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Kunst Speak With Brask - Jeffrey Deitch · Kunst Speak With Brask

0:00
Speaker 1: Like always, I'm really looking forward to see O his gist.
0:04
Speaker 1: His gist is Jeffrey died a legendary O lover. I'm
0:08
Speaker 1: looking forward like all the gusts to see Jeffrey talk
0:11
Speaker 1: to him. So please welcome Jeffrey, and again, thank you
0:14
Speaker 1: so much for listening to Kunst speak with Brask Jeffrey.
0:20
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking you time. We are
0:23
Speaker 1: in your beautiful house in Los Angeles. You just gave
0:26
Speaker 1: it to a round in the house. And I don't
0:29
Speaker 1: know where to stay art because there's so many great
0:32
Speaker 1: art pieces, and I think with all the history will
0:35
Speaker 1: with whole best Yat and Keith Hermon, some of my
0:41
Speaker 1: favorites from all time. They of course around in the house.
0:44
Speaker 2: It's such a pleasure to welcome you here. So the
0:47
Speaker 2: collection is very personal. So there are other works in
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Speaker 2: other places moans to museums, but every work in this
0:57
Speaker 2: collection here has a there artworks of friends of mine
1:05
Speaker 2: or in the case of Man Ray, someone who has
1:08
Speaker 2: been such an inspiration for me. So it's it's it's
1:13
Speaker 2: not a collection for displayed to make a statement.
1:18
Speaker 3: This is very personal.
1:20
Speaker 1: You can see that because there's so many pieces on
1:24
Speaker 1: the toys that that's a gift and all the portraits
1:26
Speaker 1: of you. We are looking at a portrait our good friend,
1:31
Speaker 1: both of us students of you. It looks really really good.
1:35
Speaker 2: And Julian is a great portrait painter and be one
1:41
Speaker 2: of the best portrait painters today. And when Julian directed
1:48
Speaker 2: the film on Van Go, he did something remarkable. He
1:55
Speaker 2: painted Williem Dafoe as Van Go, painting a self portrait.
2:01
Speaker 2: I just love the different layers and it was so good.
2:06
Speaker 3: That's the film. That's the painting that was used in
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Speaker 3: the film.
2:10
Speaker 2: And Julian then kept going with it, did Van Go
2:15
Speaker 2: as Van Go, and then he had other artists and
2:22
Speaker 2: special people, and I said, this is the time to
2:25
Speaker 2: get a portrait by Julian.
2:27
Speaker 3: He's really focused on.
2:28
Speaker 1: That makes such sense when were walking around the house.
2:33
Speaker 1: Does also Martin Juan boy that you said you had
2:36
Speaker 1: a good story.
2:37
Speaker 2: Oh, Martin was a great friend of mine and a
2:41
Speaker 2: completely unique person.
2:44
Speaker 3: Something that I've learned in fifty years.
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Speaker 2: Of doing this in art is that people make things happen,
2:52
Speaker 2: so that art doesn't happen by itself.
2:54
Speaker 3: An art movement.
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Speaker 2: Doesn't just appear out of thin air. Their individuals who
3:01
Speaker 2: make it happen, and Martin, who was kind of funny
3:08
Speaker 2: person who could be very bothersome, he was just relentless
3:13
Speaker 2: and getting these young taggers to sell him their notebooks.
3:22
Speaker 2: But if he hadn't done that, this would have been dispersed,
3:27
Speaker 2: a lot of it thrown away.
3:30
Speaker 3: So it's an amazing archive.
3:34
Speaker 2: So in addition to being a great artist himself, he
3:39
Speaker 2: was the great collector archivist of New York graffiti, and
3:46
Speaker 2: he even tried to do a museum of graffiti. So
3:51
Speaker 2: tragically he died young from aids, and Martin was trying
3:56
Speaker 2: to make provisions of making sure this collector stayed together,
4:02
Speaker 2: offered it to a number of museums weren't interested, but
4:07
Speaker 2: luckily the Museum of the City of New York agreed
4:11
Speaker 2: to take it, and when Martin was still alive, they
4:17
Speaker 2: did a show acknowledging the gift wonderful. But then the
4:25
Speaker 2: collection was sent to storage and Queen's and just completely abandoned,
4:32
Speaker 2: and the people who were at the museum when it
4:35
Speaker 2: was received they moved on. So when I was curating
4:40
Speaker 2: the Art and the Streets exhibition at the Museum of
4:43
Speaker 2: Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in twenty eleven.
4:47
Speaker 3: Of course we.
4:48
Speaker 2: Had to have a full gallery of the Martin Wong collection.
4:54
Speaker 2: So I politely write to the Museum of the City
5:00
Speaker 2: York requesting the loan, and it went from one curator
5:05
Speaker 2: to another, and they didn't even know they had it
5:10
Speaker 2: because of the staff departures. And finally I find out
5:17
Speaker 2: that they do have it and it's in storage in
5:20
Speaker 2: boxes and queens. It's not even at the museum. So
5:24
Speaker 2: I asked the director, you know this time we're in touch.
5:28
Speaker 2: You know we need to have this. Could you please
5:31
Speaker 2: authorize the loan. He said, I'm sorry, it's in storage.
5:34
Speaker 2: We do not have the budget to take it out
5:38
Speaker 2: of the crates and catalog it, and no, we can't
5:42
Speaker 2: have the loan, but we couldn't have a great show
5:45
Speaker 2: without this collection.
5:48
Speaker 3: So she was by.
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Speaker 2: Refusing and saying we don't have the money, and she
5:54
Speaker 2: thought that was it.
5:55
Speaker 3: That I would say, okay, thank you.
6:00
Speaker 2: Then I asked her, so tell me how much money
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Speaker 2: will it cost to unpack these works, catalog them, take
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Speaker 2: them out of Queen's and put them in a form
6:12
Speaker 2: where we could borrow them. And she came back forty
6:17
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, thinking okay.
6:19
Speaker 3: Then there's no way that was shut up.
6:21
Speaker 2: And I said, fine, no problem, I'll pay the forty
6:26
Speaker 2: thousand dollars.
6:28
Speaker 3: And this was when we were preparing the show.
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Speaker 2: We didn't have our funding set mo goo with donors,
6:35
Speaker 2: so because the museum was so strapped, there was no budget,
6:40
Speaker 2: so I paid this out of my own pocket and
6:44
Speaker 2: we brought the work to Los Angeles.
6:46
Speaker 3: Of course was amazing.
6:48
Speaker 2: We built patrines, and of course it's just an essential
6:53
Speaker 2: part of this history.
6:55
Speaker 3: And as you know, the show got.
6:58
Speaker 2: Lots of attention, and the changed the whole position of
7:04
Speaker 2: Streetheart in the realm of contemporary art and so and
7:10
Speaker 2: then the Museum of the City of New York realized
7:13
Speaker 2: what they had, so they promptly then sent back did
7:19
Speaker 2: another exhibition, and something wonderful happened. The curator Prince, who
7:25
Speaker 2: they assigned to take care of the cataloging, Sean Corkoran,
7:31
Speaker 2: understood how great this was and got totally into it.
7:35
Speaker 2: And now Sean Corcoran is one of the world experts
7:39
Speaker 2: on New York graffiti of this period, and he's been
7:43
Speaker 2: doing other shows and so.
7:48
Speaker 3: The result in the end was.
7:50
Speaker 2: Really wonderful and a great honor for Martin Wong. But
7:55
Speaker 2: the accolades about his collection, they happened prior to this
8:01
Speaker 2: revival of interest in his own work.
8:04
Speaker 3: And now with.
8:09
Speaker 2: One particular friend of ours, cause he who understood how
8:13
Speaker 2: great this was and has been buying the work at
8:17
Speaker 2: auction and also from the estate.
8:21
Speaker 3: And then the introduction of Chinese.
8:24
Speaker 2: Collectors who want to embrace the greatest Chinese American artist
8:32
Speaker 2: of his generation. So Martin Wong is in a totally
8:36
Speaker 2: different place now as an artist, as one of the
8:40
Speaker 2: great artists of his generation, and in museums now, and
8:46
Speaker 2: you know it so influential on a younger generation of artists.
8:51
Speaker 2: Probably of all the works I have in the collection,
8:56
Speaker 2: that's that small work of Martin's showing the brands of
9:00
Speaker 2: Heroin on the Lower East Side. That's the one the
9:03
Speaker 2: artists are most interested in.
9:05
Speaker 1: And thank you so much for doing the show in
9:07
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven. I went to see it, and
9:10
Speaker 1: like you said, it also changed a lot of things.
9:12
Speaker 1: From all the guys that have been inspired by the
9:16
Speaker 1: old graffiti dudes to what happened now and what do
9:18
Speaker 1: you see murals? Everybody was love graffiti and stuff.
9:22
Speaker 2: What is especially rewarding for me is I've been doing
9:27
Speaker 2: shows recently, Like I mentioned Sick Kid, Isaac so Escoto
9:32
Speaker 2: and Mario Oyala and Alfonso Gonzalis junior, great artists of
9:40
Speaker 2: Mexican heritage living in Los Angeles. So they've all said, well,
9:45
Speaker 2: we saw the show when we were in high school
9:48
Speaker 2: or in junior high school. So that's so meaningful for
9:52
Speaker 2: me that that was part of the mission that artists
9:57
Speaker 2: from neighborhoods, back grounds where they didn't have easy access
10:04
Speaker 2: to the center of the art world, they could come
10:07
Speaker 2: to the show, some of them on school buses, and
10:11
Speaker 2: they thought, Wow, the kind of art that I see
10:15
Speaker 2: in my neighborhood that my friends and I do, we
10:19
Speaker 2: can actually be in a museum and someone from my
10:24
Speaker 2: circle is welcome here. And so that's the biggest reward
10:29
Speaker 2: of the impact on younger artists. Younger aspiring artists made listense.
10:37
Speaker 1: The table we're sitting at a really great history as well.
10:41
Speaker 2: Yes, so one of my great artist friends is Rs Fisher.
10:46
Speaker 2: We've done great things together, including a wonderful survey show
10:50
Speaker 2: at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
10:53
Speaker 3: And when I got.
10:55
Speaker 2: This house, which used to be the actor Carry Grant's
10:59
Speaker 2: house in the nineteen thirties, Earth was inspired to create
11:04
Speaker 2: this table with an image of carry Grant in north By, Northwest.
11:11
Speaker 3: And then I don't know how he did.
11:12
Speaker 2: He found these images photographs of me taken by Robert
11:18
Speaker 2: Longo as studies for Men in the Cities, his famous series.
11:25
Speaker 2: And so the table has two images of me of
11:29
Speaker 2: Robert Longo, photos taken on the roof of a tenement
11:32
Speaker 2: building where he threw medicine balls.
11:35
Speaker 3: At me to make me face.
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Speaker 2: Ecstatic poses, and in a kind of surrealist a touch, an.
11:46
Speaker 3: Image of the grave of Vincent van Go.
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Speaker 2: And so I can never leave this house having this
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Speaker 2: table here.
11:54
Speaker 1: It's beautiful that the story, it's pretty amazing. One of
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Speaker 1: the first pieces you'll see when you the house was
12:01
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy five.
12:04
Speaker 3: Well, so that's a kind of a trophy.
12:09
Speaker 2: It is the announcement card from the first show I
12:14
Speaker 2: ever curated. It's called Lives, and we did it in
12:19
Speaker 2: an abandoned office building in Tribeca, later became quite a
12:26
Speaker 2: established building where the restaurant Noboo was on the ground floor.
12:31
Speaker 2: But the owner of the building was desperate and gave
12:34
Speaker 2: it to a friend of mine who said, I'll fill
12:37
Speaker 2: the building for you. I promise I'll rent it out.
12:41
Speaker 2: The guy was desperate, just gave it to him and
12:44
Speaker 2: my friend said, you have a floor to do an exhibition.
12:49
Speaker 3: And the theme of lives was.
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Speaker 2: Artists who use their own life as an art medium.
12:58
Speaker 2: And this is something that was very current at that time.
13:04
Speaker 2: So there was the inspiration of Joseph Boyce and Andy Warhol.
13:09
Speaker 2: But this was the time when Vido Akanci Lori Anderson
13:15
Speaker 2: had a Wilkie. A number of artists were working in
13:21
Speaker 2: this mode, and so the time is just right.
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Speaker 3: The artists were really enthusiastic, and they all.
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Speaker 2: Did catalog pages which I put together in a Xerox catalog,
13:36
Speaker 2: and the announcement card was sent to Joseph Boyce, who
13:43
Speaker 2: the image of his I like America.
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Speaker 3: America likes me.
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Speaker 2: It's the image, and he sent back a wonderful dedication
13:54
Speaker 2: to me. So that's my most meaningful trophy, and I
14:00
Speaker 2: realize I'm still doing that. Show is still a great
14:05
Speaker 2: interest of mine of artists who develop a persona that
14:10
Speaker 2: is an artwork, and so a show that is in
14:18
Speaker 2: planning stages, which I will eventually do, is artist as art,
14:24
Speaker 2: which chronicles this from the nineteenth century, nineteenth century dandies
14:31
Speaker 2: right up to the present.
14:32
Speaker 1: And it's fifty years ago, five decades. That's a pretty
14:36
Speaker 1: long good run. So far do you read? There's another
14:39
Speaker 1: piece that I really in my ass well of another
14:42
Speaker 1: friends of ours, Chris Johansson, sitting in the living room.
14:47
Speaker 2: Chris is such an inspiring artist. So I became aware
14:52
Speaker 2: of this fascinating underground art scene in San Francisco, which
15:00
Speaker 2: has been called the Mission School, even though the artists said, well,
15:04
Speaker 2: we're not really the Mission School, but another of them,
15:07
Speaker 2: like Chris, lived in the Mission District. And so it's
15:12
Speaker 2: fascinating that it was an interior artistic world that influential
15:20
Speaker 2: in San Francisco but didn't really spread so much beyond that.
15:26
Speaker 2: And so I learned about Barry McGhee through an exhibition
15:32
Speaker 2: at the Drawing Center in New York when Annie Philbin,
15:36
Speaker 2: who later moved to LA to take on the Hammer,
15:40
Speaker 2: she had the most brilliant program at the Drawing Center,
15:44
Speaker 2: which was around the corner from my gallery. And I
15:47
Speaker 2: walked and I saw this Barry McGee show. I said,
15:50
Speaker 2: this is incredible, and Annie said, oh, you can't believe
15:54
Speaker 2: what happened. So on the evening of the opening, we unlocked.
16:01
Speaker 3: The door and there are one.
16:03
Speaker 2: Hundred kids outside in the street with their skateboards. We
16:07
Speaker 2: didn't know how they found out about who they were.
16:10
Speaker 2: They just poured in and they kept coming through the
16:14
Speaker 2: whole run of the show. And I was just so intrigued,
16:17
Speaker 2: as I was for many years involved with New York
16:21
Speaker 2: graffiti and great enthusiastic, but wasn't aware of Barry McGee
16:27
Speaker 2: and what was going on in San Francisco. So I
16:30
Speaker 2: was determined to meet Barry, and I flew to a
16:35
Speaker 2: graffiti jamboree in Saint Louis he was participating in, and
16:41
Speaker 2: he hadn't responded to any of my letters of God Lived,
16:45
Speaker 2: but the fact that I showed up in person, that
16:48
Speaker 2: just meant I was real, and that began a relationship
16:53
Speaker 2: with Barry McGhee, and through Barry, we met his wife,
16:56
Speaker 2: Margaret Kilcollin, and then Margaret introduced me to Chris Johansson
17:02
Speaker 2: and I became involved with this whole circle, and along
17:09
Speaker 2: with Aaron Rose, who had the Alleged Gallery in New York,
17:13
Speaker 2: both of us introduced the San Francisco artists to New York.
17:20
Speaker 2: And I remember when we had our first opening with Barry.
17:23
Speaker 2: I said, who would you like to come to the opening?
17:26
Speaker 2: And would you like me to invite some of the
17:30
Speaker 2: heroes of New York graffiti like Lee?
17:32
Speaker 3: And he said, well he went crazy.
17:35
Speaker 2: Yes, he didn't know them yet, and so Lee and
17:39
Speaker 2: others came to the opening and began deep friendship. And
17:47
Speaker 2: so it was a wonderful thing to put these two
17:50
Speaker 2: strains together. Now jumping to something else with art in
17:55
Speaker 2: the streets. So when I moved to LA Aaron Rose said,
18:01
Speaker 2: I'm going to introduce you to the most important photographer
18:06
Speaker 2: documentarian of cholo graffiti in Los Angeles, and it was Chizaretti.
18:13
Speaker 3: And so in nineteen seventy three or so, he had.
18:20
Speaker 2: Come from Luca in Italy and didn't really understand what
18:28
Speaker 2: was a bad neighborhood what was a good neighborhood in
18:31
Speaker 2: LA because you don't really know the difference, and from
18:36
Speaker 2: someone who comes.
18:37
Speaker 3: From New York, it all looks beautiful here.
18:40
Speaker 2: And he went into the toughest gang neighborhoods, but he
18:44
Speaker 2: was so engaging that he made friends with these tough
18:49
Speaker 2: gang members and documented this remarkable scholo graffiti, particularly the
18:57
Speaker 2: work of Chas by Orcz, which was not just unknown
19:03
Speaker 2: outside of LA it was basically unknown outside of the
19:05
Speaker 2: neighborhood because unlike the New York graffiti artists who wanted
19:10
Speaker 2: to get up on the trains to communicate all over
19:13
Speaker 2: the city, this was about the neighborhood. And so he
19:19
Speaker 2: did published a book that was wonderful documenting this, and
19:24
Speaker 2: Ustavo Jaseuretti offered when I met him, to take me
19:31
Speaker 2: on a tour of the underground of Los.
19:35
Speaker 3: Angeles, which was so influential for me.
19:39
Speaker 2: And so one of the key things about Art in
19:42
Speaker 2: the Streets was the giving a platform to Los Angeles graffiti,
19:49
Speaker 2: particularly the master of inventor of the cholo graffiti style,
19:56
Speaker 2: Jaz Bijorchez. So that has been so inspiring to me,
20:01
Speaker 2: and Are in the Streets helped open that up to
20:05
Speaker 2: the world, as it's a remarkable visual language that wasn't
20:13
Speaker 2: very well known.
20:15
Speaker 1: No one at that time correct me if I'm wrong.
20:18
Speaker 1: It also caused like people was like, what's that exhibitions
20:21
Speaker 1: going to do at a museum, And people didn't really
20:24
Speaker 1: understand how important it was to have an exhibition like
20:27
Speaker 1: Art in the Street at that time, and all these courts.
20:33
Speaker 1: I mentioned ten of the artists who have started to
20:35
Speaker 1: do graffiti and have been inspired by graffiti, and how
20:39
Speaker 1: much that show have mean to all these people and
20:42
Speaker 1: collects us art lovers. Like you said, kids was coming
20:46
Speaker 1: with school boys now and artists talk about that show.
20:50
Speaker 2: But you know, there's also what happens when something gets
20:52
Speaker 2: popular like this, So they're really serious areas who just
20:59
Speaker 2: continue knew on their mission, and then there are others
21:03
Speaker 2: who turned it into a business. So that was one
21:06
Speaker 2: of the consequences that there became a kind of business
21:12
Speaker 2: of kind of meta graffiti, you know, where people do
21:16
Speaker 2: this for advertising and we'll find I'm all for it.
21:20
Speaker 2: I'm tolerant for all forms of visual expression. That was
21:26
Speaker 2: also a consequence of it that maybe diluted it.
21:33
Speaker 1: I really admire that you have so many masterpieces in
21:37
Speaker 1: the house but still does like fifteen to twenty young
21:40
Speaker 1: artists that I didn't know about. That just like selling
21:43
Speaker 1: stories of all these guys, and that's.
21:47
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, well, so the work that you were particularly
21:51
Speaker 2: interested in was the Isaac Salmiscoto, whose street name is
21:56
Speaker 2: sick Kid.
21:57
Speaker 3: It's a fantastic name.
22:01
Speaker 2: The way I got involved in this work is driving
22:04
Speaker 2: on the one to one three way. There's this very
22:08
Speaker 2: strategic billboard which is an echo park area, and one
22:15
Speaker 2: of the great things that artists do here is these
22:18
Speaker 2: billboard takeovers, where like sometimes in between selling space on
22:25
Speaker 2: the billboard is just blank. And I see this remarkable
22:32
Speaker 2: figurative graffiti that I've never seen anything like it, and
22:38
Speaker 2: the bottom it's signed Sick Kid. And I've got to
22:42
Speaker 2: track this guy down. So I put the word out
22:45
Speaker 2: I want to meet Sick Kid, and the artists said, oh, well,
22:49
Speaker 2: we know him, will you know?
22:51
Speaker 3: But I hadn't connected with him yet.
22:54
Speaker 2: And then I make a visit to Azi Juarez's residency
22:59
Speaker 2: and South LA called Flolock, and walking in there are
23:04
Speaker 2: kind of little cubicle areas that he's fashioned out of
23:08
Speaker 2: this warehouse space and there all these campusesn't a young
23:13
Speaker 2: man in it, and imagery looks just like what I
23:16
Speaker 2: saw on that billboard takeover, And I said, are you
23:19
Speaker 2: Sick Kid? And that was him, and so I said,
23:24
Speaker 2: We're going to do an exhibition, and so he works
23:29
Speaker 2: furiously over a few months to put it in a
23:31
Speaker 2: show together, and we did a show at our smaller space,
23:36
Speaker 2: Santa Monica, Boulevard here in La and it was a sensation.
23:41
Speaker 2: There was a line around the block. Yeah, I think
23:46
Speaker 2: people waited an hour to get in. In the end,
23:49
Speaker 2: we of course let everybody in.
23:50
Speaker 3: We just stayed late. That people know.
23:55
Speaker 2: This is so interesting about the communication system where there's
24:01
Speaker 2: no review, there's no listing in the La Times. He's
24:05
Speaker 2: never been on a podcast, but people know. And the
24:11
Speaker 2: response was so enthusiastic. And we'll be doing a show
24:15
Speaker 2: next year with him in New York City, introduce him
24:18
Speaker 2: to New York.
24:19
Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to see that. I will definitely
24:21
Speaker 1: visit him next time Italy because I immediately must fall
24:25
Speaker 1: in love with that work.
24:27
Speaker 3: Well, it's very real.
24:29
Speaker 2: So he We always ask our artists to come up
24:35
Speaker 2: with a title for shows, and most of them do.
24:38
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's just paintings.
24:40
Speaker 2: But I like to have a title, and so he
24:44
Speaker 2: comes up with the title gas station dinner.
24:48
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
24:49
Speaker 2: And you know in La the gas stations have little
24:53
Speaker 2: convenience stores, you know, with like the most unhealthy food
24:59
Speaker 2: with drink, you know, with ten times the caffeine.
25:03
Speaker 3: Of a cup of coffee.
25:04
Speaker 2: Well that's what he subsists on, and so that's the
25:08
Speaker 2: gas station dinner. And the painting that we have is
25:11
Speaker 2: like the interior of one of those convenience stores at
25:16
Speaker 2: a gas.
25:16
Speaker 3: Station and is brilliant, and you know.
25:22
Speaker 2: That's their life in La in one of the rooms
25:27
Speaker 2: in the house.
25:28
Speaker 1: You also have a painting all the way around.
25:30
Speaker 3: In the house.
25:31
Speaker 2: Oh yes, Well, I commissioned Alex Israel to create a mural,
25:36
Speaker 2: and so Alex showed me a photo of an exhibition
25:41
Speaker 2: that he had in France where he had created one
25:46
Speaker 2: of these murals. This is brilliant, Alex, could you do
25:49
Speaker 2: that for me? And he's, well, it's complicated.
25:52
Speaker 3: I don't know.
25:53
Speaker 2: And it was a site specific and because years before
25:57
Speaker 2: I had worked as a gallery assistant at On Weber
26:00
Speaker 2: Gallery in New York that represented saul A Wit. One
26:04
Speaker 2: of my jobs was to handle all the logistics around
26:12
Speaker 2: the wall drawings of how they were sold, organizing the team.
26:17
Speaker 2: So I was aware of how Soul orchestrated the wall
26:22
Speaker 2: drawings and how they were invoiced, and.
26:26
Speaker 3: So I said to Alex, I have an idea, and.
26:31
Speaker 2: Working together we figured out a way that this could
26:34
Speaker 2: be a lasting artwork and he was comfortable selling it
26:38
Speaker 2: to me, and since then there's also a commission at
26:43
Speaker 2: the Marciano Foundation, and all of Alex's murals like this
26:49
Speaker 2: have a name connected to Los Angeles.
26:53
Speaker 3: So mine is movie Star Maps.
26:57
Speaker 2: That are these vending machines to Hollywood where you can
27:02
Speaker 2: get these outdated newsprint movie Star maps is basically it's
27:09
Speaker 2: where movie stars long departed lived, you know, because they
27:15
Speaker 2: movie stars rarely live in Hollywood anymore. The one in
27:21
Speaker 2: Marciano was called Palet Parking. Everything that alex is Reel
27:26
Speaker 2: does is inspired by the Hollywood Dream Factory and the
27:33
Speaker 2: work that I have and many of the others are
27:37
Speaker 2: conceived by Alex but executed by the last remaining scenic
27:41
Speaker 2: painter at the Warner Brothers studio, Jeffrey.
27:44
Speaker 1: I still would love if you, I guess you have
27:49
Speaker 1: been talking about that for so many times, about kid Heron,
27:52
Speaker 1: bescat Kennyshoff and the Wall hold these guys because I didn't.
27:57
Speaker 1: I was not in the Organdieges, so I didn't experience that,
28:00
Speaker 1: And I know we can talk about that for like
28:02
Speaker 1: three hours, but.
28:04
Speaker 2: It's it's wonderful how the work of these artists still
28:08
Speaker 2: inspires people, inspires people of all generations, and you're wearing
28:14
Speaker 2: a Keith Hearing T shirt.
28:15
Speaker 3: Yes, and I just love it that go.
28:17
Speaker 2: Around the world, you know, different continents, you see people
28:24
Speaker 2: of my own generation wearing Keith Hearing T shirts and hats.
28:27
Speaker 2: You see kids and babies. It's wonderful.
28:31
Speaker 3: So that.
28:34
Speaker 2: Moment in New York City early nineteen eighties, bypically nineteen
28:40
Speaker 2: eighty to nineteen eighty four, you can compare it to
28:46
Speaker 2: momprenas in Paris in the nineteen twenties. It's so this
28:50
Speaker 2: unique situation where one city was the world capital of art,
28:58
Speaker 2: and not only one city, one neighborhood. So after the
29:04
Speaker 2: fall of Berlin Wall and globalization, I don't think we
29:08
Speaker 2: will ever again have a situation where one city or
29:13
Speaker 2: even one neighborhood is the world capital of art. It's
29:16
Speaker 2: much more global now and dispersed. But I was very
29:21
Speaker 2: lucky to just be in the center of that, living
29:24
Speaker 2: downtown myself, and you didn't have to make any effort
29:30
Speaker 2: to meet these people. So posco the same o concrete
29:35
Speaker 2: poetry was on the walls of Keith Herring's subway drawings
29:41
Speaker 2: were ubiquitous, and you just met everybody in the street
29:45
Speaker 2: corner and I met Keith Herring when he was bartending
29:51
Speaker 2: at one of Tony Sephrosie's parties.
29:54
Speaker 3: But Tony didn't even know who he was yet, even.
29:56
Speaker 2: Though he became the most important original dealer of Keith.
30:03
Speaker 2: This was the time when Keith was offering his artist
30:08
Speaker 2: friends an exhibition on his eyeglass frames, because Keith was everywhere,
30:13
Speaker 2: So if say, Kenny Sharff painted Keith's eyeglass frames, five
30:19
Speaker 2: thousand people would see it much more than you could
30:22
Speaker 2: see something in a gallery because Keith was everywhere, and
30:26
Speaker 2: so he was behind the bar, and I thought the
30:31
Speaker 2: glasses were amazing. I started talking to him. It was
30:34
Speaker 2: my first introduction to Keith. And then we became much
30:40
Speaker 2: closer when he asked me to write one of the
30:45
Speaker 2: essays for his first book, this ring Binder of Coloring
30:49
Speaker 2: book that Tony published, and caught me to really think
30:54
Speaker 2: deeply about Keith, and we just entered into a dialogue
30:58
Speaker 2: where lasted to the end of his life. And there
31:05
Speaker 2: was a whole band of activity around Keith because when
31:09
Speaker 2: he did a mural, the boombox was playing, people were dancing,
31:17
Speaker 2: and you met all these interesting people in this community.
31:24
Speaker 3: Boscal was more private, but once.
31:27
Speaker 2: You got in invited into his studio. He was one
31:33
Speaker 2: of the most brilliant talkers, geniusly so knowledgeable about music, film,
31:40
Speaker 2: art history, and Kenny Sharf has remained a great friend
31:46
Speaker 2: until this day. I've done many things with Kenny. Kenny's
31:51
Speaker 2: an extraordinary person. And it was hard for Kenny because
31:55
Speaker 2: for many years people in the art world wanted to
31:58
Speaker 2: talk with Kenny only because oh, can you tell us
32:01
Speaker 2: about Keith? Can you tell us about Jehn Michelle? And
32:03
Speaker 2: it was hard for him. But now Kenny is Kenny.
32:08
Speaker 2: Finally yes, and we did something amazing with Kenny here
32:13
Speaker 2: in la We did an exhibition in my gallery with
32:16
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty Tondo paintings.
32:20
Speaker 3: No other artist could do this. It was fantastic.
32:24
Speaker 2: The only problem is it opened during the pandemic, so
32:28
Speaker 2: we couldn't have a regular opening. So we came up
32:32
Speaker 2: with this idea, let's instead have a car bombs rally.
32:36
Speaker 2: So Kenny famously and generously offered for many years to
32:41
Speaker 2: paint people's cars for free and tireless. It takes a
32:46
Speaker 2: lot of effort, no compensation, but very wisely, he asked
32:53
Speaker 2: every person who got a car bomb to give him
32:57
Speaker 2: the name and email address. So he's done three hundred
33:02
Speaker 2: plus around the world, but a lot of.
33:04
Speaker 3: Them in LA.
33:04
Speaker 2: Two hundred were in LA and so we sent emails
33:08
Speaker 2: to everybody We're going to have a car Bombs rally,
33:12
Speaker 2: and fifty drivers participated and we got permission from the
33:18
Speaker 2: City West Hollywood to have the rally. And fifty doesn't
33:23
Speaker 2: seem that many, but when you see fifty.
33:25
Speaker 3: Cars lined up, it's a lot.
33:27
Speaker 2: It was an amazing thing and one of my favorite
33:31
Speaker 2: public art projects ever.
33:34
Speaker 1: Wow, I did not know that you did that.
33:36
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:37
Speaker 1: I did a mural with him in co Maigan and
33:39
Speaker 1: instead of Coppumps, we did it on these Christiania bikes,
33:43
Speaker 1: which it's a bike. Well, we're can have people sitting
33:46
Speaker 1: in front of you, so we paid these bicycles and
33:49
Speaker 1: they'd still go around and come Maigan's, so they and
33:52
Speaker 1: people didn't know about him. So I think we did
33:54
Speaker 1: ten or twelve and every time I see one, I'm
33:56
Speaker 1: just smiling because that was a great time.
34:00
Speaker 2: So I love these artists who work engages.
34:04
Speaker 3: With the public. So Kenny with the car bombs.
34:07
Speaker 2: With the murals, Keith of course with the murals, the
34:12
Speaker 2: subway drawings and the invention of the pop Shop, which
34:17
Speaker 2: is one of Keith's greatest innovations at Lefayette Street, and
34:23
Speaker 2: just kind of created this whole artist products world.
34:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.
34:27
Speaker 1: But like I say, now, I'm wearing a Union Glue
34:30
Speaker 1: Keith Having shirt and I love it and it's it's
34:32
Speaker 1: one of my favorite T shirt. And of course the
34:35
Speaker 1: Keith Having skater by sitting here and the bust yacht.
34:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was.
34:42
Speaker 2: Keith had this great slogan the public has a right
34:47
Speaker 2: to art, and so he wanted to make art for
34:52
Speaker 2: the people. Wanted to make buttons that people just take
34:58
Speaker 2: for free. The merchandise in the pop shop was excellent,
35:03
Speaker 2: but it was not expensive. Kids could buy it. I'm
35:07
Speaker 2: so on board with that whole approach. Sometimes when I
35:13
Speaker 2: get talking with people like yourself, it becomes nostalgic about
35:17
Speaker 2: the eighties. But yes, what I want to say is
35:20
Speaker 2: the great art keeps coming and mentioned sick kid. There
35:29
Speaker 2: is just fantastic art being done right now in Los Angeles.
35:35
Speaker 2: I'm particularly enthusiastic about this community. Many of the artists
35:40
Speaker 2: are of Mexican heritage, but expands others. We just did
35:45
Speaker 2: a great project with Charife Farragh at the art fair,
35:50
Speaker 2: Sharif reinvented how to make ceramic sculpture, So I'm thrilled
35:58
Speaker 2: every day all.
36:00
Speaker 3: The great new talent.
36:02
Speaker 2: We just opened an exhibition of painting at the highest
36:06
Speaker 2: level with Doron Langberg and our New York City Gallery.
36:10
Speaker 3: So there's a lot to do.
36:13
Speaker 1: You have to go out and experience art in real life.
36:17
Speaker 2: Oh I'm glad that so many more people can't experience
36:21
Speaker 2: it online, so that's great too, but there's nothing like
36:26
Speaker 2: the direct experience exactly.
36:28
Speaker 1: So just before we finish off a thing, we should
36:31
Speaker 1: hopefully inspire everybody to go out and see life life
36:37
Speaker 1: in real life.
36:38
Speaker 2: Right and so right now we have an exhibition in
36:42
Speaker 2: the Los Angeles Gallery with the great murroralist Judy Paka,
36:46
Speaker 2: And if you're in La please come. It's three hundred
36:49
Speaker 2: and forty feet of murals around the perimeter of the
36:53
Speaker 2: gallery Judy Bacca's nineteen seventies. But if you're adventurous, make
37:00
Speaker 2: a trip to see the real Wall of Los Angeles
37:04
Speaker 2: where this mineral will go already the nineteen forties will
37:10
Speaker 2: actually prehistory up to the nineteen fifties is there, and
37:16
Speaker 2: it's in the valley near Burbank and it's an amazing experience.
37:21
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time. Was a pleasure
37:24
Speaker 1: and great to talk to you.
37:25
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for being here, a pleasure to speak.
37:28
Speaker 1: Thank you. Another great visit in Los Angeles. This is
37:32
Speaker 1: the last visit in Los Angeles. Next week we will
37:35
Speaker 1: go to New York and talk to a lot of
37:38
Speaker 1: other great artists, collectors, our lovers. I'm looking forward to
37:43
Speaker 1: present the next guest from New York. And again, thank
37:47
Speaker 1: you so much for listening to con speak with Brask