http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/ en Copyright 2009 Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:36:13 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification TRUDI: You wrote me once, "I honestly really can’t differentiate between myself and my work - it's just one big thing - the work affects and changes me and vice versa. I think communication, making art, for me is a gift I am making of myself to the world. Because it's hard to connect, but somehow I am learning to do it through my work." I feel this is a really great starting point, for me It reminds me when Chris Lipomi said that his work was the hug to the world that he couldn't give and also Kippenberger and the distinctions between his life and art, and the figuring out of this is the interesting part of his work (for me). I see both these sentiments in your work too, something that one can't express in the moment, but want to with every molecule. Maybe that's what makes your work so intense, but if you’re this lightning rod where do you draw the line between life and art? What is precious? What is sacred? JEN: Ok, it's on, Yo. also, just to begin, I want to say that the interview process interests me a lot as a format. I love how Godard uses it in his films as like a way of just getting to drop philosophy. creating dialogue in a formal sense. I am always wishing that would happen more in life, not just small talk, but big issues. someone just coming up to you in a cafe and asking you about deep stuff... I really hate small talk actually. I am not very good at it either. I am more assured as a performer than as a social being. I can accept the awkwardness in art better. But with the issue at hand, self acceptance is at the core of my work, which in turn is really about learning to love. I think all communication is the desire to love and be loved. We were talking about that Mother show earlier - there's the whole Freudian thing about the mother, and I feel that. I think my difficulties in connecting with my mother are at root of my wanting to connect with everyone else in the world. ok, ok, so to answer your question more specifically though: I guess I don’t draw the line between life and art. or maybe I do. sometimes I see stuff and I think - that's not art. I remember thinking that terry Richardson stuff was pretty lame in the context of art. but at the same, it turned me on. I was confused about it - I kept going back and forth. I mean, in a sense, he's doing something similar to me - cannibalizing his desires and intimate experiences. but it seemed kind of shallow. which is not to say that I think sex has to be shallow - because I totally see sex as an extension of the spiritual. but anyway, I believe that we create our own meaning in the world, so "go with the stress" as far as precious - truth, passion, love, total personal investment, art, change, humanness the human ability to change is pretty sacred to me. I strongly believe in this. that we all have this amazing potential. and it is up to us to realize it. But no one can make or do it for you. we have influences and friends to help all the time, but one has to find things themselves somehow. lemme bring it back into art a bit more - the reason I prefer Sophie Calle to Tracy Emin is related to this idea of human potential. to me, Tracy Emin (though I have not seen her videos) from what I get out of it, is just kind of wallowing in the pain. and there is a lot of truth in the pain of human experience. I feel like my earlier work was more like this, but there was more humor in it than hers and more cultural reference. anyway, I agree, pain is one of the things that binds us - suffering is something we all share. this is kind of where Buddhism begins - we all suffer and we all want to be happy. but I feel like she is not trying to do anything with it. it's just like we're all fucked, we're all pathetic. that's life. whereas Sophie Calle takes painful experiences and other kinds of experiences and transforms them through her work. she uses the work as a catalyst for change, a tool for survival and a way of facing her fears, breaking out I called my work a Swiss army knife in my last artist statement. meaning I really need it for survival, and that it has many different functions in my life. it's a tool to me, for sure TRUDI: I know what you mean but at the same time Calle uses a more intelligent language. Emin’s like reading the tabloids and it makes you feel dirty and not really want to take it further, or just not care, however she got to where she is and her learning what to call art is the fun thing for me, I think too that Richardson works like that with someone like Koons( who you hate right Oh well. As much as I would love to talk about other things than just how the feels to be made or what you need in it, the notion still hovers, and for the most part ignored in art texts. JEN: so, yeah, I totally agree - Emin is tabloid style. and after I said it I felt a little overly harsh for saying her work is entirely about pain. I think there is more than that. She is doing a different kind of self-acceptance than me, one which is very unprettied up which is brave, but my fear is in people becoming lazy or not taking responsibility for their ability to tap into their own potential. like only focusing on the negative maybe? but I also feel a desire to support peoples' ability to resist judgment of themselves. I don’t know, these are complicated examples for sure. I do hate Jeff Koons, but after writing about him, thinking about him more I have to admit the poignancy and validity in some of this work. I like that silver bunny, I like the basketballs in the glass cases. I am not sure what I think of the porn stuff. he certainly was exposing himself by doing that work, and I admire that kind of bravado. I get sick of porn being the only reference point for sex though. I feel like there could be more than that. I have done a few drawings about that but not lately. I think it's something I might try again someday. I also have this idea for an installation, that probably is far in the future that's like a homemade Chinese food restaurant in the front, city-style, with glass window and stuff and all those pictures of the different food, except the food would be all the food I eat with like a flower resting near by, in that Chinese food sign style. then in the back would be a peep show style set-up and I would be there all day in a mirrored room dancing. I wonder if this could ever really happen? - it would certainly be intense. I think it would differ a lot from a real peep show in that I would be more vulnerable than a real stripper. I don’t think I would get naked either, though I have a lot of experience being nude in public - I was a figure model for drawing classes and privately for artists from age 19 - about 24. I really enjoyed it as a job. I liked that I was being paid to be myself in some way. I didn’t have to pretend to be interested in anything I didn’t care about. TRUDI: You sent me a letter from Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse, with LeWitt saying to learn to say “Fuck You” to the world and try to make some bad work. Do you do this? Where does the bad work go? JEN: Ok, bad work. toughey. I certainly make bad work sometimes and I do throw things out sometimes. I guess I don’t usually try to make something bad, but I do, do stuff in which I try to suspend judgment. I have a sketch book now for the first time in a long time. it is a really interesting sketchbook actually – it’s called "sketch book with voices" and was published sometime in the early 80s by Eric Fischl and Jerry Saltz before he was a writer and was more of a curator. each page in the book has a quote or an idea or an assignment from a different artist - lots of big names (Vito Acconci, Lyda Benglis, Louise Bouresois) and some of whom I don’t know. Actually, the quotes are culled from interview that Saltz did with all these artists - that's how the book was made. anyway, I feel like these, in the sketchbook, are some of my best drawings or at least have a totally different spontaneity/lack of self-consciousness, and it is because the sketchbook tricks you into not giving a fuck. so, no I don’t necessarily really try to make bad work, but I try to suspend judgment until something is finished. I am making a painting right now that has sculptural elements and I’m very unsure of it. I feel like it's either the ugliest painting I’ve ever made or the best. it's almost done, so I’ll see how I feel. sometimes letting things sit a long time helps me too, like working on a drawing and then procrastinating finishing it for months until I don’t feel precious about it anymore, and then I can finish with a feeling of freedom and it usually ends up working. or bringing things back from the brink of failure is good too. one of the best studio visits I ever had was with this artist Olav Westphalen who I invited to be a visiting artist while I was in grad school. He was very attuned to my aesthetic because he worked in a similar vein. His advice was that, “ideas don’t even matter very much”. he had studied with Allan Kaprow when he was a student. he advised trying to just pick something at random out of the phone book and make a project out of it. I still haven’t done this but I’d like to. I can see that it would be a way of hijacking our own desire to make a finished product and to bring it back to process because it would have to be exploratory, but I also think it would end up still fitting - that one's uniqueness would come through by the way you decided to approach it. So that when Sol Lewitt says to make bad work, I think he really means to find a way to suspend judgment and trust yourself, which I think is tricky but important; something I am beginning to learn to do. Actually, I think this is why my video and audio work has been successful, because I have the feeling that I don’t know what I'm doing, I'm not very trained in these areas and so I kind of don’t know how it will turn out until it's done. TRUDI: It's funny how you said that "porn is the only reference for sex" cause even Godard said that porn had changed sex, cause porn has to show the genitals farther apart, I mean even soft core sex in a pg-13 movie is more realistic than porno, but at the same time we grimace at if we've had sex, and if you haven't you're like " ah shit, when I have sex, I have to play some soft R&B in the background and light a bunch of candles, I really think this is a big difference between pubescent boys and girls, the boys get porno from older brothers and random old dudes that shows them its alright to fuck in a bus stop, and maybe girls want some cliché just as bad(I have no idea), but the option is maybe closer to day time soaps. I really don't know if there's a solution, maybe just experience leading to an ideal, but besides youth always remaining youth, it changes so fast, our reminiscence is nothing that Calle or Emin hasn't done for another generation. JEN: yeah, I mean I don’t want to come down as anti-porn - I think porn has a time and place and it can be erotic or exciting. it's kind of like hip-hop in some way - totally ridiculous (I like this phrase you used, the ridiculous meter...), there's an aspect of it that you cant really defend intellectually but it can produce a real response in a certain way. even knowing that it's not real, or that it has almost nothing to do with the internal experience of sex. if you have the intelligence to know it's a genre, then you can kind of go with it, and compare it against the rest of the genre, like westerns or horror movies. it's all persona and surface, but playing with that can be fun. but I feel like in art, there could be more possibilities, people could look into sex further than that, though then there's the whole thing that porn becomes real by the fact that it is a real part of peoples' sex lives in contemporary culture. it certainly influences us, for sure. but also to touch on the female fantasy thing - I hope that all women do not want that soap opera fantasy thing. I certainly feel more repulsed by chick flicks, lifetime TV station and women's magazines than by porn. they are far more insidious and fucked up because it is under the guise of choice or whatever - you know? it's so pussed out, so complacent and lame. and even the few porn movies made by female directors that are out there are gross in that same way - like they work in a romantic plot line and a Fabio lookin' dude in a pirate shirt... TRUDI: I would also say that picking a page out of the phone book is interesting, I mean thinking about this New York show, and artists like you and I, we're a recycled culture, but we're not even in the forefront of that, so I have been making redrawings and then rephotographs(which I did not show) of Richard Prince’s 1977 work and how this happens simultaneously as Richard Hell's and Television's first record, and how Malcolm Mclaren appropriates this and then goes farther. For me this is about the death of images. I don't know… how do you feel about this recycling/arranging? It’s about a recognition, besides the obvious exercise factor, an acknowledgement, that anything we "create" has already been touched upon. JEN: I guess I don’t really think in those terms - the death of images - in art. I feel it in popular culture more - how every freaking movie that comes out is a remake and stuff like that. I know that Duchamp and Warhol and prince and all them maybe were trying to have it be about the death of something, the emptiness of it all, but I really don’t read it in that way. I have a positive reading of all of those people that's not about death - I feel something transcendent in their work. Duchamp for instance, was so exciting to me when I first learned about him - the idea that anything could be art, that it was more about your framing, your ideas, your perception, your mind, than creating a perfect object, though maybe in his mind it was more about saying "fuck you" to something. I think Richard Prince may be a deeply cynical person, but there is still a lot of feeling in the work. I feel moved when I look at it. it's in mourning perhaps, definitely there is a lot of sadness in Prince's work, and I feel something very human about it. I mean advertising is all about human desires, it's so wrapped up in primal psychological shit. and I guess death is like the definition of humanness, but I don’t believe in the death of art or images. the main themes in art, the ones of real importance are always going to be the same - life, death, love, sex, war, etc., but each person is a unique entity despite a homogenized cultural experience, these things seep into us but we are all seeing them in different ways and it’s filtered thru our unique personal experiences of the world and personal histories. I mean as long as there are things to express, how can there be a death of images? I guess part of my work has to do with subverting the emptiness of popular culture - I think there are certainly many pockets of realness in it - (karaoke for instance - is totally remaking what has been done already, but putting your own unique feeling and life into it) I am playing those parts up or re-inserting sincerity into things that lost it. so I guess, in a sense I am agreeing with you that yes, the basic underlying themes have been touched on since the cave paintings, but that doesn't make them lose the need to be expressed. maybe it underscores how much we need to express these things. TRUDI: I know what you’re saying, but I also think you are looking very literally. I mean you are using other people’s images and words in your work, as am I. we are arrangers, we’re not painting or performing or drawing from something new. This is the death, there’s no new language. The artists you mentioned, the fact that we know their names is because they have done something different, but starting with Duchamp, I mean the dude retired from painting and then came back with the ready-made. After him there has been little to do in the “big/meta” art picture without just arranging things, unless you are just carving a niche, be it making very specific paintings or some other type of small place in art, I feel that this is what lead, and created the room for conceptual art, and later for artists that specifically developed themselves as a product. You know like I said before in talks, “identity artists”, now I feel like we’re shifting between “cleverist’s” and “artist-as-explorers”, the latter hopefully being the more lasting choice because it entails more dialogue, more criticism in the work, and probably more work. That said, I think both are a product of art schools, I don’t know though, you came from a big fancy grad program how has this manifested? JEN: ok, I see what you mean - I can get a little sidetracked with my own agenda. when I was thinking about it more and allowing myself to accept that idea of a death, it made me think of those early photo appropriators as performing imagistic autopsy. Sherrie Levine was the most extreme of that set. but you cant really sustain that level of appropriation. it's an end game. and I don’t want it to end and I think that neither did she, because eventually she pulled back from that extremism. so if there was a death, then the generations afterwards are all like Dr. Frankensteins - re-combining and re-animating the leftover parts. But I’d like to say, though it's hard to imagine what form it would take, that there could still be big innovations of some kind. Thinking about innovations in the future, I see hybrid forms as a big thing and possibly a re-investigation of the Beuys' ideas about social sculpture. He created a lot of dialogue and he was an amazing artist, but I don’t think he really realized his social sculpture idea. I wonder what he would think of YouTube and things like this. Perhaps his ideas of art as a revolutionary social force could still be possible, though it would certainly be an uphill battle. I feel like once I work thru some more of my personal stuff, I may become more interested in actively engaging the public realm more. I've always been intrigued by it, but it's a very hard space to work in. and most public art is pretty crappy. it's very vulnerable place for art and very difficult to get people to notice anything. I like how David Hammons uses public space - private, un-publicized performances. anyway, technology might be another avenue for innovation, but I’m not sure how that would work, I imagine it more gimmicky than conceptually innovative, but it's hard to know before it happens. I like this distinction you make between “cleverist’s” and “artist-as-explorers”, sometimes it can be a tricky distinction. sometimes people act like they are exploring but then really it's very formulaic and flippant, which doesn’t interest me very much. so how has my grad school education manifested? On a personal level, I really needed the time to focus on my work and kind of dive into it more fully. I definitely matured as an artist during those two years. I strengthened/clarified my philosophy of what I am trying to do through doing it all the time and talking about it all the time with lots of different people, some of whom disagreed with my point of view. Critiques, class discussion, writing about the work and having a lot of studio visits all helped in that way. I remember having a pretty positive 1st critique in grad school but even so I was on the verge of tears near the end because they were saying that they wanted more out of me and I didn’t know what that meant initially. Grad school toughened me up a lot. By the end, I could take criticism and decipher whether it was useful or not. I try to look at criticism and take it seriously, but sometimes people have their own agendas and it may not always be congruent with your own. anyway, I had a better inner barometer of success by the end. It's really great and helpful to have honest criticism - it helps to move you forward - sometimes people are unwilling to be honest once you are out of the school context, and some people don’t want to hear it, but I like it now, especially when I know it's where I need to go. But, I don’t think everyone needs grad school and I imagine if you had a good artist peer group and enough discipline you could create something comparable on your own. but yes, grad school does approach the work from the point of view of how to make it better and move it forward. I think it's essential to keep that beginners mind through out one's entire career though.]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2007/12/jen_makes_art.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2007/12/jen_makes_art.html Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:36:13 -0800 Annie: How is your process conducive to the style of art you make? Meaning, why is the reflexive solo time necessary for your honesty with the work? Matt: I mean we all have our thing right? I mean Jona (YACHT) works best when he is surrounded by everything, making stuff with people around him, always moving, ect. And you have a guy like Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver and directed Barfly, who never writes a page of a movie script until he has told the whole story millions of times to strangers to the point that he can hold their attention from beginning to end. Whatever, I guess for me, it's the headspace of honesty, also making things and seeking approval, or distraction, whatever that comes from being around others, makes myself a mascot. You know what I mean? It limits yourself to an audience. I'm not those dudes, and I feel horrible if I'm trying to "pitch" my work, let it be seen when you say it's done, the rough drafts aren't precious. That said I've always been drawn to the ascetic life, it feels like it has something and if a work for me, or a series of work, has any value in the world its what's unique about me, what I get from myself, I want the work to be entertaining, but that's not my primary concern. If you spend enough time with anything your mind makes in-jokes and loopholes and connections, and you don't even need a bus and acid. I feel that the people I've respected for any length of time have constantly challenged themselves in a way to please themselves. I'm no exception. I'm an editor, and I need my time, at least to figure out the automatic parts that I allow by not being precious with a mark. go for broke, give it all away, if you love it let it leave. The other way my work is tied in to solo time is that, it's a created/fabricated/fictional identity, of which, that if I made the kind of work that my hand and my body and my mind make without spending so much time and labor and heartache with, I would be the douche bag everyone assumes the works creator is. There is so much behind my messes. I will say that is the most interesting thing about Jonathan Meese for me, his studio and house are so clean, and set for research, the life in public, with his art is more performance than his performances. I have to spend the time at least for me, so that I know the work, looking like it does (and honestly), is an iceberg Most under the water. Going back to my first response too, I am my work/I am the work, it was a huge decision to put my name on it rather than TRUDI, and since I work in a lot of mediums its about finding that work in regards to me, the references, the history of the medium, and the history of art. As an artiste' you're responsible for it all. I'm for sale. But, fuck it, we all are. side note, my elderly neighbor always said to me, "you get paid for the responsibility" whereas my father always said" you get paid for what you know, what you do, and what you put up with" Annie: Tell me what's behind your messes. This will go into the references you use. Explicate your imagery, what do you feel you are drawing from? Why are you attracted to certain artists? it's as though you have a compass directing you to personality of artists which in turn directs you to their process and their work. It's almost you use your canvases and then later your installations to write an ethnography focusing on artists in the art world. Do you think you are writing an ethnography of sorts? matt: I remember this anecdote about martin Kippenberger talking to his mother about moving around so much, and basically if he didn't his story wouldn't be complete, he was learning something from everyone and everyplace, and that was becoming him... that said, I’m a much different beast, I don't thrive on proximity. but I do think my interest in others, specifically artists and creative entities lies in their possibilities and the gaps/mistakes. I am very interested an anyone who takes it upon themselves to create objects within their being, in relation to the life, be it fabricated or not, that they present. This goes for musicians, filmmakers, engineers, whatever. It is an enormous weight, to make something in the vein of the history you love. Thinking about Kippenberger, I am alright with showing my learning process, showing what it does mean, to create the work that is me. generally speaking, I create visual works, and I would never dare to deny the countless inspirations I have received. Be it Elke, Beuys, my third grade teacher, Rodney Graham, Joel Mesler, my friends, what what. Recently in my time alone, I have been discovering new ways to make work and I think as those see the light of day my work will become less visually dependent on others, however the process, these aren't studies, they're fully illustrated footnotes, is important enough, they have a place. To me Godard's Histories du Cinema are amazing he both critiqued film and made a film with other films. that's fucking bold, if I can find placement through my work for work, be it GG Allin or whoever, then I will die a happy man. the world moves fast, and if in theory art provides those pauses, that we get to reflect in, then I will be happy to examine a personage, an identity, a work or body of... in the pause that I take and give. that said, I think of the references as footnotes, we're writing an essay on what it means to be alive and thinking about it. Annie: I think that's a truly beautiful and sensitive perspective. When you consider someone viewing these footnotes how do you interact with them translating your work? Think about past methods of interpretation and the respect given to words, not confronting definitions but layering more and more meanings on top. Presently we approach interpretation in a different mode, especially within art, Sontag explains that interpretation can be reactionary, stifling..."the effusion of interpretations of art today poisons our sensibilities." She goes on, "...interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world--in order to set up a shadow world of 'meanings'...In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its context and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, comfortable." Do you think the simple act of trying to uncover your layers of reference is relevant to appreciating the moments you have frozen? Or do you agree with Sontag, the philistine, (or smugly conventional) approach to art is cowardly or presumptuous? I guess the best way for me to think about this and tie it in with making the work and being with the work after it's done is to think a figure like Bobby Fisher. (But Sontag is a good one too, being the way she attacked her work changed our collective mind, and the fact that she was incredibly outspoken and ripe with personal criticism unrelated to her writings) Real lovers of chess, study fishers games, his moves the timing, whatever whatever. To them chess means something, they breathe that shit in. they are able to separate the art from the artist, and that’s where a tradition and respect of craft plays. But then you have the homeboys who are more interested in the scope of fisher, and his games are more amazing because of what he did publicly, and that forms the thoughts and meta-metaphors. feel it. To me...I do have a respect for craft, and be that a brush stroke, time contemplating, sitting in front of a keyboard putting together words or setting up a garden is nice, that's a start, however art is this thing that there is no winner and so the longer a piece of work or an artist is in our heads is the testament of that beast so writing fulfills a cycle, especially highly critical criticism, because artists, Godard is the best at this, can make responses, and then we all become pools for reflection. we become conscious in the pauses. And as far as other looking at my footnotes, I make the work I want to see, so if I saw references to crass in another’s work I’d be psyched, but you don't have to get it, hopefully the time spent with the pieces show, and one can if nothing else go, "damn, this dude spent a lotta time on this stupid fucking drawing" there's no complete answer only arguments right? if we keep talking about Sontag we give her credit, validity. and if we keep talking about mc Escher the same thing happens. Annie: Do you feel that dialogue is helpful for your work? Put interpretation aside and consider conversations. If you make what you would like to see in others work, then how does your work take on validity to others? I think it's the conversation, like you noted about Sontag, she has credit due to us even mentioning her ideas. Is this conversation presently offering you validity? First off running the space, TRUDI, has been the best art school ever, I think dealers, if they have it in them, can make the best work, second best being people that don’t limit themselves in terms of production and thought. So… I have an artist/a friend like Ami Tallman, that just make drawing so that there is a dialogue, I mean she could make the most fucking expensive sculpture instillations what-have-you, but she chooses to make drawings because people are more likely to talk with her about them. Or at least just talk about them. I have inherited this from Ami, that’s my whole accessibility kick, I want to be engaging, and I love a dialogue and inherently that’s why I use more references outside of art than inside, because I prefer talking about many things. But in general I feel that most artists receive is detrimental to there work, because its hard to talk about ideas, so instead you get opinions, and there’s no right answer to that shit, that’s why people form cliques, crews, etc. so they have this support group without question. In terms of my validity to others, I would hope that the people that can’t afford it enjoy it, those are really the ones you want to talk with, and the ones who can are basically buying stock in an artist, so if a notion of growth and questioning is present I assume it’s good, but really there’s no validity outside of the argument or creation, just speculation. Creation belongs to a time, and possibly a place, depends on how much of the world you’re soaking in. In terms of this conversation, I would say that personally it offers me validity, because you are thinking about my statements and deeply care about your thoughts, but the fact that we have known each other and you came to the work through me rather than to me through the work means that as of this moment it offers little to the validity of matthew chambers brand art creations, the could change though, its all support groups. You get famous, people read this, things change, that’s why they’re documented. Annie: I want to hear more about this statement: "they are able to separate the art from the artist." Why is that important when you delve into making something that's definitively from you? You are so wonderfully charming why did you feel it necessary to put your name on the work you made and not the shadow of TRUDI and longer? Is this an act toward taking responsibility for the work now? OR is this your way of being in the world, having the name there, so people know who to answer to? We've talked about this several times, the work of artists who have no public persona but do answer to a name. Where do you stand as vehicle for observing moments? Matt: I think realistically, I can’t shake everyone’s hand who looks at something I make. So they’re either going to make assumptions about me and what it’s like to make that work, or they’re going to look at the work, this is very possibly a deep over simplification, but I do try to solve my problems my questions by making work, but in a way, just like writing, its outsourcing, its in you its you but you deal with it indirectly. The name TRUDI came from a place of incognito, it’s familiar but fuck if I know a Gertrude, it has authority, but as I’m learning with other artists, I can’t force them to vouch for my work, and I also want the activities of TRUDI to hopefully stand on their own. I did start it as a way to market something that’s me but not, you hit the nail on the head, its responsibility. The people that I do get to meet, and as time goes on its fewer and fewer, I want them to associate me or the lack of me with the things I sign. Also though, and this was totally not premeditated, but TRUDI existed both as a fiction and as a reality. I really like that. Neither which is defined, except by dialogue. If Ami wants to say she showed at this gallery TRUDI, then its that. But if it’s a gang to me, a way to create the it is. I just don’t want to have all the others have to deal with backing up an idea(manifested as a name). I love the artists who are just a name, they are the only ones, in my opinion, that veer from ego. They really care about the work, they really care about their needs, it’s somewhere that I’ve plotted going towards, at least for a short time. Speculation is so funny. The bummer is that it takes over the stuff on the walls sometimes. We’re all vehicles for observation. It’s just making a space to do it in.]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2007/09/chambro_omallis_talks.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2007/09/chambro_omallis_talks.html Thu, 13 Sep 2007 17:35:05 -0800 TRUDI: You're a fighter for sure, DIY, what is it that's so sacred? Why challenge the beast, or do you even consider these industry types the beasts? DREW: Growing up in the late 70's and 80's, I was heavily influenced by punk and then hardcore music. I guess I have carried that spirit into my adult life. Can't seem to shake it. I love the aesthetic of raw power, which is really a very "American dream" way of looking at things. Its mom-and-pop stores and dot-com start-ups. Its the rough edges that make them good. The "beast" emerges when things get too big. Money changes everything, makes it clean and slick. The irony is that often its only volume that increases and not profit, so you get a product with no soul wrapped up in a lot of cash that isn't actually making much money once all the bills are paid. My plumber, on the other hand, who is working out of his crappy van, is making bank. T: Recently I have been rewatching Cassavetes "Killing of a Chinese Bookie", a movie that's all about the people that kill the dream, your endeavors are much like Ben Gazarra's character. Do you feel the choke, pushing the dream? I will watch that movie and then answer that question. (yes, it's true, I've never seen "Killing of a Chinese Bookie") T: You now have a big-time show coming up at Angstrom and TRUDI. Does it feel good to be in that light? It seems that the recognition of what Champion was is just getting recognized (i.e. The sucess of Bring The War Home, a book coming out on 2nd Cannons, numerous mentions, and lots of fucking biters) Also, is there any lure to playing to this late hype? Possibly franchising it out? It is great to have those shows coming up. It will be my first solo venture into the commercial gallery jungle. We all know that this is where the art world game is played these days so I am interested to see how I do. As for Champion, we knew that it would take time for people to figure out that we existed. We also knew that by the time they did, we would be long gone. It was kind of part of the plan. We did twenty-one shows and each show was titled numerically, starting at 21 and counting down to one. Obsolesence was built in from the start. We were making a myth. We also made these desk-top zine-style catalogs for each show, in an edition of 100, and gave them away to anyone who wanted one. Now you have to buy them at Ooga-booga. But you better get them quick because they are coming off the market once the book comes out. 2nd Cannons rules! I guess I am playing to the hype with the publication of the book, but we had always planned to do a book and fuck it, strike while the iron is hot. T: Also, can you talk about the inception/conception of the Mandrake? The Mandrake was immaculately conceived. It was, is now, and always will be. The Mandrake is the light and the darkness. The Mandrake is a gallow's root shaped like a man that makes fertile the impotent and brings joy to all that taste its bitterness. The Mandrake is a bar on La Cienega Boulevard. (I keep trying to get that on Wikepedia but they reject it every time)]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2007/02/drew_pt_2.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2007/02/drew_pt_2.html Sun, 04 Feb 2007 22:59:36 -0800 Lots of times I think about films and about how they're missing parts, I remember reading the Lester Bangs book a few years ago and realizing he had set up his heirachy for criticism and so his writing seemed to work (besides being alive). For me, my thoughts about films and filmaking have come as close to Bangs' writing as anything. I'm able to cut away the bullshit. Go beyond fetish. It's rare (maybe twice) that I have the opportunity to talk with someone that's on that level (beyond me) and has differing opinions. Meeting Alison has been epic, hearing about her move into the narrative world, and actually seeing the Barney doc. in Miami. Thinkers and Livers are few, so to avoid further rambling I'll just quote her bio. "DIRECTOR'S BIO Alison Chernick is a New York based independent writer/director. She began her career producing long and short form television for various networks. She then combined her background in contemporary art with her interest in storytelling, and launched several artist series for various networks. In 2003, Alison directed and produced a feature length documentary on artist Jeff Koons, entitled The Jeff Koons Show. Her second documentary Matthew Barney: No Restraint journeys to Japan with Barney as he reveals his working process . The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2006. Stepping outside the art world, Alison is currently at work on a narrative feature film, as well as several short films." (voyeurfilms.net) TRUDI: How did you get into this film racket? ALISON: I STARTED WORKING IN TV AND WAS UNINSPIRED BY THE SHOWS THAT WERE BEING CREATED - I STARTED PITCHING MY OWN IDEAS, AND AFTER ABOUT TEN REJECTIONS ONE GOT APPROVED. IT WAS A SHOW ON GREAT ARTISTS. I mean I remember hearing something about VH1 and I know there had to be some schooling, but was this some early pre-meditated shit? I WORKED ON A DOC ON THE BAND U2. AND ALL THE GREAT MUSIC SHOW IDEAS I HAD GOT NEGGED. MTV AND VH1 HAVE A CERTAIN FORMULA AND THEY DONT LIKE TO BREAK THAT MOLD. Do you feel going into your first narrative feature after the couple of big docs, that the pressure involved is coming from you or some dudes in suits? NO DUDES IN SUITS AT THIS POINT , THIS IS THE BEAUTY OF FILM VERSUS TV. FILM IS A MUCH MORE HANDS ON EXPERIENCE, MUCH MORE ABOUT THE ART. WELL, AT LEAST BEFORE ITS FINISHED AND BECOMES A PRODUCT. ONCE ITS TAKEN OUT OF THE WOMB, SO TO SPEAK, IT BECOMES ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE... UNFORTUNATELY. http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/12/alison_chernick_pt1.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/12/alison_chernick_pt1.html Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:24:43 -0800 What was the original idea behind starting Champion? The idea for Champion came about originally in 2002. Flora had applied to grad school at UCLA, and I was faced with the prospect of living in L.A. for two years. I had always been a fan of the artist run galleries that had existed in the East Village in the mid-80s, specifically International with Monument and Nature Morte, but I never seemed to have the time to get my act together and do it. Our planned move to L.A. worked as a catalyst to get me thinking about it in a serious way. I am a lazy person at heart but I am also terrified of people thinking that I am full of shit so my strategy for getting things done has always been to talk about my plans with everyone I meet. That way I have to find a way to get it done or everyone will say that I am all talk. It never occurs to me that people probably don'y really care what I do. Anyway, we didn't wind up moving to L.A. that year but I had run my mouth off so much that I felt like I had to open the gallery anyway, so Flora and I found a loft in Williamsburg with two doors, put some walls up and asked our friends to curate some shows, and opened the doors in September of 2003. For a two year series of artist currated shows, why have your own physical space for this, rather than find a different spot for it each time? The one thing that was very important to us was that we (meaning everyone involved) had complete control of our own destiny. At that particular moment in New York, the market was really starting to become a monster that was both tempting and terrifying. This was also the period of time when the art fairs were really coming on strong and artists were trying to sort that all out as well. Add to this the rise of the international curator as meta-artist (think Hans Ulrich Oberist) and it was quickly becoming clear that artists were losing control of the discourse. We wanted to take a little back on our own terms. That meant having our own space where we could call the shots. Were you making your own work during this too? In 2002 I premiered my first film, Subway Sessions, at Anthology Film Archives. I had been painter and sculptor up to that point. The film had just been a fun side project. I didn't even really consider it an art piece. But everyone liked it, and then people starting writing about it and before you know it I was a film maker. The problem was that I didn't know anything about film making. Subway Sessions was an amateur effort that I made with a point and shoot super-eight camera. So I spent the good part of the next year trying to figure out what the word aperture meant. Then I tried to make some films in a more professional way. They were complete failures, so I went back to winging it.]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/11/drew_heitzler_pt1.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/11/drew_heitzler_pt1.html Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:50:39 -0800 TRUDI: It's been a little bit of time since we've done these, a couple of bad questions that weren't worth answering, and lots of life. And I think it was hard for me to find the momentum of what to ask because I probably spend more day to day time with you than even my lady, so I was playing my role (giving a history/context) and probably avoiding what is so uniqiue and important about what it is that you do, anyone can latch onto a DIY aesthetic, but more important is the fact that as far as I can tell your music, unlike anyone else I know, you make music for yourself; it doesn't come from mimicry. It's completely it's own entity. Especially in LA this is something baffling, I imagine you enjoyed playing music, as you still do, but it's not about imitating the Dylan records you like, its about being with those people and making that work, something that you want too listen and you want to play. Care to comment before I lead to conclusions? Do you feel this is a general approach to your "work" as a human being or is it specific to music? JOEL: I SO VERY MUCH APPRICIATE THE KIND WORDS OF ORIGINALITY, BUT ITS HARD TO SWALLOW. MUSIC, UNLIKE ART FOR EXAMPLE, HAS NEVER BEEN ACEDEMIC, I HAVE ALWAYS HAD TO FEEL MUSIC. I LOVE HEARING WHAT I THINK ITS BEAUTIFUL JOYFUL SOUNDS, SOUNDS THAT TAKE YOU TO SOME OTHER PLACE THAT YOU CAN'T GET TO ON YOUR OWN. LIKE YOU, I LOVE TO BRING GREAT STUFF OUT OF GOOD PEOPLE. WHEN I PLAY MUSIC WITH PEOPLE, I TRY TO DO THAT, WITHOUT MY EGO, ONE OF THE FEW PLACES IT DOESN'T HAVE TO COME OUT. BECAUSE MUSIC THAT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE SURVIVAL, SOUNDS LIKE FREEDOM. OH FREEDOM, SOMETIMES SO HARD TO GET AT. THE HUMAN LIFE PART IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO KNOW. SOMEDAYS I'M IN CONTROL, AND OTHER DAYS THE DAY IS IN CONTROL. I DO TRUST INTUITION, AND AM TRYING TO MOVE AWAY FROM JUDEMENT AND LIVING THE WAY I THOUGHT OR THE WAY MY MOM THOUGHT I SHOULD LIVE. TRUDI: (that was such a beautiful response Joel) "Music that doesn't sound like survival sounds like freedom", awesome. that's far from ego. Isn't judgement a part of conciousness? Do you love life, is that something you want? I know that summertime (amongst other things) and just dealing takes it to a place of survival, is there a space to just coast? SEEMS IRONIC TO SPEAK ABOUT FREEDOM IN LIFE. LIFE IS DIFFICULT FOR ME, IT HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT COASTING. I DON'T KNOW WHY, MAYBE ITS JUST NOT MY NATURE. DRINKING FOR ME IS LIKE COASTING, ITS TUNING OUT A BIT, LEAVING THINGS BEHIND, AND I DRINK ENOUGH TO JUSTIFY THAT AS MY DOWN TIME. IS FEELING GREATFUL FOR LIFE THE SAME THING AS BEING HAPPY IN IT? IF NOT THE QUESTION JUST GOT TO PERSONAL, BECAUSE I WOULDN'T BE COMFORTABLE WITH ANY RESPONCE I WOULD HAVE. PERSONAL JUDMENT IS DIFFERNT THAT THE JUGMENT UPON OTHERS. THE LATER IS CALLED LUSHEN HORA IN HEBREW. IT POSSESES THE NEGATIVE. IF ONE JUDES OTHERS, WHERE WILL IT END, BECAUSE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE IS FAIR TARGET, TO JUDGE THINGS , SITUATIONS IN ONES OWN LIFE I SUPPOSE IS HEALTHY, BECAUSE YOU DO HAVE TO MAKE DESISIONS, WHICH WOULD BE DIFFICULT WITHOUT THEM. Touche!]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/09/pruess_press_pt2.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/09/pruess_press_pt2.html Tue, 19 Sep 2006 12:20:40 -0800 That comment about "don't make art about hip-hop just make hip-hop" (which I stole from Godard)- I actually got that from you. We were talking after a Bushes show and you said something to the extent that instead of making art about hip-hop we were making hip-hop. I really liked that comment and now I am using it. I actually made a drawing of Jay-Z when the black album came out. I could have used the time I spent making that drawing to write rhymes. I love being in my room by myself and coming up with songs, trying to find words that rhyme with each other. It's difficult and satisfying. I used to spend the whole day painting and drawing because that is what I was being payed to do. It got kind of boring, I don't know maybe because it became a job, maybe because I was always second guessing what was expected of me and filling those shoes or trying to rebel. It got really confusing. Maybe making art is always kind of confusing. I was talking to my friend Nathan, telling him that painting and drawing was getting kind of boring. He told me that the beauty of art this day in this day in age is that you can do whatever the hell you want if you have the language and the context to support it. Music is something I feel passionate about- it wasn't until recently that I figured out that making a song and a drawing very similar. It takes me forever to finish a drawing. I feel like I am working up until the deadline of a show, and even after the show is all installed, I'm still not finished with the drawing. But, performing music is awesome because you don't have to be completely finished with a song when you perform it, and you can refine songs over the course of a couple performances. I get a lot of offers to put drawings and paintings in group shows and instead of giving the curator a drawing I am going to can give them a piece of the Hurricane from now on, and feel less pressure from the deadline. What is the look and sound of DIY? I am not sure, you have early Mountain Goats records and Daniel Johnston cassettes that sound immediate, demanding, and usually defines the joint, but DIY can really run the gamut, from outsider/folk art to teenagers putting weird photos of house parties on the internet to people with amazing super soaker collections to the museum of Jurrassic technology to southern hip-hop where fellows are selling records out of the trunk of their cars to kids in providence who paint everything neon and do psychadellic animations. People are the most vulnerable when they tap into something they're passionate about and make something truly amazing. I was reading an article about this guy in prison up in Pelican Bay who makes paintings to pass the time but the Prison won't give him access to brushes or paints. He makes his brushes out of hair from his head, plastic wrap, and tinfoil. For paint, he soaks m&ms in a jelly jars to get they dye off the shells. That's how he makes his color. The quality that he gets from his homemade paint is wonderful and strange. The medium can become the message It's the old cliche that limitations can increase creativity. Personally, I remember the first Bobby Birdman show I saw; he had just had his laptop stolen and had the audience sing different riffs from his songs and do clapping patterns- he was very direct and effective in his approach to get the audience to participate. It was probably one of the best, most magical shows that I'd ever been to. I felt like that was a DIY moment- all he had to make music with was his voice and the people around him. People who do it themselves operate out of necessity. They have limitations, but the limitations only make what they're doing that much better. The passion really shines through. Sometimes the medium can be the message. Hip-hop was totally born out of DIY. No one really gave a shit about the 808 when it first came out. Hip-hop producers started using it because it was cheap. Now you can't even turn on the radio without hearing the 808 kick. And maybe the 808 and the Birdman are a little more important, because they’re not just an aesthetic and not so easily classifyable by means. Ry really has a DIY aesthetic deep in his bones and it sparked me. When we first came to school, there was this juried exhibition. You had to submit slides of the piece you wanted to do. Ry didn't have the piece he wanted to do made already, but he drew his plans for the sculpture on a blank slide. He was always making zines, and I remember his zines were held together with brads. Before that, I had only seen zines held together with staples. There was one student gallery at our school and about two hundred kids in the art program. It was hard to get a slot in the gallery, but he would set up shows wherever he could- in the lobby of the building, in the stairwell, and then he would make these awesome fliers for his events. He once made a pinata that was just a big box and then all that was in the pinata were other tiny boxes. I think there was also a five dollar bill in the Pinata, I can't remember, but that was for his Cinco de Mayo show. It reminded me of the giant skill crane that picks up other skill cranes. People aren't going to throw money at you to follow your dreams. It's the people with dreams who are truly DIY. Lil' John worked in an office down the hall from Jermaine Dupri. Jermaine Dupri never came up to Lil' John and said "oh, go in the booth and get crunk." He had to figure out a way to get crunk on his own nickel.]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/09/huricane_nicholas_pt2.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/09/huricane_nicholas_pt2.html Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:52:24 -0800 TRUDI: How did you get into the rap game? NICK LOWE: Well, to be honest, I'm not in the rap game, I'm in the song game. I don't want to write raps, I want to write songs, and rapping the only way know how. Let me start at the beginning. I love rap music, hip-hop music, or whatever kids are calling it these days. I remember hearing my first rap on the playground back in '89- it was this kid named Sikander and he was reciting "principals office" by Young MC, I think that’s what the song is called, it's that song where the hook is "off to the principals office you go." I got really excited, I never heard rap music before because my parents didn't let my sisters and I watch TV, and it wasn't in the culture like it is now. I heard the beastie boys before that but it was when I was driving in the car with my dad, and it was too abstract. The first tape I ever bought was Whitesnake, but then walking out of tower records I wished I had bought MC Hammer. Why I chose Whitesnake I have no idea; I guess I just liked the name. Also, hip-hop radio in the bay area was awesome back in the day- at 3 in the afternoon you could hear really raw underground stuff. This was on KMEL, which was the bay area equivalent of Power 106(LA). I started listening to a lot of rap on the radio and recording it on to tapes, and then, with the help of the pause and rewind button, write the raps down and memorize them so I could recite them to kids at school. I wrote some of my own raps here and there- I had failed US government and I was taking it a second time around, but I was in danger of failing it again, so I boned down and wrote and performed a rap for the class, hoping I could get some extra credit. It wasn't an assignment or anything, I just wrote it and showed up to class with it and asked if I could perform, the teacher said sure. So I did it, and it felt good. I felt like I had rap in my bones, and whenever the subject of rappers or hip-hop came up, I felt like I had the inside scoop on rapping. Spring forward to college, when I met Ry Rocklen in the fall of 1998. I immediately responded to his art and he was the first person in my life that I've met where I said "oh wow, so that is what a real artist is like." We talked briefly of forming a band, I think the original idea was a cross between Radiohead and Belle and Sebastian because that is what we both liked. And we both liked Paul Simon, but he didn't enter the conversation all that often. Ry got a grant to do an art piece, I think it was called "triple threat" and it would be a Macintosh computer, a big Mac sandwich, and a mac ten, on a shelf or a Plexiglas box. With the money he got from the grant he bought the computer and recorded an album. He had this friend Eric and they were in a rap crew in high school together called the tree, but most of the people in the crew boned out, so then Ry was like "oh well, I guess we're just the bushes." I spit a rhyme for Ry, and then it was like "boom, that's it, we're the Bushes!" We were in a drawing class together at the time and when we were supposed to be drawing we would just go off in the corner and work on raps together and perform them when critique-time came. That was the start and we have written about a rap a year since 2001, wait, maybe two raps a year. Ry makes all the beats on his computer and an assortment of Casio keyboards. Ry and I are both kind of deep in the "art game" and that takes up most of our time. I make all my money drawing and painting, but recently it has become more of a job than a pleasure, actually I have hated doing it for about two years- I have mostly been scrambling trying to do what other people want me to do. Cause, in that game most of your work gets bought by collectors that you don't know, and they end up putting your pieces in storage. The politics of everything gives me a headache, and I've been unable to separate working on a painting from talking with the gallery-man on the phone about how important it is that I do a painting this size for an art fair by this date, and it should be very detailed, because that's what people want to buy, and you can make the most money off something that's very detailed and colorful. It dictates my process. I love to perform, be in front of people, spit rhymes in front of people. I want to be creative but I want to see my audience. I want to grab the mic and slap hands. I just want to sit down and make beats with ableton live and write rhymes in my notebook and also write rhymes on Microsoft word, and take those rhymes on the road and rock it from California to Kentucky and all up in Canada, like a traveling minstrel in the days of old. I want to meet other musicians who are doing the awesome. I just want to keep practicing and getting better. I ‘m actually a pretty shitty rapper, but I feel I can write bad raps and make them better one millimeter at a time. I am just getting started. Blakka! Blakka! Blakka! TRUDI: Also, you're definitely a hip hop head, but you're performance and openness to an audience is something that defies the conventions of rap performance, even in the backpacker scene the performer appeals to their own sense of ego, and there is definite separation, a defining line, of celebrity(on stage) spectator, but you seem to break, play with it, or maybe even oppose it (as do those who get you pumped) . Care to talk about audience/talent relationship and how you approach it? NICK LOWE: One of the things I love about making art is putting something you're uncertain about into the world and seeing how people react to it. If there is an audience watching you perform, you're lucky, no matter how small the audience is. Even if it is only five people watching you, they are taking twenty minutes out of their busy days to see what you are doing. Do the math- the audience is collectively giving you one hundred minutes. People are giving, so you have to give back. I try to get hype- be a larger than life character, but at the same time be a little open and vulnerable. I guess I am a “freak in the streets and a geek in the sheets”. I am up on stage getting buck wild but when the mic is not in my hand I am kind of shy and socially awkward. I try to treat it as music because I love music. I don't want to be seen as the goofy white guy with the rap-art project. There are a lot of people in the art world who make art about hip-hop. Well, if you really love hip-hop, you should make hip-hop, duh. I would much rather listen to Reasonable Doubt than look at a painting of Jay-Z.]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/08/nick_lowe_pt_1_of_the_bushes_a.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/08/nick_lowe_pt_1_of_the_bushes_a.html Sat, 05 Aug 2006 00:46:16 -0800 photo by: daniel peterson TRUDI: How do you feel about your show? E*Rock: Um, I’m pretty into it, it went pretty well… I like the way the instillation came out. I put like way to much time into those videos, but I’m glad I did it. T: What do you mean you put too much time into it? E: I put so many hours, and I don’t think anyone will be able to tell. I don’t think anyone else has done something like that, because it took so long. T:Isn’t that a good thing? E: I guess so. T: Are you happy with the work? E: Yeah I like it. T: Did you get at what you were trying to do? E: Yeah. But, um… But I almost feel like there weren’t enough surprises. T: Surprises? E: Yeha, I just made what I wanted and it just came out like that, there weren’t a lot of mistakes. T: Surprises for you or for the audience/viewer? E: For me. T: Is that important? E: Kinda, it’s nice when you put 1 and 1 together and it’s 3. But, I guess that’s like asking a lot. I wanted like a chemical reaction. The explosion part of the video was a little more in that place. I’ve been into explosions this year. I been into doing one thing over and over, focusing, and mastering, that’s the idea of studies, the computer element removes that. No doubt. T: Did the audience here, an art crowd, as compared to a music or noise experiemental crew, affect your response, performance, or post-show depression? E: Not really, I already did the video shit, there’s just so much time on a computer, and every once in awhile a take a brake from “masturbating” to do some animating. p.s. Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 00:01:54 -0700 From: Eric Mast To: gallery@hellotrudi.com Subject: Re: E*Rock Opening 2 unnamed text/html 6.54 KB awesome! --------------------------------------- E*ROCK - http://www.e--rock.com WYLDFILE - http://www.wyldfile.org FRYK BEAT - http://www.frykbeat.com COLLECTIVE JYRK - - http://www.jyrk.com AUDIO DREGS - http://www.audiodregs.com On Jul 18, 2006, at 10:55 PM, gallery@hellotrudi.com wrote: E*ROCK “TRIFORCE MINDPHAESER” Opening Saturday July 22nd, 2006 7pm TRUDI 510 Bernard St. Los Angeles, CA 90012 “Hyper color, neon rainbows, fuzzy bleeds and sprays, heat vision, bright acid flashes. Optic Force Trilogy traffics in saturation and over stimulation set spinning at a frenetic speed: Speed, speed, speeding. Acid, acidic, hallucinatory: acidic colors, acidic sounds. Distortion turns everything, auditory and optical, into patterns and repetitions. The patterns contort, reflect, mirror, oscillate back and forth, drift across the screen, different ones rotate at different velocities. Colors and images flash rapidly: subliminally. Warnings, alarms, and alerts shoot through the trilogy in rapid fire. The warnings are explicit, the cautioning exclamatory is implicit throughout. There is some kind of scheming math and suspicious Gematria at work: 3 parts, each made up of 3 sections, each pressed on 3 inch DVDs, each 12 minutes long (3x4, four being the number of bars in a measure). This frenzy is deeply ordered; it wants you to plumb its structure....” The opening will feature projection and performance by Portland-based E*Rock. In addition, TRUDI and fellow Bernard St. gallery/gallerist Daniel Hug, are throwing an after party with performances by: Hurricane Nicholas (of the Bushes), Yukon, Poison Dart, and Bobby Birdman.]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/07/erock_answers_the_tough_ones_i.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/07/erock_answers_the_tough_ones_i.html Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:35:12 -0800 Pruess Press and the activities of Mr. Joel Mesler have been a constant and reafirming force on the TRUDI-scape. One of the vastly ignored aspects of Mesler's output into the world has been his music. Over the series of some in definate time span I hope to delve into it. All tracks can be heard on pruesspress.com and include a variety of conspiritors. How did it start? IN THE BEGINNING, I HAD AN EMPTY BASEMENT, EXEMPT FOR A FULL BAR. I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE NICE IF SOMETHING HAPPENED AROUND A FULL BAR. IN RETROSPECT ALOT OF THINGS COULD HAVE WORKED, SUCH AS A SCHOOL, A MEETING HALL, BLACK MARKET BINGO, OR A SHUL. BUT THE MAYBE'S BECAME A SOMETHING WHEN THIS GUY ED(DON'T REMEMBER HIS LAST NAME) CAME BY, WHO WAS A FRIEND OF JOHNNY, A GUY I KNEW FOR A LONG PERIED OF TIME, WITH ALL OF THESE MICS AND GUITARS, AND A HARMONICA. ED WAS DYING, WELL HIS LIVER WAS DYING. HE WAS IN THE KOREAN WAR AND CONTACTED HEPITITES C OVER THERE. HE WAS HOMELESS, BECAUSE HE WANTED TO SAVE ALL HIS MONEY FOR A LIVER TRANSPLANT WHICH HE WAS ON THE WAITING LIST FOR. WE WOULD SPEND NIGHTS DRINKING WHISKEY AND PLAYING MUSIC VERY CASUALLY, JUST FOR US SORT OF THING. AFTER SOME TIME ED STARTED SLEEPING IN THE BASEMENT. OTHER PEOPLE STARTED TO COME BY AND DRINK AND PLAY WITH US. I BEGAN RECORDING SOME OF THE SESSIONS WITH A MICROTAPE RECORDER MY FATHER GAVE ME, IT HAD A GREAT SOULFUL FEEL TO IT. THIS GUY MARK VON SCLEGELL THE WELL KNOWN SCI FI NOVELIST STARTED TO PLAY WITH US. HE ONCE HAD A BAND BUT STOPPED BECAUSE HE SAID IN THE END THERE WAS ALWAYS EGO. THE REASON HE LIKED PLAYIN IN THE BASEMENT WAS THERE WAS NO EGO, LEAVE THE EGO AT THE DOOR, OR DON'T COME IN. BEFORE I COULD NAME IT OR EVEN APRECIATE IT, THERE WERE SEVEREL PEOPLE PLAYING ALMOST EVERY NIGHT IN THE BASEMENT, DIFFERENT ARRANGMENTS DIFFERENT PEOPLE, DIFFERNT TYPES OF MUSIC. I BECAME TRULY AMAZED AT HOW MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF THINGS COULD COME OUT OF ONE PLACE. SO I STARTED LABELING ALL THE TAPES WITH DATES AND THE PEOPLE WHO PARTICIPATED. MY FRIEND ROBBIE KINBERG, BROUGHT A 4 TRACK TASKAN OVER BECAUSE HE WANTED STELLER QUALITY. EVERYTHING WAS EVERYONES, IT WAS LIKE A FAMILY WITHOUT THE PAIN. (It should be said that Joel had relocated from NY and had opened a gallery in LA's Chinatown, the basement held the bar and so on...) Has your position changed over the years? Like is it still it's own entity, with you along for the ride or are you more a facilitator now? EVERYTHING CHANGES ALL THE TIME, AND SINCE THE BEGINNING THERE HAS BEEN SO MANY PEOPLE AND SO MANY DIFFERNENT SPACES, THINGS SEEMED TO CHANGE ALMOST EVERY SESSION. AFTER THE BASEMENT I MOVED THE STUDIO, INTO MY FRIEND, DENNIS HOLLINGSWORTH'S STUDIO. THE SOUND WAS MUCH DIFFERENT AND SO WAS THE ENVIRONMENT. THERE WAS A RAISED STAGE AND IT WAS VERY OPEN, WITH A STAINED GLASS CEILING. IT WASN'T AS COZY AS THE BASEMENT, IT USED TO BE THE BANQUET ROOM FOR THE OLD GERERAL LEE'S, SO IT WAS A BIT INDOOR, A BIT OUTDOOR. THE MOUNTAIN BAR JUST OPENED SO WE WOULD GET DRINKS THERE AND SNEAK THEM INTO THE ALLEY AND THAN TO THE STUDIO. IT OPENED IT UP TO MORE PEOPLE, CASUALLY, IF THERE WERE PEOPLE DRINKING AT THE BAR WHO WE WANTED TO PLAY MUSIC WITH, THEY WOULD JUST WALK NEXT DOOR AND START PLAYING. THIS WAS ALSO THE TIME, 2002, WHEN I DECIEDED TO ORGANIZE ALL THE MUSIC. I HAD JUST PURCHASED MY FIRST COMPUTER, AND I DISCOVERED I TUNES. IT HAD CATAGORIES SO I MADE CATAGORIES, AND NAMED THEM. UP UNTIL THAT POINT, I HAD NO IDEA HOW MANY SONGS I HAD RECORDED AND WITH HOW MANY DIFFERNT PEOPLE. IT WAS QUITE AMAZING TO HAVE IT ALL ON ONE MACHINE. I ONLY SPENT ONE YEAR THERE, AND THAN MOVED UPSTAIRS ONTO THE ROOF OF THE MOUNTAIN. THIS WAS THE MOST PUBLIC SPACE, IT WAS VERY SMALL AND HAD TIN WALLS, AND A GREAT VIEW. EVERYONE WANTED TO COME UP AND PLAY, AND SINCE ABOUT SIX PEOPLE HAD KEYS TO THE SPACE SOMEONE WAS ALWAYS EITHER PLAYING MUSIC OR FUCKING ON THE COUCH. INSTRUMENTS GOT DESROYED BUT GREAT DRUNKEN RECORDINGS BECAME. IT WAS THEN THAT IT SEEMED APPROPRIATE TO HAVE IT ALL AVAILIBLE ONLINE. IT WAS 2004, AND THAN IT WAS A FEAT TO TRY AND UPLOAD 2000 SONGS ONTO THE INTERNET. AT THAT POINT I WOULD JUST ACT AS THE GUY WHO PRESSED RECORD, SOMETIMES PLAYING AND SOMETIMES I WOULD JUST SMILE AND GET THE DRINKS, WHATEVER IT TOOK TO GET PEOPLE TO OPEN UP AND FREE THEMSELVES. Why is it important for you to be free and open? TO BE FREE, AS AN IDEA DOESN'T TRULY EXIST, REALLY. TO DO THINGS FROM A PLACE OF BEING FREE OF ONE'S SELF, IS THE PLACE WERE MAGIC SOMETIMES HAPPENS. TO BREAK FREE OF THE IDEA OF WHAT ONE CAN DO, WELL SOMETHING NEW HAPPENS, SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS, UNEXPECTED, SOMETHING THAT WOULD HAVE NEVER EXISTED IF ONE ONLY TOOK ACTION THAT THEY THOUGHT WAS IN THEIR DEFINITON OF THEMSELVES. WHEN THIS HAPPENS WITH MUSIC, IT'S TRULY EXILIRATING TO EXPERIENCE AND ALSO TO JUST BE AROUND. I LOVE TO LOSE MYSELF AND WATCH OTHER PEOPLE LOSE THEMSELVES, I THINK YOU CAN HEAR IT IN THE MUSIC. I THINK THAT THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SOUND THAT HAS BEEN PLANNED, AND ONE THAT CAME ACCIDENTLY, ALOT OF THE TIME WHEN THE FIRST HAPPENS YOU CAN NAME IT, OR REFERENCE IT, THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE HEARD, OR EXPERIENCED BEFORE, BUT WHEN THE SECOND HAPPENS... GOOD STUFF. WITH ALL THAT SAID, ITS NOT ALWAYS TRUE, I MEAN THE OPPOSITE CAN HAPPEN AS WELL, EVEN TO TRY AND BE FREE CAN HAVE ITS SNAGS, BUT WHAT DOESN'T. I JUST THINK ITS NICE AND FRUITFUL TO DANCE ON THAT VERY FRAGILE EDGE. Why give it away for free? WHY GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE? SORRY I JUST GOT CIGEREETE SMOKE IN MY NOSE. How does this "enterprise" fit into all the other roles you play? (artist, speculator, producer, writer, owner of a press, SCA dude, ect ect many of which will never have appropriate titles) THAT IS SOMETHING I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT ALOT RECENTLY, LIKE WHEN I ASKED YOU A SIMILIAR QUESTION ABOUT YOUR PRACTICE. IF ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE HAPPING ALL THE TIME, AND SOMETIMES IT'S DIFFICULT TO CONNECT, THE QUESTION "WHO ARE YOU?" IS ALWAYS PRESENT. WHEN I HAVE THOSE CONCERNS I TRY AND PUSH THEM ASIDE. ORTHODOX JEWS HAVE A DIFFERENT IDEA OF EXISTANCE AND THE SELF, SINCE FUNDAMENTALLY THEY BELIEVE IN A G-D(THE IDEA OF EXISTANCE) THEY DON'T HAVE A NEED TO ASK THAT QUESTION TO THEMSELVES. WHY ARE WE HERE? TO GIVE THANKS AND TO SERVE, NOT TO LIVE AN EGO RIDDED LIFE. I TRY EVERYDAY TO ACKNOLEDGE THE GIFT OF LIFE, AND TO NOT ASK TO MANY QUESTIONS ABOUT MY SPECIFIC POSITIONING, OR WHERE I MIGHT STAND IN RELATION TO MYSELF AND THE CONNECTION BETWEEN IT ALL. I LOVE DOING EVERYTHING I DO, SOMETIMES ONE THING WORKS BETTER THAN ANOTHER, BUT IN THE END I DON'T THINK THERE IS MUCH OF A CHIOCE. MONEY ASIDE, BECAUSE THAT'S A DIFFERNT SCHMOOZE, I RECORD AND PLAY MUSIC BECAUSE WHEN I PAINT I LIKE LISTINING TO MUSIC, AND IT'S NICE TO LISTEN TO MUSIC YOU HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH BECAUSE IT SEEMS TO MAKE MORE SENSE TO ME. I LIKE REAL ESTATE BECAUSE YOU CAN MAKE MONEY AT IT, AND YOU ALWAYS NEED TO BE SOMEWHERE, SO MIGHT AS WELL CONTROL YOUR ENVIRONMENT A BIT. IT'S BETTER TO HAVE GOOD PEOPLE AROUND YOU THAN NOT SO GOOD PEOPLE AROUND. BUT IN THE END I'M STILL SEARCHING, SOME DAYS BETTER THAN OTHERS. I understand that the story is full of holes, just be patient. More information can be found in the book LA ARTLAND or by looking at Joel's current exhibition at BLACK DRAGON SOCIETY, "Survival meets ideal hands".]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/06/pruess_press_pt1.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/06/pruess_press_pt1.html Thu, 22 Jun 2006 20:57:07 -0800 JUAN SCALIPO FOREWORD: ok. so this isn't what i originally had in mind, but something i've been meaning to do forever.... transcribing my journal (which we were required to keep for english class, so it leaves out weed/beer) from 10th grade. i picked a random day and then gave you 7 consecutive days. by the way, try to avoid using my birth name in conjunction with art/zines, juan scallipo is more than encouraged, but i googled myself the other day, and i think the 2nd website was hellotrudi and the clip was "the boner drawing is by jus--- s----" and that's right between my grad school shit and my current job. I personally dont care, but i can imagine a potential employer/scientist finding that junk. BOOOOOOOOOING. mucho love. xoxoxoxoxoxo. ------------------------- ------------------------- 11-21-95 This morning someone started a fire in a trashcan down at the tennis courts. I bailed just as Ms. King and all the pit cops rolled up. I just finished a test in German. I'm gonna do my homework now so when I get home I can work on my campaign. Maybe I'll be able to play AD&D this weekend. 11-22-95 Last day of school before Thanksgiving vacation. Ryan's doing his speech on snakes! The other communicating class made up a country. Lisa was telling me about someone in her class. Turkey gave up land, it was Chicken. Then they told about the currency. Colonel Sanders is on the $100 bill. The military throws eggs. It sounded retarded. Tonight I'm just gonna kick it here, 'cause tomorrow's Thanksgiving. 11-23-95 Last night I went to Blockbuster and rented Final Fantasy II. Unfortunately, I've already played it. I just sat around and listened to some music. Today about 4, family came over for dinner. We had turkey and all the trimmings. I ate 4 helpings of my grandma's mashed potatoes. I ate pecan pie for the first time. It's not bad. Later on I called a bunch of people, trying to get something together. But the only person that could do anything was Lisa. She went to Laura's. 11-24-95 I think I'm going to a party at Nick Cain's. It's a prep party but oh well. Today it is cold outside. 11-25-95 Well, change of plans. Last night I ended up going to Bill's. There were a lot of people there: Lisa, Laura, Megan , Ryan, Mark, Denny, Jerrod, Maynard, Kevin, and Devin. We started out listening to Cypress Hill and White Zombie. We moshed in Bill's basement. Then we had a big brawl. Ryan wigged out and started kicking Maynard's ass. We broke it up. Then we all went outside and made a can bomb. That's why my shoe laces are cinged. Then Ryan and Maynard got into it again. Ryan's hand was bleeding from hitting Maynard's teeth. Kevin, Mark, Maynard and I got up in Bill's attic and looked through his stuff. Then we left. I went back to Denny's. We just watched TV and went to sleep. Today about 2 we cruised to my house. We put up Christmas lights. Then we skated a little. I landed 2 or 3 heelflips. We rented "Higher Learning" and went to Megan's. That movie rules! I learned to juggle, too. We went home afterwards. We played foosball for 4 hours while listening to Primus, DK, Rage, Rancid, and Bosstones. Then we crashed. 11-26-95 Sunday This morning we had eggs and bagels. Denny's dad came about 11. Before he left we rolled up a character. So far he's a half-elf thief. As soon as he left I did all my homework. About 7pm we went to my grandma's. Then I came hom and fell asleep. 11-27-95 Man today was cold. It started out warm, then Boo-ya!, it got cold. I asked Karen to the Christmas dance. So now I'm going. Jeremy cleaned out the car. Chris was saying stuff about Kevin. Then he started ragging on me. He said, "Yeah you and Denny love Kevin. You love him! He's your best friend. " But I jocked Chris SO hard. I said "Hugh, at least I have friends!" He just turned away in shame. He ignored everyone for Courtney and wonders why no one likes him. He always talks behind people's backs.]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/06/the_truth_about_the_war_in_ira.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/06/the_truth_about_the_war_in_ira.html Fri, 16 Jun 2006 10:55:46 -0800 TRUDI: the question is "what are you trying to get at in your work?" JONATHAN: i'm more interested in creating beautiful things than i am in changing the world, i think i'm more interested in solving immediate problems than i am in exercising long-term demons you once said art keeps you from being depressed and i have thought about that quite a bit i don't necessarily think that you meant you would be depressed if your didn't make art but maybe? i think the bottom basement foundation to my artmaking is just to try and obtain a little better understanding of myself in relation to the world thats takes on a lot of forms from the intellectually labored complex investigation to the barest stripped viceral gesture to the mystical or mythical or sublime but sometimes i think who am i kidding im just trying to keep clear of depression simple things are complicated and complicated things are simple thats a fact francis bacon talked about the brutality of facts i think thats lead me to talk about the clarity of the incomplete of the security of insecurity i never seem to be able to finish things for a reason because unfinished is finished TRUDI: I think that's a great quote and leads to lots of thoughts about the validity in the end of work, but in the process, in the thick of the jungle, is there ever this question for you about why is this thing/things i create different than these other peoples work? Or a question of it's pertinence to the world? Obviously if you were making work just to "explore" there wouldn't be this push to give it to the public, or the looming notion of history. JONATHAN: I have never asked those questions really. Making things is hard enough to worry about originality. I think the push to make work public has to do with a culture of seeking success that im affected by - and i don't mean in terms of money or fame for god's sake. This is probably good and bad. You don't think about that to much do you? I mean the more public your work becomes, greater possibilities arise for collaborations and funding for research and travel and so on and so forth - and in so doing the creation of more meaningful objects/experiences might occur. That seems healthy right?. i think the notion of trying to push work on the public is a selfish one - but a interesting kind of selfish, and i do struggle with the idea of whether or not i am contributing to greater good of the world. wow thats to broad. the zine format of a lot of your work is made for public consumption yet the subject matter is intense and private you are revealing this visual/verbal journal to the world is it a ruse? is it a big fat metaphor are you ever worried about using the first person in your stories? TRUDI: to answer your question, no I don't think of an end, but I also don't put pressure and I don't try to use bourgouis ideology or materials in my work. That keeps it precious, away from the moment, and then you are forced to deal with all kinds of justifications for what you make and why it is important. I.E. if you make monochromatic big-ass paintings that are mounted behind 4 inches of glass, your work clearly becomes a comment on form and comes from a place of acknowledging what painting and artmaking is, I love that responsibility in fine art. I've studied film(and it's history) and people don't do that in film, they don't hold themselves responsible, they are interested in craft, aesthetic, and entertainment. But to go back to this monochromatic painting, I don't feel that you can look at this work and feel it is accesible or important except in the manner that art has been pushed into a corner, theorized down to a color and away from "life". I mean I look at Chris Johanson's work and i get excited, my mom get's excited too. He uses all these found materials or cheap ones to make work that acknowledges and explores. I feel the same way about the homie Chris Lipomi's work (p.s. I only like artists with th ename chris). Henry Taylor too. And I think that leads right into zines. For one, I would never know how to put up that work in a gallery, the line drawings and stories would lose whatever they have, it seems that when they are folded and hidden until someone cracks open that page they have something a little more definative. I thought lots about getting some of that shit really published, but spending the money, 2 grand to publish a perfect bound book, seems like a vain quest of validation. I don't need a isbn number, the catharsis comes from making the work not in seeing a my name on a spine, maybe that is a defining characteristic between zines and books, zines can't have spine (this is turning into a bad godard quote ie"this difference between cinema and television is that you look up at cinema"). I definately feel that way between records and compact discs. It's impossible for me to read the spine of a record so I am forced to take the time to look at the cover and then I am forced to pull out the sleeve and read the notes as I sit and listen to the record. What a tangent. I guess in terms of the nature of my work, yeah it is private, it's stuff that I would never say out loud, but maybe that's because it would sound retarded. I mean you watch film school kid's films all the dialogue sounds the same. People don't talk like that. People don't say or have the ability to condense their emotions into a pull-quote. I know that when I watch Ingmar Bergman's films I get a lot out of them, and it's because I'm reading subtitles, Sweedish people can't watch his movies because Swedes don't talk like that. So for the printed work, I make a conscious effort to not keep it precious: photocopying, saddle stitch, stream of conscious content, and I have yet to make money on any of the approximately 30 publications I have made. But also it seems anonymous to me, I no longer put my name on my work and with a few exceptions, give them to people I hardly know or don't know at all. Bobby Birdman sent me a link yesterday to this girl's myspace account, a girl I have never met, who in her profile said that my little book was her favorite, that shit made me feel fucking great. It's her's now. I talked with a boy recently who own's a gallery, a we had talks about pricing and selling work. I guess I would love to hear your thoughts, or atleast start a dialogue about the market tendencies you think about. JONATHAN: you know there are really a hundred places to go with your last thoughtful passage. for now i'll pick one how fucking great is it when people you don't know in any way love what you bring into the world theres no play, theres no buzz, theres no context- just genuine emotion whoa whoa whoa but wait a second - there are people out there who would like fucking anything! shit scrubbed on a wall, thomas kincade paintings, gwen stefani's holla back girl there is always someone somewhere who is gonna love what you do -that doesn't have bearing on the goodness of something - so genuine emotion or not im not sure if that makes me feel like my work is good whoa whoa whoa - im not talking about the specific goodness of something- feeling good about what you do is a differenet issue than whether or not what you do is good trying to establish universal ideals and truths to artmaking just doesn't work I probably wouldn't like shit scrubbed on a wall or gwen stefani's holla back girl but there is nothing more beautiful in the world than your ability to love something genuinely- the only stability is instability its the -I may not agree with what you think but ill defend your right to believe it to my death- idea as the creator you have to find meaning not in whether something is good or bad but in the mere ability for someone to determine goodness individually... right? your "art" may be less about the specific content of the zines than the purpose of there anonymous existence as treasures to some and trash to others thats beautiful to me so trying to determine if your or my work is good or not is a meaningless act for the creator to concern themselves - you are too intimate with the work to make judgment rationally and others opinions are to varied and unpredictable for such a subjective activity - even among scholars and friends so the only thing left is the discovery of someones genuine interest - that can only happen under very unusual pure circumstances, thats special and it not only makes you feel fucking great but me as well]]> http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/06/fullon_embezzlers_of_heritage.html http://www.urbanhonking.com/trudi/2006/06/fullon_embezzlers_of_heritage.html Sat, 03 Jun 2006 00:00:00 -0800