art

Museum of Graffiti Features Layer Cake’s “Versus Project III”

Exhibition /

When we think of artists, we don’t typically think of dangerous criminals. That is, unless you are a graffiti artist in the eyes of the law. Think property damage, felonies, and even jail time; yeah, now you have entered the high-stakes realm of graffiti. These creative risk-takers willingly partake in what many prosecutors would define as “criminal vandalism” in order to express their imaginations and opinions, typically based in social commentary. 

But here’s the million dollar question- is graffiti truly vandalism, or is it a form of art? And where do policymakers and communities draw the line? These contradicting perspectives on graffiti enable some artists to be praised for their creative contributions, while allowing others to rot behind bars for the same form of self-expression.

Today, graffiti is widespread and celebrated by many. It is even used for decoration, design, and merchandising purposes, especially in Wynwood – a popular entertainment district in Miami. Some of the world’s greatest street artists have left their mark on this neighborhood, transforming spray paint and marker pens into distinguished exhibitions of their heart and soul. However, in a society that cannot make up its mind, graffitists continue to endure an uphill battle of strict fines, courtroom proceedings, and even prison sentences in hopes of one day revising the definition of graffiti in the public’s opinion. Sure, these murals may be rebellious and bold in nature, but isn’t art just mimicking life? Graffiti has set ablaze an innovative art movement that has brought more beauty, color, and vitality than ever before to cities and neighborhoods all over the world. 

In honor of its significant history, the first ever Museum of Graffiti opened in none other than Wynwood, Miami, with the mission to preserve, celebrate, and educate people on the controversial style. Representing the world’s most talented graffiti artists, the museum offers general admission tickets for touring the contemplative works, at the accessible cost of $16. It also has graffiti classes for adults and drawing classes for children, led by local artists.

Currently on display at Wynwood’s Museum of Graffiti is the revolutionary Versus Project III, spearheaded by the artists Patrick Hartl and Christian “C100” Hundertmark, whose partnership is professionally known as Layer Cake. The project is a series of canvases that the duo started, but here’s where it gets interesting: Layer Cake left the canvases incomplete. The team then shipped their unfinished graffiti projects off to their favorite artists from across the globe to allow them to contribute – including Akue, Raws, Flying Förtress, Various&Gould, Bond Truluv, Thierry Furger/Buffed Paintings, Arnaud Liard, Rocco & his brothers, Hera & MadC.

Now, if this doesn’t sound right to you, that’s probably because the number one rule in the graffiti world is to never paint over someone else’s work. Typically, that is seen as a sign of disrespect for the artist and their message. However, Layer Cake’s Versus Project III takes a different stance completely. The spirit of the exhibition is rooted in collaboration and unspoken communication between the artists.

Without instructions or guidelines, the receiving artists were free to be as imaginative as possible on their collective canvas, combining their distinct styles with the artist’s markings before them. The exhibition maintains a high level of respect for each graffitist as they meticulously work with each other’s paint, merging all different techniques into one chaotically beautiful masterpiece. By layering signatures over one another, the spontaneous hybrid works well to pay tribute to contemporary art and graffiti as it brings the viewer into a dynamic world that embraces the beauty in differences.  

From a distance, the Versus Project III is like a live battle for attention and space unfolding before your eyes, as you can almost feel each artist’s inner struggle as they were creating it. However, when you look closer at the canvases, you can see how no work is overshadowed or alone – every style and every color complements its neighbor. The intricate detailing and multitude of niche styles conveys a sense of movement, as if the piece is constantly evolving right in front of you. The final result showcases each artist’s unique perspectives and practices, while also uniting their efforts into an almost living and breathing piece of art.

As if witnessing a fluent conversation unfold through the adjacent approaches, the project implies a sense of unity, respect, and partnership. Explained by Layer Cake in an interview, this was the goal of their project- an exhibition that favors collaboration over competition in all aspects of society. Whether it be in the art world, or in the real world, cooperation is key to progress and harmony, says Layer Cake. And the Versus Project III, by demonstrating the importance of teamwork and trust, works well at encouraging this colossal theme for audiences to remember long after the exhibition is over. 

It is through monumental installations like these that showcase the benefits of graffiti in modern society. Whether it be an inspiring mural on the side of a local business, or a joint-artist canvas hanging up in a gallery, spray paint never fails to make a powerful statement, urging social and political progress toward a brighter future. Does that sound like criminal activity to you? Well hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. Explore creative neighborhoods near you or check out the Layer Cake exhibition at the Museum of Graffiti to decide for yourself whether graffiti should be criminalized or celebrated. 

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Exhibition

Conscious Darkness: Richard Hambleton (Part 3)

Artist Profile, Editorial /

CONSCIOUS DARKNESS

“No one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”

-CG Jung

Continued from Part 2

Part 2

Richard was prepared for the big time the second time around. After a few false starts, bringing major galleries to visit when he nonchalantly had nothing to show, or inviting high profile collectors when Richard did not deign to answer the doorbell. But eventually my father engineered some connections and even I assisted in bringing his painting to the world stage, where it belonged, once again. Andy Valmorbida, Vladamir Roitfeld and Giorgio Armani stepped in, both barrels blazing. In short order the Shadow Man would have international exhibits, TV and magazine appearances, beautiful and famous fans and collectors, and a great documentary based on his life story. Bright blossoms springing up after a harsh winter. My visits with Richard grew more scarce. No more phone calls to invite my model or pot dealer friends to admire his new works. But we remained dear friends. Occasionally I would visit him in his Orchard Street compound, and there, just like the famous lovers from the Triumph Of Death, I’d find Richard lazing on the daybed in front of the TV with his loyal Gigi, Puerto Rican aristocrat and partner in crime, an elegant Surrealist assistant answering the ever-ringing telephone with her mulberry velvet opera gloves, fielding inquiries from abroad in her lilting Eastern bloc accent. I’d move some paint-stained newspapers and debauched take-out containers to sit and chat. Richard opened to a fashion spread from the Sunday Times supplement, and blacked out the bodies with a magic marker. Nebulous resin landscapes from the Beautiful Series dried on the walls, Island of the Dead as viewed through the blood surging into the cloudy liquids of a junkie’s syringe.

Richard Hambleton

Horse and Rider

A “Shadow Man” by Richard Hambleton

Photo by Martha Cooper

The ravages of good times were catching up with Richard. He would show up at society functions on his squeaky folding bike, still handsome but bandaged like a fighter pilot shot down, hobbling like a man twice his age. A collector made a joke in bad taste that soon Richard would be gone, and our collections would shoot up in price. I admonished him not to be so sure; Richard had been dangling over this abyss for ages and was liable to bury us all. Alas the small bandage on his nose would be swapped for a face mask as the condition spread, and soon large portions of his face went missing like the Sphinx. It was terrible to see, especially when you cared for him, and yet his courage and joie de vivre never wavered. He took the degeneration of his physical form as a matter of course; he was evolving into the fearsome Shadow of his fantasies. Collectors began to clamor for his Eighties catalogue, but he was still churning out work to his last moments on earth, every bit as vital, in spite of mounting adversity.

Just when I thought he must be sitting pretty once again, he called to report he was being evicted from his apartment. Surely it was some ploy to hustle another five hundred bucks from me, but this time he was in earnest. All was lost. He and Gigi crashed on my couch for three days, smoking, laughing at cartoons, concocting funky delicacies with cans of tuna, Campbells soup and cartons of vitamin D milk, their every belonging spilling out of suitcases on my living room floor. Thank God pops arranged a long term hotel for the lovers in Soho and it was there he mounted his brave last stand. But before leaving me on that intolerable sojourn, so sweet in retrospect, he left a shadow man on the inside of my front door, a sentinel with the built-in peephole standing in for a single cyclops eye.

Richard Hambleton

Horse and Rider

Richard grew more and more frail, and like Philippe Petit now seemed to be averting a cataclysm with every sure step, while we all watched on helplessly. I think it was my last meeting with him that taught me most about the core character of his being, showing me how to be a man in the truest sense of the word. I was opening a café and wanted him to paint something on the wall. He told me to pick him up at the hotel, and to bring three hundred dollars so he could get “right” first. He made me wait in the stuffy bathroom while his shadowy acquaintance was summoned, and I could hear Richard fixing in the other room. After what felt like hours, he was ready, surgeon’s mask barely covering the facial anatomy lost to decay, we walked the immeasurably long block from the hotel to my café together. His powerful Rodin hand clung to my shoulder to keep him from tumbling over, each step he would stop to wheeze and catch his breath. He was dying. And by asking him this favor, I was killing him. As badly as I wanted him to paint at my café, I told him we should turn back, that I would deposit him back in bed beside his loyal Gigi, and we could paint some other day. In the throes of what must have been unspeakable agony, he refused to surrender. “No, I am going to paint!” And paint he did, as powerfully as he ever had. I enlisted two lovely girls to assist him, a docile Rastafarian sister, and a Jazz drummer’s sage daughter. They refilled his iced coca colas and urged him on as he brought the monumental head and shoulders into existence with turbulent flourishes of liquid black paint, one last Shadow Man.

Richard Hambleton

Shadow Man

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Artist Profile, Editorial

Conscious Darkness: Richard Hambleton (Part 2)

Artist Profile, Editorial /

“No one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”

-CG Jung

Continued from Part 1

Part 1

The only thing “street” about Hambleton was that his first works in New York City happened to have been painted on public property, the DOA series conceived directly on the sidewalks and asphalt, then the painterly shadow men that would make his bones as a living legend. Unlike the aforementioned artists who premiered in the trenches alongside the roguish graffiti demi-monde, Hambleton’s shadows painted on the wall did not need to be painted on the wall to be transformed into Art in context, and neither was there any entropy in the eventual transplanting thereof onto canvas, to hang in some white box with the grandeur of crown jewels. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of Art History could draw a line directly from Monet’s splattered Water Lilies, Picasso’s expressive contortions, Pollock’s liberated unconscious arabesques, straight through Richard Hambleton’s punk rock sprezzatura sensibilities. 

Very quickly Richard enjoyed a caliber of celebrity that elevated him above the fray, positioning him alongside Schnabel and Clemente, with his sold out shows and matinee idol good looks. When at last I identified the Shadow Man in a photograph, it was not from a mug shot. Here he was posing in a glossy magazine spread, the cultural ambassador for the jet set throwing paint like Yves Klein, and finally putting a glamorous face to the name, most incongruous to the terrifying images he left behind on rat-infested squatter tenements. 

Richard Hambleton

5 ShadowMen

Warhol died. Basquiat died. Haring died. Hambleton fell from the ivory tower. The party was over. New faces filled the magazines. Then dad came home with a crazy story. He was digging a Jazz ensemble in Tompkins Sq Park when a wild man approached on a rickety bicycle and offered to sell him a painting for fifty bucks. 

At first he had been a phantom, then a movie star, but now he was a blood and guts Bohemian, struggling with a bad habit, and just like the cowboy clinging to the reigns of a violently bucking bronco in the painting my father purchased, he was fighting for his very existence. A vulnerable human being, and a fast family friend. Little by little our house filled up with the Shadow Man’s handiwork. He was short on rent, he needed a small loan, the calls came in at odd hours. He’d emerge out of a waiting taxi, leather jacket cinched shut with a jumbo paper clip and a wild look in his eyes, and then in the living room sprung up a figure frozen in the act of leaping into the air like Nijinsky or Michael Jordan, hair standing up straight as though electrocuted. 

Richard Hambleton

Horse and Rider

Pops rented a studio for him in Astoria. Against my will I joined the visit. Richard had reams of canvas stretched across the wall and painted mobs of Shadow Men standing shoulder to shoulder in volatile confrontation, hemorrhaging energy and crazy ideas in gobs of gooey black, horses rearing up, thrashing blindly to throw their rider, at last, into the dirt, dramatic as any Tyson fight, as Richard dashed across the studio, a one-man rodeo, flinging paint-caked brushes, unrolling last night’s work painted with the vivid intensity of a fever dream. Maybe I had feared that he was taking advantage of my Dad, but now I too fell under his spell.

Which of us was not scared of the dark as a child? And how much does it mean to us when some cowboy looks evil in the eye, stands up to a fear of the unknown, that darkness that dwells in all of us we somehow never get around to confronting? It is there looming in Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro, in the moody Venetians, in Rembrandt’s inky umbers, in a tonal late Rothko, heaving like the sea by night, embodying the fears and doubts we all contend with beneath the surface, that the occasional Ahab rises to the helm to reckon with in our place, and for the greater good of humanity. 

Richard Hambleton

Seascape

I found time to visit Richard on my own now. He had been living in some former auto repair garage, slept in a dentist chair, with a television jury rigged to be lowered on a chain by a lever whenever he laid down. One summer night we ventured outside and painted on the streets together with Omni and Lola Schnabel. Things we never photographed, never yearned to be seen, much less sold, but painted for the sheer joy of invention. 

Pops set up an exhibit for him in some gallery uptown off Madison. Maybe the horse and riders would not stand still for a moment, nor the rhapsodic brushwork they were comprised of, but as we installed, now I had occasion to sit with these works for a contemplative moment. My father shared the observation that Pollock had died in a failed effort to return to the figure after spearheading a nonrepresentational revolution, and it was Hambleton who rather carried this aim to its conclusion. In the most carefree way, Richard could articulate a horse’s anatomy as meticulously as George Stubbs, but that blurred streak of a rider was hardly even a human any more, obliterated by the storm-clouds and dust storms of unruly activity.

Continue to Part 3

Part 3

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Artist Profile, Editorial

Conscious Darkness: Richard Hambleton (Part 1)

Artist Profile, Editorial /

“No one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.”

-CG Jung

The dark men stood on slum street corners staring menacingly at each passersby. They lurked in the shadows. They had become shadows themselves. Maybe they were ghosts or spirits, and when you approached the pissy, crumbling walls to investigate, you could see that they were made up of some ethereal oozing tar, dripping like spit through soot, splattered like blood on ashes, something like… black house paint.  

Those of us who wrote on walls recognized that, in some ways at least, he was one of us. An anonymous artist who expropriated the corroded civic infrastructure of New York city as a stage for his inspiration. He didn’t sign his name. He left a trail of inspired silhouettes in his footsteps for a signature, and so we called him “Shadow Man”

“ShadowMan”

Photo Courtesy of ©Martha Cooper

Just as a sommelier must speak of wine without failing to consider in depth the soil, the terroir, I would like to discuss Hambleton’s work as a phenomenon that took shape in a hostile landscape lacerated with all manner of criss-crossed written message, in layers of meaning. In so doing there will be no editing out the narrator, as I witnessed up close a broad arc of Hambleton’s poetic development from these first furtive gestures, to the work of a fine artist now considered canon. 

My father was by trade a private art dealer, so our home was a showcase of high-concept sculpture and painting, a little of everything but primarily from Picasso straight through to Warhol, lingering on Abstract Expressionism with some piety. And while the geniuses of western tradition were compelling in their museum or gallery settings, legions of unknown artists took me by surprise from passing trains. Deciphering the names, like Phase 2, Riff 170 and Tracy 168, Stay High 149, Kase 2, Futura and Lee, along with hundreds of others, I developed a dangerous obsession with graffiti from earliest childhood.

“WTC 50” View of NYC Skyline from a Jersey City scrapyard, late 1980s. Photography by Steven Siegel

Now, no graffiti artist during the subway era referred to their way as graffiti, a media term and a slur, yet it is still the best term to describe the multi-cultured avant-garde movement that began with Taki 183’s straightforward autographs of the late 1960s and ended with Jon One’s wild abstractions in the late 1980s, when the last illegally-painted 1 train was taken out of commission. And all throughout, every scrawled word or scribbled face spoke a code, puzzling my curiosity like ancient hieroglyphs. Indeed it was a strict orthodoxy of form, and yet allowing for a complete freedom of innovation for the proven initiate, as some amorphous council of ascended “kings” maintained ever-evolving standards. 

A procession of fresh masterpieces rumbled past, convoluted multicolored letters twisting back on themselves, taking my breath away like no other form of Beauty. In time I grew to understand their mysteries the way a hungry man understands a sandwich. Here it should be stated as fact that neither Basquiat nor Haring were ever graffiti artists as such, and neither was the Shadow Man, yet no conversation about these artists would be complete without first understanding their complex relationship to this craft. And if so-called graffiti was to my mind the biggest art breakthrough of the age, to say another kind of artist was every bit as relevant is no mean praise.

Rooftops in Chinatown Manhattan, 2019

Photograph by Howie Mapson

On this new cultural wave of the early 1980s rode several Art world mavericks, who would storm the citadel of galleries and museums by first laying siege to the war-scarred city streets. We first saw Keith’s chalk drawings on the blank subway posters, the soft curves of a Tex Avery or Disney illustration but in situ, in our hardscrabble subterranean domain of mass transit, these speciously innocent characters took on a subversive attitude. We all regularly appropriated comic book characters as alter egos beside our subway paintings, yet Haring had created an animated iconography of his very own, and was thus first embraced by the graffiti underground as a true original before rising to prominence as an bona fide Art star.

Basquiat was a native New Yorker, a Brooklynite, and he learned to write on walls side by side with actual taggers of repute. He did everything in his own variety of cool, and his inscrutable slogans and unadorned manner of penmanship were at odds with formal graffiti, almost to the point of constituting an anti-graffiti. And yet his modus operandi, even down to his raw anti-aesthetic stance, endeared him to the ranks of graffiti artists from the “beyond” category, restless young turks themselves who sought to break away from the stylistic trends that had already become codified as an -ism. Basquiat was accepted by members of the elite TDS crew and particularly Rammellzee’s Iconoclast Panzerist inner-circle: A1, Arbitrator Koor and Toxic. So Basquiat would ascend to be heralded by the Art establishment despite his early flirtation with illegal Art. So Martin Wong, Kenny Scharf , David Wojnarowicz and a few others found success while simultaneously earning credibility for street authenticity, as did the Shadow Man, Richard Hambleton.

Continue to Part 2

Part 2

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Artist Profile, Editorial

N’AP BOULE

Performance Art /

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 3, 2023

MANERO’S ON MULBERRY (LITTLE ITALY)

N’AP BOULE took place on an evening of art and culture, featuring a very special cross-genre performance of Haitian folk and cello by Sheila Anozier and Rufus Cappadocia.

“Sak Pase” is a common Haitian Creole phrase that means “What’s up?” It is often used to greet friends. The response, “N’ap Boule” is a contraction of “nou ap boule” from “Nous après brûler,” literally meaning “we are burning” and representing the response “we’re good” or “we’re hanging out.”

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Performance Art

Moon Mixer 6/21

Exhibition /

Highlighting the intersection of community and art, the installation “Monomania” features fine art pieces at local venues in the Fort Greene neighborhood such as Brooklyn Moon and other cultural centers.

In tandem with this constellation, we host a weekly mixer series, where specially curated performance artists gather on Tuesdays to perform and represent their crafts at the iconic Brooklyn Moon and present a combination of rehearsed and improvisational performances.

This week, we had the honor of hosting three master musicians: Sheila Anozier, Daniel Carter, and Tiga Jean Baptiste at the 6/21 culture mixer. Combining Haitian Folk Music, Jazz, and Haitian drumming, this magical combination of crafts created a moment in musical history.

Sheila Anozier: Haitian Folk Musician

Sheila Anozier is a multidiscplinary artist that combines dance, songs and visual art into her work. Her creativity has given her opportunities to perform with other notable artists across the world, such as Wunmi Olaiya at Ageha in Tokyo, Japan and the Alstadtherbst Festival in Germany with Tamango’s Urban Tap.

Daniel Carter: Free Jazz Musician

Daniel Carter is an avant-garde free jazz musician and performer that has been active since the 1970’s. He has become extremely well known, and is an inspiration to many up and coming musicians. Carter is skilled at playing multiple instruments, including flute, saxophone, clarinet and trumpet. He has performed with artists such as Yoko Ono, Thurston Moore, and Yo La Tengo amongst many others. He is also a member of the cooperative free jazz group Other Dimensions in Music.

Tiga Jean Baptiste: Percussionist

Tiga Jean Baptiste is an eclectic musician who began drumming at events in Haiti with his father Bonga, master of the Haitian drum at a very young age. He has performed with many of Haiti’s other most respected artists as well, including Emeline Michel and Jean-Paul Bourelly. Baptiste has also branched outside of tradition, performing with Zimbabwean artists such as Stella Chiweshe and Thomas Mapfumo, as well as American artists John Legend and Grace Jones.

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Exhibition

Moon Mixer 6/14

Exhibition /

Highlighting the intersection of community and art, the installation “Monomania” features fine art pieces at local venues in the Fort Greene neighborhood such as Brooklyn Moon and other cultural centers.

(Explore the Fort Greene Constellation.)

In tandem with this constellation, we host a weekly mixer series, where specially curated performance artists gather on Tuesdays to perform and represent their crafts at the iconic Brooklyn Moon and present a combination of rehearsed and improvisational performances.

This week, we had the honor of hosting three master musicians: Sixty Second Assassin, Daniel Carter, and Ibrahima Diokhane at the 6/14 Culture Mixer. Combining Hiphop, Jazz, and African Drumming, this magical combination of crafts created a moment in musical history. 

SIXTY SECOND ASSASSIN: Hip Hop Artist

Sixty Second Assassin is a legendary hip hop artist and rapper, born and raised in Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, New York. He is heavily affiliated with the Wu-Tang Clan and Sunz of Man, and was a close associate with Wu-Tang rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Sixty Second Assassin is an enigmatic figure that never fails to wow the crowd with his unique style and voice.

DANIEL CARTER: Free Jazz Musician

Daniel Carter is an avant-garde free jazz musician and performer that has been active since the 1970’s. He has become extremely well known, and is an inspiration to many up and coming musicians. Daniel is skilled in playing multiple instruments, including saxophone, flute, clarinet and trumpet. He has performed with artists such as Yoko Ono, Thurston Moore and Yo La Tengo amongst many others. He is also a member of the cooperative free jazz groups and Other Dimensions of Music.

IBRAHIMA DIOKHANE: Drum Master

Ibrahima Diokhane is a seasoned African drummer originally from Senegal. He opened his drum store Keur Djembe 25 years ago in Gowanus, Brooklyn, offering authentic handmade instruments and drum lessons. Ibrahima makes his own drums with an expertise gained over years of learning, dedication and hard work.

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Exhibition

Nature’s Course: An Interview with John Newsom (Part 5)

Artist Profile, Exhibition /

John Newsom, Dense Armor, 2008-09. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum

Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.

Continued from Part 4

PART 4

Nathalie Martin: So I was talking to my friend, a young painter who’s in the studio all day and has an incredible work ethic. But he’s always so hung up about originality or making the most original thing. And I always tell him that maybe originality isn’t the goal. Maybe you’re working towards a certain goal or idea and then your voice or that originality just comes, almost like a symptom or byproduct of whatever you’re working towards. Just not being so fixated with making the most “original” thing. You mentioned Morandi – people have painted cups before. But he makes it totally his own.

John Newsom: Well I would say your friend is looking outside of themselves. What they have to do is turn that vision inward and it’ll be new. It’ll be new because they’ll be discovering themselves for the first time. Everybody, honestly, has a unique spark within them. This is what I’m saying, Nathalie. You got to bring it all in, in, in, but then you’ve got to let it go, go, go. You have to get rid of it all. That’s why you have to learn everything to unlearn everything. If that makes sense. I really mean that. You have to go out there and just learn and take in as much as possible, and then edit it down to get rid of it all. Then you’re going to be at a place that is totally new. You’re going to have an option if you’re a painter in the painting context, because your friend may discover that they can do what they need to do, but they have to do it training dolphins or something. But anyway, I do think that is something that particularly young artists struggle with. I think it’s a healthy thing. You have to be diligent about it. The cream always rises to the top, it always does. So then you go with that, whatever that is, whatever that means. I actually just finished a nine by eighteen-foot canvas that’s going to debut in the museum show in March.

John Newsom, Nature’s Course, 2021-22. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum

NM: Your retrospective? Tell me about that.

JN: Yeah, I have a mid-career retrospective, and I’ve been struggling with even saying that phrase because it’s so freaky to say out loud. But I do have a mid-career retrospective opening on March 24th at the new Oklahoma Contemporary Museum, which obviously is very meaningful because that’s the region I’m from, but it also happens to be an extraordinary building and staff. The programming is exceptional. Ed Ruscha just had a full-scale retrospective at the museum, and I’m very honored to be following him. The programming that’s coming up is very, very dynamic and international. This exhibition has been a few years in the planning. We started it

before the pandemic. Fortunately, my dates landed a little bit afterwards. It’s going to be comprised of 31 large-scale paintings from the past 20 years. The majority of works are coming in from private collections all over the United States. We decided to keep the show within national borders at the time because of COVID restrictions and shipping. There were some works abroad I would ideally liked to have brought in, but it’s okay. We were able to get the show to a hundred percent with what we have and it’s going to be outstanding. I’m excited about it. They chose the paintings and I felt like I needed to make one to debut at the show.

I jumped into this painting. I was sitting with a friend of mine, watching a horse race on television. I was talking with my friend about the race because he’s into it, I’m not into it, but it just happened to be on the screen. He said that it was the races at Longchamp. I was like, oh yeah, like the Manet painting, because that was the first time a painter had painted a painting like that, from the perspective of seeing the racers and the horses directly coming right at you. Until then the scene was always presented from the side. So that sparked an idea in my mind. Now I’ve got the title. The title of the exhibition at the museum is Nature’s Course, which I feel I just

walked the entirety of in the last hour talking to you, which is amazing. It’s a herd of five charging bison with a flock of eagles soaring above this open sky. It’s the great Mid-western Plains.

NM: I was just going to say, there’s the Kansas and Oklahoma coming back right back in.

JN: Yeah, exactly. But Nathalie, there’s no way I would have thought I would be painting this painting five years ago, ten years ago, twenty, thirty years ago. How insane? But it might be my strongest painting to date. We’ll see. I mean, a few people that have seen previews of it, I’ve been really pleased with the reaction. So I’m very excited about this. It’s going to open on March 24th and run through August 15th.

NM: So the show is called Nature’s Course. Obviously, your work deals with our complex relationship with nature. And I think you have this visual language or this mark-making style that kind of exists between abstraction and figuration, or soft and fierce, or the beautiful and the terrifying or menacing. Are these binaries representations of how you view this relationship?

JN: Yeah, there’s definitely a duality in the work. But I just feel like it needs to be there because it’s got to be there. The language is such that it incorporates a wide variety of applique and thought, but there are parameters on that. Meaning there are specifications to it. You know, there are rules, for lack of a better word. That’s not to say that you can’t break the rules. It’s just to acknowledge that there are rules and those are for the most part of my own making at this point,

because it goes back to early on. You try to learn and get on something more organic, you just got to figure out what’s working and what’s not working. Where the energy is right. You go in the direction of the good energy. Even if it’s a painting that is made during a challenging period of one’s life. The tableau of the canvas can absorb the hit of any energy that you bring to it. That’s the magic of it. It’s just kind of a tremendous thing. And then it exists in the painting, it

becomes manifested. So whatever it is, if it’s a Goya painting of a certain theme, you can see

where his energy was. It’s now transferred into the canvas – it’s in the picture. When I say you get good energy, I mean that you worked through whatever energy it is and then you hopefully will feel better. This is about healing. I think ultimately great painting is about healing. Whether it’s yourself or the viewer – and it’s really important to note that a painting doesn’t exist unless it’s got eyes in front of it.

John Newsom, Harvest, 2011-16. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum

NM: I always say this!

JN: This is really interesting because I don’t paint the human figure, I paint an allegorical representation of the human figure. The physical reality of a human figure doesn’t appear in my work. It appears through the observer of the work. I’m very conscious of that. The viewer completes the picture. Because if they’re not there, the painting doesn’t exist. It’s like if the tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? It’s a little existential, but it makes sense. So when people say, “Oh, why don’t you paint the figure?” I’m like, “You’re the figure, you’re right there!”

But to get back to the questions, I paint in allegorical terms. There are kind of two ways to read one of my paintings. One is in the literal sense, of whatever flora and fauna or expression of manner you may find within the painting, and then the other is what’s its meaning, what’s its allegory, what’s its allusion. What is it alluding to? Then that gets interesting. It gets complex. Sometimes I make that definition a little bit more reachable, but sometimes I put it out of reach because I want to give people a mystery. That’s something that I think is really important and I think is missing in a lot of today’s art. Everybody is so engaged in meaning, or getting this or that point across. It’s like, I don’t need to know! And so what I want to do is give you both. You can get this or that, or you can leave it there. It doesn’t matter. You know what I mean?

So Nature’s Course is the idea that it’s going to be what it’s going to be. And that’s what it is. You take your time with the paintings because you have to sit with paintings. People are scrolling through Instagram and their attention spans are like goldfish, just like boom, boom,

gone. Painting is the opposite of Instagram. You have to sit with a painting and you have to read it like a book, but it’s visual, you know.

NM: I think learning how to see a painting is really like learning how to read again.

JN: You just said it, learning how to see again. It’s just a different process. Myself and others have had the potential to fall in love with that process, you know, and I’m certainly in love with that process.

NM: So you have a two-person exhibition with Raymond Pettibon coming up as well, opening March 15th at County Gallery in Palm Beach. How does that differ from the retrospective or the idea of Nature’s Course? Does it differ?

JN: I’m very excited about that. Yeah, well, the title of, and the theme of that exhibition, is the five classical elements: fire, air, water, earth, and aether. So Raymond and I each made five new works for the show. There will be 10 pieces in all – my five versions of the classical elements and Raymond’s five versions of the classical elements. I’m really excited about it because just thematically speaking, it’s such a tried and true iconography of art. It goes back to the beginning of it all and everything in between. It was a fascinating project to work on. Having it open simultaneously with the museum show is just perfect. Raymond and I formed a friendship over the bond between our two sons. Our sons are good friends, so it was through them that we started our friendship and discussions and I really just admire Raymond. But you know what? It was through nature’s course itself – through the boys playing around, swimming, making little films, and going on excursions like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. Those two are just like dynamite. It’s just great.

John Newsom in his studio, 2022.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Mannion

COUNTY is a young gallery, a very good gallery in Palm Beach. They approached me and Raymond with the idea of doing the show and we had some really healthy discussions, landed on this and I couldn’t be more pleased with how the process has unfolded and the staff at COUNTY. I’m really looking forward to both exhibitions.

NM: That’s incredible, it sounds seamless. So what keeps you painting? What inspires you?

Is it your family? Is it this internal drive? Is it outside influences?

JN: Well, it’s all of the above and more, you know, at this point – you know what, it goes back to the beginning, it’s just the same, Nathalie. It’s just that life itself brings to it what it needs to be. You know, whether it’s something I feel, observe, or experience, I put it into the paintings. And this goes back again to the idea of generosity. I want to serve up a very full meal. I want to make it a big plentiful meal, and I’m just always cooking.

NM: Always in the kitchen.

JN: I’m always in the kitchen, yes, I’m always in the kitchen. You find me in the studio or with my kids, that’s it. That’s my world.

NM: And they’re the same, probably, as far as the return you’re getting.

JN: Yeah, but you know what, that brings us back to the very beginning of our conversation, even before we hopped on the recording. I used to be incredibly social when I was younger. I was out at a thousand openings. I never slept, I was working, I was going to parties. It was exhausting. Just exhausting. It was amazing. I’m glad I lived through it, to be honest, now I’m eight years sober, I’m a sober guy. And life is golden. I don’t regret anything. But I’m glad I lived through it to get to where I am now because it’s really good right now. It wasn’t always about this balance. It was like being tied to the mast heading out to rough seas, but I learned a lot and I have a lot to be thankful for.

NM: I think that directly relates to how you work and your practice. You’re gonna go where you go or shit’s going to come from you and happen to you, but you just got to work through it. You constantly have to work through it, whether it’s painting or life –

JN: Thus, nature’s course.

NM: Nature’s course. Exactly.

Nature’s Course: An Interview with John Newsom (Part 5) Read More »

Artist Profile, Exhibition

Nature’s Course: An Interview with John Newsom (Part 3)

Artist Profile, Exhibition /

John Newsom in his studio, 2022.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Mannion

Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.

Continued from Part 2

PART 2

Nathalie Martin: It’s also interesting that your first encounter with art was through Rauschenberg and Warhol and kind of all the guys that sought to “break the rules,” then going to school and studying the rules yourself, is a really unique way to get into it or to get into the history.

 

John Newsom: Yeah, definitely. Definitely, because there’s a generation in between. If you look at it really by decades and things, there was a generation in between there that was such an incredible, momentous time for painting in the eighties. So the Pop Art that I was really looking at, it came earlier, when we were moving out of Abstract Expressionism into Pop. Like real early Pop into middle Pop. That was a really interesting period, but it was also a very popular period. So that’s why I was able to get access to it in rural Oklahoma because I couldn’t get to some of the things that were happening in the European context, or even the Far East, which I eventually made it to. I studied abroad and lived in Kyoto. I was in Yokohama, Osaka, Tokyo, and then I was down in Mexico City for a while, around San Miguel and Palenque. So I traveled a lot. I was very interested in broadening my knowledge. I wanted to get the knowledge. And so it wasn’t exclusively linear like with the New York context. But for me, it’s always been about the journey.

John Newsom, The Bright Side, 2017. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum

I’ve done a lot of exhibitions in Los Angeles. I’ve had good experiences in LA. I’ve always been based in New York and coming up I never had the dream of going to Los Angeles. I always knew I wanted to get to New York and it’s a different place to paint here. It’s just a little different than it is in LA. And it’s not to make a value judgment. It’s just to say that it’s a different type of context to be painting in. I think that’s benefited my particular type of work again because of the tactility of the surface. That’s kind of a uniquely New York historical way of approaching the canvas. If you look at my work, for the most part, the works are rather large in scale and they’re also very tactical. They’re tough, they’re heavy, and they’re physical paintings. So I always found it kind of a nice juxtaposition when I would go to Los Angeles and see friends and artists out there and shows where it became about light and space. It was all about light and space and atmosphere and it was amazing. It was a trip, but then I get back here and it was like we’re back in this earthen realm of the physical, up-in-your grill surface structures. I love that because I feel like paintings are made as much as they are painted. I mean, there’s the idea of the mark.

 

NM: I agree and see that in your own work.

 

JN: There’s a certain attribute about mark-making in New York that is different than anywhere else, and I love it. That’s why I continue to be encouraged by the energy of it. I was talking with the painter Ed Moses about this one time, and he was an interesting painter because although he was in Los Angeles, he was a very physical type of painter. His surfaces were very physically driven. So if he had stayed in New York, he would’ve had a very different history. And if a painter like Brice Marden had gone to Los Angeles, with his type of work, those Cold Mountain paintings would have a totally different feel to them. I just think it’s interesting to really take note of the context of where it is you are painting in a landscape. Corot was painting in a certain landscape, Turner was painting in a certain landscape, Van Gogh too, and it’s just all this kind of stuff. So it’s really fascinating. I am so blessed and grateful to be able to have the opportunity to get up every day and go to the studio and do what I do.

 

NM: Where is your studio?

 

JN: My studio right now is located at Mana Contemporary. So I’m actually in Jersey City. But my studio was in Soho previously for twenty years. That was the right amount of time to be in Soho. I’m glad I was in Soho when it was like that. Especially in the nineties, because coming into Soho in 92, we got the backwash of what was there, but there was enough. From 92 to 95, it was still jamming. There were still unbelievable, pivotal types of presentations happening with exhibitions there and these artists and it was amazing. It was amazing. Things shifted, which is okay.

John Newsom in his studio, 2022.

Photo Credit: Jonathan Mannion

NM: As they do.

 

JN: Yeah, the city doesn’t go anywhere, you just get offered different options, but being there at that time was just incredible to come in on that period, you know? So listen, every generation comes in on their own time.

 

NM: That’s what I tell myself at least.

 

JN: Yeah, for sure. So I was planning a move of studios and my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our first child and we had been living in Soho prior to having kids. So we moved to Brooklyn and we live in Park Slope. I decided to move my studio, and through a chain of associations I was offered to take a look at the current space, and I built it out. I really like it. I’ve been at the current studio maybe six, seven years, something like that. It’s a long commute, but I’m glad I have it. I walk, I take the trains. I love living in a walking city. As a painter, I love it. That’s another reason why I could never be in LA. There was an apartment I had access to for four years through the gallery I was with in LA and I’d stay there and I’d either get a car or have a driver or some way to get around, but I never really drove. You get to run into people here. You want to have experiences. You feel a part of the city, you feel closer to it. So I walk, I take the trains. I don’t go to the gym, but I go to the studio. It helps you a little bit. But it’s all good. Everything’s good. Everything’s in a real good space. So yeah, totally. I’m happy.

 

NM: Good. I want to talk about your influences too. Your fauna definitely reminds me of Audubon and your backdrops remind me of Pollock or Mitchell, and your flora reminds me of Kahlo even.

 

JN: Well, I love all those artists you’re mentioning. It’s really important to do two things. It’s really important to address your influences, to work with and through your influences. You have to do that, but you have to literally work through your influences until it’s digested fully and it’s yours now.

John Newsom, Keep Watch, 2020. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum

NM: Absolutely, so you’re not just regurgitating.

 

JN: You have to do that. I mean, the Greats study the Greats in order to be great. You have to do that in anything, in music, sports, entertainment, in writing. Again, because I kind of started out early, I got to go through a lot, and quickly. I gathered a lot, I went through a lot. When I say a lot, it wasn’t like I was looking at a dozen artists. I was looking at hundreds of artists. Really, hundreds of artists, trying to see what it was all about. And there are many, many false starts. You’re not going to hit it out of the park every time. There’s going to be a lot of strikes, and you have to embrace it. Sometimes it’s like, “This is interesting, but it’s kind of a dead-end,” and so now I’m going to go over here and, “Oh, wow, this is happening.” But you have to keep an open mind, always have to keep an open mind. You never know where it’s going to come from, where that spark is going to be. So you’re mentioning artists like Audubon to Joan Mitchell, which is interesting. Who the hell is thinking of that together? You know what I mean? You make an interesting point because it’s like, “I want it all.” Going back to Rauschenberg, when you look at Skyway, it’s like he was cramming everything he could into every square inch of that painting. That’s what I love about Rauschenberg and certain other artists that I’ll get into – the level of generosity. I just love when I walk into a show, wherever it is, I’m like, “Oh, wow. Whoa.” You know, it’s just, “Oh my God, look at this!” So if I’m flipping through Artforum or whatever, I see an announcement for an exhibition by a certain artist, then it’s like, “Oh shit! I can’t wait to see this!”

 

NM: Me too! And when it hits, it hits.

 

JN: Oh man, when it delivers? Because it might not deliver. But when it delivers, you know, it’s like watching Pacino in a film or something…. and it delivers! You walk in and you’re like, “Wow, this is it!” It didn’t happen overnight. Paintings don’t make themselves. You’ve got to get up, get your coffee, get in the studio, grind, flow – however it gets done – and you have to paint every day. This reminds me of a quote by Alex Katz that I’ve always loved. I really admire Alex Katz. He’s amazing. And he said, “Go to the studio, paint 10 hours a day every day for 10 years, and then come see me.” And that’s just such a pretentious, badass, New York quote. That’s just awesome. So that’s what I did. I painted 10 hours a day for 10 years. And then I went to see him. He gave me a drawing of his wife Ada reclining on the beach, and my wife has it hanging in our bedroom and it’s signed: To John, Love Alex. So I took his advice and if you’re a painter like that, I’m giving you Alex Katz’s advice, because it was really good advice. Just get in there and grind, and that’s really it. You’re also going to find out a lot about yourself and if you’re cut out for this, because not everybody is built for this nor should they be. It’s just following your own bliss, figuring out what that means, and what’s that about.

John Newsom, Solstice, 2016. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum

So I can get into influences. Certainly, there have been many, many, many, and I gotta tell you, it’s at a point now where it’s become self-referential in the work. And that’s a strange thing to say. It’s not completely self-referential, but it’s to the degree that… like, the Jasper Johns show just closed at the Whitney, and it’s been a very busy time for me and I didn’t get to see it.

 

NM: What! No way.

 

JN: No, no, no, but it’s fine. I’m not stressed about not seeing it because I’ve seen other Johns’ shows. He’s a great painter, but I’m at the point where I can’t see anything right now because I’ve got to be on my shit. But it hasn’t always been like that. There was a point earlier where I would have made sure to see a show like that because I needed to see it. Or I had to see it or whatever, but you know what, I’ve seen iterations of it. I hope I’m getting this across because it’s an exciting place to be at. It’s like, wow, I finally have so much on my plate with my own painting that I actually can’t go see this stuff, but it’s okay. Because I know it, I know what it is. I’ve really enjoyed sharing these stories with you because it’s a time to look back. It’s a time to take a moment of self-reflection and to look back and to take stock and see what things have happened, what paintings exist now that are particularly important and strong in my own lineage, and then see where I’m going with it. Then I’ll have a period that opens up where I can exhale and go see something, and then you see what happens. It’s interesting, things that you would have never imagined you would’ve been into at a certain period, you’re obsessed with, you know what I mean?

 

NM: Totally. Some of my favorite painters now are artists I originally didn’t understand or like.

 

JN: And then vice versa, you know, you’ve got to be like that. You can’t just stay on one thing. If you’re on a type of painting or an artist as an influence, and you’re looking at it and you know it back and forth, it doesn’t mean you have to stay on it forever. You can set it down and you can evolve into other things, knowing that it was there. It is there. But you don’t have to feel obligated to take it with you everywhere. Not that you should either, because the most important thing is to find your own voice as a painter. You have to work through your influences. You look at Velazquez or Caravaggio or late Manet – this is capital “P” Painting, and you have to get through that stuff. You have to go to the Prado and see Spanish painting, you have to see the Louvre and the French painting. You’ve got to do all that stuff. I was told that when I was young, and I’ve been to those places. So you get into a certain moment in your development and then you process it, and it gets better. It just keeps getting better, and you get wiser too, just by doing the work. Because the work leads the way.

Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.

Continued in Part 4

PART 4

Nature’s Course: An Interview with John Newsom (Part 3) Read More »

Artist Profile, Exhibition

Nature’s Course: An Interview with John Newsom (Part 2)

Artist Profile, Exhibition /

John Newsom, Keep Watch, 2020. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum

Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.

Continued from Part 1

Part 1

JN: I grew up in a very solid family structure and being very close with my family. I have a family now and I just love family. I’m crazy about my family. So a strange thing happened on my 14th birthday. I thought that everybody had forgotten my birthday. Like everybody was playing dumb, they didn’t acknowledge it. And it freaked me out. It was a problem.

I went up to my room and was just kind of sad about it. It was on a Saturday. My Dad came up, and he peeked in and he said, “Hey, you want to drive downtown and get a Coke?” I said okay. And so we drove downtown. It was a beautiful sunny day. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting. We went into this soda stand and got Coke floats. We were talking about baseball and things like that. And then he said, “do you want to take a drive to Oklahoma City?” And I was like, yeah, sure, why not? I mean, that wasn’t totally out of the ordinary, but it was cool that he said that. But still no mention of the birthday.

Downtown Oklahoma City, 1987

So my dad and I drove to Oklahoma City. And at the time – this was before the ages of heightened security and terrorist alerts and all that – you could literally drive up to the tarmac of the landing pad at the airport, which is what we did. There was a small commuter plane waiting for us on the tarmac. I mean, it wasn’t a private jet or anything like that. It was just a small plane, which was cool. My dad looked at me and he said, “Hey, you want to take a plane ride?” Now this had never happened before. This was different. But he got up, we got on the plane and I was excited. I was just thrilled. This was an adventure.

 

We took off, I didn’t know where we were going. We were up in the air for a little over an hour, I’d say an hour and a half. We started making our descent and I look over and there are buildings around. We’re landing in a city. The plane lands, and we get out and there’s a car waiting for us. Not with a driver or anything fancy. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was everything to me. This was the moment. My dad’s like, “Hey, you want to take a drive and see where we’re at?” It was amazing how he laid this out. So we get in the car and we start looping around and we are in heavy urban traffic and it’s going fast. It’s moving. It’s not stalled. It’s not like being in LA during rush hour. It’s fast-moving and we zoom off the freeway and I’m just wide-eyed looking out the window. The car stops. I look over at my dad and he puts his arm around me. He looks at me and he goes, “Happy Birthday.” Oh my God. And I look out the window and it says the Dallas Museum of Art. I blew open the door. There was a sidewalk, a long sidewalk between the car and the front door. And I just started running down the sidewalk, and there’s this giant leaning wall of steel on the left side of the sidewalk. And later in life, I would tell Richard Serra this story – I literally did that, Nathalie. I told him this story. I actually got him to smile. It was its own achievement, but that’s for another time.

NM: I’m smiling just hearing this.

 

JN: Yeah, man. But I didn’t know what it was at the time. I had no idea. All I could do was read the sign, Dallas Museum of Art. I run to the door. I walk in and I didn’t need to do check-in right away or any of that stuff – again, I was just 14 that day. So my dad was going to handle it. Because – because – installed right in front of me on the main wall was Robert Rauschenberg’s largest Combine Painting, Skyway, from 1964. And I just had an epiphany. John F. Kennedy was pointing down at me and I just saw my life flash before my eyes. I heard the calling. I was like, I’m going to be a painter. For real, for real, I’m going to go all the way with this, whatever that means.

Robert Rauschenberg, Skyway, 1964. Credit: Dallas Museum of Art

NM: Yeah, you flipped the switch.

 

JN: I really didn’t know what that meant, but I knew that it was happening. I knew this is what I wanted to do. So that was real, the real root of it. We had a great time. My dad came in, bless his heart, he didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know what he was looking at.

 

NM: I have the same experience with my dad to this day. He always asks me to explain it to him, what does this mean, what am I looking at, you know, and I’m like, Dad, that’s beside the point.

 

JN: Right, he didn’t know, but thank God I had supportive, loving parents because they passed it on to me and I support my children like that. That’s a healthy chain of events, so that’s very cool beyond this discussion. So he walked in and he said, can you explain this to me? And I start talking about collage and painting, and there’s a giant Claes Oldenburg rope, anchor sculpture thing that’s extending from the ceiling down to the floor. There was a Jim Dine painting that has collaged tools in it, spray-painted elements, and just all this radical stuff. It was a radical presentation of Pop Art. It wasn’t so smooth. Even the Lichtenstein – it was the painted ceramic female bust. It wasn’t a domestic item. It was romantic, it was interesting, it was great. It was colorful. It was very tactile. I loved it.

But the Rauschenberg was the win for me that day. It really was, and I was kind of veering off the initial discovery of this whole thing via Warhol. I mean, I still love it. I admire it. I never got to meet him, but I hold his work in reverence. But just through self-discovery in life and your own painting practice, you come into your own. So I was, even then, veering away into other things, but I still was hoping to see a piece because I had never seen a Warhol in the flesh. But it wasn’t in the main gallery. So we walked through all this stuff, and before we left, I asked the person at the front desk where the restrooms were. I go to the restrooms, and there in between the restroom doors were two Warhol electric chair paintings. I was like, there they are! There they are. For some reason, they didn’t hang them in the main gallery. But if I hadn’t asked to go to the bathroom, I would’ve never seen the Warhol paintings. So I got to see them. They were really cool because those were some really edgy pieces. The electric chair series is just so intense, and I’ve seen thousands of Warhol paintings since then, but those are some of the best.

Andy Warhol, Electric Chair (Portfolio), 1971. Credit: Dallas Museum of Art

The Dallas Museum of Art is amazing. I saw a Philip Guston retrospective there. It’s a great space. I came back to Enid, the small town where I was from in Oklahoma, and my life would never be the same. I started taking pieces of found wood and plywood panels and I would staple TV dinner trays to the pieces of wood and throw paint all over them and take them into my art class, present them as art, and everyone thought I was crazy. Because that’s what I really wanted to be doing. But on the other hand, I was trying to draw as realistic as possible because that’s what everybody was getting off on. It was like, wow this guy can draw like the wind, it’s amazing, it looks like a photograph – but then I’m doing this crazy, really tactile, abject painting. I was just getting into it, you know, I had all this passion, but not really much direction. I was swirling and I continued to swirl for the next two years, which was good. It was all build up. I was still going to the library in my teenage years and I discovered an area of magazines that they had. I wondered if they had a magazine for art. So I asked the librarian about it and sure enough they carried ARTnews magazine.

 

I got a copy of ARTnews… and it was a still a little early, maybe late 13, 14 years old. I got back from Dallas and I was like, I gotta keep figuring this out, and we didn’t have Google. So I found ARTnews and I started reading it and I waited and anticipated when the library would get the new issue. I would look at the ads and I would read the reviews and articles and I’d discover artists. That was my junior high school into high school education of art. I knew what the galleries were showing in New York when I was 14, 15 growing up in Oklahoma. And honestly, Nathalie, I couldn’t wait to get there, because we had taken a family trip to New York around that time as well. I told my mother, I said, “this is where I’m going to live.” She was like, oh John, okay, whatever, and I’m like, no – mark my words. I’m going to do this. I’m a Taurus. So once I set my mind to it, it’s happening.

Julian Schnabel on the cover of ARTnews, April 1985

JN: So I found an ad in the back of ARTnews. It was a quarter-page ad for a summer camp called Interlochen in Northern Michigan, outside of Traverse City. It was advertised as a music camp, and I thought that was interesting, but I also read that they had painting. It was music, dance, and painting. It was basically an art preparatory school but a summer camp, and everybody was going to camp, including myself. I’d gone to baseball camp and church camp, but I didn’t want to go to those camps. I wanted to go to art camp. So I asked my parents, I showed them the ad and I said, “Hey, what do you think about this? This sounds really amazing. Can I apply?” Everybody was going to camp, so they were like, “well let’s see.” We looked into it and long story short, I got to go to the summer camp Interlochen.

 

That was kind of another pivotal point in this process because I just fell in love with it. It was just fantastic because there were instructors there, it was serious. It was life-drawing and still-life drawing and blind contour drawing and printmaking and introduction to woodcutting and intaglio etching. It’s all that stuff, you know, the classics. It was the academy. So while I was there, I discovered that they did offer the academy during the school year. I couldn’t go back home. I thought, how am I going to get to New York if I don’t do this? I don’t know how, but this is part of my journey. So I went, I left in the middle of high school to go to Interlochen Arts Academy. I got in and I worked really hard and I loved it. And it was just everything. It was –

 

NM: Where you needed to be. 

 

JN: Nathalie, it was just everything. It was just amazing. I dove into art history and the hardcore academics of art-making and the instructors were incredible. They were also interested in regional exhibitions that were happening in places like the Detroit Museum and Cranbrook and we would take trips there. I remember going to the Detroit Museum one time and they had a giant Rosenquist painting. I think maybe it’s where I grew up because I did grow up with a horizontal landscape, whereas my kids are growing up with a vertical landscape because they live in the city. It’s just a different site point, it really is. Day after day you get accustomed to it. So there really was an expansive field to the things, or paintings, physically, that I was attracted to. Just the scale of it. They’re like grand spaces you can walk in. If you get far back enough, it becomes another picture, you get close, it becomes an incredible physical reality. It’s just an amazing thing. So Rosenquist, how he was using aspects of visual collage was really interesting to me, especially the idea of remixing – again, revisiting notions of MTV and early days of Hip Hop. Even like certain types of rhythmic or electric guitars, metal, Kraftwerk, anything, listening to all this stuff. I’m thinking, like –

James Rosenquist, Star Thief, 1980

NM: Thinking what is going on!

 

JN: Yeah! Thinking that this is our time. This is now, it can’t be like the Italian Renaissance. It’s different, but you got to go and learn all that stuff. You asked me in the beginning about school and things like that. I really felt obligated to go in and learn as much as I could and just figure out the etymology of what it was I was getting involved with. And I love it to this day, I love just sitting down and getting into it like that. Doesn’t have to be about my own work. It can be about ideas of artistic thought and movement and other things. You know what I mean?

 

NM: Absolutely, I totally agree.

 

JN: So that was a really great period of work and development for me. And then the time came to leave and I applied to The Rhode Island School of Design and Cooper Union, and I got into both, but I decided to go to The Rhode Island School of Design. I applied there first, I got into Cooper after RISD and I just thought it would be a little buffer before New York, let’s put it that way. Being a late teenager, New York might’ve been a little much, but I knew I was going to be there eventually anyway, so it didn’t matter. So I went to Providence. It’s a gorgeous city. It’s a very, very European city. I felt a little stunted to be honest, the first two years there, and I came very close to transferring to Cooper Union.

 

NM: And you were in the painting program at RISD?

JN: Yeah, I was in the painting program. I was just ready to get to New York, but I still wanted to be in school. It just wasn’t time yet. But then I started to meet some people. I started to make some real friendships and I stayed there. I didn’t go. I finished at RISD and then I came to New York in 1992. So I’ve been here 30 years now. Then we get into New York itself, but I mean, we just covered a large swath of my history from the beginning to New York. Those are key points, the highlights.

John Newsom in his Spring Street Studio, New York, New York, 1992-93

Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.

Continued in Part 3

Part 3

Nature’s Course: An Interview with John Newsom (Part 2) Read More »

Artist Profile, Exhibition

Nature’s Course: An Interview with John Newsom (Part 1)

Artist Profile, Exhibition /

John Newsom, Beyond the Horizon, 2008-09. Credit: Oklahoma Contemporary Museum

Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.

NM: I want to start from the beginning. How did you first get into painting and art history?

JN: I was born in Kansas, in the middle of America, in Hutchinson, which is a town outside of Wichita. I lived there for five years and then my family moved to Dodge City, which is kind of mythologized in the American west as this cowboy town, and Jesse James, etc. – it’s kind of a legendary place. So that kind of was a fun place to grow up from five to ten. During those five years in Dodge, I would go to this place called Boot Hill, which is a famous old Western subsidiary town within Dodge City. They had reenactments of old Western-themed plays, skits, narratives, salon girl dancers, and cowboy shootouts. It was wild. It was like the wild west. But it was an all-American childhood. I really am from that place, those early roots. That’s my foundation. Then at ten, my family moved to Oklahoma, and I spent my formative youth there. I was always painting. I was always drawing. I was just naturally engaged with the process from a very early age. I remember being three, four, and five years old and recalling vivid experiences of the process. It was definitely something more organic than normal. It was just in me. So I came to it very naturally and I just always did that. I mean, I did other things too; I played sports and ran around and did all that kind of stuff, but I was always drawing. I was always painting. That’s the early, early beginnings, the seedlings of how things started.

Dodge City, Kansas, 1878.

NM: Right. So in high school, when you applied to RISD, you knew you wanted to attend art school, and that painting was something you wanted to seriously pursue?

JN: Well, we got to step back a little bit before that. Again, in the context of where I was from, I didn’t have access to museums or galleries. I was growing up in rural America and it wasn’t the urban setting at all. It was just flat planes and a big, open sky. It was interesting, it was through the early days of MTV that sparked my curiosity. Whenever MTV first began, I can’t remember the exact date, but I remember watching it because it was exciting. It was new. Today, the young kids, they’ve got NFTs, they’ve got the metaverse, they’ve got all this stuff. We had MTV. That was what we had.

NM: I wish I had MTV.

JN: Yeah, man, I want my MTV! I remember I was watching MTV and Duran Duran came on the station and they were talking to this very strange person. I thought he was a new rock star because that’s how we were discovering music. And I love music. Music’s had a big influence on me, on my life and my work (and we can get to some of those things. Not to be long-winded about it, but I do have to lay out some of these stories for context). So I was watching Duran Duran interview this artist, and I thought, this guy has to be from London. I’m around 13, I think, when I’m watching this, like, oh man, I can’t wait to hear this guy’s music. And then they said that he was a painter! Then I really was like whoa, what? A painter? No way. I wanted to see his paintings. And it was Andy Warhol.

NM: Wow.

JN: So I was watching this interview with Warhol and I was really interested in his persona and how he was coming across as someone who could get on MTV as a painter. That was it. That was interesting to me because it was usually Duran Duran, ZZ Top, Def Leppard, you know, stuff like that. It wasn’t painting.

Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran) Interviewing Andy Warhol for MTV, 1983

So my mother would drive me and my younger brother to the local library once every other week to check out books. I went to the librarian and I inquired to see if they had any information at all about Andy Warhol. And again, this is Enid, Oklahoma, a town an hour north of Oklahoma City, just south of the Kansas border. The odds of finding any information on Andy Warhol out there were slim to nil. So she came back with a book and it was a new book, a recent anthology on American Pop Art. And they had a little chapter on Warhol. So I checked out the book and I voraciously read it several times and looked at all the pictures, front to back cover. Through that I discovered the world of New York Pop Art – Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Leo Castelli. I learned the story of the Stable Gallery where Warhol first started exhibiting before he joined Castelli. Leo had picked up Lichtenstein shortly before looking at two early Dick Tracy paintings of Warhol’s – that could get us down a whole other hole.

 

But anyway, I’m 13, I’m reading all this stuff. Very interested in it, I started drawing images of rock stars and sports figures and artists, things that I’m interested in. I had this kind of double-edge play, this double edge vision at work. One was kind of this Pop vernacular, and the other was just trying to learn the fundamentals of drawing from a more kind of academy style.

 

But again, where I was, I was restrained, because I didn’t have access to the knowledge, to really get it. And you really need, when you’re drawing, or when you’re doing form like that at any time, whether it’s hockey or painting or golf or whatever, you must have a live physical instructor to show you. You have to figure it out live. You can’t do that kind of knowledge via a book and have it be as effective. So I just kind of paralleled off into my own world.

Combining realistic representations of animals and vegetation, Abstract Expressionism, and hard-edge geometry, John Newsom’s paintings explore our intricate and complicated relationship with nature. I spoke with John about his origins, his practice, and his upcoming exhibitions – a mid-career retrospective at the Oklahoma Contemporary Museum and a two-person show with Raymond Pettibon in Palm Beach.

Continued to Part 2

PART 2

Nature’s Course: An Interview with John Newsom (Part 1) Read More »

Artist Profile, Exhibition