Author name: Alexandra Kosloski

Alexandra Kosloski is a UX designer and assistant gallerist at The Trops.

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 1)

Interview /

The artist’s studio

Photo courtesy of David Aaron Greenberg

David Aaron Greenberg is an artist who uses multiple modes of expression. ​His work has been exhibited in various New York City galleries and is in the permanent collection at Stanford University.​ His critical writing has appeared in Parkett, The Fader, Art in America and Whitehot Magazine. ​Along with producer David Sisko, he co-founded Disco Pusher, a New York City songwriting and recording duo. Greenberg graduated from Rutgers University, Phi Beta Kappa. He lives in New Jersey and sometimes New York City.

In part 1 of their 3 part interview, Alexandra Kosloski and David Aaron Greenberg discuss his early approach to painting and his love for poetry.

David Aaron Greenberg: In the last three years, I’ve kept my guitar out of my studio. That was a big, important thing for me to do, to not have the guitar in the painting studio.

AK: Why?

David Aaron Greenberg: I finally found that it wasn’t appropriate. There’s no place for the guitar in there, just like there’s no place for an easel in the recording studio. I needed to do that in order to keep my head together because I’m not 25 anymore and living at the Chelsea Hotel. I’ve got to separate things. Keeps the mental craziness in my head in check. Do you mind if I draw you while we do this?

AK: I don’t mind.

David Aaron Greenberg: It’s easier for me.

AK: So you’re an interdisciplinary artist including painting, music, writing… Anything else?.

David Aaron Greenberg: “Include.” No, I just do them. I include everybody. All inclusive. I’m not exclusive. I cheat on myself. I’m in an open relationship with myself.

AK: But do they overlap at all? Do they inspire each other?

David Aaron Greenberg: I have a moleskine matte black sketchbook without lines. It’s like the most basic, nondescript moleskin notebook that you can have and within that is everything. I’ve got stacks of them from the years. If I want to make a drawing into a painting, I pull out the drawings, stick it on the wall next to the painting and go, “Okay, what else do I do?”. Music– if I need some lyrics, I steal from my poems. I steal all the best lines from the poems and put them in. I steal from myself and throw them into songs.

David Aaron Greenberg during the interview

AK: So you have this sketchbook which is basically a physical manifestation of all your inspiration.

David Aaron Greenberg: Yeah, but at the same time it’s like a shorthand to explain what I do. I mean, there’s other stuff I do, like I write essays and I write art criticism. So I just live my life. I don’t really know what I’m doing day to day, but it’s nice to have an excuse to pretend that I’m a normal person. So I try to keep studio hours Monday through Friday 1 to 4. Those are my office hours like I’m a psychiatrist. I might get there before one, and that’s a good day. I might get there after one, and it’s like I’m rushing around. I might not get there at all. But that’s the painting, you know? It took me my whole life to take myself seriously as a painter. I never did, unfortunately. Or not unfortunately, it was what it was.

AK: How did you first approach painting?

David Aaron Greenberg: I think I became a self-aware artist when I was 17 because I had been to Israel for the whole summer– 1988. And I had taken pictures, like you do as a tourist, and a Jew, and you’re in Israel. I didn’t take any pictures of people. I was not interested in people. I was interested in myself and my girlfriend who broke up with me the day before we were supposed to leave. And I had to be on the trip with her the whole time. So there’s misery for you. Yeah. And I had to watch her screw some guy and rub it in my face the whole time. Ah, the eighties. To be young and in a John Hughes film that didn’t exist.

So, the thing that made me aware was I don’t think I drew a picture when I was in Israel. I had a journal that I kept, and I was writing lyrics and diary entries and poems. When I got back from Israel, I had all these pictures and I did these giant watercolors. And then I was like, “Oh, I get it”. You come back to your studio with the source material. But I was still so much more interested in being a poet or a rock star. Then I was like, “Fuck it”. I loved painting but I would always do it in spurts. Like, I’d do a year’s worth of paintings in a weekend. But it took me my whole life to realize that I was painting those paintings in my mind and when I was taking photos as reference, and then I had to digest it. It took me a long time to realize that.

And I was around a lot of painters, and saw their practice, and I knew these things intellectually that, God, it’s just like a day to day job. You got to wake up, paint until you’re done, and then you go home. Yeah. Like a job. I was just holding on to this romantic notion that it was this inspired moment of creation and not, as de Kooning said, 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Yeah, which it is, pretty much. That 10% inspiration is what you work so hard to get. I wrote in a song, “Why do I work so hard to play?” Because you do. You work so hard just to be able to play. And then the worst is when you get there and everything’s great; the studio’s all ready to go, I have an hour, two, three hours to just paint. I even turn the music off. And then nothing happens. And then you feel horrible.

Installation shot of David Aaron Greenberg’s work at Eroica Variations

AK: What do you mean “nothing happens”?

David Aaron Greenberg: Literally, nothing happens. No inspiration, no nothing. I got nothing. That’s the worst, because it’s like, “Well, now what?” That’s why I like to have at least, like, three big ones and, like, twenty little ones going on all at the same time because at least then I have something to do. Because then it’s not that moment of like, “Here’s a blank canvas– start.”

AK: It’s hard sometimes.

David Aaron Greenberg: It’s not that it’s hard. It’s just that sometimes you’re paralyzed, and that’s why accidents are great. Like, literally, “Oh, shit. I dropped some paint on this. Well, that’s awesome. So let’s continue”. And that’s how I start all my paintings. This art dealer John Cheim told me at some point– just buy pre-stretched canvas that was already primed, stop with the raw canvas, enough already. And it freed me. Because he wasn’t an artist. He tried to be an artist and became an art dealer, you know, so a failed painter or whatever. He just said he realized that there was enough shit in the world that was better than his shit. So he’d much rather help people that were making good stuff, instead of making mediocre stuff. I don’t think that way. Maybe I’m just full of myself. I kind of have this theory that a painter, when they stand in front of a blank canvas, they have the history of the world and everything that came before, behind them. And it’s like, let’s dive into the abyss, because I know everything there is to know, because there’s not that much to know. You can just pick what you need to know. Etruscans, Middle Kingdom, Old Kingdom, line drawings, Coptic vases. Like, what are we going to do today?

AK: But that’s assuming that you have exposure to all that.

David Aaron Greenberg: Art history? Well, that’s the first step. Most artists don’t know their art history from anything. But that’s probably why I don’t know what I am. I’m an artist, a poet, singer, songwriter, visual artist, essayist. I mean, there’s so many labels. In the Renaissance they just said, “You’re an artist”, and you were expected to do all that other stuff. Yeah, Michelangelo wrote poems. Leonardo made scientific drawings and did dissections and no one said, “don’t do that”. It’s very American to say, stay in your lane.

AK: There’s more incentive to become a specialized artist and it’s the more popular method. So what motivates you to remain interdisciplinary? But I get the feeling you don’t like the word interdisciplinary.

David Aaron Greenberg: No, it’s fine. I didn’t want to use the word interdisciplinary because I find it unbearably hard to pronounce. I said that I use various modes of… Yeah, interdisciplinary. It sounds so formal and antiseptic.

AK: So why do you stay that way?

David Aaron Greenberg: Because as much as I try to just do one thing, I can’t help myself. I used to say for a long time, “Hi, I’m David Aaron Greenberg. I’m a recovering poet. It’s been 48 hours since my last poem.” I’ve tried to stop writing poems. I didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to be a poet. I kind of felt like I was obliged to be a poet by Allen Ginsberg who insisted upon it.

AK: Could you explain his influence on you?

David Aaron Greenberg

Photo by Allen Ginsberg

Collection of National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

David Aaron Greenberg: Around 1987, I really found that I was like… I don’t want to say influenced. Inspired. I was profoundly connected to Walt Whitman. It was beyond just liking his poem or reading his poems. I felt connected to him in some way, and that brought up feelings of myself, my identity, my sexuality, my very existence, my everything, the universe, the cosmos. As he would say, “Do I contradict myself? Very well. I am vast, I contain multitudes”. And so anything that had to do with Walt Whitman, I was interested. So PBS had a Walt Whitman documentary. And in the documentary, there was Allen Ginsberg, poet, and the name sounded vaguely familiar. And he’s talking about what? Walt Whitman. And he seems to really be connected to him, too. Like, “Oh, wow, I’m not the only crazy who thinks that they know Walt Whitman”. And so I’m like, “Who’s this Allen Ginsberg dude?”. So I went to the library in East Brunswick, New Jersey, and I said, okay, Ginsberg poetry. And I took out whatever I could find. I opened it up and then I felt paranoid. So I went to the lake outside past the parking lot and I started reading them and it felt subversive. I shouldn’t be reading this like, is this illegal? I was hiding the book. I read a couple of short poems and I had this kind of deja vu into the future. Does that make sense?

AK: Like a premonition?

David Aaron Greenberg: Yeah, but how could you feel something that hadn’t happened? It was almost like it had already happened and I was going to relive it. And what I had was a visual of an old man in front of me, and me, carrying plastic bags from the grocery going up a staircase and helping him get up to the staircase. And then I felt this enormous sharp pain and heaviness on my chest, almost like heartache. And it wouldn’t go away. It didn’t leave me for days and then those days turned into years. And then about two and a half years later, I saw him read at the Continental Divide. He was singing Songs of Innocence and Experience that he had set to music. And then he read some poems. I don’t remember what the poems were, but he was singing. “Singing” really is an interesting thing to call it, but he was trying to sing and he had a guitar player with him. He was okay. And then I talked to him very briefly. He signed my copy of Howl. I sensed that there was something going on between the two of us. That was December, 1989. By December, 1990 I was on that same stage and I was playing guitar with him. And I gave him poems, and he read them and made corrections or suggestions. And then it was like I was writing poems to please him in a weird way. When I met the poet Gregory Corso, who I also admired, he pulled me aside and said, “Don’t let that man fuck with your poetry”.

AK: Why? Because you wanted to impress him?

David Aaron Greenberg: Like, when you have a professor or a teacher that you really like and you want to do well, not just for yourself, but because they taught you, so you want to show them that you learned. It’s a weird thing. I don’t know. I think it’s just a human thing. The Buddhists would say that the students should surpass the master. Therefore, if the student doesn’t surpass the master, the master is no good. But I still wanted to paint all that time. But I wasn’t in art school. I didn’t go to art school. I had art lessons at Rutgers when I was a little, little kid. I did this special program.

AK: They still do that.

David Aaron Greenberg: Oh, really? And I learned how to do everything. And then when I was in elementary school, I had this teacher, Mrs. Jochnowitz, who just passed away this year. And she would take like two or three students that she thought were the prize, but she ignored everybody else. And then she would have us come in during recess like two or three times in the week. But what we did was learn batik and papier maché and oil sticks, and she just taught us everything. So it’s like why should I go to art school when I already knew how to do all this stuff? I wanted to study literature and art history. I think studying art history is much better. You can’t teach somebody to be an artist. You can’t teach somebody to be a writer. You either are or you aren’t. You can show them great examples, and that’s about it. Now, I regret that I didn’t go to art school because there’s shit that I have to call my young friends like, “How do I do this? Can I mix the linseed?” You know, like, I don’t know certain things that people learn in their first year.

AK: You know, there’s a hotline for painting where you can call a chemist.

David Aaron Greenberg: That just proves my point, that I probably should have went to art school. I have a studio that’s like a spitting distance from Rutgers campus. And you’re a Mason Gross grad, right? So, yeah, I just need Mason Gross grads around me telling me what to do.

AK: They taught us well.

David Aaron Greenberg: It’s a good art school. 

Continue to Part 2

Part 2

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 1) Read More »

Interview

Bohemian Wednesdays, June 2023

Exhibition /

Kanami Kusajima

Photo by Adrian Crispin, 2023

The Trops presents Bohemian Wednesdays as a cross-genre improvisation and cultural exchange existing at the intersection of community and culture. Exhibiting the diverse talents of NYC, this year’s summer series was hosted by Manero’s on Mulberry, featuring music, dance, film, painting, sculpture, and everything in between. Interactive cultural density fuels the spirit of Bohemian Wednesday events, each representing the vibrant celebration of a contemporary view towards Art.

June 14

The first evening of the summer series featured performances by Senegalese musicians Daniel Carter, Thio Afia, Khadim Sene. Carter is an improvisational “free jazz” musician, combining saxophone, flute, clarinet, and trumpet in his performances, while Afia is a vocalist and drummer based in NYC.

June 14, 2023

Photos by Adrian Crispin

Daniel Carter, Thio Afia, Khadim Sene

June 21

The following Bohemian Wednesday included a screening by Charlie Ahearn, performance art by Kanami Kusajima, improvisational jazz by Daniel Carter, and Cuban music by Singo, Jorge Bringas and Daniel Odria.

Charlie Ahearn

Photos by Adrian Crispin

Filmmaker Charlie Ahearn, known for his documentary “Wild Style”, screened a series of Hip Hop short films.

Kanami Kusajima

Photos by Adrian Crispin

Kanami Kusajima is a dancer orignally from Japan who now lives and works in New York City. Kusajima combines dancing and painting in a unique way, using Sumi ink, a traditional mixture made from soot. She drenches her bare hands and feet and dances over a white canvas, regularly performing for the public at Washington Square Park.

Singo, Jorge Bringas and Daniel Odria

Together, Singo, a Pianist specializing in the ” Tumbáo ” method, Jorge Bringas is a musician who plays bass, and percussion and vocalist Daniel Odria formed a Cuban band, with a sound that showcased the rich musical heritage of Cuba.

June 28

The final Bohemian Wednesday in June was a night to remember, featuring music by Daniel Carter and Persian musicians Mehram Rastegari and Mehdi Darvishi. Rastegari plays the Kamancheh and the Violin, and Mehdi Darvishi focuses on percussion. In addition, the event included a screening of short films by celebrated Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, curated by fellow filmmaker Gabe Klinger.

Photos by Adrian Crispin

The Trops Mobile Application

Bohemian Wednesdays featured the launch of the anticipated The Trops mobile app!
Find and engage with art in the real world!
Download app for iPhone
Download app for Android

Bohemian Wednesdays, June 2023 Read More »

Exhibition

The Trops Mobile Application

Trops Mobile App /

The Trops mobile app presents mapped exhibitions with curated art experiences across creative neighborhoods on the east coast. Culturally impactful lifestyle hubs and gathering places are featured as venues that host artwork and performance art from a vibrant community of artists.

How Art Drops Work With The Trops Mobile App

First, go visit the venue! 

An art drop happens when art is “dropped” at a host venue. Before arriving at the venue, the art drop detail page only shows the artist’s name, an image and the location of the art. 

Navigate to the art drops page when you are on location.

On arrival to the host venue, explorers who navigate back into the app are prompted to claim a token that unlocks more information about the art and artist. 

Revisit the art memory at any time in your profile.

Each token you claim saves the art drop info to the profile in “My Collection”. As the app automatically archives the imagery and info of the artwork and the venue, you can put your phone away and enjoy the art experience in front of you, IRL.

A Treasure Hunt for Art

Explore local neighborhoods and collect art experiences around the city. “Art Drops” can be visual or performing artworks. On arrival, navigate to the Art Drop page to claim a drop token and unlock more information about the artwork. Your profile saves the art memory for future reference, so you can get off your phone and participate in the experience.

Curated Culture Maps

Art Drops are carefully curated to present art as an experience. You can explore all the art drops around you, or visit a curated mapped exhibition. The curated art drops are featured exhibitions, indicated by the purple pins

Browse the highlighted art drops in the city, by date, as individual art drops, as curated mapped exhibitions, or by the specific artist.

Support The Community

Explorers receive one drop token for each art drop visited. These drop tokens are transferrable as “tokens of appreciation”. Send to artists by visiting art drop detail page artist profile, or via the recently visited section of The Vault. Transfer tokens to other users using search by username, or by scanning the QR.

The drop tokens earned from visiting art drops can be exchanged for local products, artisanal goods, tickets, and more!

Find and engage with art in the real world!

Download app for iPhone
Download app for Android

Frequently Asked Questions

WHO ARE WE?

The Trops is an integrative arts platform supporting communities to find and engage with art in the real world. Through pop-ups and “Art Drops,” we produce and amplify interactive moments of gathering and culture with the creative community. Our emerging mobile application archives the where/when/who of art in spacetime. 

WHAT IS IT?

The app acts as a navigation tool and digital black book for art experiences. We present dynamic mapping of creative events of cultural activity that “pop up” across local neighborhoods. Our platform looks to connect people with authentic culture through art exhibitions in traditional and nontraditional platforms. Upon arrival to experience art in-person, users of the mobile application can ‘collect’ the experience as a souvenir of art in spacetime, as well as a token. These tokens can be translated into real-world goods and services (Local Gems), and transferred between users.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Live artistic performance is a treasure for the senses. In that sense, we have worked to create a mobile application that presents the artists and their artwork in an engaging and “fun” way. Modeled after a treasure hunt, our curated maps present experiential invitations to visit artists, venues, and vendors through “Art Drops” and “Gem Drops”.

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

The app is a curated system of art and maps. If a user visits artwork in person, the app will automatically “check-In” the user, and present their profile with a collectible “drop token.” This unlocks the Art Drop, revealing additional info about the artwork and saving it to your profile as “My Collection.” Explorers can always revisit art experiences, remember the host venues, and “collect” the moment as a souvenir. Like a Digital Black Book, The Trops mobile application enables users to explore culture and keep digital “souvenirs” of artistic activity in the physical world while also supporting local artists and artisans. 

WHY DO WE DO IT?

It is important to have community infrastructure that empowers the ecosystem of the arts to present itself independently IRL. Our philosophy is to enable community economics, and to empower individuals and connect creatives by developing our platform and engaging neighborhoods with creative energy that can highlight and engage the human spirit.

The Trops Mobile Application Read More »

Trops Mobile App

An Interview with JonOne (Part 3)

Interview /

JonOne

Performance at The Trops: Poesy

Photo by Adrian Crispin 2023 @adrian_crispin (IG)

John Perello, AKA JonOne or Jon156, is an American graffiti artist living and working in Paris. In 1984, he founded the graffiti group 156 All Starz, before relocating to Paris in 1987, where he quickly made a name for himself. Working on a wealth of projects during his long career, and exhibiting on a global scale, his style is colorful and expressive.

In the final installment of their three part interview, Alexandra Kosloski and JonOne discuss “keeping it real” and his recent performance with the Trops.

Continued from Part 2

Part 2

AK: It sounds like creativity and painting and art is necessity to you, but does it ever feel like a job? Is there a toll that it takes? You were saying there’s a lot of baggage and distraction as you age.

JonOne: No, no, no, no, I wouldn’t say it feels like a job. Because I know people that work, and I wouldn’t want to do what they do– even if they get paid a lot of money. I’ve already worked. I work so hard to be where I’m at today. It wasn’t easy. It was so hard to be free and do whatever you want to do. I mean, it’s just so hard to live off your passion. It’s extremely difficult.

And I sometimes tell people,“when was the last time you bought a painting?”. So few people buy paintings, and so many people are painting. So it’s just so difficult to survive as an artist. Of course, as an artist there’s different levels; there’s the blue chip artist and then the regular artist. Everybody defines their own way of being an artist. There’s no set rules, what works for you may not necessarily work for me. 

JonOne

Performance at The Trops: Poesy

Photo by Adrian Crispin 2023 @adrian_crispin (IG)

Like you may work in a gig gallery, and if I work at that gig gallery, I may find myself so bored working with those people, it would suck the soul out of me. So what works for other artists may not necessarily work for another artist. So everybody has to find their way to survive because… You gotta have a studio… life ain’t cheap. And painting is a rich man’s sport. The minute you start putting stuff in galleries, there’s a gallerist behind it and they’re trying to sell it. It’s not like a job but you’re selling your soul.

The thing about it is how do you keep it fun? How do you keep yourself always enjoying yourself? How do you protect yourself from people? You gotta protect yourself from people so you don’t get sucked into a system. One way or the other, people are gonna spit at you and you’re gonna spit at people. But how do you protect yourself from not being spit at so much? Because the minute you expose yourself, people are always gonna criticize you, tell you’re a sucker, you’re doing this, you’re a sell out, this and that. But how do you maintain your sanity? You know, because fame, money, and success can destroy a person.

So the way I am able to maintain my sanity and protect myself is through my art. And the process of painting has always been something that I enjoy doing, and that, nobody can take away from me. I protect that little joy I have from painting. That’s what I mean. The other part is just like formalities… It’s not formalities– but it’s just the things you’ve got to deal with because painting in itself is just 50% of the work. The other 50% is like selling yourself and seeing people and that’s something you got to deal with. But I try to enjoy that 50% is me. You know, that’s my part of joy. That’s why I don’t have chairs in my studio. So, you know, people don’t come and spend the whole day and suck my energy. So that part, that 50% belongs to me.

And I choose what I give to people. Say I gotta make some money– I’m not going to give them my masterworks. What people give me is what I give them. If you give me a certain amount of energy, then I give you back that energy, too. I’m not going to give you more energy than you deserve. 

JonOne

Performance at The Trops: Poesy

Photo by Adrian Crispin 2023 @adrian_crispin (IG)

AK: You are very unique in that way because it feels like a lot of contemporary artists– like you said, it’s a rich man sport, so there’s this common path of getting a BFA and then an MFA and having this long vetting period where you’re not getting a lot of gratification… and you went a pretty different route. 

JonOne: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I was like a street star when I was young. Sometimes when you get out of art schools and stuff like that, nobody really knows you, you got to build up, you may find a gallery– that helps. But I was already recognized for what I was doing when I was painting in the streets. Fame and success in my circle was something that I already knew. I just didn’t know the money part, you know. But fame was something I had to deal with when I was young. 

JonOne

Performance at The Trops: Poesy

Photo by Adrian Crispin 2023 @adrian_crispin (IG)

AK: Do you think that the commercial aspects of the art world can affect an artist’s practice and how they produce work? And does it affect you?

JonOne: That whole word “commercial” is a big taboo. But you know, everybody has their own little situation going on. Some people don’t have to sell so many artworks because they have low overheads, or maybe they got rich parents, or the situation is just completely different. Maybe they have a business that has money coming in from other sources. And that’s not my case. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that I have so much responsibilities on top of me and so there has to be a matter of success and… selling, the whole aspect of selling. It’s a bad sign for me if all my paintings stay in my studio, you know, they have to come out of my studio. If they stay in my studio, it’s a bad sign. It means I’m going to have different types of problems.

I don’t really care what people say. I’m doing this for me. So what people think about me… you know…because those people who criticize you and things like that, those are the people that if you fall off, they’ll disappear in a second. They won’t be there for you. So I’m just worried for myself, really. Every day is just like “How am I going to keep the show on?”. And so that’s really my big, big, big concern every day. Because a lot of people switch off; sometimes they start doing paintings and then two years later they’re doing something else, another trend. But I’ve been doing this for so long and living off it for so long… that I give myself a pat on the back. 

JonOne

Performance at The Trops: Poesy

Photo by Adrian Crispin 2023 @adrian_crispin (IG)

JonOne

Performance at The Trops: Poesy

Photos by Adrian Crispin 2023 @adrian_crispin (IG)

AK: So it feels like that’s kind of been your philosophy. That you’ve been unselfconscious and just doing it and then all the other things follow.

JonOne: Some people are really hard on themselves and they’re their worst critics. They let the exterior come inside the interior, you know, like criticism of people saying this and that. But I’ve been through so much shit that I come back down to earth. And I know where I come from and I know what I’ve done. I always come back down to earth. Like I don’t drive no fancy cars, I just try to have as much money as I can so I can pay people off, so I can be at peace when I paint.

But I know how it is, the starving artist thing. You know, when you try to keep it real…that word… “I gotta keep it real”. Shit… Like, yeah, I try to be open to opportunities, especially now to young people like you. I’m investing my time with you because I believed in you when I met you. So I say to myself, “you’re the future” and who knows what you’re going to do in the future? So I’m investing in you. I try to keep an open mind and not be like, “if you’re not writing for this magazine I don’t think it’s worth my time”. Just like you.

How many times has it happened to me that I’ve been like “Nah, I ain’t gonna do that,” and then that person becomes somebody humongous. Like, what a dumbass. You work with a lot of older people, established people. Shit. You never know what happens. You never know who’s who. You got to be open and flexible, you gotta be a little bit loose. 

AK: So are there any current projects you’re really excited about?

JonOne: Oh yes. Well, I’m going to do a performance with The Trops. Just great. I’m really excited about that. Extremely exciting. 

AK: Could you talk a little bit more about that or is it kind of a surprise? 

JonOne

Performance at The Trops: Poesy

Photo by Adrian Crispin 2023 @adrian_crispin (IG)

JonOne: Not a surprise. Well… it’s sort of like a mystery. I’m pretty good at doing performances and getting people involved in my art that I do. Since I don’t let people inside my studio, it allows people to see the process of how I paint without revealing too much of myself. I kind of give them a little bit of the experience of what creation is about, and I think that’s a special moment. I remember being in studios sometimes, and just being there in front of artists when they were painting, and I would be like, “Wow, that’s so crazy”. So part of my performance is that. It’s just showing people the way I create these abstract images and opening up to my world. It’s going to be music, and I get into some sort of trance and yes, it becomes something really exciting for me to do. 

JonOne

Performance at The Trops: Poesy

Photo by Adrian Crispin 2023 @adrian_crispin (IG)

An Interview with JonOne (Part 3) Read More »

Interview

An Interview with JonOne (Part 2)

Artist Profile, Interview /

JonOne

Push the Buttons

Photo by Bruno Brounch

John Perello, AKA JonOne or Jon156, is an American graffiti artist living and working in Paris. In 1984, he founded the graffiti group 156 All Starz, before relocating to Paris in 1987, where he quickly made a name for himself. Working on a wealth of projects during his long career, and exhibiting on a global scale, his style is colorful and expressive.

In part 2 of their 3 part interview, JonOne tells Alexandra Kosloski about the state of his practice and his unique approach in life and art.

Continued from Part 1

Part 1

AK: Do you ever feel like your experience with graffiti gave you a particular advantage– or maybe a disadvantage– in the institutional art world?

JonOne: Well, I’ve always been an outsider. It would be nice, of course, to be challenged in a lot of different types of areas, but you cannot be everywhere or satisfy everyone. So, what I try to do is create an exciting life for myself above everything. I try to– no matter what opportunities are given to me– I try to live my life. As I should be living my life, you know, and not depend on people, that they’re gonna come and save my day. I really don’t believe in that. Sometimes it happens, it’s always a payoff to do anyway. But I tried to live in a free way, no matter what. 

Because it was just so hard to access the art world. It’s just so complicated. And what’s difficult is to be able to continue throughout all the years, and I’m very grateful. Forty years, I’m still painting, and I have a studio and I have assistants– which is tiring. And I was able to raise a family through art, so I’m grateful for the things I have and the things that I don’t have. Well, whatever. Maybe it’ll come around later on– yeah, I wouldn’t mind doing a museum show. You know, why not?

JonOne

Civil Rights

Photo by Bruno Brounch

AK: So why did you move in that direction? Because going from what you’re describing at the start to mentioning a museum show– it feels like there’s some steps to take in between that. What was the catalyst for that?

JonOne: Like to go from, let’s say, vandalism or graffiti– which is beautiful also– to working inside doing canvases and things like that. 

AK: Right. And I’ll pinpoint your move from New York to Paris, did that move play a role?

JonOne: Oh, yeah, it was one of the best moves ever made in my life, to have moved. It was like I was blessed.

But you know, it wasn’t like I was blessed. I always had a vision of being different. So when I say, hip hop, and all that stuff… I was always listening to a lot of different types of music. I was hanging out with a lot of different types of people. I wasn’t just limiting myself to hang out with Blacks, or Hispanics, I hung out with a lot of different people from all over the world. I already spoke two languages, which were Spanish and English. And I was very open to things. I wasn’t just uptown, I was hanging out a lot downtown. So for me to find myself in Paris, there’s no coincidences, right. Even today, I listen to a lot of different types of music, a lot of different types of dads. It’s a way of cultivating myself. So to have moved to France, it was just a transition for me that was like, okay, I really experienced New York, let me see what I can do here. And that’s the way it just became a way of moving on and spreading my art to other people. 

AK: It just felt like a logical next step.

JonOne: Yeah. Because at the time when I left New York, the trains were being painted over. And they were really hard on graffiti writers, on vandals, really, really hard. Which they shouldn’t have been because in Europe, everybody was more cool about it there. And New York was supposed to be the land of free and the brave and all that stuff, but they were too much– just too… you know.

So here, I was able to continue to paint freely and not feel like I was being persecuted. A little bit like the jazz musicians were; that moved from New York or from the US and moved over to Europe, that felt more free expressing themselves in Europe than in the States. That’s the way I felt.

JonOne

Cool It Down

Photo by Bruno Brounch

AK: I do want to talk more about painting. What does a typical day in a studio look like for you?

JonOne: Well, it’s very complicated working in a studio for me. I was thinking about that today because some people from the outside world– they don’t really understand. It’s not like when you start, like when you’re a young artist, you got less baggage. But as you get older, you get more baggage to carry. It’s like the difference between dating a young guy and dating an older guy. The older guy looks good and everything, but he has all this baggage and you’re not really sure if you want to deal with this. Because you might want to just spend time with the guy, but the guy may be so complicated, you know.

Like when you paint for a while, things become more complicated. I mean, creativity wise, I’ve gained a lot of experiences throughout all the years, and that’s something that you can’t take away from me, because I’ve done a lot of different types of projects, and I know my craft pretty well, I know how to express myself, so that’s all good.

 But at the same time, you create expenses around you. So when you create expenses, then you got to deal with a lot of different types of people that are gonna free you up in a way so that you’re not stressed out in your studio that much.

So that’s the baseline. Now, a typical day in my studio, I try to start by taking care of myself, first of all, because you need a good body to paint. So I go to the gym and I come here around 11 o’clock. And then I got to deal with assistants that are waiting for me to tell them what I want to do. I got people here that are going to ask me questions, you know, I’m not like, alone in my studio and just creating, listening to music. So I’ve got to deal with them first, right. And once I get them out the way and they beat, then I can paint. But then I got my girl calling me up, and I got the kids– you know, it’s complicated to create. But I’m here right now and I’m painting.

So there’s challenges at every level, at every level when you paint. So like I was saying, I went to a lot of different types of places recently– I was in South Africa and Bangkok, Alabama, I was in London. I absorbed a lot of different inspirations and I met a lot of different types of incredible people, so now when I find myself alone in the studio, I try to express that energy into my paintings. That’s what makes it so unique, my paintings. And so exciting. So right now I’m working on five, six… like 10 paintings at the same time. You know?

AK: That’s a lot. 

JonOne: Yeah.

AK: You work on them all simultaneously? 

JonOne: Well, some are drawings, right now as we talk. And some of them are going to leave the studio tomorrow. And some of them I’m working on right now. It turns around a lot. I have a really small studio. It’s tiny, tiny, tiny. So I’m bouncing around the place a bit.

AK: That’s interesting. So it sounds like you have to try to have a clear mind, minimize distraction, and that’s when you get the work done.

JonOne: Exactly. You said it pretty good. I have constantly tried to prioritize things and say “that’s not really what’s important”.

JonOne

My Heart Is Fragile

Photo by Bruno Brounch

What’s important is that, like in my studio, there’s no chairs, no chairs, no… No chairs. So nobody can come here and sit down and spend time here because there’s not a chair to sit down on. And I do this purposely because my studio is not a hangout spot. It’s like a laboratory. If you go to a laboratory or a dance company and they’re doing repetitions, it’s just you and the choreographer. And it’s the same thing. It’s just me in front of the painting. So I try to minimize the distractions and create a space where I’m that kid before, that’s bored on Friday nights, and he’s painting in his place, even though he has 10 billion things to do. 

AK: And that makes so much sense because your paintings are so high energy. 

JonOne: Yeah.

AK: Is that kind of what they’re about?

JonOne: I mean, in a way, yeah, it is. Because it’s about like… I wouldn’t say about that. But I try to live fast paced. I try to live an exciting life, you know, a fulfilling life. So then I try to express that in my canvas; live life to your fullest. So that’s what I’m trying to do.

JonOne

Photo by Gwen Le Bras

AK: Yeah, I think that definitely comes across. You just mentioned that you were jumping around quite a bit– you’re in South Africa, you’re in Bangkok… Is there a specific city or show that you’ve felt particularly passionate about?

JonOne: No, no, not really. I mean, I’m always working on new shows, so I’m always excited for the next show that I’m about to do because I like to see my work evolving. So I think that’s really important about my work; it doesn’t really stay still, it goes all over the place. And that’s what motivates me the most is working on new projects. Like on the third of May, I’m supposed to go to the south of France. And I’m preparing a show that’s going to be… most likely in a year from now. And that show will consist of… doing the show in an abandoned church. And then from there, I’m going to paint a wall– I’ll do a big wall that’s like five stories up. So, I go on the third of May to meet the mayor of the city and things like that. So there’s always an agenda coming up. 

AK: That’s really exciting. So you’re always looking towards the next thing? 

JonOne: Yeah. But my dream is to do something in the states. Yeah, I would love to do something in the States. I’d like to do a comeback. You know, I never did a show in the States. I would love to do something there. 

AK: Yeah, that would be great. I mean, always looking towards the next thing, I feel like that’s why your career as an artist has been such a marathon. 

JonOne: Yeah, it has. It’s been a marathon.

Continue to Part 3

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Artist Profile, Interview
abstract painting by JonOne

An Interview with JonOne (Part 1)

Artist Profile, Interview /

JonOne

Hours On the Ground

Photo by Bruno Brounch

John Perello, AKA JonOne or Jon156, is an American graffiti artist living and working in Paris. In 1984, he founded the graffiti group 156 All Starz, before relocating to Paris in 1987, where he quickly made a name for himself. Working on a wealth of projects during his long career, and exhibiting on a global scale, his style is colorful and expressive.

In part 1 of her 3 part interview with JonOne, Alexandra Kosloski discusses the artist’s early life and influences.

AK: Could you tell me a little bit about your early life in New York?

JonOne: Early life, well… I was actually born in New York so I’m a real New Yorker, you could say. I was born in a hospital called Flowers– I think it’s called Flowers. Doesn’t exist anymore. So I was born in New York in 1963 and I was brought up in Washington Heights, which is like Dominican, Hispanic, Black, all mixed types of people. My parents are originally from the Dominican Republic, so I got that Latino touch in me, which I’m very proud of. And my dad– he was a window trimmer, what he used to do was decorate store windows. And my mother used to have a boutique. It used to be “Perello’s Boutique”. She used to sell Jordache jeans, Sergio Tacchini jeans, Calvin Klein jeans, karate slippers, Weibo pads….

And I went to an all Catholic boys school called Cardinal Hayes in the Bronx. And so you can see from the little bit I’m telling you… we used to go to Coney Island in the summertime– that used to be our St. Tropez. So we used to go to Coney Island in the summertime, my mother used to bring the food from the house. So cute. She used to spend the Saturdays preparing food. And we used to spend our time in Coney Island in the summertime to cool off. I would go to Highbridge Park 175th, I think something like that. Yeah, I grew up like a real New Yorker.

JonOne

The Simple Life

Photo by Bruno Brounch

AK: So it sounds like you’re pretty proud of where you’re from. It seems like your parents have some of that creative and entrepreneurial spirit that you have. 

JonOne: Yeah, they definitely do. I mean, my parents were, you know, like immigrants, and when you’re an immigrant, you get the lowest jobs possible. And they had three kids. So they had to do what they had to do to put food on the table. So that’s maybe where I got the drive… the drive to paint. From my parents, you know? Never giving up and trying my best. 

AK: Was art something that you had visualized for your future?

JonOne: No, I mean, art came from boredom. What better way to become an artist– because you’re bored and you got no money. What you do when you got no money and you’re bored is you listen to music and you draw. So I would spend Friday nights listening to music and drawing all night long on a table… and then that Friday and Saturday became Sunday, and Sundays became Mondays and Mondays became like… a real passion. From just being bored. 

I always encourage kids to take their boredom and use the boredom to do things. Yeah, it’s good to be bored sometimes. So I used my boredom and I painted.

AK: Yeah, the idleness kind of leads to creativity and invention and new ideas.

JonOne: Yeah, I mean, nowadays you got so much distractions. And useless distractions because it doesn’t lead you nowhere. But back then I was very, very lucky that I was able to use my boredom and do something creative with it.

When I was small, there was this film called Fame. “I want to live forever, I want to learn how to fly high”. Instead, it was the school called Juilliard but I wasn’t so talented to go to Juilliard. So there was always this thing in my head, of like dancing, music, art, expressing yourself– if not on the stage, in the streets. And I always had that necessity to want to expose myself. Sometimes people are timid, but I wanted to be known and seen. That was one of my things. So from movies like Fame and things like that, and seeing graffiti in the streets, and being around graffiti writers, and breakdancing, and hip hop and all that stuff. I slowly transitioned to a more personal type of expression, rather than just following the hip hop scene. Art became more personal, I guess.

JonOne

There Is Power In Me

Photo by Bruno Brounch

AK: So you said that you would just start drawing in your bedroom? Could you tell me a little bit more about your early art making practice?

JonOne: Yeah, I mean, I really sucked at painting. I was like, the worst of the worst. I mean, even to this day, I still can’t paint, you know, I mean, something figurative, nor represented, nor graphic… it became too structured for me. And I didn’t feel like I wanted to go through a structured type of expression because it felt like the same sort of oppression I felt in American society– where everything had to be a certain way in order for you to be accepted. So I felt more at ease expressing myself in an abstract form, which the abstract turns into a freestyle, a free style of expressing yourself. And that’s what really interested me, I didn’t want to be fitting into a box anymore than I had to be. You know, like when you paint a figure, it has to be drawn a certain way in order for it to be recognized or things like that. I wanted to be recognized for my uniqueness and my experiences that I was going through, which are very valuable.

And sometimes it was shunned by society, because people looked down at it, they were like, “That’s useless, what you’re doing”, or “That’s bad what you’re doing”. But I was like, yeah, that’s my life. And that’s an experience that’s enriching because you’re not experiencing it. And that’s what makes it unique.

JonOne

Photo by Gwen Le Bras

That’s what makes me unique– is that you’re doing what everybody else is doing, and I’m doing something that nobody’s doing. That uniqueness is what I was trying to express in an abstract form; through colors and movement and poetry and experiences and energy. And I slowly started to apply my experiences– hanging out downtown, and meeting people, and that excitement of New York when you’re young– I started to express it on canvases. 

And also, it wasn’t just a joyful type of art that I was expressing. It’s also a revolting, and trying to understand “Who am I in this big city?”. You know how it is in New York. It’s like a big city, but at the same time, you can feel so lonely, and have no friends and not fit in and, you know, and just be invisible in that place.

AK: Yeah, there’s an anonymity. It sounds like you’re describing that in some ways, art and creativity was an escape for you, but simultaneously, it was a way for you to participate in your environment and in the culture. Does it function both ways for you? 

JonOne: Yeah, it does. Because in a way, I was sort of like an outsider– an outsider of an outsider, you know? I felt like I was an outcast in the spectacle of this big city, and the only way of escaping was to paint. And that’s what made me happy. And it made me create my own world, and try to figure out “What is the value of this world?”, when I’m doing something in a way that’s so useless. Because who needs art anyway? You know? Who needs it? So little people consume art, or live through art, or need art in the way that I was needing it. So I was really I was an outsider of the outsiders. People would maybe sometimes dip and dab in art, but to me it was a way of breathing and… to live. So how do you bring a value to it? You know, how do you figure it? How do you figure yourself out in this thing? So it was a long process. And it’s a process that’s ongoing every day, too, it never stops.

JonOne

Juice World

Photo by Bruno Brounch

AK: So early on, you’re involved in street art in New York, and then you transition to painting on canvas. Is that correct? 

JonOne: Yeah, I mean, it was a really slow transition. I want to say graffiti is what I was doing. I was doing vandalism. I wasn’t doing street art because I wasn’t really painting in the streets. I was painting on trains. And, you know, some people look at it as vandalism or degrading, but to me it was definitely none of that. The trains were my playgrounds. It was a moving gallery. It was a gallery that was in your face all the time. And it was, at the same time, very underground. So that’s what made me so excited, because I was into underground stuff. And yeah, it was my way of existing. So from there, I was very, very lucky to meet artists, and go visit studios, and start to go to museums and meet art dealers and things like that. So that was sort of my way of educating myself.

But today, yes, definitely called “street art”, which I use sometimes. Sometimes I’m a street artist, sometimes I’m an artist in terms of abstract.

JonOne

Things Are Different In Me

Photo by Bruno Brounch

AK: Yeah, you’re a little bit difficult to put in a box.

JonOne: Yeah. Because I’m just so complicated, you know, I’m extremely complicated– I mean, I’ve been doing it for, like, 40 some odd years painting or maybe even more. It’s even hard for me to define myself. I’m always curious, and trying to be curious in things like that. Not settling down yet. No.

Continue to Part 2

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An Interview with JonOne (Part 1) Read More »

Artist Profile, Interview