Latest / Kunst Speak With Brask / Kunst Speak With Brask - Tom Sanford

Transcript

Kunst Speak With Brask - Tom Sanford · Kunst Speak With Brask

0:00
Speaker 1: Our next guest is another great friend, Tom Sandford, artist.
0:03
Speaker 1: I've known Tom for at least twenty years. Looking forward
0:07
Speaker 1: to go to Harlem and see Tom. Thank you for
0:09
Speaker 1: listening to go and speak with resk Tom Sandford. We
0:14
Speaker 1: are in your studio in Harlem. Thanks so much for
0:18
Speaker 1: taking your time, Yo.
0:21
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming all the way from Denmark com
0:23
Speaker 2: Copenhagen to visit me here.
0:25
Speaker 1: You're more than welcome. We have a friendship that goes
0:29
Speaker 1: at least twenty years back.
0:31
Speaker 2: Yes, we're a very old man now, Jap. We want
0:34
Speaker 2: we once we're not at all.
0:36
Speaker 1: No, let's talk through the history, how we met each
0:41
Speaker 1: other while we are here, and what you're doing now,
0:44
Speaker 1: what you're working on, what's your praxis? What is what's
0:47
Speaker 1: going on in the Tom Sandford's life?
0:50
Speaker 3: All right, we can do that. We can do that.
0:53
Speaker 2: So how did we need that? That's all right, we
0:56
Speaker 2: have to started it all started. I'd say it was
1:00
Speaker 2: like a cold winter's day in Chelsea, New York, and
1:03
Speaker 2: I had recently met Jens Farscow through Hubert Newman, the
1:08
Speaker 2: art collector who was kind enough to be buying my work,
1:12
Speaker 2: and I guess Jen's Farscow was interested in me because
1:15
Speaker 2: our collectors were buying my artwork, and so we were
1:20
Speaker 2: going to do an exhibition in Copenhagen. But this is
1:24
Speaker 2: the first time I'd ever met him, and he was
1:27
Speaker 2: organizing an exhibition at a gallery that the Danish government
1:30
Speaker 2: used to underwrite called DCA Gallery that was down on
1:33
Speaker 2: I think it was on twenty second Street, if my
1:35
Speaker 2: memory serves, But anyway, so I went to the show,
1:39
Speaker 2: and I was in art school at the time. I
1:40
Speaker 2: was going to Hunter College like for their MFA program.
1:43
Speaker 2: So me and like a whole bunch of you know,
1:46
Speaker 2: twenty five year old Ish art students, you know, rolled
1:50
Speaker 2: up on this very sophisticated Danish art gallery where they
1:56
Speaker 2: were showing such notable and revere artist is Michael Quiam
2:01
Speaker 2: and Christian Lamoris and other Danish artists that Farscou was showing.
2:07
Speaker 2: And so he'd come and I was at the opening
2:10
Speaker 2: and I met this handsome young fellow named Jens Peter
2:14
Speaker 2: Brask and we had a few beers at the art opening,
2:19
Speaker 2: and then I think it was Farscout took us to
2:21
Speaker 2: dinner at some Chinese restaurant downtown. And yes, that's how
2:27
Speaker 2: we first met, and then I was going to do
2:29
Speaker 2: an exhibition at the gallery there in Copenhagen, and that
2:33
Speaker 2: was January two thousand and five, and so I made
2:36
Speaker 2: all bunch of art and Alex and I my wife
2:39
Speaker 2: who we just saw briefly, came over to Denmark and
2:45
Speaker 2: Yen's put us up in a real nice hotel. We're
2:47
Speaker 2: having a great time and JP was just like the
2:50
Speaker 2: most incredible host. I don't remember exactly all the cool
2:54
Speaker 2: things that we did on that trip, but one of
2:56
Speaker 2: them was, and this is very memorable, he took us
2:59
Speaker 2: to a Justin Timberlake concert at the Park in Arena.
3:03
Speaker 3: Do you remember that that was fucking all at the time.
3:06
Speaker 2: It was the biggest concert that Timberlake had ever done.
3:11
Speaker 3: It was like fifty thousand people or something like that.
3:14
Speaker 3: And I didn't.
3:17
Speaker 2: Know too much about Timberlake myself at the time, because like,
3:20
Speaker 2: I didn't have kids yet and it wasn't exactly my
3:23
Speaker 2: sort of genre of music. But it was a very
3:25
Speaker 2: good concert. I really remember showing a lot, and I
3:28
Speaker 2: also remember that you got like a rack of like
3:33
Speaker 2: test tubes, but instead of having like chemicals in them,
3:36
Speaker 2: they had alcohol in them.
3:37
Speaker 3: So I didn't realize this.
3:39
Speaker 4: At the time, but I guess Danes drink shots test tubes,
3:43
Speaker 4: and you must have gotten like a rack of one
3:46
Speaker 4: hundred of those things. And between you and me, may
3:50
Speaker 4: think me drank you know, fifty of those test tubes.
3:54
Speaker 3: And it was a long night.
3:56
Speaker 2: But and you know, and so JP showed me like
4:00
Speaker 2: every art gallery in all of all of Copenhagen, and
4:04
Speaker 2: we had it.
4:04
Speaker 3: We had a grand time.
4:06
Speaker 2: I met the famous, the famous Freddy our rest in peace,
4:09
Speaker 2: the the wonderful, wonderful dog Freddy. And and then I
4:16
Speaker 2: came back many times to to UH to Copenhagen, and
4:20
Speaker 2: every time against Peter's done something sort of new and
4:24
Speaker 2: different and super fun like the time.
4:27
Speaker 3: And we could talk about this more in Lanca.
4:28
Speaker 2: I was there with Ryan Schneider, maybe like five or
4:31
Speaker 2: so years later, and you basically kidnapped us and took
4:36
Speaker 2: us to where we we thought we were in, like
4:38
Speaker 2: I don't know, I thought we thought we were in
4:39
Speaker 2: Finland or something, but it turned out we were in
4:42
Speaker 2: our Boorg or yeah, and we saw a kiss concert
4:45
Speaker 2: with this this guy Kent Wolfson.
4:48
Speaker 3: Who was a crazy motherfucker. But we had a great time.
4:53
Speaker 3: I remember like smoking cigars. In his gallery.
4:56
Speaker 2: He had like a sort of special uh like collector's lounge,
5:00
Speaker 2: and underneath this gallery, I guess where he like really
5:02
Speaker 2: like puts the screws.
5:02
Speaker 3: On you to buy a painting or something.
5:04
Speaker 2: But he had like really fine wine, great cigars, And
5:07
Speaker 2: then we went to the Kiss concert. Anyway, So I'm
5:09
Speaker 2: just kind of rambling now about like some of the
5:11
Speaker 2: cool things we did.
5:12
Speaker 1: It's fine, but Tom, I think we should also, of
5:15
Speaker 1: course talk about your practice, how you're working as an artist.
5:19
Speaker 3: I would have been developed since my practice. Yeah, I'm
5:22
Speaker 3: practicing hard. I'm trying to get good.
5:25
Speaker 1: You are, but let's talk about, you know, what happened
5:29
Speaker 1: since I met you, like well at least twenty years,
5:33
Speaker 1: what you're doing now and what you're working on. Well.
5:35
Speaker 2: So back back then, I was making a lot of
5:37
Speaker 2: art that was kind of about my relationship to hip
5:40
Speaker 2: hop music, like I was I you know.
5:43
Speaker 3: My position was that I was like this kind of.
5:45
Speaker 2: White suburban hip hop fan, and I sort of understood
5:50
Speaker 2: and that.
5:51
Speaker 3: The major issue in America was race.
5:55
Speaker 2: It was very important, and for me, racial relationships kind
6:00
Speaker 2: of played out through popular music.
6:02
Speaker 3: It's sort of how I.
6:03
Speaker 2: Learned about African American culture and and all sorts of
6:09
Speaker 2: problems in the United States.
6:10
Speaker 3: But also there was great music and great great.
6:13
Speaker 2: Culture, like you know, hip hop culture we were talking
6:16
Speaker 2: about a little bit earlier with Hubert, you know, graffiti
6:19
Speaker 2: and great dancing and and of course the hip hop music.
6:24
Speaker 3: And that sort of thing.
6:25
Speaker 2: But anyway, so I was making at the time art
6:28
Speaker 2: about the revenge killings the mid nineteen nineties, and I
6:32
Speaker 2: think JP like that as he ended up, he bought
6:35
Speaker 2: one of my favorite pieces I've ever made. I did
6:39
Speaker 2: this thing where I turned myself into Tupac shakor like,
6:42
Speaker 2: I lost some weight, got some tattoos, or at least
6:44
Speaker 2: one tattoo and some fake ones, and I piercings, and
6:47
Speaker 2: I for a while I was kind of claiming online
6:49
Speaker 2: that I was this white incarnate reincarnation of Tupac and
6:54
Speaker 2: drinking Hennessy. All right, Well, I drank Hennessy and I
6:56
Speaker 2: smoke pot every day. I had to go into character,
6:59
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like I've I'm sure that
7:00
Speaker 2: Tupac smoke pot and drank Hennessy every day, so I
7:02
Speaker 2: sure as hell it's going to too. But that that
7:05
Speaker 2: was a long and involved project, which I'm not even
7:07
Speaker 2: going to try to summarize because it's very, I very
7:10
Speaker 2: conceptually complicated.
7:11
Speaker 1: You know.
7:12
Speaker 2: It's all about my ambivalent relationship to to hip hop
7:18
Speaker 2: music and race and that sort of thing in American culture.
7:21
Speaker 2: But from so from there, I've I've always kind of
7:25
Speaker 2: been interested in popular culture and and just the kind
7:30
Speaker 2: of crazy world around me. Like I guess, as time
7:34
Speaker 2: has passed, my work has been come a little bit
7:35
Speaker 2: more about New York because I've lived here now for
7:38
Speaker 2: thirty years, and so over time, I've painted like lots
7:42
Speaker 2: of paintings of sort of New York scenes, like, for instance,
7:45
Speaker 2: in the in the studio right now, you've got to
7:46
Speaker 2: You've got a painting that's behind from where I'm sitting
7:49
Speaker 2: is behind JP. That's a painting of the Cage, which
7:52
Speaker 2: is a famous basketball court in New York City. And
7:55
Speaker 2: so I made a painting of like the legendary street
7:59
Speaker 2: basketball player of New York, like Schmush Parker, George the Messiah.
8:05
Speaker 2: You've got shirm Ice in the painting. You've got Black
8:09
Speaker 2: black Jack Ryan in the pain You've got Anthony Mason,
8:12
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, playing basketball. Uh So like making
8:17
Speaker 2: paintings about the the kind of current history of New
8:20
Speaker 2: York is something that I've been doing for.
8:22
Speaker 3: A little while.
8:23
Speaker 2: In recent years, I've kind of become a sort of
8:27
Speaker 2: semi professional Knicks fan through strange twists of events and
8:32
Speaker 2: and one thing I like to do in my work,
8:33
Speaker 2: and this is a tangent I guess is is I
8:37
Speaker 2: like to kind of find opportunities to sort of like
8:40
Speaker 2: live what I'm doing, like find a way to not
8:43
Speaker 2: only make art about it, but like enter the culture.
8:46
Speaker 3: Like so when I did the Tupac.
8:47
Speaker 2: Thing, I was claiming that I was White Tupac online
8:51
Speaker 2: and I ended up, you know, being in touch with
8:54
Speaker 2: other rappers that you know, new Tupac, like like the
8:57
Speaker 2: the Outlaws and stuff like that, and end up being
8:59
Speaker 2: on MTV or the interviewed in the media like they
9:02
Speaker 2: people started to kind of take me seriously as this
9:05
Speaker 2: kind of reincarnation of Tupac. So that was one way,
9:08
Speaker 2: so one way I could like make it more than
9:11
Speaker 2: just art. It was like me living the art. And
9:14
Speaker 2: so with the with the I become in recent years,
9:17
Speaker 2: like I've always been a Knicks fan, and I've made
9:19
Speaker 2: a lot of paintings about the Knicks that I who
9:21
Speaker 2: I love so much. And in recent years, the Knicks
9:24
Speaker 2: have been pretty good, and so I've been watching more
9:26
Speaker 2: Knicks basketball, and so I've kind of leaned into this whole.
9:29
Speaker 3: Being like a Knicks fan thing, and so now.
9:31
Speaker 2: I managed to weasel my way onto, like onto the
9:33
Speaker 2: MSG broadcast, and like there's all these commercials that feature me,
9:36
Speaker 2: Like is because I'm kind of like a notable fan now,
9:41
Speaker 2: believe it or not, Like sometimes I get recognized serving
9:44
Speaker 2: a Knicks fan on like the streets in New York.
9:46
Speaker 2: It's a weird, weird thing. But so I recently or
9:50
Speaker 2: not so recently, a few years ago, I did a
9:52
Speaker 2: collaboration with Patrick Ewing's sneaker company, Ewing Athletic, and like,
9:58
Speaker 2: I've been making T shirts with a friend who's another
10:02
Speaker 2: big Knicks fan. We make kind of unlicensed Nicks T
10:04
Speaker 2: shirts that we sell online, where we kind of do
10:08
Speaker 2: comic book reimaginations and reimaginings of like storylines that are
10:12
Speaker 2: going on the next season, and so we make like
10:16
Speaker 2: or like we take a hip hop album cover and
10:18
Speaker 2: make and change it to be like about the Knicks
10:20
Speaker 2: or stuff like that. And I've been making Knicks paintings and.
10:25
Speaker 3: What else have I been doing recently.
10:27
Speaker 2: I've been making cut out paintings stuff Like I've got
10:31
Speaker 2: a painting right in front of us of a New
10:35
Speaker 2: York City fire hydrant that has graffiti stickers all over
10:38
Speaker 2: it and graffiti tags, so I put YenS Peters tag
10:41
Speaker 2: on there, of course, gem as well as other you know,
10:44
Speaker 2: friends and graffiti artists that I've seen around as I
10:47
Speaker 2: walk the city streets in New York, and I'm like,
10:49
Speaker 2: I'm kind of really interested in in as many people
10:54
Speaker 2: are graffiti because I think of it as being like
10:59
Speaker 2: a really and sort of distilled artistic act. It's like
11:05
Speaker 2: just wanting to be seen, wanting to communicate, and wanting
11:08
Speaker 2: to do it in a transgressive way. Like for me,
11:11
Speaker 2: being transgressive in art is like a really important part.
11:14
Speaker 2: You know. I'm always trying to do things I sort
11:17
Speaker 2: of shouldn't do in my art, like for a while,
11:20
Speaker 2: or maybe not for a while. Like if you look
11:22
Speaker 2: at all my art, you'll you'll notice like I'm pretty
11:25
Speaker 2: much exclusively paint people who are not white, you know,
11:28
Speaker 2: And there was a time when it seemed to me
11:31
Speaker 2: that like white people weren't really meant to paint non
11:33
Speaker 2: white people. So I'm like, well, I'm gonna fucking you know.
11:35
Speaker 2: I love all people, so I want to paint all people.
11:38
Speaker 2: So I try to paint people of different races. And
11:41
Speaker 2: that's like, that's something that's like kind of controversial, believe
11:43
Speaker 2: it or not, you know, you allow to do that.
11:45
Speaker 3: So of course, like I do that, which is probably
11:47
Speaker 3: not good for my art career.
11:51
Speaker 2: I also for a while was making like history paintings
11:54
Speaker 2: of current events. So right behind Yenes Peter there is
11:58
Speaker 2: a painting that I made after an exhibition I did
12:02
Speaker 2: in Copenhagen, and I think roughly twenty ten, I was
12:05
Speaker 2: over there doing a show at Gallery Paulson, and when
12:10
Speaker 2: I was there, Shepherd Ferry had just done an exhibition
12:14
Speaker 2: down the street, this gallery called V one, and Shepherd
12:19
Speaker 2: got beaten up after or attacked after his the after
12:23
Speaker 2: party of his opening by some kind of radical left
12:28
Speaker 2: wing sort of Danish street thugs who didn't like his politics,
12:32
Speaker 2: and they were kind of taunting him, calling him like
12:34
Speaker 2: Obama Illuminati. He had done this mural at this very
12:39
Speaker 2: sort of sensitive spot that had been a community center
12:43
Speaker 2: that maybe had been recently torn down or something like that,
12:47
Speaker 2: and I guess that this was meant to be some
12:49
Speaker 2: sort of appeasement that he was making the mural, and
12:54
Speaker 2: so a lot of kids graffitied and vandalized the mural
12:56
Speaker 2: and he kept on fixing it, and so people were
12:58
Speaker 2: annoyed about that, and that led to this fight outside
13:01
Speaker 2: of the outside of the after party for the opening,
13:05
Speaker 2: and and that was kind of a fascinating thing because
13:07
Speaker 2: you know, he's seen as a very left wing character
13:09
Speaker 2: over here, but over there that the kids thought of
13:12
Speaker 2: him as being too right wing. And so I was
13:16
Speaker 2: able to get in touch with him via email, and
13:18
Speaker 2: he kind of described the guy who beat him up,
13:21
Speaker 2: and he just said to me that that he was
13:24
Speaker 2: He looked like a Danish soccer hoodlumb so I kind
13:26
Speaker 2: of imagine what a Danish soccer hoodlumb is. And I
13:28
Speaker 2: painted the guy and I and I painted Romeo Trinidad
13:32
Speaker 2: in the painting. Who was Shepherd's or obeys. It's just
13:37
Speaker 2: the brand manager, kind of like he ran the clothing line.
13:40
Speaker 2: He was also DJing of the party. That's what I
13:42
Speaker 2: understand to have happened. And so he's in the in
13:44
Speaker 2: the painting breaking up the fight, and there's some like
13:48
Speaker 2: kind of bad guys in the in the background. But anyway,
13:50
Speaker 2: so it was like my imagining imagining of like a
13:54
Speaker 2: like a little event, which was like, so I thought
13:57
Speaker 2: of this like as like a contemporary history painting about
13:59
Speaker 2: a minor historical event. Other things I've you know, I've
14:03
Speaker 2: been kind of interested in merchandise recently, like kind of
14:07
Speaker 2: very inexpensive ways to get your art out and engage
14:12
Speaker 2: a lot of people. So I've been making T shirts
14:16
Speaker 2: in recent years. I was talking about the NIXT T shirts,
14:19
Speaker 2: but I also make other T shirts, and I've been
14:21
Speaker 2: making like wooden sneakers. I got some wooden sneakers here,
14:26
Speaker 2: Like I make my sort of yanky versions of Air
14:30
Speaker 2: Jordan's and things like that. All the sneakers I wanted
14:32
Speaker 2: when I was a kid. My parents wouldn't buy them
14:34
Speaker 2: for me, and now I have to buy them for
14:35
Speaker 2: my kid. The life goes internal, Yeah, yeah, the circle
14:40
Speaker 2: of life.
14:41
Speaker 1: Tom, I think we should talk about these two guys
14:44
Speaker 1: playing basketball, okay at the wall next to us.
14:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so the well, I've been making art about
14:54
Speaker 2: the Knicks.
14:55
Speaker 3: It's a funny.
14:56
Speaker 2: It's a weird thing to do to make art about
14:57
Speaker 2: a basketball team, but I've found that that, like I
15:02
Speaker 2: really like sports fan culture. First of all, I much
15:04
Speaker 2: prefer to talk to sports fans and art people because
15:07
Speaker 2: all art people ever want to talk about is a
15:09
Speaker 2: real estate or complain about how tough the art market is.
15:13
Speaker 2: But Knicks fans, they like to talk about the Knicks,
15:16
Speaker 2: and I'm interested in that, and they also I also
15:19
Speaker 2: find that people who don't like exist in the art
15:21
Speaker 2: world really have an admiration and respect for art and
15:25
Speaker 2: artists in a way that people in the art world
15:27
Speaker 2: do not. In the art world, artists are like the
15:30
Speaker 2: bottom of the social barrel, and they're just the guys
15:33
Speaker 2: who show up at art openings looking for free drinks.
15:35
Speaker 2: But but you know, amongst Knicks fans, artists are creative geniuses.
15:40
Speaker 2: And so I've been, you know, making art that.
15:46
Speaker 3: Deals with the Knicks.
15:48
Speaker 2: And so I've been painting recently some of my favorite players.
15:51
Speaker 2: I'm hoping to do an exhibition at some point in
15:53
Speaker 2: like the not too distant future where I have paintings
15:57
Speaker 2: of my my kind of favorite players of all time.
16:00
Speaker 3: So I've right here.
16:00
Speaker 2: I've got Jalen Bronson and Latrelle's Freewell, who are two
16:04
Speaker 2: players that I love a lot, but I've pained lots
16:06
Speaker 2: of different different guys that aren't here right now.
16:09
Speaker 1: And they're pretty big I haven't seen. And these guys
16:12
Speaker 1: are also cut out, so no many they have been
16:14
Speaker 1: on a canvas or wood panel or something. These have
16:17
Speaker 1: cut out.
16:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, these ones that I make them with like
16:20
Speaker 2: a with kind of a particle board, and I cut
16:22
Speaker 2: them out so I don't have to make a background.
16:24
Speaker 2: So like the world around them can be the background,
16:27
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? Like like I can
16:30
Speaker 2: stick them anywhere and like the wall becomes the context
16:33
Speaker 2: for them. Yeah, you know the reason I started doing this,
16:40
Speaker 2: Like it's it's funny, stupid little things that stick with you.
16:44
Speaker 2: When I was in college, I remember there was a
16:47
Speaker 2: pizza place near Columbia University that I used to go
16:50
Speaker 2: to a lot with my friends. Because the pizza place
16:52
Speaker 2: was called Pronto Pizza. They serve beer, but they put
16:55
Speaker 2: it they put the beer in in Coca Cola like cups,
17:01
Speaker 2: and so we could get a beer at the pizza
17:03
Speaker 2: place and take it to class. And so this was
17:05
Speaker 2: really great because you could drink the beer in class
17:07
Speaker 2: and the teacher wouldn't know.
17:08
Speaker 3: But anyway, so outside Pronto Pizza.
17:10
Speaker 2: They had a cutout pizza delivery guy, like a big cutout.
17:14
Speaker 2: I loved that pizza delivery guy, and so for maybe
17:17
Speaker 2: like thirty years, I was like, someday, I'm going to
17:20
Speaker 2: start making cutout figures as my art because I've just
17:24
Speaker 2: been like thinking about that pizza guy for so long,
17:26
Speaker 2: and so I started doing it with these basketball players.
17:29
Speaker 1: But I also think it's very interesting to the way
17:31
Speaker 1: that you're working now compared to a lot of other artists.
17:36
Speaker 1: We kind of find your own way in the odd world.
17:39
Speaker 1: How you work to get your works out.
17:43
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, Like I've realized that I don't know, I
17:49
Speaker 2: try to enjoy myself, right, And I found working within
17:53
Speaker 2: the art worl kind of frustrating for.
17:54
Speaker 3: A long time.
17:55
Speaker 2: And then I realized that the whole world loves and
17:59
Speaker 2: wants art, and it's easier in a way to exist
18:02
Speaker 2: outside of the art world than in the art world.
18:04
Speaker 2: Like I haven't done like a real art show in
18:06
Speaker 2: a while, And it's not that I'm against doing them,
18:09
Speaker 2: but I kind of prefer to exhibit my work in
18:15
Speaker 2: the real world, like to me, like doing a mural
18:17
Speaker 2: or doing or making a piece of art for like
18:20
Speaker 2: like a restaurant or something like that is a more
18:24
Speaker 2: interesting context to me than like a white.
18:27
Speaker 3: Cube, And.
18:30
Speaker 2: It changes how you have to approach things because if
18:32
Speaker 2: you're not working as an artist in the art world,
18:35
Speaker 2: you can't expect to sell things for art world prices
18:38
Speaker 2: because in the art world, art is seen as an equity,
18:42
Speaker 2: like as a security, and they're traded like financial instruments.
18:47
Speaker 2: But if you sell a painting to a to a restaurant,
18:50
Speaker 2: or you get commissioned by a restaurant, they're not thinking
18:52
Speaker 2: of it that way, which has upsides and downsides. Up
18:55
Speaker 2: the downside is that no one's going to spend like
18:59
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand on a painting, you know, if they're
19:03
Speaker 2: not planning on reselling it, you know, like if they're
19:06
Speaker 2: not thinking of it like a stock.
19:07
Speaker 3: So you've got to you've got to find a way.
19:09
Speaker 2: To make art that's kind of affordable, Like you're you're
19:12
Speaker 2: probably gonna top out at like ten twenty thousand dollars
19:16
Speaker 2: if you're not. If you're not making art in the
19:17
Speaker 2: art world, and most of your art's gonna to be
19:19
Speaker 2: cheaper than that, So you have to find ways to
19:20
Speaker 2: do that.
19:20
Speaker 3: But the great The other great.
19:21
Speaker 2: Thing is that since it's not a they don't think
19:25
Speaker 2: of it as a security. They don't think of it
19:27
Speaker 2: as something that's going to be traded later. You don't
19:29
Speaker 2: have to worry about them trying to resell it and
19:32
Speaker 2: fuck up your market because like they're they're not, that's
19:34
Speaker 2: not their interest.
19:35
Speaker 3: And so I like to exist there more.
19:38
Speaker 2: And it also means I just kind of I can
19:39
Speaker 2: kind of interact more with the with the culture that
19:43
Speaker 2: I'm interested in. Like recently, I don't know, like I'm
19:48
Speaker 2: I made a painting of Walclyde Fraser, who's a very
19:51
Speaker 2: famous American basketball player, and it led to me like
19:55
Speaker 2: meeting Walclyde Fraser, you know, like that doesn't really happen
19:58
Speaker 2: in the art world, but it does in the real world.
20:01
Speaker 2: I kind of like to just have tangents and find
20:03
Speaker 2: like just find opportunities and go with them and just
20:07
Speaker 2: navigate life that way, you know, like just take see
20:10
Speaker 2: see where see where art can take you. Like the
20:12
Speaker 2: thing about artist has this incredible power to to allow
20:16
Speaker 2: you to do interesting things and enter rooms that you
20:21
Speaker 2: might not be able to otherwise. You know, like people
20:24
Speaker 2: are always interested in artists and and so you can
20:29
Speaker 2: kind of meet someone that that you wouldn't otherwise because
20:34
Speaker 2: you're an artist and and just get great opportunities, and
20:38
Speaker 2: so that appeals to me.
20:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're also really good about if you know
20:44
Speaker 1: an artist, let's say the Snowman and say, hey, JP,
20:47
Speaker 1: you have to shake him out.
20:49
Speaker 2: Well, of course, I want. I want you to know
20:51
Speaker 2: about all the cool stuff that I find.
20:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's it's it's so interesting that we have
20:56
Speaker 1: to talk that out before. But I really love the
20:58
Speaker 1: way that you Americans are doing that, helping your other
21:01
Speaker 1: artist colleagues to get more out, because otherwise I wouldn't
21:05
Speaker 1: probably have been saying paying attention to the Snowman if
21:08
Speaker 1: it wasn't then you said, hey, you have to pay attention,
21:10
Speaker 1: took him to the studio.
21:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well you know, uh, the Snowman is an artist,
21:16
Speaker 2: So I think he's a fucking genius like I is.
21:21
Speaker 2: The way that he and he he does what I
21:23
Speaker 2: was just talking about, like engaging culture at a much
21:26
Speaker 2: higher level than me. He is a master of engaging
21:30
Speaker 2: with this, with this city, and with graffiti culture, and
21:35
Speaker 2: corporate culture and and all sorts of and and all
21:38
Speaker 2: but also local neighborhood cultures. So what the Snowman does is, well,
21:42
Speaker 2: he's a graffiti artist, but he in recent years he's
21:45
Speaker 2: become I guess because he's.
21:46
Speaker 3: A little bit older.
21:47
Speaker 2: Now he doesn't want to run from the cops, so
21:48
Speaker 2: he tries to do mainly legal stuff. And so he
21:51
Speaker 2: does paintings all over stores in bodegas in the neighborhood
21:54
Speaker 2: that I live in up.
21:55
Speaker 3: Here in Harlem.
21:56
Speaker 2: But and so so the bodega owner or the restaurant
22:00
Speaker 2: owner will ask him to do something and then he will.
22:03
Speaker 2: He will do it himself, and he actually pays for
22:06
Speaker 2: it himself, and he and he kind of used it
22:08
Speaker 2: as advertising for himself. And he has an incredible online
22:12
Speaker 2: presence because of this really authentic way of him making
22:17
Speaker 2: his work be part of the neighborhood. So anyone in
22:20
Speaker 2: Washington Heights, Harlem, you say the Snowman, they all know.
22:23
Speaker 3: Who he is.
22:24
Speaker 2: They may not know who he is as a person,
22:26
Speaker 2: but they they've heard of him, like he's he's incredibly
22:29
Speaker 2: famous here. But the way that I met him, and
22:32
Speaker 2: this is one of the cool things about social media.
22:35
Speaker 2: I'd been following him for a while and I'd seen
22:37
Speaker 2: his stickers all over the place, and you know, snowman
22:41
Speaker 2: is that? Is that a coke dealer or a white guy?
22:44
Speaker 2: Like I'm interested, like, well, who is this guy? I
22:46
Speaker 2: don't know, but I so I'm following him and I
22:49
Speaker 2: start sending occasionally a DM over Instagram and he writes
22:53
Speaker 2: me back occasionally, and so we have a little back
22:55
Speaker 2: and forth conversation going. And then about six or so
22:59
Speaker 2: years ago, it was for the pandemic, I was at
23:01
Speaker 2: the studious the Bronx Museum in Bronx, New York. It
23:08
Speaker 2: was there was a Henry Shelfont show there, if I
23:10
Speaker 2: remember correctly, And I'm there with Alex, my wife, and
23:14
Speaker 2: we're talking to people and some dude comes up to
23:17
Speaker 2: me and we start talking. I forget we're talking about,
23:19
Speaker 2: but I didn't recognize him. But that isn't unusual because,
23:23
Speaker 2: like you know, over the years, I you know, normally
23:25
Speaker 2: I'm a kind of drunket openings or I used to be,
23:27
Speaker 2: and so I often don't remember the name of the
23:29
Speaker 2: person I'm talking to.
23:30
Speaker 3: But I eventually I'm like, like, this guy's interesting. Like
23:33
Speaker 3: I was working on who he is.
23:35
Speaker 2: I was like, as I tell him, like I don't
23:37
Speaker 2: remember who you are like, what's your name? And he's like,
23:38
Speaker 2: I'm a snowman, and so he had seen me and
23:42
Speaker 2: he'd come and.
23:43
Speaker 3: Track me down, you know. So that was really cool.
23:45
Speaker 3: And then when we became friends.
23:46
Speaker 2: And I had thought that he probably lived in my
23:50
Speaker 2: neighborhood just because of watching his Instagram and like sort
23:53
Speaker 2: of seeing where he was most often from Instagram. It
23:57
Speaker 2: led me to believe that he must kind of live
23:59
Speaker 2: near me. And I was right, he lived kind of
24:00
Speaker 2: near me. And so he became like a really good friend.
24:03
Speaker 2: And you know, I go over to studio all the time,
24:06
Speaker 2: and yeah, just nice to meet new people in the
24:09
Speaker 2: neighborhood and introduce him to JP and hopefully JP can
24:12
Speaker 2: bring him over to Denmark at some point.
24:14
Speaker 1: To you should come on just for like a couple
24:16
Speaker 1: of months into some much just paint.
24:19
Speaker 2: What's your next question, JP, That's a good question. One
24:23
Speaker 2: thing we could talk about is, yeah, back back in
24:24
Speaker 2: the day, back you used to come over here. We
24:26
Speaker 2: used to go on these we used to go on
24:27
Speaker 2: these wonderful studio tours all over This is when I
24:31
Speaker 2: guess like I had more time, you know, before children
24:33
Speaker 2: and stuff like we like go all over Brooklyn and
24:38
Speaker 2: you know go to many many art studios, uh like
24:41
Speaker 2: be like a parade around Bushwick of because you know,
24:44
Speaker 2: you go to one studio and then that artist would
24:47
Speaker 2: come with you to the next studio as well.
24:49
Speaker 3: By the end, you know, you have like ten artists going.
24:51
Speaker 2: Into the the next studio and then you go we
24:54
Speaker 2: go for beers.
24:55
Speaker 3: That was a lot of fun.
24:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have been to a lot of great studios
24:59
Speaker 1: and you have introduced me to a lot of great guys,
25:02
Speaker 1: a lot of artists that friends are both with friends
25:06
Speaker 1: with both of us still.
25:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course after the.
25:08
Speaker 1: Years, like I think it took me to Ryan Schneider,
25:12
Speaker 1: like really many years ago.
25:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ryan, probably Aaron Johnson, of course, definitely Dan Hidekamp
25:18
Speaker 2: because I remember you did not like Dan Handkamp's work
25:20
Speaker 2: at first, but you've come around on that.
25:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just in the beginning, it was a
25:24
Speaker 1: matter briefly. I didn't really you need you need education,
25:26
Speaker 1: you know for sure, I'm Denis, I need education for
25:30
Speaker 1: American artists himself, Tom Sanford, so yeah, sure, yeah. Then
25:34
Speaker 1: Michael Anderson, Michael Anderson, rist in Peace, good friend, and
25:39
Speaker 1: now the snow Man. Yeah, we have been doing a
25:41
Speaker 1: lot of really nice studio visits together.
25:45
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, no, you introduced me to Pyride Actually I did, yeah, yeah,
25:48
Speaker 2: because like so you had been collecting him via Schroeder
25:51
Speaker 2: Romero Gallery.
25:53
Speaker 3: And then it was.
25:54
Speaker 2: When I was first showing with Leo Koenig and you
25:59
Speaker 2: were in town and Less Rogers had a party in
26:03
Speaker 2: his love correct and that that was Mercy Street, I
26:07
Speaker 2: guess it was. And and so I was there with
26:09
Speaker 2: you and my wife Alex, and you brought along Powhida.
26:12
Speaker 2: And I never met Bill at that point, and anyone
26:16
Speaker 2: who's ever met Bill I at this point. I love Bill,
26:19
Speaker 2: but he's he can be like a very annoying person
26:22
Speaker 2: sometimes anyway, So he got me. He was we were
26:25
Speaker 2: all kind of drunk and and Alex and I were
26:30
Speaker 2: about to get married. We'd recently gotten like engaged, and
26:34
Speaker 2: so so.
26:35
Speaker 3: We tell Bill we're getting married.
26:37
Speaker 2: He's like, actually, because he's married, so like hopefully his
26:41
Speaker 2: wife never listens to this.
26:44
Speaker 5: He's like, you're getting married. That's an awful lot. Yeah,
26:49
Speaker 5: he's like, that's a real big mistake. Alex is right
26:52
Speaker 5: here next to me. I was like, oh, fuck you.
26:55
Speaker 2: But then but then I you know, I ended up
26:57
Speaker 2: hanging out with him a lot, and I yeah, he's well,
27:01
Speaker 2: he's I think, a fascinating artist and a really fascinating personality.
27:05
Speaker 3: Like Bill has a kind.
27:07
Speaker 2: Of a like a swing between incredible self confidence and
27:14
Speaker 2: self doubt all the time, I think, and it makes
27:16
Speaker 2: him such an interesting artist. Is here's so much like
27:19
Speaker 2: kind of there's such a kind of conflict in his
27:22
Speaker 2: work from the way the way I see it, Like
27:24
Speaker 2: there's this you know, he's so he's very conscientious on
27:28
Speaker 2: the one hand, but also like kind of bombastic and
27:32
Speaker 2: proud and.
27:32
Speaker 3: Another on the other hand.
27:34
Speaker 2: And yeah, he's a fascinating guy and a real genius artist.
27:37
Speaker 2: So I was very glad that you introduced me. In fact,
27:39
Speaker 2: Bill is gonna come down with me to Miami, I believe.
27:44
Speaker 2: I think he bought his ticket last night because we're
27:46
Speaker 2: gonna go down there for the Art Fair. He's very
27:49
Speaker 2: excited about this because we're gonna do some podcasting with
27:51
Speaker 2: bad at Sports. And one of things that William really
27:55
Speaker 2: likes is he really likes it when the art world's
27:57
Speaker 2: doing badly.
27:58
Speaker 3: He likes to kind of.
27:59
Speaker 2: Revel in the in the.
28:03
Speaker 3: Destruction of capitalism.
28:05
Speaker 2: So we're gonna get to do some interviewing people, and
28:09
Speaker 2: I think that Bill will be our like kind of
28:12
Speaker 2: art market analyst and you know, kind of like like
28:17
Speaker 2: you're on CNN or something like that, like talking about
28:20
Speaker 2: how the market is crashing and crash and burn and
28:24
Speaker 2: every the world's falling apart, which is his favorite subject matter.
28:29
Speaker 1: And why you're doing the podcast at the OUTFA.
28:31
Speaker 2: We're going to do it at NAA Nada Art Fair
28:34
Speaker 2: about it sports is this wonderful art podcast. There's there's
28:37
Speaker 2: a lot of art podcasts these days, but they were
28:39
Speaker 2: probably the first one. They've been going now for twenty years.
28:42
Speaker 1: Wow.
28:43
Speaker 2: They must have interviewed like, you know, a thousand different artists, collectors,
28:48
Speaker 2: curators and art notable peoples.
28:50
Speaker 3: It's been weekly. It's been a weekly show for twenty years.
28:53
Speaker 2: And and because of that, they just have an incredible
28:56
Speaker 2: library that is a document of you know, the art
29:01
Speaker 2: scene for twenty years in the United States. But so
29:05
Speaker 2: NATA was really nice and they gave us a free
29:07
Speaker 2: booth down there. Because we don't make any money off
29:09
Speaker 2: this shit. It's all self funded. We don't do any
29:11
Speaker 2: advertising like that. I say we At one point I
29:15
Speaker 2: was really kind of involved, but now.
29:17
Speaker 3: I'm really not.
29:18
Speaker 2: I just whenever there's an art fair, I'll show up
29:21
Speaker 2: to hang out with my friend Duncan Mackenzie there and
29:24
Speaker 2: interview people. But we're gonna be there, and I guess
29:26
Speaker 2: we're just gonna set up some microphones and pull people
29:29
Speaker 2: in from the.
29:30
Speaker 3: Fair and start interviewing them.
29:31
Speaker 1: So that's the next project.
29:33
Speaker 2: Well, that's the next thing I'm doing outside of the studio.
29:36
Speaker 2: I'm always doing projects here, you know, work working on
29:40
Speaker 2: paintings for I got some commissions I gotta do, and
29:43
Speaker 2: I got some other stuff to take care of in
29:47
Speaker 2: the next two weeks.
29:47
Speaker 1: But yeah, and hopefully do we show with all their basketportes?
29:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I thought I had.
29:54
Speaker 2: I think I have a potential venue for it, but
29:56
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. If anyone is an an art dealer
30:01
Speaker 2: who really likes basketball, let me know, because I'm I'm
30:05
Speaker 2: looking for I'm looking for a venue.
30:06
Speaker 3: I might I might have something worked out, but keep
30:10
Speaker 3: options open.
30:14
Speaker 2: It could be I think New York's frankly the best
30:17
Speaker 2: place to do it, but you know, beggars can't be choosers.
30:20
Speaker 1: Of course, because of and close to the Knicks stadium, right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
30:24
Speaker 1: what about doing in the stadium.
30:26
Speaker 2: You know, that's one of my major career goals is
30:29
Speaker 2: to get some art into Madison Square Garden. The Nicks
30:32
Speaker 2: know about me, like there are players who bought me
30:36
Speaker 2: mart Or Knicks T shirts. I have a I say
30:38
Speaker 2: I ord because I have a collaborator on the T shirts,
30:40
Speaker 2: this guy on Stephen de Lacky, And we call ourselves
30:43
Speaker 2: Bocker back pages, like Knickerbocker back pages, like the back
30:46
Speaker 2: page or the sports section in here. And they have
30:51
Speaker 2: tabloid newspapers, and on the back of the tabloid newspapers
30:53
Speaker 2: always the sports section. And uh, and you know, the
30:58
Speaker 2: the general manager of the has bought our T shirts
31:01
Speaker 2: and many of the players have bought our T shirts.
31:03
Speaker 2: And but the Knicks have never collaborated with me. And
31:08
Speaker 2: I would like that, but I don't think it's likely
31:10
Speaker 2: to happen because they're.
31:11
Speaker 3: Kind of particular about their branding.
31:13
Speaker 2: Like certain teams collaborate with artists all the time, like
31:17
Speaker 2: the New The Brooklyn Nets collaborate with artists a lot,
31:21
Speaker 2: in Factice Snowman being one of them. But the Knicks
31:25
Speaker 2: have a very narrow sense of their brand. And the
31:31
Speaker 2: problem is, I am not a Nets fan so I
31:33
Speaker 2: would never collaborate with the Nets.
31:35
Speaker 3: But I would love to collaborate Knicks, but they probably
31:37
Speaker 3: never have.
31:39
Speaker 1: Tom, thanks so much for your time. Great to see you.
31:41
Speaker 3: Again and always great to see you JP. Tom, thanks
31:44
Speaker 3: so much, Thanks Man.
31:46
Speaker 1: What a great place so see you Tom. Always fun,
31:49
Speaker 1: good to hang talk starways talk about the history. Like
31:53
Speaker 1: I said in the beginning, we go way back. So
31:56
Speaker 1: thank you again for listening to Couldn't Speak with Brass
32:00
Speaker 1: Kim