Norm Magnusson - Exhibition Proposal

funism at 30 -

The art and inspiration of Norm Magnusson

(exhibition proposal)

When I moved to New York City in 1982, I lived just a few blocks away from the lively 57th street gallery scene, a source of free entertainment, lots of interesting art and more than just a little bit of head-scratching. I had never studied art or art history and was woefully ill-prepared to make any sense of what I was seeing. But still, one of the great attributes of art is that one can be drawn to it even without any understanding of it and I was drawn to a bunch of it. Some was more sorta decorative, landscapes or portraits or whatnot that I felt capable enough of appreciating (or not) on a purely aesthetic level. But much of it was stuff that was not like that at all.

The art world was still changing rapidly post and during the influences of Warhol and Lichtenstein and John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg and so many others and there was a lot of art out there that rebuffed interpretation by the unschooled masses (me) but still, even some of that high-brow fare struck me and stuck with me anyway. I remember in 1982 or 1983 seeing this piece (below) by Jonathan Borofsky in a small upstairs gallery on 57th street. He was counting. Writing down sequential numbers on sheets of paper and stacking them one on top of the other. It was in a lucite case in this gallery and it just killed me despite me having no real idea why. I'll tell you this: I had studied English literature in college and high school and Eliot has a line in "Prufrock" in which he says: "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons," - this line has always stuck with me, the idea of the repetitive things we do as part of our daily lives. And I think that this piece must have struck me the same way. Later on, I read (or tried to read) Paul Klee's "Pedagogical Sketchbook" in which he writes: "Purely repetitive and therefore structural." Similar sort of concept for me.

Jonathan Borofsky "Counting" stacked paper with writing on each sheet

Eventually, my weekend gallery realm expanded to include the newly burgeoning SoHo art scene, and the amount of head scratching seemed to increase with each new gallery. What is this stuff? Why does everyone seem to love it? Why is it being hailed as so important? Even the explanatory gallery materials didn't seem to shed any light on these questions, at least none that I could discern.

Julian Schnabel "Portrait of Michael Chow", 1984, oil, plates, bondo on wood.

So much of the stuff being shown in NYC galleries was completely inaccessible to me. I had no idea what it was about, why it was important . . . or, at least, why it merited an exhibition. Oh, there were plenty of artists showing in NYC in the 80's who I really liked, too; artists such as Borofsky, and Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer, and Christian Marclay to name a few, but their numbers paled in comparison to the numbers of inscrutable canvasses in so many galleries. It almost seemed as if the actual product that these galleries were selling was arcane-ness itself, and I strongly suspected that the dynamic of creating and exhibiting and critiquing and collecting these important looking, yet inscrutable tableaux was no more than just that. Anyway, I felt left out. As many did. But at the same time, I got the bug to create and started painting.

I was living on E 31st St. at the time in a third floor walk up with my best friend from High School, Jim Kindel. My mom had gifted me some art supplies and one night, Jim suggested we paint something. And so we did. I made a painting of an astronaut on the moon using a photo from a magazine as reference. It turned out pretty well and I really enjoyed the work. Jim, who was a much better painter than I was, and much more imaginative, too, created some crazy geometric invention that, as I remember, was really amazing. Despite his facility with paint and his creative nature, he put down his brushes for good, soon thereafter. But I kept painting.

It was the mid-80's, and Julian Schnabel said, of his career path, that he was either going to be a rock star or a painter and anyway, being a painter seemed like a pretty fun career. So I kept on painting and moved down to Greenwich Village and eventually hit on a style that I thought was my own enough; and I painted a whole bunch of canvases in that style and eventually got an exhibition at a gallery upstairs from a popular bar restaurant in the East Village: "The Gallery Upstairs at flamingo east". It was so exciting. The show grew nearer and post cards were printed and I had to write and send out a press release. I started to write the press release, following the form of the one that was used to promote the prior exhibition, when I had a flash. I wasn't gonna just share all the same details that everyone does, I was gonna start an art movement. A whole art movement of my very own and it was gonna be all about accessibility. And fun. And engagement. And so "funism" was born. Originally, the funism manifesto was simply two points:

• Art should be as much fun to look at as it is to think about.

• Art should be intellectually engaging without being intellectually elitist.

Later, I added a third:

• Art should invite interpretation.

Now, 30 years later, I'm looking over my work from the last few decades and taking stock of how it stands up to that original manifesto which I developed as the press release for my first solo show of paintings in 1991. Have I been true to the art movement I created way back then? The answer is "mostly yes." The great bulk of work I've done, even if it's dealing with serious topics, is fun and meaningful. Take my 'historical' markers, for example, one of the more "serious" bodies of work I've created . . . I've watched people passing by stop and read them and tug the shirt of their friend to stop and do the same. They deal with serious issues, (the environment, gender wage disparity, illegal immigration, etc.) yet always seem to elicit a smile. They're fun and engaging.

For this proposed exhibition, I'm organizing my art by bodies of work. I've always worked in series, groups of art created around a central theme (animal allegories, coloring book paintings, decorating nature, communication, pornography, etc.) and that seems a perfect way to organize an exhibition, or at least, this blog.

So here below is the proposal, 30 years or so of artistic output in one place and I hope that you, dear reader, find it all as much fun to look at as it is to think about. And that it invites interpretation.

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Early works

I was working working in New York City as a copywriter at an ad agency, painting and making art on evenings and weekends and dreaming that, maybe someday, I could work full time as an artist. I'd been making sculptures and paper weavings and little acrylic paintings that were copies of paintings by artists I liked, David Hockney and Henri Matisse, for example . . .

. . . when one day, I decided I was gonna do a painting that incorporated elements of both (below):

An effort that one waggish friend dubbed a "HockTisse".

This was my first ever truly original piece of art created as an adult. Oh, I'd done self-portraits and drawings of hot rods and my own versions of Rat Fink as a kid but, as most kids do, I left all that behind me as I grew.

"Rat Fink" by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth

It wasn't until 1984 or so when I was 24 that I started painting again and brought my own baby steps of inventiveness to the process, such as the HockTisse painting above.

Later on, after seeing a show of Mexican folk art in a NY gallery, I became enthralled and began incorporating elements of it into my paintings.

I quickly felt right at home with polka dots and the repetitive, obsessive application of them in my paintings and began making artworks in that style. Or, rather, a style similar to it.

"Venganza" 1991, acrylic on canvas, frame of found wood.

"Hoss and L'il Joe" 1988(?) acrylic on canvas, frame of Central Park sticks and twine.

Eventually, I realized that my deficiencies as a draughtsman and my failures in exact stylistic appropriation amounted to something more than mere shortcomings, they amounted to what was, in fact, my own personal style. A style of painting and rendering that was unique, ownable, and perhaps, most importantly, infinitely executable in paintings dealing with a vast array of subject matter, much of which, at the time, had to do with mankind's relationships to animals and to the natural world. A theme that still interests me, decades later.

As luck would have it, a neighbor upstairs commissioned me to do a piece for his place, and his brother, who had a new art gallery, saw the piece and offered me a show. My first ever solo show. It was at the Gallery Upstairs, a beautiful space upstairs from the restaurant, Flamingo East, on 2nd Ave. in New York's East Village and I was thrilled. It was for this exhibition that I wrote the press release introducing my new art movement, "funism".

Here's an early article about my show and that art movement:

"Pollo Sacrificio" 1992

Well, the show nearly sold out and I made a lot of money and . . . I was officially hooked. The body of work included in that show, and many following exhibitions, is a body of work I later dubbed:

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Animal Allegories

(Click here to see the entire series.)

There's a long literary history of looking to nature for symbols of human existence: Victorian and romantic poets, and Housman, Hopkins, Whitman, Frost, Ackerman and on and on. It was not until I had been making these "animal allegories" for 7 years or so that I realized I was creating art in the fashion I had studied as an English major at SMU; but instead of using words, I was creating metaphors with pictures. Here below are a few more pieces from that body of work, along with accompanying text explaining the symbolism in each piece.

Trick Hare 1994

Acrylic on woven linen 28 x 40”

This piece (above) is about one of the many ways which humans, as the species on top of both the food chain and the “usage chain” use animals. Here is a rabbit jumping through flaming hoops in the service of human entertainment. While this piece reflects on our treatment of animals, it also mirrors an all-too-frequent human situation. Who hasn’t at some time or another felt like an animal being put through their paces, being made to jump through hoops, even flaming ones?

The Spirits of Self-Sacrifice 1997

Acrylic on canvas, pine and black birch frame 84 x 36”

Artist's statement on "The Spirits of Self-Sacrifice": Many Aboriginal American tribes saw the wild turkey as embodying the spirit of self-sacrifice. This painting is my consideration on the nature of self-sacrifice. The composition is divided into a light side and a dark side, light representing the pure, giving, Mother Theresa kind of self-sacrifice, and dark side representing the quid pro quo, favor-currying brand. The turkey, an innocent animal stands mostly in the light side. He is standing on top of a chopping block, one foot resting on a pristine apple, representing the purer form of selflessness. On the dark ground below, lies a rotting, worm-laden apple. Blue sky, white aspen trees, brilliant yellow leaves and the beautiful apple above. The rotten apple, a rotting yellow leaf and darkness below. Such is the dual nature of self-sacrifice as I see it, this duality represented by the leaves, the apples and the two-headed axe. And no matter how pure or impure one’s motives might be, there are always witnesses (even if it’s just one’s self) to all acts of giving. There are eyes all around.

Shadows on the Lawn 1995

Acrylic on canvas, pine and birch frame 48 x 46”

Many animals create order in their own worlds, but do not respect any order other than their own. Bears eat honeycomb, birds will steal to build their nests, mankind does both and much more, and beavers, the great architects of nature, will even steal from other beaver dens for their own needs.

This painting is about the chaos of nature and its relentless disregard for the best laid plans of mankind. Here, the beavers walk over the nicely manicured lawn to get to a tree they want to use for their own purposes.

Compositionally, this painting is an homage to Grant Wood’s “Parson Weems Fable,” in which Parson Weems is holding back a curtain and pointing out a scene in which the young George Washington, axe in hand, is confessing to his father about chopping down a cherry tree. It is an innocent act of destruction by a child whose actions are dictated by selfish desire, not respect or consequence. It is the action of a wild animal.

The Imposition of Order

Upon Nature 1997

Acrylic on canvas, white and black birch frame 63 x 63”

“Chaos is the law of nature. Order is the dream of man.”

-Henry Adams

This painting is almost perfectly symmetrical. The right side is a mirror image of the left. Even the frame is symmetrical. The only exception is the full moon. The painting is about the order that makind imposes upon nature, an imposition primarily in the service of industry and recreation and aesthetics. An order that is not neccessarily bad, but certainly not natural. The unnatural, unhealthy, and absurd end result of this order is shown here by the two-headed fish, while the two hills behind the bear represent the female, regenerative and nurturing aspect of “mother nature.”

The moon, relatively untouched by humanity, is the only element in the painting that exists outside of mankind’s (and the artist’s) imposed order. It is shown how we see it here from earth, complete with the “man in the moon,” our species-centric interpretation of the highlights and shadows created by its hills and valleys.

Snapshot 1995

Acrylic on canvas, pine and birch frame 75x90”

This piece is one of my favorites of all time. It's a scene I saw all too often while we were living in New Zealand, a harrier standing greedy guard over faceless road kill. The frame's black corners are meant to evoke photo mounts, working with the title of this piece to give it the feeling of a tourist's photo.

I also enjoy this piece for an interpretation offered by a woman who saw it in N.Z.; she read the plant in the left foreground as a treble clef (from musical notation) and the fiddlehead fern in the right foreground as a bass clef, making this painting symbolic of the "music of the highways" of New Zealand. None of this was my intention and I couldn't be happier that some thoughtful viewer brought their own perfectly reasonable interpretation to my work.

Loki the trickster raccoon 1998

Acrylic on canvas, leather and brass rings 92 x 62”

This is a painting about early exploitation of the Americas by Europeans. Specifically, Christopher Columbus, who thought he’d found a new path to India. He'd made numerous trips to the New World, mostly to the West Indies, (mistakenly named that by Columbus himself), and each injection of European culture made things worse and worse for the natives of the area.

This is also a painting about getting things wrong.“Loki” is the trickster, devilish figure of Norse mythology. In most Native American tribal mythology, that figure is represented by coyote; however, one small east coast tribe, the Abnaki, believed raccoon was the trickster. And so here, the exception is presented as the rule. This raccoon has six arms, like the Hindu deity Shiva, representing India, which Columbus believed he had found. In these arms are: a ship in a bottle (Santa Maria) and a compass with the directions all mixed up, both representing Columbus; a magic fire and a deck of playing cards with an American Indian caricature on the front, representing trickster qualities; and a thorned branch held behind the raccoon’s back, representing unpleasant surprises and an unidealized reality.

I stuck with this style for years and years and even created a couple of "sub-bodies of work" within the broader title of "animal allegories" such as "America's Seven Deadly Sins" and others. Below, in "America's Seven Deadly Sins", I threw out the Catholic list and created my own, socio-political list.

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America's Seven Deadly Sins
(Click here to see the entire series.)

"#3: Hold (misallocation of financial blessings)" 2000

"(from the "America's Seven Deadly Sins" series)

Homelessness, healthcare, hunger, education, salary inequities, unredemptive greed.

An archaic raccoon trap enticed the raccoon to reach into a box and grab a shiny coin. Once the raccoon held the coin, his clenched fist couldn’t get back out of the box. Inexplicably, the critter would not let go of its treasure to escape.

"#6: Mine (keen sense of environmental entitlement) 2006

"(from the "America's Seven Deadly Sins" series)

Environmental shortsightedness in all its forms. Waste, gluttony, selfishness, wanton destruction, rejection of responsible alternatives to the status quo, disposable culture.

The central symbolic element here is a fat, young cowbird, sitting in the nest of an approaching mother robin, waiting to be fed. Cowbirds are parasitic nesters; they lay their eggs in other bird’s nests and leave them for the host parent to raise.   The young cowbird will push out the other eggs in the nest, and even after having grown larger than the host parent,   will still sit in the nest waiting to be fed.

"#2: Waiting (the perversion of the American dream)"
Lotto mentality, gambling, litigiousness, get rich quick schemes, the stock market.   The insidious introduction of systematized luck into the American dream.

This painting shows a traditional symbol of craftiness and cunning, the fox, waiting by a rabbit hole for the grand prize to appear.   The ground has been cut away and we see there is nothing in the den.   The emaciated fox is surrounded by apples and the painting is surrounded by a wheel of fortune on which there are no numbers.   The wheel spins in either direction.

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America's Seven Cardinal Virtues
(Click here to view the entire series.)

And, balancing out criticism for my country with praises for my country, I created "America's Seven Cardinal Virtues", a series of 7 paintings, some of which are shown below:

#3: Yes (Optimism) 2007

Acrylic on maple slab 103 x 30”

(from the "America's Seven Cardinal Virtues" series)

The optimistic nature pervades our sense of community and our explorer’s spirit, it is there in our expectation of justice and equality, it shapes our freedom. Red, white and blue flowers adorn this big piece of maple and surround a green throated hummingbird, which for me, is a symbol of a particularly American form of optimism: the near-faith that there will be enough nourishment around the next corner to justify the expending of the energy it takes to get there. In its tiny beak, he carries a banner with the word "yes."

#1: We (The strength of communities) 2007 Acrylic on wood 42 x 49”

1) The strength of communities.

Diversity, altruism, the gorgeous mosaic, the helping hand,

the power of the collective dream, the protection of the like-minded.

The honeybee is an introduced species that is remarkable for its social structure, hard work

and variety of races, the honeybee seems an almost perfect symbol for the melting pot of

American community. Just as the honeybee’s does, our communities provide the essentials for

most of us: shelter, food and fortune, protection and warmth, the opportunity for industriousness

and advancement. The symbols in each corner of this painting represent those elements.

#2: Go (Freedom) 2007 Acrylic on wood 29 x 70”

It's the enabler of opportunity but so much else: freedom of speech, religion, travel, sin. We take advantage of those freedoms every day. Here, random (white) birds flock toward that promise.

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The Animal Alphabet

(Click here to view the entire series.)

From the "Animal alphabet" series, 26 little allegorical circus posters, one for each letter of the alphabet.

"Baby Bear" 2001
Acrylic on canvas 20" x 16"

This is a piece about children's propensity to try and behave like adults. From dress-up to cops and robbers, much of a child's make-believe play takes its cues from the grown-up world. Here, above a banner that screams "Hey! Look at me!" is the baby bear, riding a unicycle, wearing a bowler hat and smoking a cigar.

"Chameleon" 2001

Acrylic on canvas 16" x 20"

Sometimes it's in our best interest to blend in with the crowd. Here, a chameleon blends in with its surroundings, giving it the opportunity to make a meal of a passing ladybug. The letter "C" is hidden several times in the foliage.

"Hare" 2001

Acrylic on canvas 20 " x 16 "

Hares are symbolically rich. Most cultures have some mythical story about the hare, and ancient cultures worldwide see a "hare in the moon," not a "man in the moon." This painting represents two of the most popular myths: hare as trickster and hare as a symbol of the moon. This hare is juggling little moons, while sitting on the floor beside him is a magician's hat and a deck of cards.

"Northern Red Salamander" 2001

Acrylic on canvas 18" x 18"

The ancients thought that salamanders could walk on fire, and The Physiologus, an early Christian work, symbolizes the salamander as the "righteous man who is not consumed by the fire of luxury and lust."* This painting illustrates what I thought was an interesting ancient belief.

"Rattlesnake" 2001

Acrylic on canvas 20 " x 16 "

A snake eating its own tail is a Sufi symbol of eternity. Here, I've shown a rattleshake eating its own tail, devouring that which is warning sign. Against a background of a golf course in the desert, this snake becomes a metaphor for how humans deal with the environment, enforcing our will wherever we want and paying scant attention to natural order and the warning signs along the way.

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Flags

(View the entire series here.)

In 1995, I moved to New Zealand and traveled around that amazing country a whole bunch. On the way there, at the very beginning of our trip, we stopped in Tokyo to stay with and visit friends; there, across the street from their luxury high rise (the Green Park Akasaka) was a book store, and in that book store was a phenomenally expensive enormous coffee table book called "Andy Goldsworthy" put out by some German publisher. Really, not at all the kind of thing one should purchase right at the start of an antipodal adventure. But I had to have it. They pieces were so gorgeous and I'd never seen anything like them before and they seemed like invitations to me. Invitations to do things with natural objects that I'd never considered doing before. Oh, I'd made forts in the woods as a boy and pressed pretty leaves between pieces of wax paper and whittled balls in boxes as a young man, but never anything like this! So I bought the book and brought it to New Zealand with me.

We arrived in N.Z. just a bit after they'd celebrated their sesquicentennial. 150 years since England had planted their flag on this land and claimed it for themselves. And it got me thinking about the nature of sovereignty. The fleeting nature of sovereignty. The Maoris had ruled themselves forever. Where was their flag? Flags come and flags go and, inspired by my recent exposure to Andy Goldsworthy, I decided to make some flags of my own, flags that would be here today and gone tomorrow, flags that would be pretty little meditations on the fleeting nature of sovereignty. Here are a few from that series:

"Mint and hydrangea flag" 1996 c-print

"Daisy and clover flag" 1996. C-print

"Pine needles flag" 1996. C-print

One of the things that strikes me about this series is just how concept-heavy it was. The animal allegories were metaphorically rich, too, I guess, but somehow this series feels like a great shift, placing more emphasison the importance of the concept vs. the importance of the execution.

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Flower Markers

Place. A sense of place. A place's allure made manifest just through the utterance of its name.

Shangri-la. Hawaii. Home. Places of positive associations for most people.

There are other places, too, the names of which will always evoke horror or sorrow or sadness. Columbine. Auschwitz. Jonestown.

This is a project about the power of a name. Those names.

"Chemical Disasters"

"School Shootings"

"Cult Suicides"

"Nuclear Disasters"

"Concentration Camps"

"Prisons"

"Plane Crashes"

"Genocides"

"Terrorist Attacks"

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A plant a day

From the "plant a day" series. In 2005, I did a little watercolor of a plant every day. If I missed a day, I made up for it the next day.

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Mr. Wiggleworm

(click here to see the entire series)

In 2000, I had just started two of my more socially conscious series: "America's Seven Deadly Sins" and "Youth Culture in America." For the sin of "#6: Mine (keen sense of environmental entitlement)", I found a piece of wood on the street (I worked in NYC's Meatpacking district, which was a pretty gritty part of town in those days.) and dragged it back to my studio. I thought repurposing a piece of garbage would be a good start for this piece on the environment. I sanded it and cleaned it and primed it and then put down a few coats of underpaint: one red, one green and one blue. Then I sanded it down again to see what would happen and a couple things did. First, I had a board that was earth colors of blue and green with little red "gashes" in it here and there, which seemed to 100% capture the spirit of that particular sin I was working on, and secondly, the grain of the plywood substrate started showing through. But this painting was on the way to somewhere. I'd identified a cowbird as the central symbolic element and was pretty commited to making the painting I'd planned. But I also wanted to experiment with this technique I'd stumbled upon of underpainting on plywood and sanding` to bring up a colored grain background.

One of the things I really loved about these paintings was the way the wood grain took the underpainting and showed itself after a couple of passes with my trusty Porter Cable 5" hook and loop random orbit power sander.

From the "Mr. Wiggleworm" series:

"Mr. Wiggleworm In Love" 2000

Acrylic on plywood

45 1/2 x 45 1/2”

"Introducing Mr. Wiggleworm" 2000

Acrylic on wood 48 x 48”

"Mr. Wiggleworm has a Bad Dream" 2000

Acrylic on wood 28 x 31”

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After the 11th

(Click here to see the entire series.)

From the show "After the 11th" at Bridgewater Fine Arts, in 2002.

The work in this show is on a deadly serious topic. Many of the pieces in it certainly could not be considered to embody the ideals of funism in any way, but some of them, even on very serious topics, are certainly "as much fun to look at as they are to think about." Together, they really help to keep the idea of funism from sliding into the realm of mere frivolity. Whereas "Wiggleworm" is funism's more whimsical side, the work below is funism's more serious side. Keep in mind, the original manifesto is about substance and says nothing about style.

Artist's statement from the exhibition:

In “After the 11th,” I’ve identified the psychological, emotional and intellectual states I’ve gone through since September 11, 2001 and have created a piece of art corresponding to each one.

The first piece I completed was in late September: “Resentment,” a noose made out of approximately 180 U.S. dollar bills. Next came the word painting “Shell shock,” which reads “Airplanes going over has become the new sound of screeching tires,” followed by an enormous ransom note from terrorists to us entitled “Violation.”

Having completed these three pieces, the overall concept for this body of work started to become apparent to me. I began thinking about the psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and her 5 now-famous states of grief for those faced with the death of a loved one: “denial,” “anger,” “bargaining,” “depression,” and “acceptance” and I realized that I was following a similar path. So using Kubler-Ross as a conceptual springboard, I began to identify all the feelings I was having in the aftermath of this defining moment in American history and in my life as an artist living in downtown Manhattan. The list grew and grew, encompassing all the feelings I had as a New Yorker, as a father, as a political skeptic, as a liberal, and as someone who truly appreciates the rewards and responsibilities of being an American.

The one thing that each of these pieces have in common is sincerity: “Admiration of bravery” is a sincere admiration for the bravery of those who gave their lives attempting to save others in the World Trade Centers. “Dread,” “Patriotism,” and “Confusion” are just as sincere as “The feeling that capitalism is perversely indomitable” and “The feeling that the war effort is being marketed to us.” Having a critical view of my government has never stopped my from loving my country, a sentiment that can be found in “A feeling of suppression,” a t-shirt stamped with the motto “dissent keeps America strong.”

As I near completion of this very personal body of work and prepare to exhibit it, a question pops into my head “who is this show for? who is the audience?” And I’ve realized that the ideal audience to appreciate it to its fullest are my fellow New Yorkers. I hope that they will come and appreciate this show and maybe even do as I have and understand a little better some of the feelings we’ve all experienced after the 11th.

"Resentment”          2001
Dollar bills, pine box          37 x 18” (edition of 3)

This was the first piece I did. There was no show planned at the time I did this piece; the thought just came to me and I made it.   At the time, I was thinking about America’s generosity, regardless of what percentage of gross domestic product we share, the actual dollar amount of U.S. foreign aid is staggering. This piece is about what we send out in the world and how it comes back to us, it’s about jealousy and its next generation: resentment. When I first finished this piece, I called it “Pétard,” as in the phrase “hoisted by your own pétard.” That what I felt had just happened to America.

The noose used about 180 dollar bills. Everybody asks. I folded them in half lengthwise, folded each edge in to the middle and slipped the folded dollar bills together and into each other, overlapping and underlapping by about an inch and a half, and used this as one strand in what became a braid of dollar bills. Once the braid was done (about 60 feet of braid), I folded it over on itself and twisted it round and round until it resembled a rope. Once the rope was complete, I tied it into a noose, complete with the traditional 13 loops.

When I was a kid, my sister used to know how to make a weaving out of chewing gum wrappers. This noose has reminded a lot of people of that craft.

“Violation” 2001

Poster pieces on canvas 110 x 84”

This was the second piece I thought of. It was not too long after the attacks that I started feeling as if I were being held captive. Held captive by fear, held captive by CNN, held captive by terrorists. This ransom note itself was written and rewritten to get it just right. The repetitive use of “give us” was meant to be a simple demand. It wasn’t until after I had finished the piece that my friend Josh pointed out the similarities to Emma Lazarus’ famous inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty, “Give me your tired, your poor.... I feel the note's main point is in the logical paradox at its conclusion: “Give it to us now or you’ll never see it again.” Trust and optimism and security are ours and the power rests solely with us to hold onto them. Without our acquiescence, terrorists are powerless to effect change.

“Loss of innocence” 2002
Paper weaving 36 x 54”

I think it was September 12 that the New York Times published an article written by an American who had lived in Israel for many years. His main point was “now you know.” Now we know what the rest of the world deals with. Now we know what it’s like to feel vulnerable. Now we know. Ah, the sweet fleeting bliss of ignorance. Now we know. This piece is a paper weaving of a map of the U.S. and a map of the world. September 11 made us a part of the world. Our psychological separatism fueled by geographic isolation was over. Our innocence was lost.

“The feeling that capitalism is perversely indomitable” 2001

Topps picture cards on wood 12 x 17 1/2 x 19

Shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Topps Company issued "Operation enduring freedom" trading cards. I made them into a little temple of capitalism. This was one of the favorites in the exhibition.

“Dread” (original 2002, recreated for the "Funism" restrospective in 2015) Cans, labels 3 x 3”

There was a pervasive feeling at the time that there would be more attacks. As a proud New Yorker, I was certain that we were the only target that mattered. This inverted stack of cans should be toppling over but isn't. I wanted to create a feeling of uncomfortable expectations.

“The willingness to trade civil liberties for protection” 2001 Mixed media

12 x 12 x 18 1/2”

I was at a dinner party of artists after the Patriot Act was passed by congress and they were up at arms. My feeling was whatever price our safety costs, it’s worth it and there will be enough checks and balances in place to prevent any agency of the government from abusing the powers contained in that act. I was in a small, reviled minority around that dinner table of libertarian alarmists.

Gradually, as the details of the act came to light, I saw that my Chicken Little friends were right. The act impinges on numerous civil liberties and gives the government and its agencies powers that would have our founding fathers turning in their graves.

With the Patriot Act, the Bush administration used fear to rush through sweeping diminishments of individual rights to privacy and increases to governmental snooping, even into the lives of ordinary citizens.

This piece was made from a plaster cast of an Israeli gas mask for children. It has been covered with the American Constitution and Bill of Rights.

“Fear” 2001

Acrylic on canvas, wood 58 x 56”

I never liked flying, from the time I got to be about 30 years old. But now, the fear of being in a plane when it crashes was subsumed by the fear of being on the ground when a plane crashes into you.

I had planned to do two of these paintings, one for each of the types of planes that was crashed into the towers. A Boeing 767 and a Boeing 757. I wanted to make a painting in the style of the old warplane silhouette posters that sat at the front of the briefing rooms in World War II flying ace movies of my youth. All of a sudden, the silhouette of these passenger aircraft seemed menacing.

“Shell shock”          2001
Acrylic on canvas          72 x 48”

Every   New Yorker who saw this piece remembers it.   I think I mentioned this thought to my friend Greg one day and he loved it.    I refined the writing a little bit and made it into a large painting.   The coloration was a no-brainer.   I wanted both the letters and the background to be sky blue.   I wanted it to be something that could be read, but not without trouble.   The thing about screeching tires is that no matter how many times you hear them, you’re always waiting for the crash at the end of the screech.   That’s how it had become with airplanes going over New York City.   Now people were nervous.   After planes started flying over Manhattan again, you could see the blasé citizens of NY stopping on the sidewalk and looking up it the engine was too loud.   Another attack?

“Magnitude of loss” 2002

2,801 empty hangers, 2 coat racks each 60’ long

This piece made me cry repeatedly. It successfully dimensionalized the number of dead. So many empty hangers. Something about the mundane tools that would no longer be needed to hold the coats of the dead seemed both mundane and profound. Moving in an ordinary way.

The idea of this piece was that visitors to the gallery would be invited to write the name of one of the deceased on a “remembrance tag,” a claim check. They would place the large part of the tag over the hanger and take the claim tab with them as their own remembrance.

The poet T.S. Eliot said “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” and the connection between the mundane objects and the days of our lives has fascinated me ever since.

I bought the pipes and fittings at the Home Depot in Brooklyn and my local dry cleaner ordered me the hangers.

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Youth Culture in America

(See the entire series here.)

Artist's statement from the exhibition "Youth Culture in America."

There is certainly no more dynamic culture in the world today than youth culture in America. “Youth Culture in America” is an exhibition being created that will bring together and present some of the most egregious external influences our kids encounter: from television, cartoons, popular music, advertising, coloring books, peers, abusive teachers and parents, and so on. Some of them are stamped with my opinions (on issues that range from gender stereotypes to the marketing of drugs and sex to teenagers, to violence), and some of them are presented as-is, a conglomeration of both original creations and ready-mades, art and archeology.

The artworks for this show fall into three basic types: illustration and interpretive illustration (a sheet of Bevis and Butthead blotter acid; a gumball machine filled with condoms, joints, and bullets), “connect-the-dots” pieces (a child’s coloring book page superimposed over the pages from an adult’s self-help book) and macabre appropriations (the See-n-Say with explicit lyrics, the Yosemite Sam piece, and the Pin the Bullet Hole on the Schoolboy Game).

On the whole, this was a show of artistic editorials: topical, accessible and hopefully poignant.

"Gumball machines"
2000 Gumball machines, gumballs, condoms, joints, .44 bullets.
60 x 37 x 21”

"Yosemite Sam"2000 Acrylic on wood, lead, copper

48 x 25 x 20”

Our national handgun cartoon character. 4 feet tall.

"Heroes" 2006 Cotton/acrylic jersey

different sizes

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre. To a certain swath of American youth, their fame is enviable.

"Pin the bullet wound on the schoolboy game"2001 Acrylic on cardboard, packaging

36 x 17 1/2”

Eating an ice cream and carrying American History.

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Coloring Book paintings

(See the entire series here.)

From the "Coloring book" series and the "Vacation" show at Spike Gallery.

Artist's statement on this body of work:

For me, one of the hardest parts of making art is striking the proper balance between clarity and poetry. Creating symbolism is relatively simple; creating symbolism that’s neither too obvious nor too obscure is relatively difficult.

To this end, I have, for years, painted for that mythical person I’ve called “the thoughtful viewer,” trying to create metaphors that are neither bang-you-over-the-head obvious nor so difficult that they require my explanation to be understood.

With this body of work, I’ve found a happy middle ground, creating a series of paintings that can be deciphered without my input. The formula that allows this to happen is to simply juxtapose two elements out of which comes a third: a point of view. Here’s how I arrived at this formula.

It began with a desire to somehow incorporate some of the coloring books of my youth into a piece of art. I had a small collection of coloring books from the early 60’s and as I looked through them I was struck by how gender stereotypes were presented. The “Annette Funicello Coloring Book,” which had belonged to my sister, was all about being pretty, getting married and making a home. The “Fighting Men in Action” coloring book, which was mine, was all about masculine aggression and the cool machinery of war.

At first, I thought that simply copying selected images from these books onto a large canvas would be enough to convey meaning. But then, from either a desire to make them more “mine,” more clever, or more clear, I decided that they would work better if they were not just copied onto plain white canvas, but onto pages from meaningful books. So I found “Women and Self-esteem,” and “Anger Kills,” pulled them apart, glued their pages to the canvas, sanded them smooth and copied the coloring book images onto them. These two pieces became “Shopping for Clothes” and “Pitching a Hand Grenade”, both on the theme that gender stereotypes are reinforced from a very young age and that this is not necessarily a healthy thing.

After these first two pieces were created, I was very enthusiastic about the format: two elements in each painting; one of them defining the topic, and its juxtaposition against the other creating a point of view on that topic. It’s simple, readable, and aesthetically pleasing, and so I pursued it, creating works on other themes such as feminism (“Save Me”), environmentalism (“Silent Spring”), the desire for sexual adventure (“Delta of Venus,”), advertising (“Makes me like milk more,”) and faith ("The age of fable"). I also started considering ways to make the pieces more aesthetically interesting within the format, and you’ll see that the surfaces are varied.

The paintings in this series are fun to look at and fun to think about, and while there are precedents in Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg and Warhol, the most important precedent for me is my own art movement, the one I’ve called “funism,” whose simple tenets are as follow:

•Art should be as much fun to look at as it is to think about.

•Art should be intellectually engaging without being intellectually elitist.

•Art should invite interpretation.

Vis-à-vis these criteria, this body of work succeeds; I hope my “thoughtful viewer” agrees.

"Red Stick" 2003

Mixed media on canvas 68 x 46"

(Financial Times stock pages/Walt Disney's Pluto Pup coloring book)
On the commodification of cultural/racial stereotypes.

"Save me" 2001

Acrylic on canvas 68 x 46”

(The Village Voice’s Escort Ads/”Superman” Coloring Book)

My first feminist painting.

"Circulars" 2003

Mixed media on canvas 68 x 46"

(Grocery store circulars/Elizabeth Taylor Coloring Book)
On the packaging of celebrity.

"Silent Spring" 2001

Acrylic on canvas 68 x 46"

(Silent Spring/"National Parks A Book to Color")
On our strange relationship with nature.

Vacation 2003
Mixed media on canvas 68 x 46"

(detail below)

("TV Guide" listings/"Things that go to color") Our sorry surrogate for real experience: television.

Spring 2003
Mixed media on canvas 80 x 66"

(The New York Times front pages/"Around the year a book to color") As the war raged, we on the homefront went on about our business.

(detail below)

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Finding the Truth

From the "Finding the truth" series, begun with George Bush, where I would take his speeches, in their unedited entirety and simply highlighted certain words to find what I thought was the truth of the matter. Political, engaging, and fun. A funism classic!

"President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of congress"
archival computer print, 40" x 30" $2,500

(verbatim from prepared transcript - below: highlighted words only)

Tonight, as we mark the celebration of our vandalism of truth, liberty and justice --I am here to deliver a message to the middle class. It’s been a little over a month since my inauguration, and I want to take this moment to announce the government corruption and deregulation that threatens the future of their financial dreams. For the American family that loses their jobs, their income, or a loved one, because my Administration — a network of lawless Christians — will be making it easier for companies to abandon protective policy and depress wages, we do not truly care. Mandating no choice is the plan for women’s health, and to advance the common good, a woman should not be free to choose and must not have a voice. Finally, to keep America Safe we must, as the Bible teaches us, all share faith in and all salute the same God. From now on, America will be guided by our vision. God bless you, and God Bless these United States.

"State of the Union"

"The economy"

"Clear skies"

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On This Site Stood

(See the entire series here.)

My 'historical' markers are one of the more "serious" bodies of work I've created . . . I've watched people in Woodstock (where a few of them are on more or less permanent exhibition in the village) stop and read them and tug the shirt of their friend to stop and do the same. They deal with serious issues, yet always seem to elicit a smile. They're fun and engaging and I think are exactly what the original funism had in mind.

"Illegal Immigrants" 2006. Cast aluminum and acrylic paint, 96" x 36" x 4"

"Jane King" 2007. Cast aluminum and acrylic paint, 96" x 36" x 4"

"Unarmed Black Men" 2020. Cast aluminum and acrylic paint, 96" x 36" x 4"

"Pandemic Heroes" 2020. Cast aluminum and acrylic paint, 96" x 36" x 4"

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Decorating Nature

(See the entire series here. Nearly 200 of them!)

“Chaos is the order of nature and order is the nature of man.”

“A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.”

I strive to create art that is both beautiful and meaningful, art that is aesthetically and intellectually accessible and deals with important themes. This current body of work is on a theme that has informed a great deal of my work over the past couple of decades -- mankind’s complicated and vast relationship with nature.

We use nature how we see fit: we strive to bring order to it, we seek to explain it in a language that doesn’t belong to it, we try to make it prettier, we try to make it better, we try to make it more profitable. Some efforts succeed, some don’t.

This series, “Decorating nature” is about all that and is also all about beauty.

Beauty is the best friend of consideration. If a photo is pretty, the viewer will spend more time with it. If a viewer spends more time with it, they will begin to think beyond the surface of it and into the meaning of it. That’s the dynamic I hope to create in viewers of my work.

Lastly and maybe most importantly, this body of work is meant to be fun.

fig. 1: leaf of the clown tree

fig. 92: certain mosses secrete a pheromone that reacts beautifully with maple leaves

fig. 38: in autumn, some leaves will use color bars to help get everything perfect.

fig. 50: genetically modified brown-eyed susan.

fig. 189: in late winter, some oak leaves begin generating an inordinate amount of heat.

fig. 73: a maple key with cartoonitus.

fig. 144: a tuft from the neighbor's hydrangea floated over in that last storm.

fig. 142: some leaves lose themselves in others.

fig. 173: leaf spot is a common affliction of mountain laurel.

fig. 95: some oak leaves self-censor.

fig. 56: not normally associated with seasonal transformations, some stream-side stones actually will begin to pixellate in late autumn/early winter.

fig. 138: beauty follows fast after some Spring showers.

fig. 186: Sycamore Anthracnose is an alluring but dangerous fungus.

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Monsters on Postcards

(See the entire series here.)

My more "serious" work has almost always been accompanied by more whimsical work. The "Monsters on Postcards" (and thrift store paintings) series is certainly that. It started out as a fun activity to do with the kids. The kids eventually lost interest, I didn't.

"Louise" acrylic on thrift store print. 22" x 22"

"S.S. Unipuss" 2016, Acrylic on yard sale painting, 24" x 33"

"Eiffel terror" 2015, watercolor on postcard

"The Right Reverend Dr. Murakami" 2016, Acrylic on garage sale painting, 26" x 22"

"Green boy" 2013 Watercolor on thrift store print, framed size 12" x 9"

"Four pupils" 2013 Watercolor on tag sale painting, framed size 11 1/4" x 12 3/4" $900

"Here, birdie, birdie." 2010, watercolor on postcard.

"Alien with crab claw" 2010, watercolor on postcard.

"South of South of the border" 2011, watercolor on postcard.

"Christina's trip" acrylic on thrift store print. 20" x 28"

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Dyscommunication

Parts of this series were on view in my "kuh-myoo-ni-kay-shun" exhibition, the first ever solo show at the cma gallery at Mount Saint Mary College.

See the whole series here: https://dyscommunicationexhibition.blogspot.com

“Communication Modulator”

This piece is sort of the topic sentence for this body of work, highlighting many sources of difficulty in our communication - factors such as: desired outcome of interaction; actual/perceived strengths of the speaker; likability of the speaker; personal distractions; etc.

History with the speaker, the speaker's tone of voice, etc., there are so many things that can influence how words are heard. Personally, though I consider myself to be a very sincere person, I see my innocent (and even sweet) words being taken as sarcastic or snarky much more often than I ever mean them to be that way.

“Mistakes Were Made”

When I was a kid, in 1970 or so, Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon said, with regards to the Watergate fiasco, and by way of a non-admission admission of culpability, "Mistakes were made." Even as a youngster, this phrase seemed peculiar. Not the least of it being that if I had ever tried to use this "king of non-apologies" with my mom or dad, I woulda been grounded for life! Here, I take the “desire to say something that SEEMS to be saying the right thing but in fact actually isn't” one step further, presenting the mere shadow of the words, pressed into paper.

"Horse" 24" x 20" Archival computer print on acid-free board

Frequently, people speak to us, but instead of listening with our heads, we should actually be listening with our hearts. On these occasions, we might miss entirely what they're trying to communicate because of our successful engagement with their words and our failed engagement with their deeper meaning. Read between the lines, as they say. This piece, "horse", is about that "heart/head" problem, substituting "feeling" words for numbers in an online paint by numbers outline.

"NO MEANS NO" 42" x 42" Acrylic on canvas $7,500

This piece is about the ability of some to willfully ignore the messages that are given to them. It always seemed strange to me, this sentence. Unnecessary, when a single "no" alone should suffice. Though it takes me immediately to the realm of sexual consent (and assault), it also evokes a baker wagging their finger over a fresh plate of brownies or a pristine cake destined for somewhere other than the immediately present hungry hordes.

"Fake News" Etched glass, 48" x 20" $4,000

One side of this glass has the word "lies" on it, the other shows the word "facts". The effect is one of almost complete obfuscation, where neither word is quite clear and each is obscured by the other. I will be making a larger version of this and so this is, in effect, an artist's proof.

"Announcement" 21" x 18" Sharpie on acid-free watercolor paper. $6,000

Well, it's always political season somewhere, it seems, and the speeches are always flying and it reminds me of how easy it is to zone out in the middle of a sermon or a lecture or a political speech perpetrated upon the public by anyone other than the most talented and dynamic orator. (Maybe you even zoned out a little bit in the middle of that last sentence!) What happens when there are too many words (sometimes even a :60 commercial is too verbose) is that the words lose their intended effect, at the minimum, and lose all their power and even meaning, in the extreme. Here above is a speech by a politician announcing their presidential bid (you gotta love the singular "their" & "they" - the source of this speech is unimportant to my concept.). It's word piled up on top of word, the communication of their thoughts buried and suffocated under their enormous mass. I transcribed the speech top to bottom and then started again at the top. It only took 5 passes to write the entire speech on this piece of paper, but the effect is just what I had hoped for.

"Sure", below, illustrates the baggage that seems to inevitably materialize during any long-lasting relationship. With a boss, with a spouse, with a sibling, or even with a public figure (see "President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of congress" further below). This baggage is created from years of hearing the words that someone actually says and measuring them repeatedly against what they turn out to actually mean, or what you repeatedly think they actually mean. In "Sure", the simple reply to the unrepresented, implied question of where to go for dinner is shown to be rich with the baggage of the personal history between speakers.

"Sure" archival computer print. 21" x 30" edition of 10. $2,000.

This print illustrates the baggage that seems to inevitably materialize during any long-lasting relationship. With a boss, with a spouse, with a sibling, or even with a public figure. This baggage is created from years of hearing the words that someone actually says and measuring them repeatedly against what they turn out to actually mean, or what you repeatedly think they actually mean. In "Sure", the simple reply to the unrepresented, implied question of where to go for dinner is shown to be rich with the baggage of the personal history between speakers.

"THE PENIS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD." Acrylic on bedspread. 48" x 48". $8,000

(detail below)

"I'm sorry. A thousand times I'm sorry" "I'm sorry" written 1,000 times in graphite on watercolor paper. 19" x 26" $6,000

Words and phrases can be overused to the point of completely losing their sharp edge as carriers of thought and sentiment. In this piece, I've written "I'm sorry" 1,000 times on a piece of nice thick watercolor paper.

"Siri transcription of NPR report on the bombing at the Brussels airport" cotton muslin on prayer rug. 75" x 34"

"President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of congress"
archival computer print, 40" x 30" $2,500

(verbatim from prepared transcript - below: highlighted words only)

“Ghoti” 2014

Archival digital print (32 x 32")

"Ghoti" is an interesting word construction that illustrates some of the inherent difficulties of the English language. I was making a study for a new painting and loved the digital study so much that I decided to make a print of it. It's gorgeous. The painting will be done soon.

For more information on "ghoti", click here.

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Proximity and Distance

(the entire series can be seen here.)

Whereas "GHOTI" teeters on the edge of needing explanation to be understood and enjoyed, the "proximity and distance" series, in my opinion, does not. From a distance, they gain resolution....

The internet is a great forum for bringing people together. It is also, by nature of how we use it, a great isolator -- creating an ersatz society where we can enjoy each other’s company from the privacy and solitude of our own homes. It provides proximity from a distance and allows us to filter our personas through its fun house mirror, presenting to the world only the images we have chosen.

On Facebook, there’s no more manicured presentation of our best face forward than our “profile picture.”

For “Proximity and distance”, I placed my iPhone right up against my computer screen, resting it in the hinge of my laptop. I scrolled each 50 x 50 pixel profile picture into position and snapped the photo, the mechanics of the act restating the very theme of this series. I then brought these blurry photos into Photoshop and further decreased their resolution by making each one a mere 13 pixels across. At this point, I enlarged them as much as I could (3200%, up to 418 pixels across), and took a screen grab of them at that size.

Finally, echoing the social nature of Facebook, I paired them with other pics that felt right with them due to color or composition or some other factor.

This series presents the paradox of social media in all its colorful, amorphous glory. The photographs range from recognizable (person on a horse) to completely abstract; they are, at once, familiar and unfamiliar and, like the people behind them, they evoke emotions ranging from soothing to disturbing to haunting.

"Unknown and Jessica" 2015

Archival computer print

"Patty and Zoe" 2015

Archival computer print

"Kimberly and Monica" 2015

Archival computer print

"Shelly and Karen" 2015

Archival computer print

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A one-off piece created on the computer, thinking about our landscape then and our landscape now. The pretty green landscape is a Thomas Cole painting, the smokestack belching pollution is from Google images. For me, this is a perfect funism piece: it's pretty, its message is accessible and decipherable by any thoughtful viewer.

"Pess/Op" 2006

Archival computer print

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Décollage

"Untitled" 1990/1999

Decollage

"Untitled" 1990/1999

Decollage

"Untitled" 1990/1999

Decollage

"Untitled" 1990/1999

Decollage

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Landscape Details

(See the entire series here.)

My friend Grace said that she didn't want any art on her walls and went on to say that if she was going to have any art on her walls, she'd want a large canvas that was only blue. That was the beginning of this idea, to take details out of the landscapes that I had been painting, put each detail on its own canvas, hang them together and call it art.

These pieces here are watercolor studies for the full sized pieces, only one of which was ever made.

"Landscape detail #7" 1993 Watercolor on paper

"Blade of grass" 1993 Watercolor on paper

"Underneath the big oak tree" 1993 Watercolor on paper

"Plowing under the sky" 1993 Watercolor on paper

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PORNWEAVINGSEXHIBITION

(See the entire series here.)

Several years ago, it dawned on me that, from a young age, boys are taught (by popular culture

and friends, for example) to look at ‘dirty pictures’ to fuel their onanistic pleasures. It was an interesting realization and it made me think that pornography might be a good topic for a monologue. This idea sorta rattled around a bit and then one day I had the thought to find two dirty pictures online (not hard to do), print them out, and weave them together - something I’d been doing with other subject matter since 1985 or so when I first saw the technique used by the sculptor/musician Laurie Anderson.

Well, I loved the resulting sculpture and immediately gave up any further idea of the monologue; I wanted to do more porn weavings and I wanted to do them big. Somehow they captured all kinds of things that I thought and understood and suspected about people’s lives with pornography. But even more, they seemed to capture some things that I felt about it all, things that I couldn't quite explain rationally. The weavings just seemed right. They’re obsessive and repetitive and fetishistic and, in a strange way: neutralizing.

I find them very evocative of so very much. I hope you do too.

Oh yeah . . . I ended up writing the monologue too. (You can watch it here.)