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