thetrops – Page 2

Keeping the Faith at FSG Park

Keeping The Faith, July and September Edition featured live painting, special performance, music, and marketplace, in collaboration with Mindful Matter Market, FSG Park and Friends From New York.

July 23rd

Keeping the Faith Part 1 took place in FSG Park in New York City on July 23rd. Featured artists included KEO and VFR, as well as HAON, WANE and Al DIaz. Live performance was by Kanami Kusajima.

September 10th

Keeping the Faith Part 2 took place in FSG Park in New York City on September 10th. Featured artists included SOZE, SPAR and Jona and tunes from Revolve, as well as Alkaline Vegano in attendance. Live painting was performed by Duster and Friends.

Keeping the Faith at FSG Park Read More »

Event

An Interview with Sante D’Orazio (Part 2)

Interview / Alexandra Kosloski

Tatjana Patitz, Photo by Sante D’Orazio

D’Orazio’s world is populated by supermodels, actors, rock stars, and icons. His +30 year career has seen concurrent themes of eternal youth, stunning beauty, and rock and roll. D’Orazio’s portfolio is a mixture of informal and posed – an uncensored and provocative trademark. Since he first shot for Italian Vogue in 1981, D’Orazio’s work has been published in the likes of Andy Warhol’s Interview, Italian, French and British Vogue, Vanity Fair, and GQ among others.

In part 2 of their 3 part interview, Sante D’Orazio tells Alexandra Kosloski how he broke into the fashion industry, and shares the best advice he ever received.

Continued from Part 1

Part 1

AK: What was your thought process behind pivoting from commercial work to a more personal art practice?

Sante D’Orazio: Well, commercial work is usually directed. They made the choices, it had nothing to do with me afterwards. I was usually directed by someone who didn’t have the talent to direct. I always said just because the word “art” is in their title, doesn’t mean they know anything about art.

AK: And so how would you handle that?

Sante D’Orazio: The thing is, they always wanted something that they recognized and was easy to replicate. I always tried to give them what they wanted, and then I’ll give them something else that might be really good and different. But they already set their mind to what they’re familiar with. Nine out of ten times they go with that. That’s commercial. They go with what’s familiar. There might be something better, but it doesn’t matter.

AK: Even though you can offer something that might exist beyond their taste.

Sante D’Orazio: Yeah, but that’s the nature of commercial work. I was so stupid, I was always trying to make it better, and I allowed myself to get frustrated, and there was just no need to put myself through all that. In retrospect, it’s like, come on, just do it and go home. Make life easier for yourself. There’s a time and place for certain things. You’re doing a commercial job. I would sometimes have to call up my agent and say “how much am I getting today?” Just so I could put up with it.

Tatjana Patitz, Photo by Sante D’Orazio

AK: Who do you create art for?

Sante D’Orazio: I still have to do it for me. I’m looking for something within myself. I’m still that foolish kid, dealing with the commercial world and fighting it. I’ve learned not to listen to all the naysayers. You make something that’s unique to you, and the naysayers are the ones that you like and respect, who tell you “Nah, that’s not really that cool.” And you believe that? That’s the worst thing you could do. You have to believe in what you did, and you have to develop it.

That’s the definition of contempt; to make less of another, to make more of yourself. I had a mentor in photography, and he made me write certain things and stick them to my wall, and that was one of the things. “Contempt is making less of others to make more of yourself.” You never do it. And then the other thing that I’ll always remember is that he said, “Let the obstacles be your guide. It leads you to places you would never have gone on your own.”

AK: And that was some of the best advice you’ve ever got?

Sante D’Orazio: Yes.

Geometric painting by Sante D’Orazio, 2021

AK: Could you talk a little bit more about him?

Sante D’Orazio: Lou Bernstein. He said he was the only Jewish man in Brooklyn with an Italian son. He belonged to the New York Photo League, they were the photographers that did street photography as we know it in New York City. I didn’t know his work at the time. He saw me going to art school, I was going to the Art Students League, and he saw me with one of those big portfolios. I told him what I was doing and he asked me if I wanted to learn photography. Yeah. He had a class up in this attic apartment on East Fifth Street in Brooklyn, and he taught three students on a Friday night. And on the weekend, I would go with him out in the street, wherever there were people gathered. He wanted me to shoot alongside him so I could see what he was looking at. He would point things out, learning how to anticipate a moment. You start putting it all together, and we go from there.

AK: Before you had met him, you had been painting?

Sante D’Orazio: Yeah, I started out painting. I had to figure out in high school what the hell I wanted to do, and the only thing I knew how to do naturally was art. So I went to community college for art direction, and I hated it. Then I transferred over to Brooklyn College for fine art, and those were my best years in college. I met Phil Pearlstein, who was one of the leading artists in figurative painting, and I became his assistant. When I graduated, I had to figure out, what am I going to do now? I had a cousin, who was a well-known hairdresser in the city, who was always telling us stories of all the glamorous people that he was doing hair for. It seemed like a world away, but he encouraged me to go into fashion, so I gave it a try. I put together a portfolio of ten life drawings of nudes, ten pictures that looked like ten different photographers took them, and ten pictures of whales from the aquarium.

AK: You’re laughing, but I saw those pictures and I think they’re great.

White beluga whale at Coney Island Aquarium, Photo by Sante D’Orazio, 1975

Sante D’Orazio: Thank you. Those were my first photographs. And so I put them all in the portfolio. Who do I go to first? Avedon Studio. Didn’t get past the secretary. And then I went to Irving Penn and didn’t even get past the intercom. And then one blizzard of a day, I went to Scavullo, and I got into the door, and the first person I saw was Scavullo, himself. And he’s like, “What do you want?” I was like, “I want to be an assistant”. He’s like, “Get out of here”. I thought to myself, I gotta rethink this.

AK: So how do you come back from that?

Sante D’Orazio: I eventually got a job as a gofer at a commercial studio, with a commercial photographer who borderlined fashion advertising. He worked with famous models on advertising shoots. My job was to mop the floors, clean the dishes, go for whatever was needed, and I was just happy to be in the studio. I was making $75 a week. I didn’t care. I got in the door.

Adrianna Bach, Photo by Sante D’Orazio, 2015

I worked in that studio and I made friends with other assistants, and once in a while they would take me out with them to Studio 54, and the floodgates opened up. I told a friend that I would go to Italy with him, because somebody wanted to work with him there. We planned a trip to Milan, and I gave notice at my job and saved 1500 dollars, which was a shitload of money for me. And the night before, he bailed on me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just said, “Fuck it, I’ll go”, and I went on my own. I didn’t even know where the magazines were. I didn’t know of any hotels. I got a room with a neon sign that flashed and buzzed, like in a film noir. I put my suitcase down and didn’t even open it. I couldn’t even go home.

I ordered a big pitcher of beer, and I got myself shitfaced, and who walks by is a photographer, who I had assisted. He’s like, “Why are you in that hotel? Stay in my hotel, with all the models and the young photographers.” He goes, “I’m going to Portofino tomorrow with my girlfriend for the weekend. Why don’t you come with us?” I was like, “Oh, God, thank you.”

I took my luggage over there, and went to Portofino. He gave me the name of all the agencies, all the magazines and everything I needed to know. It was a godsend. I checked into the hotel on Sunday night, and Monday was the next day. And the photographer said to me, “Look, there’s no work. I’ve been here for three months. I have to go back, there’s nothing happening.” I said to myself, I’ll take my shitty portfolio and go to Italian Vogue. And when they say no, I’ll get on the train and go visit family.

I go to Italian Vogue and they let me wait for the art director. He looked at the portfolio– the whales, the drawings, ten pictures that looked like ten different photographers. And then he goes, “Wait here. I’m going to wait for the beauty editor to come”. She came and they talked to each other, this and that, and they gave me two double pages to do nudes for Italian Vogue Beauty. So on my first day there, I got that job. Because they were creative, they saw nude drawings that I did, they saw I could draw a sensual line, they saw the whales that were sensual, and they saw in the ten different photographs that I could light.

AK: They see skill, they see good composition, so they can make the connection.

Sante D’Orazio: They were creative. That’s what you don’t get here in the States. And that was the beginning of my career.

AK: So do you remember that photo shoot?

Sante D’Orazio: Oh, yeah. There were two nudes on how to tan yourself. One was in natural light, and one was in the sun bed. So that was all blue lights. And the other one was in the sunlight. So you turn the page, one was all orange and yellow and one was all blue. I had to wait the entire month to shoot it, but in the meantime, I got to meet all the agencies, all the important people. Then it was the end of July, and nobody works in August, so I went home. I had to wait two and a half months for the magazine to come out in the U.S., and I went back to work as an assistant, saved more money, and went back to Milan again in February. So that was the start of my career.

Irina Shayk by Sante D’Orazio for CR Girls, 2016

Continue to Part 3

Part 3

An Interview with Sante D’Orazio (Part 2) Read More »

Interview

August Serenade

Event / Alexandra Kosloski

August 23rd was a very special Bohemian Wednesday, featuring music and poetry at Nublu.

This Bohemian Wednesday, the August Serenade, was located at Nublu in the East Village, NYC, on August 23, 2023. It was the conclusion of the Bohemian summer series presented by The Trops– nights of art, music, poetry and culture.

Featured Performers

Poetry and music by Haleh Liza Gafori & Shahzad Ismalily

Haleh Liza Gafori is a translator, vocalist, poet, and educator born in New York City of Iranian/Persian descent. Gafori aims to transmit the whirling movement and leaping progression of thought and imagery in Rumi’s poems into the music of contemporary American poetry. Gafori believes his words offer liberating and nourishing perspectives vital to our times, inviting us into deeper levels of compassion and generosity.

Shahzad Ismaily was born in the States to Pakistani parents who emigrated here just before his birth. He grew in a bicultural household, always following a multitude of paths and perusals. He is mostly self-taught as a musician, composer, recording engineer, and producer.

Poetry by Judith Fleishman

Judith Dimitria Fleshman (b. 1958) is a visual artist, performer and writer who lives and works in New York City. In 2003, Abaton Book Company published her text/visual collaboration Looking for Maya and her prose has been published by Tema Celeste, Rogue Magazine and the artist zine The Orifice. Fleishman’s work can be found in many private and public collections, such as The Museum of Modern Art, The NYC Public Library, the Gemente Museum Arnhem, Netherlands, and The Ludwig Museum in Cologne, Germany.

Poetry by Anthony Haden Guest

Anthony Haden-Guest is a British-American writer, reporter, cartoonist, art critic, poet, and socialite who lives in New York City and London. He is a frequent contributor to major magazines and has had several books published.

Music by Mehrnam Rastegari, Martin Shamoonpour, John Murchison

Mehrnam Rastegari is a well-established Iranian musician and film score composer, singer, violinist, and master Kamancheh player. She has been featured in concerts and music festivals worldwide. Her art reflects her interest in the juxtaposition of cultures. She believes that in current times the most valuable arts are those which most people with different languages can feel connected.

Martin Shamoonpour is an autodidactic multi-instrumentalist, composer, actor, and visual artist from Tehran. He was born in 1984 in an Assyrian family. One of the most important works of Martin Shamoonpour in the field of music is the publication of sermon on the mount, Tehransaranieh, 8 Bit and Ear Magazines.

John Murchison is a Brooklyn-based bassist and multi-instrumentalist. He is known for his active role in several musical circles, performing primarily in pop and musical theater, jazz and avant-garde, and traditional musics from the Middle East and Africa.

Poetry by Leah Elimeliah

Leah Kogen-Elimeliah is a poet, essayist, short story and nonfiction writer from Moscow, currently living in New York City. She is an MFA candidate at City College of New York, the Founder of the WordShedNYC Reading Series and an Editorial Associate for Fiction literary magazine. Her writing focuses on identity, language, sexuality and culture. Leah lives in Manhattan with her husband and their children.

Poetry by David Aaron Greenberg

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

Music by Sandflower

Brooklyn-based Sandflower is an artist with interests as varied as her sound. Drawing on the contrast of the buttoned-up academia of her private school upbringing against New York’s vibrant music scene, the artist cites everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Cindy Sherman, Salvador Dalí to Allen Ginsberg as inspirations for her own blend of rap-infused pop.

DJ Milo

Milo Carney was born and raised in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. He graduated from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in May 2010, with a focus on printmaking and sculpture. Milo is currently working as a preschool teacher at The Saint Ann’s School where he attended elementary and high school. He enjoys cooking, modifying clothing and deejaying during ‘free-choice.’ His art questions the effort of one’s own involvement in a cause and examines the futility of caring as well the difficulty of discernment.

August Serenade Read More »

Event

An Interview with Sante D’Orazio (Part 1)

Interview / Alexandra Kosloski

Talisa Soto-Bratt, Photo by Sante D’Orazio, 1992

In part 1 of their 3 part interview, Sante D’Orazio and Alexandra Kosloski discuss the artist’s current projects and the emotional connection behind his photographs.

AK: Can you describe what it feels like to make art? What is that feeling to you?

Sante D’Orazio: It’s beyond the feeling; it’s a way of life. I can’t not make. There’s a sense that if I’m not creating, I’m usually destroying. It’s the two sides, the yin and the yang of creativity. I’ve seen it with so many different artists and so many different fields. You get destructive. If you don’t have an outlet, it hurts. Whether it turns inwards and it becomes depression, or it comes out in so many different forms. Once you find the creative form, it’s healthier, but it’s just about finding it. And you need it. It’s life giving or taking.

Geometric painting by Sante D’Orazio, 2021

AK: What is your current studio practice like?

Sante D’Orazio: It varies. Recently, I had to get spinal surgery, and so I couldn’t take pictures. I couldn’t move around– because when I shoot, I move– I bend, I twist, I turn. I couldn’t do that, so I was painting more. The worse it got, the less I could paint. I had to find something else, so I started writing. I’ve always told stories since I was a kid, so I decided to write those stories down, not thinking of any particular narrative. I just wrote stories down and put them away, and when I had enough of them, I put them in some order and I had a memoir. And so I wrote a memoir during the COVID period and the period where I couldn’t walk.

Then the other thing I’ve been doing lately, which I hadn’t done in 40 years, is editing my archive. Let’s say I was doing ten pages for Vogue: they only used ten pictures, yet I shot maybe a thousand. Now, you don’t throw the others away– they’re all good pictures. Some are even better than the ones that they used, but I had to put them away because I’m onto the next shooting, and then the next one after that. When you were shooting at my pace, you didn’t even have time to know if your pictures were any good. And the only time you knew that they were good is when the client didn’t call, because if they did, that means there was something wrong. They never called you when something was right. So you put them away, and move on. And now, I’m finding gems I never knew I had. I remember the shootings, but I didn’t remember the particular images and oh, my God, I can’t believe it. I have a new me through all those images. So, I’m only up to 1993 and I started eight months ago, so you can imagine how much work I have to do.

AK: That sounds like a huge undertaking.

Sante D’Orazio: It’s daunting.

D’Orazio in his studio

AK: Not only the sheer volume of images to filter through, but emotionally, I imagine it’s exhausting.

Sante D’Orazio: Yeah, it is. The other thing that you have to know is that taking the picture is really only half the job– the other half is recognizing it within the edit. No one can edit for you if you’re looking for yourself on an artistic level. On a commercial level, knock yourself out. But on a personal level, I have to edit. I have to find my picture. I think that’s the only reason a photographer– and I’ll speak for myself– has any great success.

You have to connect with your subject emotionally. I do. I make a strong connection with my subject. There’s trust, there’s a bond, and there’s a real closeness that happens. If it appears sexy or sensual, it is, but not on a physical level, it’s on an emotional level. And it ends there. But you really care about each other. And when you see each other again, it’s that same trust and love. I just edited some pictures of Talisa Soto– she was a great model– and I sent them to her and she texted me back, she goes “Sante, I always loved working with you.”

AK: That’s so nice to hear.

Christy Turlington by Sante D’Orazio, 1993

Sante D’Orazio: Yeah, it’s so nice. I always felt the same. And it was that bond that I’m talking about. It’s care, a lot of care.

AK: I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that, because there is such a sense of freshness and intimacy in your photographs, even when they’re obviously posed. Do you think that that bond plays a role?

Sante D’Orazio: Big role. Yeah. Guys in general are insensitive when it comes to that, but women seem to see it immediately. That trust stays because I was never a predator. And when they came back, the photographs just picked up again from that moment. And that’s what you see in the pictures.

You see it in their eyes. You just catch the whole feeling as soon as you meet somebody. And then to finish what we were saying, is that you have to then find that moment in their eyes in the edit. The eyes may be looking to the left, and the way they’re looking– is it inquisitive, is it trusting, is it not trusting? You have to be able to recognize that, you have to be sensitive to it. And then that’s the picture.

Continue to Part 2

Part 2

An Interview with Sante D’Orazio (Part 1) Read More »

Interview

An Interview with Miriam Parker

Interview / Alexandra Kosloski

Miriam Parker in her studio. Photo by Avery Walker

Miriam Parker is an interdisciplinary artist who uses movement, paint, video art and sculpture/installation. She has been influenced by her experience as a dancer, her study of Buddhism phenomenology, and her connection to the free jazz tradition. Through re-organizational practices, Parker refines her understanding of individuality, outside of traditions built from oppressive ethics. Parker is a Monira Foundation artist-in-residence at Mana Contemporary.

In their interview, Alexandra Kosloski and Miriam Parker discuss the artist’s philosophy and the way it manifests in her art.

AK: What is your studio practice like?

Miriam Parker: Well, there are two aspects. One is working on installation, which is this practice of translating my process from being a dancer into being someone who is making something outside of her body, not just using the body itself. In this installation practice, I’ve been really steady with this idea of creating a space that itself becomes generative. I first use my body to create something, but then, the aim is for this thing to be the matrix for its own development. For instance, if I draw a line, it’s not just about creating a line that stays there, but the line itself has to be growing. How do I create an installation- in space- that is alive, the same way a dancer is alive, or music? How do I create an installation that animates the space?

For the past year, one of my research areas has been about the frame; what does this frame- that is going to allow for the space to be animated- look like?

I have also replaced the body with paint, still with the same question at the back of my mind– what makes something alive? How can you create life, especially where you make do with the human body? Paint is interesting because it is viscous and it can be a vehicle for energies and flows; and right now I am learning about viscosity and paint and pumps and how much energy it takes to bring the water/paint up to a certain height. I am trying many different things and learning from the numerous mistakes I make in the process. But what is interesting is that while I was working with the paint, I also realized that it was not just about using the paint as a proxy for the body– I slowly realized it was also about how the paint was released– that’s where the magic lies.

In the artist’s studio. Photo by Avery Walker

For instance, as I am speaking right now, the impression you have of me is not just the result of what I am saying, but also of how the words are released from my mouth. When someone is dancing, it’s not just about their movements, but it’s about how they move out of their bodies and towards the onlookers. Well, it’s the same thing with the paint. So now the challenge is understanding how to have each of my sculptures– which is dispensing paint– have its own rhythm and language.

AK: So there’s that translation between inside and outside of the body, do you define any boundaries between performance and visual art? How?

Miriam Parker, in residency, via @miriamparts on Instagram

Miriam Parker: Technique. You know, the technique of creating a painting is a choreography that’s very different from the technique of creating movement with your body. The choreography of painting, or of architecture, is a different technique. I would say an artist has a vision that usually has a primary actor and then secondary actors, just like in a movie or a play. For me, my primary actor or main character is dance. I’m a dancer, I’ve spent my whole life dancing. The essence of dance is no different than painting or music making, the essence itself is always art. What is different lies in the technique, the craftsmanship, and now that I am working with different mediums, I have to learn about their own idiosyncratic techniques.

AK: Performance art often physically inserts the artists into the work. Could you tell me a little bit about how you navigate the connection between art and your body when you’re physically in the work? How does that feel?

Miriam Parker: Like coming home. I have this unsurmountable wish to birth something beautiful into the world. I don’t have children, and creating something that is separate from my body, but that still comes from my body, is really important. When I, as much as I can, physicalize everything I’m doing, I’m in a very, very happy place. Then, when I perform inside the spaces I have created and I activate these spaces with my body, the gestures I improvise are of deepest reverence for the space and for the architecture of that space. Once I understand the space I am in, I then can use my body to rearrange this space– even if it’s not visually rearranged for the audience, in my body I’m placing myself in different positions that help me to view the architecture of the space differently. So, what starts off as finite- an installation- then becomes infinite. It’s like a jungle gym of lines and curves and I get to just play.

Miriam Parker, Digital Prints, via @miriamparts on Instagram

AK: I’ve noticed that your art is so tactile. You seem so invested physically, and there’s a lot about process and creation. Also, your art often involves collaboration with other artists, including many different kinds of media. What have these experiences with other characters brought to your practice?

Miriam Parker: The reason why I started fabricating physical spaces and going into what they call “the digital art realm” is because I wanted to play with the power dynamics between performers and creators (of sculptures, installations, etc.). In a solo performance, you usually have a single body, and then you have the space, and if I am the performer I am the number one actor in that space, I am the number one focus. But soon, I felt like I also wanted to honor all the other contributing factors that allow for your eye to see. What if, instead of just applauding the performer, we honored everything- human and non-human- that enable us to see the object? And that, to me, is very much about the social and political aspects of power living. To me, stepping into the visual art world is very much about– let me honor the ground, the importance of how ground plays on the physical body as the performer moves, how ground, in the end, allows the onlookers to see this physical body in its different aspects. And that’s the type of questions an architect would ask. How does the space design the movements? And I say that because I didn’t want to be a master or a conductor. I didn’t want to come and say “This is what we’re doing, this is the object I want to create, and this is how you put it into motion.” I want it to move all together, as a generative, co-operative ecosystem. To me, this is very close to the definition of love.

Working with others is having the joy of bringing in other artists who have a mastery over their own technique, and who have their own vision. People who have spent a lot of time understanding their vocabulary and whatever medium it is. Bringing those together is part of my craft, actually, their masterfulness, their individual creative ways. How do you create space that allows each of these artists to be there in an equal way, without one being more important than the other? That’s my interest in collaboration, which is honoring others without taking away from their voice, which is very challenging.

AK: How has your study of Buddhism phenomenology influenced you?

Miriam Parker: Well, everything I’m saying is birthed from that philosophy. One of the core ideas and concepts that is brought up through Buddhism is the idea of interdependence. The idea is that nothing arises independently, there is always something that is lending itself for something to happen. The question is then– how can I be a part of this collaborative process? How do I honor this creative nature that we are all a part of ? The cooperative, interdependent nature of the life we are living is a key element of Buddhism thought that I am trying to bring into my artistic practice. The goal, in other words, is to break down the misconceptions of how we assume things work (in this case, that things can work independently from each other). So my whole practice comes from my Buddhist philosophy studies, it’s the basis of everything.

Miriam Parker, MAYPOLE to the sun & The Minotaur’s daughter by Eleni Giannopoulou & Benjamin Craig, via @miriamparts on Instagram

AK: What current projects are you working on?

Miriam Parker: Great question. I’ve been working on something called “Heart Patterns” for two years. “Heart Patterns” is based on the idea I was developing earlier of creating an installation that is endowed with a sense of life. In the past, I have created installations in which life was there because my body was there. And I really had this urge to do that without my body. So I’m experimenting with two main elements. One is paint flow, the other is sound. In the end, the whole flow of paint and the receiving of the paint on different canvases and wells will be made sonic. And then this other project, which is so dear to my heart, is a film that revolves around a specific image– the one that stands in the middle of the fire. There is a Buddhist concept called “Bodhisattva”. And a Bodhisattva is somebody who, when they see/encounter suffering, do not run away. A Bodhisattva is one who trains to stand in the center of the fire. And it’s through standing in that center that they transcend by not being afraid of pain. There was an image that I found from the Brooklyn Museum, that is the image that I’m trying to embody and use as the center of this film, a real tribute to wisdom. It is about the fire and the Phoenix and ash and all of these iconic symbols of empowerment.

In the artist’s studio. Photo by Avery Walker

As a side comment– we go to museums and look at these relics and most of them are actually meant for really high spiritual practice. Relics are meant to help us evolve. And looking at them in the context of the way we usually see them shown, does not do that. So I really would like this film to be shown in a museum setting as a challenge. Imagine a show about wisdom. How would you curate that so that people actually learn about transcendence? And not just history.

An Interview with Miriam Parker Read More »

Interview

Eroica Variations No. 4

Exhibition / Alexandra Kosloski

Photo by David Sisko

The Trops takes pride in standing behind emerging artists, whom you may not have heard of- yet- but you should, and likely soon will. By naming this survey after the Beethoven compositions we are putting forth a bold claim that these voices are heroically breaking through as a force to be reckoned with on the world stage.

Featuring:

Ben Ruhe, Nick Farhi, Rene Saheb, Armando Nin, Rawnak Rahman, Vahakn Arslanian, Jerami Dean Goodwin, David Aaron Greenberg, Conrad de Kwiatkowski

July 27

The last Bohemian Thursday in July was a grand finale. Eroica Variations featured an impressive line up of artists.

The night featured local Nuyorican artist Natalia L Diaz-Jackson and her handmade whimsical collection of soft sculpture statues, as well as music by David Aaron Greenberg, improvisational jazz by Daniel Carter and Stephon Alexander, Djembe by Khadim Sene, and a film screening by Nemo Librizzi.

Photo by David Sisko

Natalia L. Diaz-Jackson’s art of cloth doll making is a powerful way of continuing family traditions and storytelling, passed through generations to an artist who honors her family with great imagination, color and new life. Her dolls are tall, nearly childhood life-sized, with whimsical features such as unicorns and beaks.

Daniel Carter Carter is a legendary improvisational “free jazz” musician, combining saxophone, flute, clarinet, and trumpet in his performances. He performed in collaboration with Stephon Alexander, a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, musician and author.

David Aaron Greenberg is an artist who uses multiple modes of expression. Along with producer David Sisko, he co-founded Disco Pusher, a New York City songwriting and recording duo.

A native New Yorker, Nemo Librizzi has been a steadfast bohemian in the NYC arts scene for his whole life. From the cradle to today, Nemo has creative endeavors across diverse genres of artistry and craftsmanship. Creating and collaborating in film, literature, radio, and fine arts, Nemo expresses a renaissance of the underground.

This event was sponsored by Brilliant Mistake and JuneShine. The Trops is very pleased to have offered Brilliant Mistake’s sauvignon blanc as well as Juneshine’s hard kombucha and tequila margaritas.

Photo by David Sisko

Eroica Variations No. 4 Read More »

Exhibition

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 3)

Interview / Alexandra Kosloski

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

Eroica Variations No. 2

Exhibition / Alexandra Kosloski

Featuring:

Ben Ruhe, Nick Farhi, Rene Saheb, Armando Nin, Rawnak Rahman, Vahakn Arslanian, Jerami Dean Goodwin, David Aaron Greenberg, Conrad de Kwiatkowski

July 13

The Trops is excited to have featured performances by local Nuyorican artist Natalia L Diaz-Jackson and her handmade whimsical collection of soft sculpture statues, as well as music and poetry by David Aaron Greenberg and Daniel Carter.

Natalia’s art of cloth doll making is a powerful way of continuing family traditions and storytelling, passed through generations to an artist who honors her family with great imagination, color and new life. Her dolls are tall, nearly childhood life-sized, with whimsical features as unicorns and beaks. Each doll is an individual personality, each tells its own story, each has its own unique heart and can’t wait to meet you.

Daniel Carter Carter is a legendary improvisational “free jazz” musician, combining saxophone, flute, clarinet, and trumpet in his performances.

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.

Eroica Variations No. 2 Read More »

Exhibition

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 2)

Interview / Alexandra Kosloski

Photo by Daniel Wolfskehl

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

In part 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

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 2) Read More »

Interview

Eroica Variations No. 1

Exhibition / Alexandra Kosloski

Featuring:

Ben Ruhe, Nick Farhi, Rene Saheb, Armando Nin, Rawnak Rahman, Vahakn Arslanian, Jerami Dean Goodwin, David Aaron Greenberg, Conrad de Kwiatkowski

July 7

Opening night of Eroica Variations featured live performances by Shaheen Malick, Zain Lokhandwalla, and RWM, as well as Kanami Kusajima, who combines dancing and painting in a unique way, using Sumi ink, a traditional mixture made from soot.

Photos by Adrian Crispin

Eroica Variations No. 1 Read More »

Exhibition

An Interview with David Aaron Greenberg (Part 1)

Interview / Alexandra Kosloski

The artist’s studio

Photo courtesy of David Aaron Greenberg

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

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

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

AK: Why?

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

AK: I don’t mind.

David Aaron Greenberg: It’s easier for me.

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

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

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

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

David Aaron Greenberg during the interview

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

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

AK: How did you first approach painting?

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

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

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

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

AK: What do you mean “nothing happens”?

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

AK: It’s hard sometimes.

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

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

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

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

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

AK: So why do you stay that way?

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

AK: Could you explain his influence on you?

David Aaron Greenberg

Photo by Allen Ginsberg

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

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

AK: Like a premonition?

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

AK: Why? Because you wanted to impress him?

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

AK: They still do that.

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

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

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

AK: They taught us well.

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

Continue to Part 2

Part 2

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

Interview

EROICA VARIATIONS, July 2023

Exhibition / Mothra Monstera

431 E 6th St, NYC

WED-SAT 12-5pm & by appointment

Featuring:

Ben Ruhe, Nick Farhi, Rene Saheb, Armando Nin, Rawnak Rahman, Vahakn Arslanian, Jerami Dean Goodwin, David Aaron Greenberg, Conrad de Kwiatkowski

Vahakn Arslanian (b. 1975, Antwerp, Belgium) Having relocated with his family to New York City as an infant, Vahakn Arslanian is fascinated and inspired by roaring jet engine planes, explosives, luminous light bulbs and flickering candlelight. He has been nearly deaf since birth, his only sense of noise is from that which is thundering to the ears, for him, a glimpse at the vibrational frequency of sound. Along with his fascination with planes comes birds. Where this biomimetic pair have in common, Arslansian mends the two, such as his rough paintings and drawings of plane wings with bird feathers. He takes much of his work and frames them in found objects such as vintage plane windows, often broken and cracked.

Vahakn Arslanian

Fat Bird

Oil on Canvas

27 ¾ in x 35 ½ in

2008

Armando Nin Born and raised in New York, Armando Nin is a painter, photographer, and mixed media artist. His photography work captures the gritty extremities of his surroundings in the City starting in the mid 2000s into present day, and he often uses unconventional materials in his paintings and prefabrications.

Armando Nin

Coreana Chain No.

Unframed Butane Scorched Marine-grade Vinyl

24in x 36in

2022

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.

David Aaron Greenberg

40in x 30in

Oil on Canvas

2023

Rawnak Rahman Kantha Collection embodies her personal journey of navigating the delicate balance between upholding and challenging traditional Bangladeshi culture. She aims to disrupt and spark discussions around Bangladeshi traditions.

Rawnak Rahman

“বু” / “bu”

48” x 48”

Mixed media on wood

2023

Ben Ruhe translates interdimensional beings and textures into his distinct figurative language, integrating soulful whimsicality into his mixed media artworks,

Ben Ruhe

Untitled (captain)

Acrylic Polymer, Ink and Matte Acrylic Medium on Archival paper

14in x 11in

2023

Jerami Dean Goodwin moved to New York City in 2008. Also known as “STAINO”, his graffiti moniker, Jerami attained global notoriety for his outdoor works, recently painting murals in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Peekskill. Putting Out Fires is a series of paintings representing an exploration of new application processes, such as the use of a fire extinguisher.

Jerami Dean Goodwin

Untitled #1 (White)

Acrylic on canvas

48 x 60 inches

Rene Saheb was born in Tehran, Iran and frequently engages allegory to comment on the social and philosophical phenomenons of life. Saheb received her Bachelor of Art in Professional Design at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology.

Rene Saheb

The Fallen Birds 1

Discarded Ceramic Pieces, paint and Glaze

2023

EROICA VARIATIONS, July 2023 Read More »

Exhibition