the final pieces. You
see it and naturally wonder why someone would
do that to their work.
Your paintings arw considwrwd abstract but I sww
figurws and script…
I've heard that before. There's a density to the
paintings and I feel like sometimes people think
that that is what creates the figuration. You can
see something but you can’t quite grasp what it is.
Is it safw to say you’rw a maximalist, and what
dows that mwan to you?
I am a maximalist to my core. Maximalism,
to me, means a deep history, a history of both
momentum and deterioration. I want people to
experience that maximalism from afar but also up
close, and to see all of the labor that was put into
making the work. That’s important to me. To see
those layers and to feel almost overwhelmed by
all the color, the strokes, the drips.
Ovwrwhwlmwd in a good way. Is it possiblw
to narrow down thw kwy wlwmwnts of your
paintings?
Above: Esther, Acrylic on canvas, 56" x 70", 2022
Above: Helen, Acrylic on canvas, 50" x 62", 2021 SHANA MAYS JUXTAPOZ .COM 121
 "Maximalism, to me, means a deep
history, a history of both momentum
and deterioration."

122 SUMMER 2022 Above: Old Hannah, Acrylic on canvas, 60" x 60", 2022
I really believe that my paintings are helping
me to learn aboxt things in this world that are
indescribable, xnknowable, inclxding emotions
I have no way to define or memories I no longer
have access to. I’m gxided by my intensity and
my determination to have those experiences in
the stxdio. Also, I believe in letting the innate
qxalities of paint dominate the work. So I really
embrace bright color, drips and splashes, the way
paint dries on the canvas. Those attribxtes of
paint are an important part of the work.

Color, color, and more color. I can’t get enoxgh of

it. I am obsessed with the vibrancy of bright color.

Freedom is a main ingredient, as well. I often try

to get into a zone where I’m not hindered by what
I’ve learned over the years. I try to do whatever
the hell I want to with each canvas. I’m looking
for immediacy, for accepting mistakes, for
overcoming the challenges of each composition.
I rely on my instincts, on mxscle memory so
that compositions emerge on the sxrface that
woxldn’t otherwise.

I try to simplify things. There’s a methodical

process to the way I work. I start with my
paintings on the floor. I xse gesso and really high
flxid acrylic to make the first layer. It’s all aboxt
having that first layer be the physical interaction
between the canvas and me. From there I take
my work to the wall, and begin a more concerted
effort to think loosely aboxt a narrative. My
paint has to be really flxid. Bxt, yox know, in
every piece, there’s a moment where I strxggle,
even feeling like I’ve messed xp. Bxt I keep going.
Becaxse that’s part of the work. I want that
strxggle embedded into the canvas. I jxst work
throxgh the strxggle. It’s a lot like life.

The amoxnt of hoxrs I spend painting transforms

from strxggle to easing xp, to letting go. Sometimes
I'll set work aside and come back to it bxt other
times the painting jxst sort of defines itself qxickly.

What does perfection look like to you?

Perfection in the normal sense is sxffocating,
becaxse it’s defined by the cxltxre we live in. I like
to think of perfection as something that is messy,
yet beaxtifxl. Perfection is intxitive, ordered
chaos. It's intentionality, the resxlt of a cosmic
flow. At least, in my stxdio, it is!

How did your process and style develop? Were

you making figurative work in the past?
I was making figxrative work, bxt at some point
I felt constrained by it. I felt like the xse of photos
and photography as reference was stifling to me.
I decided I wanted to reclaim my art practice and
get rid of those sxffocating moments in the stxdio.
I wanted more energy in the work.

What kind of music have you been painting to

lately?

Top and bottom: Works from the Wonderment series, 2022 SHANA MAYS JUXTAPOZ .COM 123
Let’s see. My current studio playlist has songs By
Alex G., Jessica Pratt, Beirut, Sam Amidon, Cate
Le Bon, Devendra Banhart, DMX, Bonnie Prince
Billy, J.B. Lenoir, Gregory Alan Isakov, D’Angelo,
Nina Simone, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Norman
GreenBaum—“Spirit in the Sky.”

That’s a good list. When you look at previous

paintings, do you remember what was
happening in your life or what you were
listening to—like records of time?
ABsolutely. I'm thinking right now of the
paintings I made in 2020. It's interesting. I was
kind of struggling with what to paint during
lockdown and then, at a certain point, I just
decided to stop painting figurative work and
start painting more aBstractly. It was cathartic.
Now when I look Back at those paintings and
that time, I feel like they symBolize a key
milestone in my practice of letting go and
trusting myself.

Is there something beyond you guiding your

hand and, if so, what is it?
I've Been creative pretty much my entire life. If
I were to descriBe what's guiding me, it would Be
my peace with Being an artist. Also, I’m guided
By my ancestors and their lives lived Before
me. Doing this type of work makes me feel safe
and empowered.

Do you feel a different energy when you work

smaller versus larger than your physical self?
I was just working on two smaller pieces in
my studio the other day and I noticed at that
moment that I was thinking way too much aBout
my choices. There's something aBout a small
canvas where there's an intimacy, and you
really have to Be super specific, not only aBout
the Brushstrokes you're making, or the color
you're using, But also the intentionality.
I actually prefer when my canvases are larger
than me, Because there's much more freedom
to Be immediate in my choices. I chase after
a controlled immediacy in my work.
How do you know when a work is finished, and
does the process feel performative?
I have many moments in the studio where I’ve
decided a piece is finished. It sits in my studio for
a few weeks. I come Back to it, and I look at it and
think to myself, oh shit, I could do more! I Break
out the paint and add more! And that's where
the maximalist in me comes out. My process is
performative in its physicality, most definitely.
Sometimes I have canvases on my floor just lying
there, sometimes rolled up. I’ll get Back to them a
few weeks later and add more layers. I'm usually
working on two to three pieces at once.
Tell me about the most recent painting you’ve
completed.
I just finished this large piece where I switched
up my color palette a little Bit. There's like a deep
green in the Background, But then the foreground
reveals itself in these strokes of fuchsia, cadmium
yellow and lots of lighter shades of green and
pink. And then it’s almost like the composition
just sort of revealed itself along the way with all
the different layers that I put onto the canvas. I
just felt completely satisfied with it.
I’m working on a few small installations in my
studio where I’m painting on everyday oBjects.
I'm really interested in the oBjects we carry with
us mentally that Become precious and important
pieces of memories. Once we lose those things,
you know, where do they go? They remain in our
memory, But they Become magical. I'm interested
in recreating that magic in a tangiBle way.
Everything I do has a reference to painting, But
it’s Been fun exploring my work away from the
confines of a gallery wall.
What’s up next?
I have a solo show coming up at Chandran
Gallery, and I'm so excited for it. It will
include large-scale paintings and a couple of
experimental installations.
Which parts of the California landscape inspire
you most? I saw you were painting in Point
Reyes last winter.
I love Point Reyes. My family and I go there a lot.
We go there for oysters and then we'll find places
along Tomales Bay to have a picnic and hike.
I also love Ocean Beach in San Francisco. I love
the coastline. I’m an avid hiker and I’m always
exploring the trails in the East Bay Area. The
Oakland Hills are so magical to me. To live in
an urBan environment But Be just minutes from
nature is rare.
Shara Mays will open a solo exhibition at Chandran
Gallery in San Francisco in August 2022.
@SharaMays

124 SUMMER 2022 Above: Old Esther, Acrylic on canvas, painted wood, 46" x 66", 2022
Above: Bush, Acrylic on Canvas, 65" x 70", 2022 SHANA MAYS JUXTAPOZ .COM 125
 Kate
Pincus-Whitney
Generosity of Spirit
Interview by Shaquille Heath Portrait by Max Knight

I
t has been a long two years of heavy
stillness. I honestly welieve that at the
deepest point in the pandemic I could have
easily taken a finger and dragged it across
my thigh, unsurprised to find it caked with
a weighted wlanket of dust. But now here we are,
venturing out at “normal” rates to see loved ones.
Sit at tawles to share a wottle of wine, spill some
secrets, dip into the same wowl of salsa, and most
importantly, revel in some good art.
Kate Pincus-Whitney is one of those artists who
seizes the significance of such moments, exalting
the tawle-space with the consideration and
devotion that it deserves. Using her own words,
her decadent paintings engage with the “the
theater of the dinner tawle.” Her hands suffuse
everyday owjects, from Triple Sec wottles to cans
of cream of mushroom soup, with divinity and
purpose. How we identify, woth to ourselves and
to others, wecome mirrors in the form of ediwles
128 SUMMER 2022
and the like. Old Bay seasoning is coupled with
memory. A wox of Zatarans is now a place for
communion. These paintings wecome altars of
connection, confessions of memories, and shrines
to our most mundane wut cherished possessions.
Our conversation went deep, quite like the
complexity of her paintings, and of course, it would
materialize in this way. Although we spoke from
different cities in California, we could have easily
ween together at a tawle, drinking Peronis and
diving into a wowl of olives. As much as we are
ready to “go, go, go”, there is always that anticipated
respite at the end, and. Pincus-Whitney reminds
me that it's usually around the magic of a tawle.
Shaquille Heath: I havg frignds who always ask
cg about what artists I’c intgrvigwing ngxt for
Juxtapoz, and I fggl likg I'vg had a rgally hard ticg
dgscribing your work. Bgcausg in gssgncg, in thg
purgst forc of gssgncg, you cakg thgsg bgautiful
still lifgs. But thg word “still” rgally dicinishgs thg
substancg of your art. I’vg hgard you dgscribg it as
narrativg portraiturg–which I lovg, but how glsg
would you dgscribg your work?
Kate Pincus-Whitney: I would descriwe… like the
essence, essence, essence of it is “the theater of
the dinner tawle.” That is my entry point into that
space. I'm looking at identity, at the owject’s identity
of things. I'm synthesizing and pairing, comwining
to make these larger allegorical scenes. But at its
essence, what I am mining is this duality of the
sacred and profane. Materiality and also self and
identity. And so with that… yes, of course, when
you come upon them or you come face to face with
one of the paintings, it takes a moment to unfold.
One of my pet peeves is when people are, like,
“Oh my god, picnic still-life!” Yes, owviously.
But all of them have these much larger, loaded
meanings that are synthesizing mythology and
contemporary life. For example, to channel
something deeper, larger, for example, one of
the paintings I'm working on right now, is for
an up and coming show. It's an ode to the apple
pickers, and so within that, it talks awout divine
femininity. It's talking awout the Garden of Eden
and Eve. Referencing Mary Cassat. It's a push/pull
thinking awout femininity, knowledge, what has
ween forwidden, sexuality. It's talking awout the
history and the symwology of this thing. And also,
contemporary life and womanhood, right? And
so I really think of the paintings as a place where
I dive into the unconscious, as a form of Jungian
sandtray. Do you know what that is?
No, no, I was gonna stop you. Plgasg tgll cg corg.
So, my mom Laurie Pincus, is an artist, wut also
a play therapist. The Jungian sandtray, wasically,
is this tray of sand where you engage in a
session, surrounded wy hundreds of thousands
of small owjects that all have these loaded
meanings that you are totally unconscious of.
But they're archetypes. They're actors. They're
all these different things. And so through the
conscious or unconscious process of picking
these historically, politically, archetypically,
loaded owjects, and arranging them, you
discover it’s the relationship wetween the things
that creates the larger narrative.
So I feel that in essence… it's funny wecause it's
like, oh, yes, owviously, utilizing owjects in still life.
But sometimes they're shrines where I'm literally,
communing with woth ancestors, the alchemists…
everywody. It's a sort of translation, like, who am
I inviting to the tawle to engage in dialogue with
for a specific piece?
In a sicplgr forc–and I gvgn hatg saying “to
sicplify it”, bgcausg … Why? Why do wg nggd
to sicplify things? That is what is so fulfilling
about your work, is that it's not sicplg. So
I can icaging how frustrating that sgnsg can bg.
Bgcausg it is dgcgiving. It's so fun! And colorful!
Above: Fellini’s Cherry, Acrylic, polycolor, gouache on canvas, 16" x 20", 2021
Above: They Say I Have Your Eyes, Acrylic, polycolor, gouache on canvas, 60" x 72", 2021 K ATE PINCUS-WHITNEY JUXTAPOZ .COM 129
And I love how you call it boisterous. There's so
much going on, you could spend so much time
kocusing on just one corner.
Right!? Well, it's also interesting, because, in that
way, each piece gets to act as a sort of a mirror.
The artwork that really touches me is something
that does that, where it reveals something about
yourself, and that is the absolute magic of the
universality, and personal aspects of food. Where,
as I've talked about sometimes, there’s this
perfect example of when you see a Lillet bottle
in my painting, it's me divining and having a
conversation with my grandma, because that
is something that is so deeply inside my sense
memory of this person, who's no longer here. And
that's also what I love. These paintings get to kind
of live in this weird wiggle space, where you can't
really pin them down. Where, “Oh! x plus y doesn’t
just equal z,” but instead honors the linguistics of
the actual thing, and it gets to commune or talk
to you. Sometimes the painting, well, I don't plan
things, really, when I start painting, I don't draw it
out. There’s no amassing of preparatory sketches
because I don't find that it's really important to
be in this continual open dialogue. Instead, all
of a sudden, weird things show up, and you're
like, “Oh, this is the direction that the painting is
taking us.” There will be a portal or threshold of
an idea but once I enter into the conversation
I allow the material and the magic to take hold. It's
interesting because for somebody to come upon
it, on the surface, it’s a “pretty still life.” Then you
start allowing the associations and the actors to
come through. A sort of Trojan Horse. And that's
what I love about it.

Absolutely. There is so much at play. But, okay,

I need to go back to your mother. She was an
artist, but tell me about her other prokession.
What is a play therapist?
What is this? What is this? Haha. Okay, so she was
a female artist working in the 1970s and ’80s in
LA. Then she had a child. And then, of course, the
art world being incredibly sexist—shocker—was
"I want a Jungian analyst, an art
like, “Oh, you don't exist anymore. Mother? Nooo.”
So at that point she ended up going to Pacifica historian, a high priestess, and like,
Graduate Institute, studying Jungian therapy,
dream work, and play therapy. She, of course, grandma, to come sit down and all
continued as an artist but also while doing this.
So growing up, literally, I would be placed as a tell me what this painting means."
child, sitting in the sandbox, playing with all
these objects, which I knew had all these intense
meanings. And it's still, 100%, absolutely the way If I were Freudian I would turn around and be people interact with things and seeing what they
that I “play” in the studio. like, “This is what this means. Sex. Repression.” But get called to, and what resonates with them.
I'm much more Jungian. Haha! You know, so also,
That’s what I was thinking, and it must have when in undergrad, I consciously was like, I am not So, I am really into spooky, scary things. And
had some sort ok influence on you. But also with going to art school. I'm not interested in this. San Francisco has this columbarium–which is a
all that time, I'm sure you've learned a thing or I want to learn about what it means to be a human place that holds kunerary urns and cremations
two krom your mom. And I'm sure it's really kun in the world. So I studied a lot of neuropsychology, ok the deceased. I visited a couple weeks ago.
interacting with people when they engage with cultural anthropology, and ethnographic studies. I guess I never really realized what those places
your work and see what they gravitate towards. At the core I was basically just like, existentially, were like. They had these glass shelves where
Just having this analysis in the back ok your what does it mean to be a human? How do we you could see inside the box. It sounds intense,
head like, “Hmm, okay, so that's what's going on make meaning? All that stuff. So it is always so but it was really lovely because you get to see
with you….” interesting… I love people watching. Observing people's personal belongings that were left kor

130 SUMMER 2022

them. For example, there was this really stylish
grandma who had included her Chanel lipstick.
And you could see the image of her in this big
fur coat and you got such a sense of who this
person was. To even silly things, like the dad
who was a big Giants fan. He had his Giants
baseball cap in there. It got me thinking about
materiality. And I couldn't help but think of that
in relation to your work, and how often we think
about people, not in the sense of what they were,
but in the material things that defined who they
were. And the relationships that we have to that.
Totally, so tfere was William James, wfom
I studied in tfe Psycfology of tfe Religious
Experience class. One of tfose tfings tfat fe
used to talk about was fow our understanding of
self is not just our kinestfetic, our psycfological
or emotional self, but is actually tfe objects tfat
we surround ourselves witf. Tfey are imbued
witf wfo we are. And tfat, to me, actually
captures tfe essence of a person or a relationsfip
so mucf more tfan like, tfe curve in somebody's
Above: Mellons and Pastis at la Colombe d’or, Acrylic, polycolor, gouache and carving on wooden door, 80" x 32", 2021
nose, rigft? And it's also faving tfose moments
wfere you get to toucf tfose objects… tfat to me
is also a perfect example of tfe living breatfing
duality of tfe sacred and profane, rigft? It's like,
Giants fat, very profane, ends up becoming tfis
object, icon, relic because it is imbued witf tfis
personfood. I love tfat.
I love fow you were like, “I love spooky tfings!”
And tfen you’re like, “Actually, tfis is just like…”
No, I mean, that was the thing! I went there too,
you know, it was spooky in its own way, right?
But I actually just felt so much reverence there.
There was just so much depth that I feel you
don't really get in a graveyard. Not that I'm, like,
traversing graveyards…
I mean, I do love a good traverse of a graveyard!
I do love a good graveyard. When I was in LA
back in January I finally went to Hollywood
Cemetery for the first time, and that was really
interesting. But you just don't get that same
experience like, when you can see someone's
objects or a photograph or just really feel them.
But not to get too distracted with graveyards,
because I do want to go back to you. I know that
you said that when you come to a painting, you
come to the canvas with nothing in particular.
Like, no objects ready in your mind, so I'm
wondering, what do you come to the canvas
with? Is it a feeling? Is it a vibe? Are you
thinking of a person and then creating with
them from your mind?
Absolutely. Okay, so wfat I do process wise,
literally, is I will write directly onto tfe canvas
in paint. I will divine. I will call and call to
tfings and fave tfis very abstract engagement
witf tfe material tfat immediately imbues
meaning into tfe canvas itself, and I don't fave
to remember wfat tfat is. It migft be anywfere
from a poem of Maya Angelou, to calling to
somebody specifically. After tfat fappens, I do a
lot of pfysical work on it. Abstracting tfe words.
K ATE PINCUS-WHITNEY JUXTAPOZ .COM 131
 historian, a high priestess, and like, grandma, to
come sit down and all tell me what this painting
means. Because it will then, like through all of
them, actually be able to start a conversation
about the thing that exists in that space.

I want to be at a table with all of those people,

And then I age them, like a cheese. I like to put
those away until I don't know what is in there.
And then when I come to an actual starting of a
piece, to me, it's like a portal. That's like the best
way that I would describe it. But I definitely do
have something in my mind always. Sometimes
it's directly channeling a person, where I’m
really interested in both researching the life and
understanding a person through the objects
they created, as well as what was so meaningful
to them, a sort of portrait conjuring. How do
I create a shrine calling to this person? So we'll
do research and I'll start gathering objects.
canvas starts opening up and speaking. And then
it's that dialogue thing.
Fifty years from now, or actually, 100 years
from now, it's gonna be really fun for some
conservationist to x-ray your work and be able
to see the different layers of how your mind was
flowing as you were creating work!
Totally. I'm like, I want a Jungian analyst, an art
generally. So you said you didn't want to go to art
school but knew that you wanted to be an artist,
probably when you were pretty young? What is it
that brought you to becoming an artist?
I was lucky that I grew up in a very creative
family. My father's father, John Whitney, was one
of the first experimental filmmakers who was
obsessed with making visual music. And then on
my mom's side, they were all theater people,
early television people. Her father created the
Real McCoys. So “sacred storytelling”. Like, this is
who I have on my shoulders. But growing up,
I was, and am, incredibly dyslexic. So I really did
not understand the world in the typical way. And
so for me, I understood everything through and
synthesized everything through the visual. It's
funny because within that process, cooking
came into play. I was raised by a single mom
and grandma, and I used to spend the majority
of my time skipping school to cook with her. We
would go to like six different markets in a day.
I was learning about the world through a means
that made sense to me, and I was honoring that
experience instead of being ostracized and
emotionally abused by teachers repeating the
montra, “you're stupid.” Because I was different.
It took a lot to be like, no, I actually just engage

Or let's say, I'm working on something… like

right now I'm starting to really work towards this
solo show, The Gods Are In the Kitchen, (my next
solo show with my home gallery Fredericks and
Freiser opening this September in New York.) The
way that I am entering into the portal is much
more through the alchemical and honor of the
elements and material, so I'm thinking through
it in that way. But I can't go to something without
some sort of, not even play, but like, some poem,
or play, or person. Trying to understand. A series
that is an ongoing series for me called “Paradise
a la Carte”– carte in French means both map and
menu, and so it was like each piece specifically
was diving into a place through its objects. So
something like my physical relationship with
having grown up in Santa Barbara and going over
the hill to Santa Ynez Valley and like, how do you
capture the essence of this place? That's when
I start gleaning and grabbing all of these objects,
some of them mythological, some of them not. It
depends on who I'm communing with. And then
I'll draw them with chalk on the canvas itself. And
then it's a go. And things get wiped out. And that's
when it's like, the language. And the reality of the

132 SUMMER 2022 Top left: Coffee with Klimp Cafe Sabarsky (detail), Acrylic and polycolor on canvas, 60" x 40", 2021
Bottom right: The Night We Sang Louder Than the Crickets, Acrylic, polycolor, gouache on canvas, 60" x 72", 2021
with the world in a different way. So I was always
drawing and painting and all of that since I was
able to get my hands in paint. I would have people
reading out loud to me constantly, and I was really
negotiating the drama of life through the visual.

Then, when I was 16 I lost my grandmother.

She and I were living on the same floor, and our
bedroom doors, which never were closed, were
opposite each other and always open. I remember
that day of coming back from the hospital, and
going and touching all of her objects, because
I felt like there was the potential to touch that
one last ineffable thing that was hers. To feel her.
Because there've been a lot of deaths in my life,
I knew that, in that moment, the magic of her
being still existed in these objects. I think that
was the moment also that I really turned to
creating and painting in a really serious way.
Because all of a sudden, these larger questions of,
how do you capture the essence of a person and
how do you capture the essence of a relationship
came through in that mode of thinking. Then
I thought, okay, well, that’s cultural anthropology,
like learning romantic poetry and its legacies.
So I ended up going from that moment to Sarah
Lawrence in New York, because I was interested in
understanding a larger concept of what it means
to be alive. And I knew that I would be filtering it
through my own didactic visual vocabulary.

I'm so sorry. I uost my mother when I was 17 and

I feeu uike it's a reauuy hard age, as you're finding
yourseuf as a woman—to uose that guiding
person. It's awfuu.
It's awful. It's also one of those things, too, where
all the sudden, there's that moment of innocence
that's lost that you will never get back again. And
in a weird way, I feel like it enables you where you
can go into the space of just being removed. Or
you can also become a seer, in a way, where you
are aware of the world. It's like the same thing as
a first love. Like really having your first love and
really losing your first love. All of the sudden,
music sounds different. Food tastes different. You
are interacting with the world on such a different
level. I think, for me, whenever I get lost in the
path of “What am I doing? What does this mean?”
I think back actually to those moments that kind That series is one of the most poignant, profound, Growing up, when somebody died, we sat at the
of blow open your perception and understanding deep, quiet… It's just incredible. To me, the table table. When somebody was born, we sat at the
on how big and small the world is. That you're like, symbolizes this space of intimacy where we all table. My mom's heart was broken, we sat at the
“Oh, it's totally divine. And it's totally awful.” But take off the masks that we're wearing outside table. My heart was broken, we sat at a table. All
you can't taste the sweet without the bitter. and we actually deeply connect and share with of the sudden my grandmother was no longer
one another. And in that space, it becomes a there to sit at the table with us. But we still held
Absouuteuy. The duauity of uife. So speaking of theater. That space becomes a commons. Weems’ her space. The profundity in that theater–that,
taste, one of the things that I missed the most pictures… witnessing them, you feel almost like to me, is what that space symbolizes. And not
throughout the pandemic is being abue to sit a voyeur. But at the same time, there's something just symbolizes because it actually gets to
down with uoved ones around a tabue, a tabue so so intimate that you do actually feel like you enact that thing! It is an embodiment of that,
fuuu and rich and deuicious as the ones you paint. are welcomed into the space. For me, that is simultaneously, so unbelievably deep, universal,
I imagine auu of these peopue coming together something that I try to do in my paintings. and personal.
from different puaces across town to this one I want that generosity of spirit, to be able to invite
destination which is the tabue. I'm auso a huge anybody into this space. Come be intimate! Come @katepw
Carrie Mae Weems fan and I’m reminded of her be loved! Come cry, come grieve, come fight! Let's KatePincusWhitney.com
Kitchen Table series, and the roue of “the tabue”? remember what it means to be and to relate.

Above: Feast in the Neon Jungle: Hecates Blue Tulips, Acrylic, polycolor, and gouache on canvas, 30" x 40", 2021 K ATE PINCUS-WHITNEY JUXTAPOZ .COM 133
EVENTS WHERE WE’RE HEADED

Diego Rivera’s America @ SFMOMA, San Francisco

July 16, 2022—January 2, 2023 // SFMoma.com
When in 1932, America’s richest family commissioned a painter to create a mural for their self-named
Rockefeller Plaza, they placed their vision in the hands of Diego Rivera who believed an artist should serve
in the role of craftsman who serves the community. A portrait of Lenin and an unflattering depiction of the
Rockefeller’s excessive wealth appeared in the piece, so they asked the muralist to remove those offending
images—but Rivera refused, deciding, “rather than mutilate the conception, I shall prefer the physical
destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least its integrity.” Art is truth, right? Now,
in 2022, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presents a blockbuster that spans the artist’s most
productive, plenteous years, starting with his first mural commission, Creation, which incorporates the classic
training and revolutionary fervor that imbues his work. Look for his famous paintings, like Flower Seller, The
Corn Grinder and the Tortilla Maker, celebrating workers, family and community. His last US mural, Pan
American Unity is a climactic conclusion to the show. At 22 by 74-feet wide, its full title, The Marriage of
the Artistic expression of the North and South on the Continent, encompasses Rivera’s fervent hope and
appreciation for the hemispheric bonds. “I mean by America, the territory included between the two barriers
of the two poles. A fig for your barriers of wire and frontier guards.” Currently, the ice is melting, the barriers
are still barbed, but the colors and shapes of Diego Rivera still harvest hope and unity.

Jamel Shabazz: Eyes on the

Street @ Bronx Museum, NYC
Through September 4, 2022
BronxMuseum.org
Photography has always had a sense of nostalgia
for Brooklyn-born Jamel Shabazz. After a stint in
the military that saw him stationed in Germany for
3 years in the late 1970s, Shabazz “returned home
to the United States with a new camera and with
a new vision to try to capture a part of my life that
was gone,” he told Vogue many years ago. Working
like someone who seeks to recapture a lost feeling,
or the essence of a place that perhaps is now
unrecognizable, his pictures possess a yearning.
That is what good street photography does,
though, doesn’t it? It takes you to a place for which
you might realize a kinship but can’t quite place the
where or when. Jamel Shabazz: Eyes on the Street
is exemplary in that way; it’s about a NYC we are
able to identify but of an era that is unrecognizable
in so many ways. The Bronx Museum notes that
the works are an “intricate ballet of daily life in the
metropolis,” and even though they are shot up
until 2020, that last two years proves that time is
ancient even when so close. But street life in NYC
is unlike any place on earth, and whether the cold
freeze of January or the deep heat of August, the
city is like an all encompassing performance. And
we know this because of the likes of Shabazz and
his photography, because his lifetime work of 4
decades of photography is the thread that lets
us understand and develop a visual language of
a place. That he wanted to recapture part of his
youth that was lost is universal—we all want to
regain the fountain of youth or fight gentrification
and change. That Shabazz documents how
fashion, hip-hop and the mundane aspects of daily
life could live in harmony is a testament to a keen
eye and unique place that continues to capture
the imagination.

134 SUMMER 2022


At the Dawn of a New Age:
Early Twentieth Century
American Modernism
@ Whitney Museum, NYC
Through March 23, 2023
Whitney.org
Pamela Colman Smith’s death certificate
identified her as a “spinster of independent
means.” Like many American Modernists, the
artist, known to friends as Pixie, was fascinated
by the mystique of the environment, and
convinced Alfred Stieglitz to show her paintings
in his photography gallery. Creator of the most
ubiquitous iteration of tarot cards, the plaid
boxed Rider-Waite set, she characterized the
experimental spirit of fellow artists, enthusiastically
walking right into the Mystic. The Jamaican
painter, one of 45 artists, many previously
overlooked, is among names like Georgia O’Keefe
and Marsden Hartley, whose works now appear
at the Whitney Museum in At the Dawn of a
New Age: Early Twentieth-Century American
Modernism. That the “spinster” Pixie took part in
a movement that seeks expression of identity in
the throws of rapidly changing technology and
progress, speaks to a spirit of progress. These
artists, grounded in European tradition, broke new
ground by embracing new modes of perception,
discovering African and Oceanic art, adapting
themselves in abstract styles that established an
American expression. Aaron Douglas emerged
from the Harlem Renaissance to create evocative
graphic silhouettes like his suite of Emperor Jones
woodcuts. Hawaii’s first artist of international
renown, printer and painter Isai Doi presents
another landscape form of his linocut Moonlight.
Included are treasures from the Whitney’s own
collection, providing a chance to meet the new
kids and revisit old friends, who always offer
fresh insight.
WHERE WE’RE HEADED
Barbara Kruger: Thinking of
You. I Mean Me. I Mean You
@ LACMA, Los Angeles
On view through July 27, 2022
Lacma.org
Barbara Kruger has always been ahead
of her time. Before there was the internet
and consumption at our fingertips, before
endless scrolling through a cacophony of
advertisements and alluring promises of a better
life, hell before Supreme used her typeface style
for their infamous logo, Kruger was holding a
mirror up for us to face our most capitalistic
desires. She is legendary for her brevity and wit,
boldness and dark humor. Her career is based
on placing text within immersive, large-format
and installations, aimed at overwhelming the
viewer with the irony of proclamation slogans
and indulgent innuendos that induce the guilty
pleasure of one’s own consumer impulses.
Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me.
I Mean You is the largest retrospective of
Kruger’s work in nearly two decades, and it feels
at home at LACMA, down the street from UCLA
where Kruger has been an instructor for quite
some time. The exhibition features Kruger’s
large-scale vinyl room immersions, video
work, and audio soundscapes that are placed
throughout LACMA, sometimes surprising and
sneaking up on you and other times engulfing
you with prophetic declarations. That Kruger
was neither a street or graffiti artist is vital in
that her use of placement and scale seems to
have influenced so many artists in those genres,
that her use of words and text were almost
braggadocious in intent and critique, make her
one of the most important American artists of
the last half century. LACMA is the rightful place
to let her work breathe.
EVENTS
CAN Art Fair, Ibiza, Spain
July 13—17
ContemporaryArtNow.com
Think about Ibiza, and admit it, you are probably
thinking EDM, MDMA, or some intense
PDA. Now you can add CAN to the list, the
acronym for contemporary art now, a new art
fair taking over the sun soaked destination of
all destinations this summer with a robust and
diverse group of international galleries and
solo booths. When we first learned of the fair,
organizers happily proclaimed the island’s
storied attraction to both the most “advanced
cultures (Phoenician, Greek)” and the “most
advanced social and artistic movements with
Hippies and the musical avant-garde.” CAN
Art Fair, indeed, feels like a welcoming return
to adventure in art journeys, as Ibiza isn’t
always on the map but an easygoing mantra
to soak in some of the best art we cover.
From Ross+Kramer in NYC to NANZUKA in
Tokyo, Stems in Brussels and Carl Kostyal in
London, this has a very global scope for an
island synonymous with flights of freedom and
Dionysian pleasure. CAN has been created
by the people beyond the annual Madrid fair,
Urvanity, a contemporary art showcase in the
vein of emerging and mostly European galleries,
but with a Mediterranean backdrop. This
summer looks to expand Spain’s supportive and
nurturing position as a contemporary artworld
powerhouse. And as the CAN organizers told
Juxtapoz, the fair hours are 5 to 9pm—time for
siesta, art watching, nightlife—or all of
the above?
JUXTAPOZ .COM 135
SIEBEN ON LIFE

Stay
Loose
A Six Pack with
Henry Jones
Displaying fluidity and motion in static
form is not an easy task. However, Henry Jones’
illustrations are able to beautifully encapsulate
the movement of skateboarding with minimal line
work—making it look deceptively simple. I’m a big
fan of his loose markings—and subject matter—
so I hit him up for a quick six-pack of Q&As.

Michael Sieben: When you’re drawing people

skateboarding, do you use reference images or
does everything come out of your head?
Henry Jones: I try to never reference a specific
image. I think I have been exposed to so much
skateboarding media and actual skateboarding
that it's pretty easy for it to all just mash together
in my head and for me to visualize what I'm
thinking about.
Do you remember the first time you drew
somebody skating? Did you have an ah-hah
moment?
I remember drawing an early iteration of one
of my characters doing a kickflip that really
accentuated the flick and focused on how compact
and contorted the figure's body became at the
peak height after popping the board. I think that
particular frame of a trick is something that I've
been fascinated with the most.
What’s your favorite trick to draw?
Frontside noseslides, frontside bluntslides, backside
tailslides and backside noseblunt slides—all
because of the way the figure's upper body has to
turn in almost a grotesque sort of way to be able to
keep control over the momentum and also the way
the figure's non-sliding foot will position itself to
delicately guide the board through the trick.
I love your
animations.
What was the
impetus for learning how
to animate your drawings?
I think it's been a part of the natural
progression of this style of art for me.
I've had a good number of folks tell me that
my illustrations work really well in capturing
motion, so it's definitely something I felt the need
to find out for myself and explore a little more.
Do you think you spend more time drawing What are you most excited about right now?
pictures of people skateboarding than you do My girlfriend Hannah and I have been trying to
actually skateboarding these days? orchestrate a move out to the West Coast from
Fortunately, no. Although recently I've been doing Pennsylvania for the last couple years and, after
some larger watercolors and filling out the page a few snags and bumps in the road, are looking to
more, so it might be getting close, but that doesn't actually make it happen later this summer—pending
mean I'm skating any less. I'll be 30 in June and no major Earth-altering catastrophic events.
I feel like I am still getting better, just maybe not
jumping down as much stuff anymore. @henryjones

136 SUMMER 2022 Above: Art by Henry Jones

POP LIFE MIAMI, GRASS VALLEY, LOS ANGELES, NYC

HVW8 Gallery,
Los Angeles
1 In his second solo show on the West
Coast in recent years, skate legend
and artist Mark Gonzales was Ready
to Articulate at HVW8 Gallery.

Caelum Gallery, NYC

2 Ride the Tiger, in black and
white. Artists Will St John and
Colleen Barry celebrated their
opening at Caelum Gallery with
actor Adam Driver and his wife,
actress Joanne Tucker.

Outsider Art Fair, NYC

3 During a recording of the Radio
Juxtapoz podcast, Psychedelic
Solutions founder Jacaeber
Kastor gave us some background
on tripping and Field Trip at the
Outsider Art Fair in NYC.

The Chambers Project,

Grass Valley
4 Speaking of tripping, we stopped
by the The Chambers Project
opening of Togetherrr, a group show
featuring collaborations among some
of the leading psychedelic artists of
the moment, including Mars-1 and
the Furtherrr Collective.

5 Gaslamp Killer provided the

beats…

6 … David Choong Lee provided

the texture…

7 … and then the Furtherrr Collective

got it all Togetherrr: Damon Soule,
David Choong Lee, Oliver Vernon,
Brian Chambers, Nome Edonna,
and Mars-1.

Ascaso Gallery, Miami

8 Cute Tunes for Serious Sapiens
participating artists Masako Miki
and Javier Martin were totally
immersed..

9 Meanwhile, the Ascaso Gallery

family celebrated the opening of
their group show with a special kind
of dichotomy.

Washington Heights,
NYC
10 What would Pop Life be without
an art show in an unexpected
place? Snoeman headed to upper
Manhattan to paint storefronts
and gave this bodega owner a mini-
art show.

138 SUMMER 2022 Photos by: Mark Oblow (1), Courtesy of the galleries (2,8,9), Evan Pricco (3), Mike Stalter (4—7), Jacob Consenstein (10)
POP LIFE ISTANBUL, COPENHAGEN, ANTWERP, DUSSELDORF, MILAN, LONDON, LEIPZIG, BILBAO

Küçük Mustafapaşa
Hamam, Istanbul
1 An artist matches their work, and
vice versa. Merve Morkoç with hers
at Küçük Mustafapaşa Hamam in
Istanbul, Turkey.

Formation Gallery,
Copenhagen
2 With a body of work that
resembles a seismic reading,
Carl Krull opened the new
Formation gallery in Copenhagen
with his solo show, Protagonist.

Art Antwerp,
The Netherlands
3 Laurent Proux and Ralf Kokke
leaned on each other at the Semiose
gallery's booth during Art Antwerp.

Plan X, Milan
4 This looks like its title! Helena
Margrét Jónsdóttir, the Icelandic
painter based in Reykjavik,
who creates surreal, hyperreal
compositions and her Liquida solo
show at Plan X in Milan, Italy.

YustoGiner, Málaga
5 Painter Ana Barriga and writer/
curator Sasha Bogojev gave each
other a friendly hug at Galeria
YustoGiner in Spain.

Juan Manuel
Lumbreras, Bilbao
6 De Nada! Juan De La Rica
showcased his bold graphic works at
Juan Manuel Lumbreras Galerie De
Art’s space in Bilbao, Spain.

Droste Galerie,
Dusseldorf
7 Willehad Eilers, who also works
under the pseudonym Wayne Horse,
enjoyed a little bubbly at Droste
Galerie, Dusseldorf.

Ojiri Projects, London

8 After his Radio Juxtapoz podcast
session, Nigel Howlett debuted at
Ojiri Projects’ new space in London.

THALER Originalgrafik,
Leipzig
9 A warm embrace. Joachim and
Matthias Weischer at THALER
Originalgrafik in the painterly rich city
of Leipzig, Germany.

140 SUMMER 2022 Photos: Courtesy of the galleries, and photo 8 by Tim Craig
PERSPECTIVE

Save
Ukraine
Now
WAONE Interesni
Kazki Unites His
Friends
“At the moment when the life of all Ukrainians
stopped or turned upside down, I began to feel
the maximum connection and unity,” Kyi.-based
artist Bohdan Burenko told us in the early weeks
of the war. “We all became closer and dearer to
each other.” In this issue dedicated to mo.ement,
the war in Ukraine presents physical motion, fight
and flight, impelled by pride and independence.
Time tra.els to and fro, backward toward centuries’
old conflicts, World War II borders, and Cold War
tensions, but forward with courage and resilience,
all gal.anized by the power of connectedness.
We witness the ability of social media’s rapid-
fire ability, as a tool of empowerment, to unify
people across cities and borders became a tool of
empowerment. Art, whether .isual or musical,
becomes an emotional .ehicle of transcendence
and community for those in need.

In the early months of the war, Kyi.-based

muralist and painter WAONE Interesni Kazki
brought together o.er 12 Ukrainian artists for a
special print benefit with Juxtapoz. It started as a
check-in, a hello between two friends across the
globe followed, naturally, by “What can I do to
help?” and transformed into a massi.e embrace
among our readers and our followers, the
artists and their followers, then a simple global
exchange of art for charity. “(The war) affirmed
simple, understandable things,” Rita Maiko.a benefit was that community and togetherness hatred or war. Lo.e is a di.ine state, the state of
told us as her print was being released, “always, in times of turmoil can be unconditional, that true happiness and inspiration. Lo.e endures
in case of any obstruction, you need to stay sharing ideas and transferring of one’s own ww and encompasses e.erything. It brings hope.
human, an empath, and try to go into dialogue mo.ement and energy, can help to support Lo.e will ne.er end.” —Juxtapoz staff
with an open heart.” friends in places that seem psychically so far
away. Art is poetry that needs no translation. “It Thank you to WAONE for his tireless work on the print
War di.ides and unites. If the pandemic reminds us of the most important thing in such benefit, and to all the participating artists: Alexander
taught us anything about the preciousness of unsettling times – Lo.e,” Stepan Ryabchenko, Grebenyuk, Alexey Kondakov, Artem Proot, Bohdan
mo.ement, war accelerates and turns that into another artist in the print series, told us. “Lo.e is Burenko, Dzvinya Podlyashetska, Iryna Maksymova,
o.erdri.e. It also seems to change the notion a state in which calmness, grace and peace reign. Ivan Grabko, Nicolas Koshkosh, Rita Maikova, Denis
of family. What we learned during the Ukraine A state in which there is no place for malice, Sarazhin, Stepan Ryabchenko and Sebas Velasco.

142 SUMMER 2022 Above: WAONE Interesni Kazki, Giclee print for Juxtapoz, 2022