david aaron greenberg

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 3)

David Aaron Greenberg in his studio

Photo by Pedro Angel Serrano

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 the final installment of their 3 part interview, Alexandra Kosloski and David Aaron Greenberg discuss Road Tripping, his project with The Trops, and the inspiration behind it.

Continued from Part 2

Part 2

AK: How would you describe the local art scene in New Jersey?

David Aaron Greenberg: In Asbury, the literary scene is really vibrant, this “New Jersey Poetry Renaissance” that they call it. The music and the poetry overlap, but not so much with the visuals. It used to be the eighties and nineties artists were in bands, and bands had artists and there was this cross-pollination. And I wish there was more of that.

In terms of the visual, there’s little pockets in New Jersey, it’s very dispersed. You know, there’s real people around me. And I’ve seen young friends of mine that are in Philadelphia, where there’s definitely giant buildings where there’s like 300 other artists, and I would just find that oppressive. I mean, it’s great if you’re young or if you like that, but I don’t want to be around other artists. I want to be around real people. There are people that come into my studio that I meet on the street, literally, and then pose for me. I just recently met a gas attendant at the Wawa, and he came in here. I mean, when they walk in here, their opinion is not some bullshit. They really tell you what they think of your art. They don’t have any preconceived notions. They’re not angling for something.

David Aaron Greenberg

Vibing, 2023

I remember years ago the Italian painter Sandro Chia said, “The greatest way to judge the value of a painting is to just leave it out with the trash and see what happens to it.” Divorced of the context of the gallery or in a museum, if you saw that fucking shit on the street, what would you do? Would you say that’s really interesting or that’s a piece of crap? And I think it’s a really wonderful concept. Like, I sometimes leave my paintings outside to dry, and people ride by and they go, “Oh, that’s really nice.” Leaning up against the wall, drying in the sun outside of the apartment building. You’re not living in the real world if you’re completely surrounded by artists and everything that you do is like: you go to openings, you go to dinner with artists, you vacation with artists and you go to the Hamptons. It’s like you’re living a lifestyle instead of actually making art, right?

AK: You could get out of touch with most viewers.

David Aaron Greenberg: With reality. Just like, dealing with everyday life, the artist is not supposed to be removed from society completely. As Walt Whitman said, he was “one of the roughs”. That’s what made his poetry so great. He was amongst the people. And New Jersey makes you real, no matter what. People do not give a fuck here.

AK: But that’s a really beautiful thing that you were saying. Road Tripping, the project you’re doing with The Trops, you’re not displaying it in a white box, you’re displaying it in the community.

Photo of the artist’s studio

David Aaron Greenberg: Yeah. I’ve talked to the owners of the spaces and had their approval to put it up. So you’re talking with real people that are part of the community that want to encourage art and music and all that. What I really love about The Trops is that it’s very simple, but it’s very revolutionary. It’s like it’s got one foot in the established art world, and it’s got one foot in the real world. And it needs to be in both of those places. And that’s what’s so great about it. To use the technology of apps to to do something that’s not just about making money, but really being part of a community. And there’s a big difference in experiencing something in real time than it is online. I mean, we all love looking at people’s art on Instagram and we love to take videos, but you can’t experience a painting unless you’re standing in front of it. I just recently saw The Cure. I’ve never seen them. And there is something about a live experience, whether it’s music, art, poetry, reading. It’s life, it’s real. I think this young generation right now is relating to that because they lived through COVID. They interact with people and have cravings for real things, real books.

AK: Real connection.

David Aaron Greenberg: You can see real experience. These kids sniff out when they’re being manipulated and being set up.

AK: Can you tell me a little bit of the inspiration behind Road Tripping?

David Aaron Greenberg: I tried to place paintings that seem to somehow relate to the space. It was really easy for the painting in the Scarlet Reserve Room, which is a smoking club. That particular painting I had been painting for a while. I started it on acid. It’s probably the last time I’ll ever do acid because it was just too intense. That was like two years ago. And then the friend of mine– that it was based on– was in the studio, and I said, “Oh, let me pull this out. Remember this experience?” But it was interesting, there was something not right about it. Like, the dimensions were all weird. It was trippy, you know, it was started on acid. And I said, “Let me try to fix this, stand here”. And he’s like, “The only way I can deal with this is if I smoke.” There was something missing in this painting, and he started to light the joint, and I was like “That’s it.” And it became a still life of the actual joint that he rolled. And so, the fact that a painting of mine is in a store arena in an establishment that I totally love, and if it helps promote the place, awesome, because I want this place to thrive. Not only are people smoking weed there, but the atmosphere is amazing. People read poetry and it’s just really relaxing.

Now, The Asbury Park Roastery, that’s a strange little painting. It seems like somebody who needs a cup of coffee.

AK: Yeah, it’s a little moody.

David Aaron Greenberg

Black Eye, 2023

David Aaron Greenberg: Exactly. And Keyport Funhouse, that place is like your older sister’s best friend’s bedroom exploded, and the coolest shit is there. And you’re like, “Wow”. It’s like when you’re young and there’s an older girl and she lets you in her room. It’s a big deal. You’re like, “Wow, this is how girls live?” You know? It’s not a boy’s room. It feels like that when you walk in. It’s a great vibe, and what I put in there is a very small, very beautiful little portrait of the singer Sandflower, who I’ve written with for like ten years now. And I wanted the painting to have the feel of one of those tiny little royal portraits that you see. So it’s the oil is really heavily built up and it’s got tons of varnish on it. And you can sit on a couch and get coffee or homemade lemonade and just lounge in there, and the painting just feels natural. It’s glamorous and beautiful and feminine, and I love it. The other painting I have is in New Brunswick, which is in the George Street Co-op, which is a great place.

AK: I love the George Street Co-op.

David Aaron Greenberg: I don’t remember a time that it wasn’t there. It was such a big deal to actually have a painting in there. I didn’t know if they would agree to it. And the manager was just like, “Yeah, let’s put it up right now”. That one is called “Pop Smoke”. It’s a strange little painting, it kinda looks like the figure is in the smoke. I’ve been going there since I was in high school in the eighties. They have an open mic that they’ve been doing for years in various forms. And it’s a great little thing. It’s a great place to try a new song, for me. It gets you out of your space.

I didn’t make any of these paintings with the idea that they would wind up in these establishments, but the fact that they work in them is really rewarding. At the end of the day, as Stephen Torton says, “We are just all decorators in one form or another”. You know, it’s part of the furniture. And also the notion that they’re not all in one place, that you could literally take a road trip. You can start, let’s say, in New Brunswick and go to Red Bank, then go to Asbury, go to Keyport, come back. That’s awesome, go to the beach, get some coffee, smoke weed. I think it’s cool.

AK: It’s a whole journey. Yeah.

David Aaron Greenberg: It’s a great thing. Ultimately, even if it’s the landscapes that I do, the portraits, they’re all a way to elevate the everyday, every day. People are beautiful. The “road tripping” aspect is pretty funny, too. People travel all around the world and forget about their own backyard. The beauty in the everyday.

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 3) Read More »

Interview

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 2)

Interview / Alexandra Kosloski

Photo by Daniel Wolfskehl

In part 2 of their 3 part interview, David Aaron Greenberg talks about his memories with his idols and his current endeavors.

Continued from Part 1

Part 1

AK: Is being an artist how you thought it would be?

David Aaron Greenberg: That’s a wild question. Like, “I’m going to grow up someday and be an artist”?

AK: Yeah. Did you have that?

David Aaron Greenberg: I had a strange notion of being a rock star, which I was immediately disillusioned with when I started meeting actual rock stars, and realizing how difficult it is. And then I deliberately did not want to be a rock star.

I think the man who put it over the top for me was Joe Strummer, of all the rock stars I’ve met– and I’ve met Lou Reed, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Iggy Pop. Some of these people I had relationships and friendships with. I shared a manager with Iggy, this great guy, Art Collins. And then others like Lou Reed hated me. And I never did anything bad to him. In fact, I tried to be nice to him. Maybe that was my problem. I was talking to his wife, Laurie Anderson, who I adore. She’s so sweet. I used to do meditation practice with her. I don’t know why Lou just didn’t like me. I didn’t hold it against him. I still respected him as a songwriter.

David Aaron Greenberg & Daniel Carter Performance at Eroica Variations

Photo by David Sisko

But the last thing he said to me, I was talking to Laurie in Christie’s during the opening of Allen Ginsberg’s estate sale, and John Ashbery read a poem. It was like a poetry reading. And Allen’s older brother was there and I was talking to him. The cool thing about Allen and me is that his family was very accepting of me. So Eugene, his brother, said, “I feel like I’m at a garage sale right now”. It seemed like a garage sale, but it was at Christie’s. It was very weird. So anyway, I was talking to Laurie about how weird it was and how I just saw a T-shirt that actually was mine. I would do Allen’s laundry and our laundry would be mixed, and I just never took it. And there it was, behind glass. You could bid on it. And I’m like, “Oh, well, I guess I’m not getting that back”. I think I was telling Laurie, there’s my T-shirt, and Lou comes up and goes, “Yo, do you have a cigarette?” And I said, “I don’t smoke.” and he says, “What good are you?”. So that’s the last thing he ever said to me. “What good are you?” He never liked me from the beginning. Consistent, I must say.

The first time that he ever interacted with me was when Laurie was performing with Philip Glass and Allen. Lou sat next to me the whole night and didn’t talk to me, which is fine. We were watching the show. And then at the end I was starving. But Allen kept saying “There’s going to be a dinner afterwards, so save your appetite”. So we’re standing, getting a cab, and Lou’s standing there off to the side and they’re talking. So Allen comes to me, he’s like, “Here, take my harmonium in my bag. There’s miso soup and brown rice in the icebox.” Hello? What about dinner? He said “I’m giving Lou your ticket”. I’m like, okay. I said goodbye to Allen, we kissed. And then I went to say bye to Lou, and he just turned. And I was like, “Motherfucker, I worship you”. I learned how to play guitar by listening to Bob Dylan, and then I learned how to rock out by listening to Lou Reed. Lou was a dick, and I have friends of mine, some of them no longer with us who adored him. There must have been some good in him. I just didn’t happen to ever see it personally.

AK: That was a great story, mostly because I’m interested in knowing what Allen Ginsberg used to eat.

David Aaron Greenberg: Okay, so, this is how I know that Allen cared about me. He left a note– when I was out– that said, “There’s miso soup on the stove without seaweed”, because he knew I hated seaweed. He loved seaweed and I hated seaweed. He made it without, with me in mind. That’s an act of love.

AK: That is an act of love. Food is really a manifestation of love.

David Aaron Greenberg: Right? He underlined “without seaweed”.

AK: Looking at your work, I would guess that the body and the likeness of the body is not the objective. You have such an expressive style, I imagine that you’re trying to get some kind of essence or energy from them

David Aaron Greenberg: You said it better than I do. You just nailed me right there. Yeah. Exactly.

AK: So what are you working on lately?

David Aaron Greenberg

2023

Featured in Eroica Variations

David Aaron Greenberg: Recently I’m working on an interesting– conceptually, it’s interesting because it’s a portrait of Fulano Librizzi, and I’ve been drawing or painting Fulano Librizzi since he was a sonogram. I think the first portrait I did, I couldn’t really get to him until he was maybe four. And even then, he was highly suspect of me at age four. He had good instincts, he knew to keep his distance from me at four. I couldn’t handle him at four. I had to wait. When he was around eight, I think I got a good likeness of him. So, I’m working on a portrait of him called Fulano and Fam, with his mother and father behind him. But that’s taken me forever and ever. Because first of all, he keeps changing, he keeps getting taller. And it’s impossible to keep up with him at this point. I think I have to wait till the last growth spurt. He’ll be 20. Will you please stop growing and changing? So, it’s a conceptual thing.

AK: And you’re featured in The Trops exhibition, Eroica Variations. You have three or four paintings in the show?

David Aaron Greenberg: There’s four because there’s one in the bathroom. Everyone forgets the bathroom painting. The bathroom works really well. I would prefer if someone bought it, that they put it in the bathroom.

Continue to Part 3

Part 3

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Interview

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 1)

Interview / Alexandra Kosloski

The artist’s studio

Photo courtesy of David Aaron Greenberg

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

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Interview