nov/issue 05

nov / issue 05

ARTISTS

max garett emerson sigman justin guthrie peter shear hope glastris dell’avestruz steven vainberg

max garett

maxgarett.com

describe what your sketchbook looks like.

well i actually don’t have too many sketches in my notebook. i mainly have just lists of thing i want to make, or words and phrases that could be used for titles.

what is your favorite piece of clothing?

i would say that has to be my yankee hat, because it makes me look like steven spielberg and/or denzel washington.

ask yourself a question and answer it.

me: max, how many times a day do you lie to yourself? me: that’s a hard question to answer, i guess i do it a lot like if i tell my self in the morning i can sleep another ten minutes, or if i want to eat something unhealthy and justify it with the fact that i have eaten well all day, when i have not.

who are some artists you’re looking at right now?

i have been looking at a lot of martha friedman recently; she is a new york-based artist and is very talented. and other then that i just have been doing a lot of research on different kinds of burials around the world.

how has your work developed over the last year?

my work has changed in a way where i have become very aware of how important it is to work in layers of meaning. it has actually made me somewhat selfish with my concepts being accessible to others. however, i think that is important in order to create something unique.

real figure

1000 people

joseph

the redeemer

big pony

emerson sigman

flavors.me/EmersonDArtagnan

describe what your sketchbook looks like.

i just write or sketch ideas on napkins or printer paper—whatever’s handy. i keep it all together in a stack. i have a magenta moleskine that i keep in my back left pocket too, but i’m bad about using it.

what is your favorite piece of clothing?

i have this blue and magenta windbreaker that i’m convinced an old, fragile asian woman once owned, and she’d run in it at the crack of dawn, every morning. i’m positive she died in it while running, and her family then gave it away to the salvation army to cope; this is how i came into possession of the windbreaker. my theory was supported at a train stop once, where i received a stare of utter longing from an old asian man.

ask yourself a question and answer it.

q: what is the best feeling? a: a feeling just above a middling feeling is a pretty good thing. it’s a subtle feeling. too extreme of a feeling in any direction doesn’t really feel healthy, but feeling nothing isn’t okay either. i really like feeling more than one feeling at once. it invites new, indescribable feelings that don’t feel like they’ve existed for anyone else before, even though they definitely have. feeling alchemy.

who are some artists you’re looking at right now?

jean-françois lepage. death grips. willis earl beal. george kuchar. rainer werner fassbinder. raoul ruiz. vincent gallo is forever my spirit animal.

how has your work developed over the last year?

i never drew a single thing before last november, besides middle school art projects and these weird shoe-people cartoons when i was a child. So i’m now getting used to the idea that i can draw.

i’m growing comfortable with accepting my own work and learning my own tendencies. but i’m also causing myself discomfort in order to grow, which is liberating. there’s been much reveling in vulnerabilities. lots of provocation of self—and others too.

angie’s lips

lombroso versus nixon

lounging

fantasy

portraits of cesare lombroso

justin guthrie

cargocollective.com/ justinguthrie

describe what your sketchbook looks like.

my sketchbook looks like a lot of random drawings of things that pop up in my head, or random shapes, i really like to draw things and then 3d them. i also write a lot of rock n roll songs, i carry my little sketchbook everywhere with me.

what is your favorite piece of clothing?

my favorite piece of clothing to wear is definitely tee shirts, i have so many tee shirts. there’s just something about tee shirts for me. when you skate, shoes and pants blow out and get ruined quick but shirts always stay good.

ask yourself a question and answer it.

q: if you had a million dollars given to you, what would be the first thing you did with it? a: the answer to that would be to throw a huge party in the forest with black lips and king tuff playing and mini-ramp course set up and lots of kegs. it would be the best party ever.

who are some artists you’re looking at right now?

some artists i’m looking at right now are peter sutherland--his new stuff is amazing, corey bartle-sanderson, pat o’ rourke, and honan.

how has your work developed over the last year?

it has really changed a lot because i am finding my style and what i really want to capture. a year ago i was shooting a lot of different things and in a lot of different ways to find out how i felt comfortable shooting and showcasing my work and now i have a lot bette grasp on my work, although i still am exploring and progressing. my work a year ago is fun to look back on.

galaga

doi

JAHN

really wanna ride

san jose

peter shear

petershear.com

describe what your sketchbook looks like.

usually strathmore sketchbooks with bad drawings reproduced on the cover—i like 5.5 x 8.5”. using cartridge fountain pens i’ve filled up lots of these with some sort of spare imagery, independent of but informing the paintings (maybe rehearsing them). fulsome or astringent they’re primarily concerned with line; how absorbent and malleable, fast and slow.

what is your favorite piece of clothing?

studio romper.

ask yourself a question and answer it.

peter: are you going to eat that?

peter: why do you ask?

who are some artists you’re looking at right now?

joanne greenbaum, keith mayerson, katherine bradford, ted gahl, peter saul and gina beavers are making curious work. and many more. i keep a tumblr blog (verylargebuildings.tumblr.com) to collect and eye the interesting stuff. good feeling having images stashed away. great resonance in the studio.

how has your work developed over the last year?

a surprising creatureliness has come into it. certain paintings are operating at registers new to me and i’m trailing behind these somewhat alarmed, which is an ideal relationship. from 2011 to 2012 the imagery has loosened from an established armature—we build the tools we need to transform the work. this is having fun.

hope glastris

recarbonised.tumblr.com

describe what your sketchbook looks like.

the majority of the time, like a hurricane passed through. most of my sketchbooks are littered with paper debris and pornographic collage materials, occasionally ephemera and bits and pieces that i manage to slip in between the pages. i suppose all that is secondary to the images and the writing on the pages, but it’s certainly what one notices first.

what is your favorite piece of clothing?

a black cardigan. i have a particular one in mind. it’s not especially exciting.

ask yourself a question and answer it.

i asked myself why i lack the determination to insert myself enthusiastically into the art world and, against all odds, make a name for myself... unfortunately, i rolled my eyes in sarcastic dismissal and plead the fifth on that one.

who are some artists you’re looking at right now?

i always am, and probably always will be, looking at a specific handful of artists, some of which love in my, despite how I actually feel about the work--if that makes sense--since that certainly is different from asking what artists i like. not to imply dislike, just to clarify what kind of question i’m really answering. among those are egon schiele, jenny saville, hans bellmer, robert ryman, and probably quite a few more.

how has your work developed over the last year?

a year ago, i think i was attached to my work in a very different way than i currently am. not that i love it any less, but i don’t feel as though i’m constantly drowning (the good kind of drowning) in it in the same way. i think it’s a combination of factors, one being that i’ve become slightly more emotionally stable, and also that my general production has slowed down since i came out of college with under fifty dollars in my bank account (i don’t mind a struggle, but i see no need to put myself through financial hell for the sake of anything i can think of). basically, i’ve taken a more realistic view of my own involvement with my work. and i think my work has become more restrained because of it--i’ve been working smaller and cleaner. i don’t think that’s a permanent state of affairs, however.

elusion

transformation

untitled

reproduction

support

dell’avestruz

dellavestruz.tumblr.com

describe what your sketchbook looks like.

built with wooden cover, synthetic sheets of white lace and colored with rusty copper powder.

descreva como o seu livro de sketches é. construído com capa de madeira, folhas de renda brancas e coloridas com pó de cobre enferrujado.

short shorts for my legs to breathe. however, it is important to cover your feet with socks. in summary, free my legs and cover my feet with socks and flip-flops.

qual a sua roupa favorita que usa sempre? short muito pequeno para as pernas respirarem. Porém, é importantíssimo cobrir os pés com meia. Em síntese, liberar as pernas e cobrir os pés com meia e chinelo de dedo.

ask yourself a question and answer it.

- how long have you been fasting?

- around 22 hours, only bananas and tea.

faça uma pergunta a você mesmo e responda.

- há quanto tempo você está em jejum?

- por volta de 22 horas, apenas bananas e chá.

who are some artists you’re looking at right now?

quem são os artistas do momento que te inspira?

PILANTRÖPÓV, PILANTRÖPÓV (pipilantropov.hotglue.me)

how has your work developed over the last year?

developed in the accumulation of objects, in the saturation of colors and at my recluse virtualization. “los trancos del avestruz”

como seu trabalho artístico se desenvolveu durante o ano passado? desenvolveu-se no acúmulo de objetos, na saturação das cores e na minha 1virtualização reclusa. “los trancos del avestruz”.

what is your favorite piece of clothing?

drum (pale)

assemblage golden pineapple

prosthesis (ORIENTE)

red ring, red finger

precipitation of red (to mai fujimoto) ending

steven vainberg

stevenvainberg.com

Steven Vainberg is currently a MFA student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

He received his BFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, where he was born and raised. I was excited to catch up with him and talk about his new work. kylie gava: hey steven! are you ready for this? steven vainberg: 5 minutes! ready! sorry, my best friend in the whole world was in town, so I had to hang with him and he got here a little late. kg: oh, don’t worry about it! how long is he there? sv: his band played here yesterday, so we hung out the last two days. they are on tour so they just left for grand rapids, MI. kg: ah, exciting. well, what have you been up to? how’s this school year going? sv: the school year is going well. i have been working on a ton of different things at the same time, so my head space is all messed up, but a lot of these things are finally coming together. kg: this is your first year in SAIC’s MFA program right? sv: correct. kg: i think the last time i saw your work was in class. you were kind of struggling with the process of making--like you would make the thing but the thing wasn’t what you wanted and you ended up using process materials. have you kind of sorted all of that out? sv: yeah, i think i did. i got to a point where i realized that the final piece had to directly relate to and refer to a process, and not just a means to an end. kg: what new stuff are you working on? i saw some of your work on make-space; it felt like you were making a new language or like a belief system. does that make any sense? sv: that’s actually exactly the state of mind I am in--like a new world order, or religion/ ideology, or revising or revisiting them through new symbols. kg: i totally see that. did you start with this idea at ACRE or is it something that you’ve always been interested in? sv: well, on a level i think about things like this a lot, but i just started expanding this idea last semester. ACRE just gave me a good opportunity to talk to people about the work, posing conversations about the concept outside of just making art. to ask the question: how would one go about changing something, or injecting something with new meaning or negating meaning altogether?

burden over triumph

kg: i see a lot of binaries in your work, whether it’s color-wise or a play on words and meaning. do you think that helps the viewer see new meaning? sv: i think it pushes the viewer to assume that it has meaning. whether they see it or not is still something that i am asking. i am interested in both though. what makes someone see meaning or none at all? is it the shapes? words? colors? relationship to familiar objects? sv: wow, sorry for all my typos. kg: haha disregard all of mine too. kg: your stuff is becoming a bit sculptural. the tall one with the yellow rope in the middle especially sticks out to me. could you talk about that one? sv: so, the rope piece is a giant banner 10x6 feet. the rope has been this symbol i have been interested in and its relationships to multiple meanings and uses as an object and an image. i have been toying with it to have some sort of meaning of transcendence. like climbing a rope, or binding one’s self to an ideology. this would be a symbol that might represent an ideology. the flag represents a nation or a culture -- a visual stand-in that actually comes off the wall and into the viewer’s space. or the rope as a circle with no beginning or end. kind of an impossible object--that could stand in for a symbol of infinity/god being a more abstract idea beyond language--kind of like the anti-model religion. kg: and the diagonal of black and blue? i guess i see it as part of the transcendence. i know you have done a lot of stuff with black and blue--is there something that keeps you coming back to those two colors? sv: i think they also act as symbols, and as parts of an equation, a very simple equation, like the sky is blue

NMNM I

-- blue is above us or as vast as an ocean. so the sense of what the awe of blue can conjure or potentially conjure interests me. the same with black -- it being “void� of color, all consuming. the way the universe just appears gets you to a similar feeling but through a different avenue. sv: i am also trying to add more colors to this equation to create a more complex language. kg: yeah, i can see you playing with typical american colors. for me, your stuff brings a certain presence of importance but at the same time I’m looking at it and trying to figure out what it is, like why is this rope so giant? but i really enjoy that. sv: i want them to be a stand-in or a finite/tangible symbol for something that is infinite/abstracted beyond the point of language. so ultimately, the work is kind of a failure--a failure of language--but it pries that failure open and examines why. kg: yeah, exactly! i was thinking about that the other day: like what is a language that says nothing? is it a language? sv: right. or this is a stupid thing that i do: i will sit and just try to actually attempt to fathom and understand infinite space or complete nothingness, which i find to be the same exact thing. and i always fail, and that failure--the process of arriving to failure --is exhilarating. i like impossible things. i think everybody does. things like time travel or world peace. kg: i think so too. time travel is one of my favorite things. sv: me too. when i lived and did jewish studies in israel, i did a lot of reading about it and about quantum physics. not on a real serious scientific level, but it was just an interesting juxtaposition to what i was studying during the day. it was there when i really started only thinking about this stuff.

NMNM II

no metal no medal

kg: i see a lot of binaries in your work, whether it’s color-wise or a play on words and meaning. do you think that helps the viewer see new meaning? sv: i think it pushes the viewer to assume that it has meaning. whether they see it or not is still something that i am asking. i am interested in both though. what makes someone see meaning or none at all? is it the shapes? words? colors? relationship to familiar objects? sv: wow, sorry for all my typos. kg: haha disregard all of mine too. kg: your stuff is becoming a bit sculptural. the tall one with the yellow rope in the middle especially sticks out to me. could you talk about that one? sv: so, the rope piece is a giant banner 10x6 feet. the rope has been this symbol i have been interested in and its relationships to multiple meanings and uses as an object and an image. i have been toying with it to have some sort of meaning of transcendence. like climbing a rope, or binding one’s self to an ideology. this would be a symbol that might represent an ideology. the flag represents a nation or a culture -- a visual stand-in that actually comes off the wall and into the viewer’s space. or the rope as a circle with no beginning or end. kind of an impossible object--that could stand in for a symbol of infinity/god being a more abstract idea beyond language--kind of like the anti-model religion. kg: and the diagonal of black and blue? i guess i see it as part of the transcendence. i know you have done a lot of stuff with black and blue--is there something that keeps you coming back to those two colors? sv: i think they also act as symbols, and as parts of an equation, a very simple equation, like the sky is blue -- blue is above us or as vast as an ocean. so the sense of what the awe of blue can conjure or potentially conjure interests me. the same with black -- it being “void” of color, all consuming. the way the universe just appears gets you to a similar feeling but through a different avenue. sv: i am also trying to add more colors to this equation to create a more complex language. kg: yeah, i can see you playing with typical american colors. for me, your stuff brings a certain presence of importance but at the same time I’m looking at it and trying to figure out what it is, like why is this rope so giant? but i really enjoy that. sv: i want them to be a stand-in or a finite/tangible symbol for something that is infinite/abstracted beyond the point of language. so ultimately, the work is kind of a failure--a failure of language--but it pries that failure open and examines why. kg: yeah, exactly! i was thinking about that the other day: like what is a language that says nothing? is it a language? sv: right. or this is a stupid thing that i do: i will sit and just try to actually attempt to fathom and understand infinite space or complete nothingness, which i find to be the same exact thing. and i always fail, and that failure--the process of arriving to failure--is exhilarating. i like impossible things. i think everybody does. things like time travel or world peace. kg: i think so too. time travel is one of my favorite things. sv: me too. when i lived and did jewish studies in israel, i did a lot of reading about it and about quantum physics. not on a real serious scientific level, but it was just an interesting juxtaposition to what i was studying during the day. it was there when i really started only thinking about this stuff.

kg: it’s really great thinking about something entirely impossible, and still being so excited about all the possibilities. sv: exactly! like boredom, boredom has great potential Impossibilities make people think in general. kg: boredom is really great, like one of the best reasons to start making something. do you think a lot about a piece before you make it, or do you just go into the studio and start? sv: a little of both. i think a lot while making work. usually, if i have an idea, even if it seems really stupid at first, i kind of just go and make it. this was another thing i learned from the frustrating first semester at school: to not intellectualize or think too much, and kind of let the materials you are working with decide the direction for you sometimes. kg: is there anything you’re struggling with right now? sv: so much! i kind of overwhelmed myself this semester. i told myself that i would try to make every stupid little thing I think of; just actually having them be a physical thing and not just an idea appealed to me for the reason that i could actually see where the idea could possibly go or not. so i am currently in the middle of projects, ones that seemed impossible, projects that i told myself that i would just attempt for the sake of possibly learning something, by going through the ropes to arrive at certain things i want to see. kg: are you excited to see the outcomes? do you think you’ll stick with everything you make? sv: i know i won’t stick with everything; i am interested to see what comes out though. i think i’ll end up using something from everything. i guess this process has been kind of like a research project--working with new ideas, working sculpturally, making objects, working with whole new materials, and processes. honestly, i am excited about the failure. kg: really, failing can be great. ok, ok, so i’m going to have you ask yourself a question and answer it. sv: haha what?! kg: any question you want! sv: ohh man. i feel like i am always in that state. kg: always asking yourself questions? have you come to any recent answers? sv: nope! i think that’s okay though. life would be unbearable if i could figure everything out. kg: i feel like i figure everything out and then re-question it again all the time. haha. so no questions for yourself? sv: if you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be? ny answer: pizza. strictly saucers. kg: haha, good answer. sv: i think that’s the only thing i am sure of in this world.

*

burden of fear

burden of heights I

burden of heights II

burden I

burden II

big thanks to all participating artists. interviews by kylie gava edited by stephanie haines & laura stamm designed by tara mahadevan special thanks to tuan pham to be considered for our next issue please visit our website:

cargocollective.com/forgetgoodzine