Jamian Juliano-Villani

FIRST LOOK
Jamian JulianoVillani: Mixed
Up Moods, 2014,
acrylic on canvas,
20 inches square.
Jamian Juliano-Villani
by William S. Smith
TWO DISEMBODIED cartoon eyes, bloodshot and bulging,
float in the center of Mixed Up Moods (2014), a characteristically
overstuffed painting by Jamian Juliano-Villani. The eyes could
have popped out of one of two sources: the porcelain-skinned
face of the femme fatale depicted on the left, or the fetishlike
stone sculpture on the right, which is riddled with nails and has
two holes where eye sockets could be. Rounding out the scene
is a tabletop strewn with a strangely phallic teakettle, a stack
of papers with black brushstrokes standing in for text, a pair of
skeleton hands and an ashtray brimming with lit cigarettes.
Though it may not be obvious, Juliano-Villani is an artist
who prizes legibility. The boldly rendered forms in her paintings
are easy to decipher, and the images she employs evoke a familiar
world of cartoons and commercial graphics. Yet the sheer accumulation of pictorial information in her paintings suggests complexity
and invites interpretation. During a visit to her Brooklyn studio,
Juliano-Villani told me that she often approaches a canvas with
a “hyper-specific” concept in mind and then builds compositions
from found images that can express her own attitudes.
Some of the images Juliano-Villani uses are taken directly
from sources such as, notably, the work of cartoonists R.
Crumb and Ralph Bakshi. Yet her approach to appropriation and reproduction departs in important respects from the
Pop art tradition of Warhol and Rosenquist. For one thing,
Crumb’s erotic drawings and Bakshi’s unsparing depictions
of American race relations were never quite “popular” in the
same way as, say, Marilyn Monroe’s films. Juliano-Villani
may share stronger affinities with the Chicago Imagists and
Robert Williams, artists whose affiliations with underground
subcultures persisted with or without attention from the
mainstream art world.
Juliano-Villani, who skipped grad school, professes a
calculated distance from what she perceives to be overly
insular modes of contemporary abstract painting. Rather
than as a medium stuck in an endless loop of self-reference,
Juliano-Villani views painting as a tool for making connections across cultures and historical eras. Postwar Japanese
graphic design is a recurrent touchstone, as is album art from
the 1980s and ’90s. One of her most ambitious works is Some
Deaths Take Forever (2014), a large-scale triptych featuring
a chainmail-clad fist holding a snuffed-out red candle. The
image comes from the cover of a 1980 album by the electronic
musician Bernard Szajner, produced in support of an Amnesty
International campaign against capital punishment. Each
panel of Juliano-Villani’s work has the same dimensions as the
floors of the solitary confinement cells once used at Alcatraz.
The monumental scale of the work therefore points to the
tortuously diminutive spaces of incarceration.
ART IN AMERICA
first look flow.indd 33
CURRENTLY
ON VIEW
A solo exhibition
by Jamian
Juliano-Villani, at
the Museum of
Contemporary Art
Detroit, through
Mar. 29.
33
2/6/15 2:32 PM
Art in America, March 2015
Miami’s annual art-world circus opened a week ago today, and it’s been a bit of a blur. It’s
probably even been a blur to read about. And as the hand-stamps fade and the pixie dust
settles, we’re starting to ask ourselves: What did we really take away from Miami’s art fair this
year? What actually important things happened between the celebrity DJs and Disaronno
bars? Here’s a list of ten.
1. Miamians joined in nationwide protests.
Those who weren’t blinded by the glare of Jeff Koons balloons at the fair’s VIP preview on
Wednesday probably noticed that a grand jury did not indict the policeman who killed Eric
Garner. A few days later, “Shut It Down” protesters blocked off I-195 to protest the decision.
Many also commemorated the loss of 18-year-old Miami graffiti artist Israel “Reefa”
Hernández-Llach, who died after police Tasered him last year. For an event where a text
painting counts as a bold political statement, in a city with a reputation for superficial, this was
… something.
2. The coronation of Lucy Dodd.
The abstract painter’s “thumping epic 25-foot-wide painting installed at the Rubell Family
Collection was *the* standout artwork of the week by any young (-ish) artist anywhere, in all of
Miami Beach,” wrote the art adviser Todd Levin on his Facebook page — a sentiment that was
echoed throughout the week. It was this kind of show at the Rubells’ that launched the
stratospheric rise of Oscar Murillo two years ago, so …
3. The Edition is the new Delano.
Hotelier Ian Schrager first introduced his luxury brand to South Beach with the Delano in
1995. But this year, many of the parties moved upshore to his latest “lifestyle property,” the
Edition, which comes complete with a basement bowling alley and ice-skating rink. The hotel
was out of the way, and its public spaces made it look something like a brothel from the future,
but somehow, it managed to be the center of things almost every night (maybe thanks to
thefree rooms Schrager handed out to Marina Abramovic, Klaus Biesenbach, and friends?).
4. Dance is the next big thing.
One of the most-talked-about works of the week was Ryan McNamara’s immersive (and very
sold-out) performance, “MEEM 4 MIAMI: a Story Ballet About the Internet.” Meanwhile,
Ryan Heffington, the choreographer behind Sia’s “Chandelier” video, which has nearly 370
million YouTube views to date, staged a “punk-rock water ballet” at the Ritz Carlton South
Vulture, December 2014
Beach, and the Shen Wei Dance Company performed at the annual Artsy dance party.
5. Younger artists stole the show — though the collectors calling those showing at
1995. But this year, many of the parties moved upshore to his latest “lifestyle property,” the
Edition, which comes complete with a basement bowling alley and ice-skating rink. The hotel
was out of the way, and its public spaces made it look something like a brothel from the future,
but somehow, it managed to be the center of things almost every night (maybe thanks to
thefree rooms Schrager handed out to Marina Abramovic, Klaus Biesenbach, and friends?).
4. Dance is the next big thing.
One of the most-talked-about works of the week was Ryan McNamara’s immersive (and very
sold-out) performance, “MEEM 4 MIAMI: a Story Ballet About the Internet.” Meanwhile,
Ryan Heffington, the choreographer behind Sia’s “Chandelier” video, which has nearly 370
million YouTube views to date, staged a “punk-rock water ballet” at the Ritz Carlton South
Beach, and the Shen Wei Dance Company performed at the annual Artsy dance party.
5. Younger artists stole the show — though the collectors calling those showing at
ABMB and NADA “really emerging” artists are probably kidding themselves.
“One drawing was sold to another collector as my wife and I were holding it in our hands
considering it,” said the New York collector Peter Hort about his experience at NADA. He also
noticed that Van Hanos and Jamian Juliano-Villani, who had work at Tanya Leighton's Art
Basel booth, were “talked about everywhere.” In other parts of the fair, the writer and
dealer Kenny Schachter noticed a “tussle between two (very) determined buyers over a skinny
little $5,000 Katherine Bernhardt cigarette painting.” Levin pointed to the Burundi-born artist
Serge Alain Nitegeka as “someone whose work is also clearly headed for a big sloppy wet kiss
from collectors, critics and curators alike.”
6. Art Basel wore “its commercial heart on its sleeve.”
So said the art advisor Wendy Cromwell, who noted that dealers in Miami are brazen when it
comes to hawking their biggest, brightest, and shiniest works. Once upon a time, galleries
treated these kinds of events with ambivalence, and while those days are long long gone, 2014
did seem to mark a new level of unapologetic salesmanship. As our own Carl Swanson
noted, that (self-) reflective art was in especially wide view. (Getting into the spirit of things,
we snapped our own “selfie” with this Will Cotton painting of Elle Fanning, which was the
cover of New York’s spring 2013 fashion issue.)
7. Sadie Coles is now a major, major blue-chip force.
The billionaire collectors Peter Brant and Steven Cohen were seen considering the thousands
of green ceramic Urs Fischer raindrops suspended over the Sadie Coles HQ booth. The dealer
has long been a respected figure on the London art scene, but Coles, who also shows Matthew
Barney, Richard Prince, and Elizabeth Peyton, opened a new, 6,000-square-foot West End
gallery last year and now seems poised to enter the hallowed ranks of blue-chip dealers like
David Zwirner and Larry Gagosian.
8. Miami christened its new Institute of Contemporary Art.
"For me, one of the most exciting pieces of news is the birth of the Miami ICA, which opened
with two shows by young artists, Andra Ursuta and Pedro Reyes," said the New Museum
curator Massimiliano Gioni. Several trustees from the Museum of Contemporary Art North
Miami (MoCA NoMi) departed amid disputes with the city and formed the ICA this year.
Although the older institution is keeping the majority of its collection, many of the best works
aresaid to be headed to the ICA, helmed by former wunderkind New York art critic Alex
Gartenfeld, who’s still in his 20s.
9. But MoCA NoMi is still kicking.
New director Babacar M’Bow has been rebranding the museum as the homegrown alternative
to the ICA. The institution kicked off Basel Week with an exhibition of Caribbean artists.
10. People stopped being snarky about pop — real pop. Like Miley Cyrus pop.
The singer gave it her all at Jeffrey Deitch’s big Miami comeback party, dancing inside a
stuffed rainbow, smoking a joint, and twerking against Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne,
who duetted with her onstage. We’re not so sure she’s an “outsider” artist on the level of Mike
Kelley, as Deitch claimed. But she brought the right attitude, shouting at one point, "You
thought this was a respected place where you could escape me?!” And folks in the audience
seemed genuine when talking about her as a “real deal” performance artist. Which maybe
Miami (MoCA NoMi) departed amid disputes with the city and formed the ICA this year.
Although the older institution is keeping the majority of its collection, many of the best works
aresaid to be headed to the ICA, helmed by former wunderkind New York art critic Alex
Gartenfeld, who’s still in his 20s.
9. But MoCA NoMi is still kicking.
New director Babacar M’Bow has been rebranding the museum as the homegrown alternative
to the ICA. The institution kicked off Basel Week with an exhibition of Caribbean artists.
10. People stopped being snarky about pop — real pop. Like Miley Cyrus pop.
The singer gave it her all at Jeffrey Deitch’s big Miami comeback party, dancing inside a
stuffed rainbow, smoking a joint, and twerking against Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne,
who duetted with her onstage. We’re not so sure she’s an “outsider” artist on the level of Mike
Kelley, as Deitch claimed. But she brought the right attitude, shouting at one point, "You
thought this was a respected place where you could escape me?!” And folks in the audience
seemed genuine when talking about her as a “real deal” performance artist. Which maybe
shouldn’t be too surprising, given how fully and unironically, unskeptically, un-eye-rollingly
Kanye West and Kim Kardashian were embraced down there.
GQ, December 2014
Could you tell me about your process?
I settled on painting instead of another medium because it seemed the best way
for me to express my ideas. I have this really disparate way of working. Some
might say that's bad—that there should be some sort of brand, or style that's all
me. But all I'm thinking about is my ideas, how to stay engaged, and how to keep
things really fresh.
My tendency is to make everything neat and organized, but that's something I'm
trying to fight against because to do something interesting is so much better. And
for that you have to allow for some failure...a misstep or two.
But all of these ideas are really constitutive, did that help on the road
to Basel?
I'm always working for the endeavor, I've never done a fair before, so I keep
thinking about how to put something that I typically do into a thing that will be
viewed in a really haphazard, scattered way for three days. The fact that I'm doing
this one with people I know [Hanos' girlfriend Jamian Juliano-Villani will be
showing in the same booth] and trust so that makes it worth it. It's an experience
that I'm trying out.
What does your studio space mean to you?
It's a private space I'm letting you into. I like the building, but it's weird to be in a
place where other people at work, I don't really like all of that psychic energy.
That's why I designed it to look like a cabin or a beach house, so I can feel like I'm
out in the middle of nowhere. I feel it should be a meditative space.
Do you think that you're trying to have a conversation with the viewer
about your pieces?
Yes, I think so. I wanted to take a piece with some humor to Basel so there's this
fantasy element, a "Dungeons and Dragons" kind of thing in the painting. I
always want my pieces to be legible in some way. There has to be an element that
lets people in, gives them something to connect to so they don't feel left out.
What are you hoping to get out of Basel?
It's my first big fair, so I'm nervous. But I know it will be good. I typically don't
like fairs, but I think this one is good context for me because it's with Van and it's
also with a gallery I respect and trust. And because it's a fair, I think my work has
a better chance of being understood as more than just crazy fucked up cartoons.
Everybody thinks I love cartoons, but I don't. I just like what they do because
they're democratic and loveable. They're a reference someone probably wouldn't
expect to find within the context of fine art.
Why should people care about art?
Well they shouldn't, really. [laughter] I think it's important, but the way that art
makes its entrance into the cultural arena is really pretentious and very singular.
A lot of people miss out because it's in this little fucking bubble. Because the way
we approach it is so academic, it's harder for people to relate. You shouldn't have
to read a fucking packet to really get into it. It should just be as simple as what
you like.
But it seems like you put a tremendous amount of research into
everything.
It's not totally random. I identify with all these paintings. For a while I would
paint all through the night because I'd have these awful nightmares, so I didn't
want to sleep. It sounds corny, but I think sometimes it's like I'm painting
nightmares because they're all very dark. I think it's because I'm exercising some
kind of psychological internal warfare. That's what makes these paintings mine.
Do you fine something therapeutic about the creative process?
Yes, definitely. I might end up hating all of my paintings, but I feel good when I'm
doing them and that's what makes me love them. If I'm working and I find the
piece really disgusting, then that probably means it's going well. If I'm ever
unsure of something, then that's when I know I need to just go ahead and do it. I
don't know if people get what I'm trying to do yet, but that's fine because I have a
lifetime to figure this shit out.
Is that a goal of yours, to get people to understand what you're doing?
That's why I leave them somewhat open-ended. They read as something very
graphic and legible and then you realize something else is happening and it
becomes surreal. If I can meet the viewer on some kind of middle ground, then
that's great because that means they've connected with something. It might not
be the thing I was thinking about when I was painting, but it's that point of
connection that's important to me.
How long does it take you to paint a piece?
Each one can take a day or a couple days. Some I'll get started, but then I feel like
I need to give them time, and that can mean months. So there are a bunch of
pieces in my studio that are just waiting to be finished, but it's got to happen at
the right time. And that's the issue: time. I feel like I always have a million ideas,
but there are only so many hours in a day. Like I want to do this one for Basel of a
fly giving another fly a lap dance, but I don't think it'll get finished.
Sorry?
You know in porn how you'll see a girl giving a guy a blowjob, but you don't see
him? Well, that got me thinking about doing a painting in fly-vision, of a fly
giving a fly a lap dance. But because it's painted in this weird refracted vision you
don't see the entire scenario at once. You wouldn't necessarily realize it's this
really awful moment of a fly giving another fly a lap dance—I like that idea.
How do you conceptualize a piece, do you sketch your paintings out?
I don't do any sketches. I'll take an idea then start looking for references that
make sense with it and things happen from there. I don't plan at all, but then once
I start using the airbrush I have to be more careful...more technical. If I mess up
one detail with the airbrush, I'll have to repaint the whole thing.
When do you know you're finished with a piece?
When I start adding shit that feels unnecessary. There comes a point where I
know there's enough going on and that's when I'll stop. I never want to add any
gratuitous props. Things could go on forever, but you need to know where the line
is.
What's most rewarding for you?
I like when someone looks at my work and can't immediately tell if they like it. I
think that if it catches them off guard then that's good. The bad thing about my
work is when someone thinks they get it right away.
So you don't think you're work should be easily consumed?
Yeah, the reason why I use these things is because they are graphic images from
things that I've read. Like the one with the lions and tigers going to college, I'm
thinking about Italian Futurism. But it's not necessarily important for the viewer
to know about that. My references are important because everyone thinks that
they're making something totally new and they're not, so I try to be explicit about
them. That way, I'm giving them a kind of homage through re-appropriation and
re-conceptualization. I think that people need to stop thinking that they're
geniuses and actually look at shit that was done fifty years ago.
So it's not all about what's new, what's next?
Art isn't supposed to be like fashion, it's supposed to be emotive. I think it's
important to recognize that there were people who did things better than us. We
can't compete with them, so don't try. You won't be able to do it better, so do
something else.
How would you compare yourself now to when you first started out?
When I first started out I was really into making iconic images, things that were
quick reads. And I think now I'm interested in slow reads, something that goes
beyond the actual painting.
What's the end goal?
I want to do something that's generative instead of careerist. But, most
importantly, something that's going to be around for a long time. To create work
that's got me in it.
Do you ever throw away a painting?
Oh God yes. I have like fifty paintings that I don't like, but one day I plan on using
them to make a giant freak flag: A freak flag of fuck-ups. But overall, I throw away
probably about half of everything...could be worse.
How do you stay in the present moment?
Listen to Reggae, not look at my Instagram, and chain smoke.
Forbes, January 2015
http://nyti.ms/1rjJYuB
ART & DESIGN
The Art of Funny: Cartoon Imagery, Often With an
Edge
‘Puddle, pothole, portal’ at SculptureCenter in Queens
By KEN JOHNSON
OCT. 9, 2014
The prevalence of humor in today’s art might be historically unprecedented. In
Western tradition up to the 1960s, comic art was always a minor genre. Now,
many of our most celebrated artists work in a comical vein: Jeff Koons, Cindy
Sherman, Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley, among others. This is something to
ponder, and “Puddle, pothole, portal” at the elegantly expanded
SculptureCenter offers a good occasion for doing so.
As an art show, it’s an uneven, haphazard affair. But because it presents so
many different kinds of visual and conceptual humor among works by 23
artists, it’s worth leaving aside questions of aesthetic quality to consider the
ways and wherefores of funny art.
The show was organized by Ruba Katrib, the center’s curator, and the artist
Camille Henrot. They were inspired by the movie “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”
and by the visionary cartoonist Saul Steinberg.
One room presents works by Steinberg. “Bank Street (Three Banks)”
pictures what might be a terrorist attack: A nervously sweating soldier crouches
in an intersection where anthropomorphic rabbits and a miniskirted woman lie
dead in the street. A row of bank buildings hints at a possibly nefarious bigger
‘Puddle, pothole, portal’ at SculptureCenter in Queens - NYT...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/arts/design/puddle-potho...
picture of money and politics. Made in 1975, it’s as relevant today as it ever was.
Jordan Wolfson’s scatological montages of photographic and cartoon
images annotated by vulgar bumper stickers connect to the “Roger Rabbit” mix
1 of 3
of animation and real-life action, but his expression of anxiety in a time of
10/22/14 12:43 PM
sexual consumerism has a much harsher edge.
The painter Jamian Juliano-Villani revels in cartoon imagery. “Roommate
Problems” depicts the suicide by hanging of a pair of ’60s-style bell-bottom
trousers. Mick Peter’s sculptures have sketchy, New Yorker magazine-style
caricatures drawn on shaped, free-standing slabs, wedding Modernist
abstraction and middlebrow illustration. Riffing on Minimalism, Marlie Mul’s
large, free-standing transparent panels have cartoon pink bandages painted on
them, as if they’d suffered multiple cuts and bruises.
Consisting mainly of three-dimensional objects, the exhibition focuses on
comedic art’s structural properties like paradox, exaggerated scale and
dysfunctional mechanics.
Animation appears in various forms. A short film loop by Mark Leckey
The New York Times, October 2014
focuses on the tail of Felix the Cat appropriated from old cartoons. It’s just a fat
black line, but appears to be dancing as if imbued with an exuberant life of its
own. Antoine Catala’s robotic machines inch across the gallery floor like turtles
trousers. Mick Peter’s sculptures have sketchy, New Yorker magazine-style
caricatures drawn on shaped, free-standing slabs, wedding Modernist
abstraction and middlebrow illustration. Riffing on Minimalism, Marlie Mul’s
large, free-standing transparent panels have cartoon pink bandages painted on
them, as if they’d suffered multiple cuts and bruises.
Consisting mainly of three-dimensional objects, the exhibition focuses on
comedic art’s structural properties like paradox, exaggerated scale and
dysfunctional mechanics.
Animation appears in various forms. A short film loop by Mark Leckey
focuses on the tail of Felix the Cat appropriated from old cartoons. It’s just a fat
black line, but appears to be dancing as if imbued with an exuberant life of its
own. Antoine Catala’s robotic machines inch across the gallery floor like turtles
and stop helplessly when they hit a wall.
In several places, pieces of clear glass resembling spurts of water project
from pipe fittings attached to walls. Made by Win McCarthy, they suggest that
the walls are full of water as if in a dream.
Olga Balema’s Minimalist hybrids of paintings and sculpture have thick
membranes of painted rubber stretched around bent and twisted frames of
metal rod. It’s as they were wrestling themselves away from the strictures of the
flat rectangle.
A nearly 50-foot-tall assemblage by Chadwick Rantanen is made up of
curvy, wooden desktops. It has telephone handsets hanging from spiral cords,
ballpoint pens dangling from thin chains, and other pieces of office equipment
attached. It’s funny to think of it in relation to “Endless Column,” Brancusi’s
monument to infinite possibility. Mr. Rantanen’s sculpture celebrates the
infinitude of bureaucratic drudgery.
An installation by Judith Hopf has two-by-four studs framing a pair of
glass doors. Look again, and you see that the handle on one door is actually a
cartoon drawing. The doors are nonfunctional, but you can pass between the
‘Puddle, pothole, portal’ at SculptureCenter in Queens - NYT...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/arts/design/puddle-potho...
studs. This exemplifies a simple principle: Humor leads you to expect one sort
of thing and then delivers something delightfully different.
The comedy isn’t necessarily in the immediate object, however. A small
2 of 3
sculpture by Lina Viste Gronli is a construction of black lengths of wood joined10/22/14 12:43 PM
in a configuration like a capital “G.” The punch line is in the title: “G is for
Getting a Divorce (Home Edition).” What initially appeared to be a banal
minimalist sculpture is suddenly something else. Humor alters reality.
A skeptical critic might see humorous art as escapist. But there are serious
lessons to be taken away from this exhibition. Comedy liberates the mind from
the idea that there’s just one world order, which is why fundamentalist and
authoritarian regimes tend to be intolerant of humor. A culture that loses its
sense of humor is a culture to worry about.
“Puddle, pothole, portal” runs through Jan. 5 at SculptureCenter, 44-19 Purves Street, Long Island City,
Queens; 718-361-1750, sculpture-center.org.
A version of this review appears in print on October 10, 2014, on page C28 of the New York edition
with the headline: The Art of Funny: Cartoon Imagery, Often With an Edge.
© 2014 The New York Times Company
Adult Mag, September 2014
“The painter need not die because of responsibility.”
——Agnes Martin
One time in grad school this curator came to visit my studio. I was making studentquality paintings under grad student-level stress, but so what. I wanted to share a
charming experience.
The paintings were mostly of half-visible figures in dark, moody rooms. The curator
looked at them for a few minutes, wearing an expression of smug disregard. Then he
started waving his hands around magisterially, issuing something to the effect of the
following edict: “painters, whatever they do, must find ways to activate the space
within the four sides of a canvas.” He’d brought a colleague along with him, and the
colleague stood there, nodding in agreement. I only wondered if I might be invited to
activate the space of the curator’s next Cherry Grove pool party.
In the curator’s professional point of view, activating the space inside a rectangle was
The Ultimate. He declined or was unable to say anything to me about the contents of
my studio, other than that painters live and die to activate space. The long thrill of art
history had been a history of activating space. Whole museums could be renamed
Museums of Space Activation. Whether or not he was right, and he might have been,
it was my opinion that the use of such a remedial phrase in front of my burgeoning art
was disappointing and corny, if not totally offensive, because I am not a moron, nor
was I then unfamiliar with what is formally required of painters at the most basic
level. From my point of view, the goal of young artists was not so much to activate
rectangles as to secure guest spots at curators’ summerhouses so that they might
pursue carefree lives of leisure on someone else’s dime, cultivating themselves in
service to style without working to afford it. I believed that young artists must do this
so that eventually they could find the time and energy to make something worthy and
good——paintings of outstanding stylistic quality that would redeem their debt to
society, accrued during countless unemployable hours spent admiring other stylish
things of outstanding quality.
The curator left without mentioning the summerhouse. He didn’t mention summer at
all, and we haven’t spoken since. All of this bums me out, because eventually I
finished school and became free to toil on my own in relative poverty while he gets to
enjoy a reputation just by looking at art, organizing shows, and categorizing the work
of art as a hackneyed conceptual task. In retrospect, the real bummer of the afternoon
was that I’d unsuccessfully sucked up to this person.
In Messy View, a 2013 painting by Jamian Juliano-Villani, the artist is depicted
hosting a hectic studio visit for another professional, presumably a critic, curator,
collector or gallerist, who is shown wearing sunglasses and smoking a pipe. A kind of
self-portrait in action, the painting shows Juliano-Villani looking lithe, wired, yet
brimming with poise on a stage, pointing to a canvas with the word “ANGER”
scrawled across it in red. She is as much on display for her visitor as her work is. The
visitor smokes and yaps about what is certainly another hackneyed concept. A prison
yard firing squad is visible just outside the studio window. It is unclear at whom they
take aim.
Contemporary art is a field delineated by its utter lack of limits. MFA programs
purport to teach young artists about the best, most correct manner of doing whatever
they want to do, how best to build a theoretical justification for literally whatever,
even if it’s something totally absurd to stop and think about, thus streamlining the
curricula to provide young people with a dozen or so possible modes or schools or
categories in which to fit their experiences, which by nature must vary from person to
person. When your field demands that you do something peculiar to your own talents
or insights, to give art audiences something to look at so that they can determine what
you’re made of and judge or reward you for it, MFA programs cannot do much to
help the type of person who does not already know what they want to do. I hesitate to
say it but I might be right. MFA programs seem to prey on young artists’ insecurities,
heightened by the unavoidable reality of the job: that you must take whatever it is you
want to make and find its nearest match on a list of this year’s potential options for au
courant aesthetic activity. That, or you pick an existing option and copy it while
claiming you are doing the opposite (“controverting”). After you find or copy your
thing, you must commit to making your thing perfect. Then you must sell your thing
to people who do nothing except look at things, like collectors and curators. This is a
daunting task and makes a lot of people nervous.
God only knows what this MFA status is personally worth, besides student loan debt
and a ticket to the thesis show lottery, where a tiny handful of winners are
“discovered” and made for life, or at least for the next five years.
To ease such nerves, the academy lures students with the promise of status, conferred
upon new artists as a charm against meritocracy. God only knows what this MFA
status is personally worth, besides student loan debt and a ticket to the thesis show
lottery, where a tiny handful of winners are “discovered” and made for life, or at least
for the next five years. The other institutional promise is that if you do find yourself
too insecure or unsuccessful to do whatever you want, at least with an MFA you’re
allowed to teach [insert laugh track], so why not just get the damn thing.
Jamian Juliano-Villani never applied to graduate school. Instead, the 28-year-old
painter of Messy View, Midnight Snack, Wavy Fox, and other phantasmagorias spent
time as an assistant to the artists Erik Parker and Dana Schutz in New York, after a
rough coming-of-age in New Jersey. Though early adulthood proved very tough, due
to circumstances she prefers not to discuss, she grew up to earn a BFA from Rutgers,
NJ’s largest public university, where she studied sculpture and art history. When she
was hired by Parker and Schutz, at age 25, she did not know how to paint——beyond
having learned a handful of rudimentary skills——but was determined to pick up a
ton of technique on the job. The impetus wasn’t just creative, but also pragmatic. She
figured she’d better learn fast or get fired. She had also never seen a pro efficiently
manage a studio, or watched firsthand as an artist made ambitious, visionary, highquality work. Tasked with copy work for Parker, or color-mixing for Schutz, she
gained access to paint’s many mysteries, including: the expressive malleability of line
within composition; the communicative potential of symbols and signs; the
psychedelic pleasure of loud, unblushing color. If grad school provides students with
a crucible for inquiry and critique, Parker and Schutz provided Juliano-Villani with a
different——but no less valuable——environment in which to observe what it takes
to be an artist, as well as to gain the time and experience necessary to measure her
aptitude for becoming one herself.
During the two years she spent as Parker’s full-time assistant and Schutz’s part-time
color mixer, Juliano-Villani would go home to Bed-Stuy and paint all night before
returning to work the following day, often without sleeping. As I understand it, this is
a difficult habit to break, and she will still paint for days without rest. She was, and is,
obsessed by her personal visions.
Painting discourse is fraught with problems that nobody knows how to solve. In
grad school, the young artist learns how to read about them. Strong leftist characters
will occasionally say that painting is a capitalist market-driven luxury commodity and
therefore corrupted, suspicious for being reactionary. Other times, painting is derided
as a retro caprice made redundant by photography, digital video, the Internet, Apple
hardware, and Adobe software. Or, a critic will publish something about how a
certain abstract painting recasts optics for the information age, something to do with a
puppy being not quite a puppy but, like, a screen-capture of a puppy made with paint
and fitted onto canvas, only to find that readers are bored by his claims because only a
handful of people ever cared about the puppy in the first place. Meanwhile, concerned
theorists get in a tizzy about other deaths, namely the deaths of authorship, originality,
and mastery, as if any of these are things most artists will ever in their lives get to
claim. I’ve also heard that paintings are undemocratic because they encourage passive
viewing habits, or else because paintings are non-engaging and thus anti-social——as
if we all don’t live in major metropolises where the socializing never ends, and no one
feels like voting at election time.
Since everyone likes busting a cliché, the Death of Painting has opened the field
thereof to some brilliant practitioners.
After decades of theoretical nonsense, all of it leading nowhere, the art world has
finally stopped telling painters that painting is dead. Up until recently, a century’s
worth of bad times mixed with critical academicism as well as an apocalypse always
just around the corner made for almost-convincing rhetoric within a discipline clearly
marked by lack thereof, but no longer. Rumors of and/or concerns over the “Death of
Painting,” much like those of and/or over the “Death of the Novel,” have aged poorly,
becoming cliché. Since everyone likes busting a cliché, the field is once again wide
open to some brilliant practitioners. Yet few are riding the shift of discursive opinion
in painting’s favor as high as is Jamian Juliano-Villani. After she went from full-time
assistant and part-time painter to full-time-and-then-some painter in 2013, the New
York art scene watched as she cut through a miasma of whack abstraction to make a
truly glittering entrance.
Juliano-Villani got a lot of attention last year for at least three things:
1. Her paintings, which in addition to being stunningly lurid are often characterized
by a blurred-motion sense of doom. Hers is the success of survival, of speeding away
from unspecified horror or threat. She embraces long, punishing hours of work.
Borne by insomnia, the results are also symptomatic of post-traumatic stress disorder.
For Juliano-Villani, “restless” isn’t a metaphor. She literally doesn’t sleep much. Yet
her attitude toward sleeplessness is surprisingly self-helpful: if she’s awake for her
nightmare, she can get it onto canvas, maybe achieve some catharsis.
In this manner, Juliano-Villani’s paintings activate space more than adequately. I
would say that they are wonderful activations of space, even when the conditions of
their making cause concern for the artist’s well-being. Borrowing from all manner of
dated cartoons, esoteric avant-gardes, and otherwise formerly pop and/or niche
material, she contorts only the weirdest shit into vices of unreality. The thrills they
affect are complex: perilous, splashy, and hard-earned with a sick sense of humor.
She spends days Googling. At least 20 hours of research go in before she starts on
each painting. When I visit her studio, she likes to show me the odd lists she scribbles
on scrap paper, each containing the names of cultural items she plans to appropriate
for reference in a particular painting. The lists look like drawings or text pieces, while
also maintaining the coherence of a discipline, as if they were flowcharts. She only
listens to reggae, which helps her stay calm, and images from favorite reggae records
often sneak onto the canvas. Without much of a plan beyond the playlist, JulianoVillani composes elements of color, shape, pattern, and action, involving sets of
cartoon characters in odd rooms or impossible outdoor settings. Then she screws up
and skews it all whenever she feels it is necessary.
2. Her project, both enhanced by and contrasted with her unschooled mien, which
suggests she would never refer to her paintings as “her project.” A central question
Juliano-Villani’s work poses is: what do images communicate beyond their initial,
commercial state, after they are acquired, warped, exaggerated, recombined and
contextualized by an individual, subjective imagination? To complicate this: what
happens to found imagery after it is absorbed by someone working out of trauma?
Jamian’s solution is to romp headlong through a catalog of damaging experiences,
endured and transmuted by a fragile, resilient psyche.
There is a painting from her September 2013 solo debut at Rawson Projects in
Brooklyn titled The Devil’s Cookbook that encapsulates her project particularly well.
In it, Satan speeds into the kitchen and attends to a flaming pot of green and purple
soup. His long, wagging tongue is twisted up behind him. A pair of hand weights rests
on his kitchen workstation, as do salt ‘n’ pepper shakers and an onion, alongside a
broken harp (suggesting that Heaven’s righteousness is still totally over). Satan’s
cookbook rests on the table, open to a page illustrating olives on a platter, while some
kind of subservient femmebot offers up vegetables to the dark lord. The table extends
downward on a diagonal to form a diamond shape in the rectangular frame, receding
space touched with subtle gradients. In the background an interracial couple makes
extreme eye contact, and even further beyond, a pastel-hued landscape materializes to
include a horde of marchers in an ominous congregation. I don’t know why they’re
marching, but I’m ill at ease anyway.
The Devil’s Cookbook was the best painting in that exhibition, for it showed what
Juliano-Villani is capable of doing with authority and joy. It harnesses a kind of
narrative velocity I would describe as “irresponsible without being reckless.” The
destination——if there is one——is a fright to correct thinking and taste, a
thoroughly developed mania for epicurean pleasure acquired by whatever mixed-up
ill means were available to the artist in her time. Under all the crazy crap in here,
there isn’t a single scrap of paper that wonders how the painting will be discoursed.
3. Her gender expression, most voluble as a total disdain for feminism and “feminine”
painting. Last year, in keeping with said irresponsibility, Juliano-Villani told more
than one interviewer about how she doesn’t like art that discusses what it means to be
a woman, a topic she would have been made to grapple with in probably any MFA
program. Her attitude toward feminism seems uncharitable at best and ungrateful at
worst, yet when you think about the women artists she’d have to thank——mostly
very educated, middle-to-upper-class women who’d have scorned her style and
influences, if not painting altogether, as old-fashioned, masculinist bullshit——you
start to feel a little more understanding. Unlike her fellow young female artists,
particularly among the 89plus set, there's no way in Hell she's going to perform sex or
gender with her work, or her Instagram, let alone her persona. The most she’s done is
comb her hair or get her teeth fixed to appease a standard of femininity, and even
that's a sore subject. The feminine in art just doesn't compute, because she gets by all
right without needing it. She doesn’t like to talk about appearances. She likes to talk
trash with the guys. She's rude and she's out to compete.
Basically uninterested in credentials, Juliano-Villani views feminism the same way
she’d view any other -ism: as a set of ideological rules by which, were she to play, she
might win accreditation or acclaim totally unrelated to her actual talent or ideas, never
mind her background or life experience. She prefers scrappier conflicts in which
anyone can enjoy the action. She’s got enormous heart. Her paintings, far from
undemocratic, fight battles of iconography along classically sophisticated lines of
composition, like those found in Marvel comics or Renaissance art. Everything is
colored with a gross-out palette, connecting her likewise to a lineage that includes
Hanna-Barbera, MAD Magazine, 1980s train graffiti, her former bosses Dana Schutz
and Erik Parker, and Peter Saul, preeminent cartoon fabulist.
But Juliano-Villani’s sense of an endgame is what energizes the work with a
competitive edge and moves it a touch outside history. In The Devil’s Cookbook, she
imagines Satan prepping for the apocalypse, everybody’s last day on earth. He is seen
taking care to make that final supper for himself, or for a prisoner, or the artist… who
knows? His cookbook with the olives, I do know, is a nod to Victor Feguer, a vagrant
convicted of murder in 1963 and the last man ever hanged in Iowa. Juliano-Villani
tells me she felt inspired after reading about Feguer on the Internet, in particular about
the meal he requested before his execution: one olive with the stone still inside it. Her
painting embellishes the tale of a bad man who made time for attitude and wit before
dying and heading to Hell.
The September show at Rawson Projects secured serious interest in Juliano-Villani.
Collectors and dealers of emerging art wanted to meet her, and elder painters were
eager to know her. She followed up with a series of well-executed appearances in solo
and group exhibitions, including a notable three-person show that featured her work
alongside Parker’s and Saul’s at Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea. And in the spring
of this year, she presented a large triptych made for 247365 Gallery’s booth at the
NADA Art Fair in New York——her largest work to date, as well as something of a
departure in style.
Some Deaths Take Forever (2014) was actually less a triptych than a wrap-around
viewing experience in photorealist 3-D, covering all three walls of the booth. The
leftmost canvas features a hand wearing a metallic knit glove grasping a red candle
that has just been blown out on a black background. Airbrushed smoke ribbons trail
up from the extinguished wick and float over onto the central panel. A new candle is
lit on the third, rightmost section. Lots of art history-minded fairgoers saw the candles
as a reference to Gerhard Richter’s famous candle paintings, but in fact JulianoVillani lifted the image from the cover of a 1980 record, also named Some Deaths
Take Forever, that was composed by Bernard Szajner as a tribute to Amnesty
International. At one time, it may have been meant to soundtrack a possible film
about prisoners on death row. The album is intense, angular, experimental, and
largely forgotten.
Do all painters feel like they are living on death row? The size of the NADA booth
was roughly identical to that of an Alcatraz prison cell, a 72 x 108" footprint. Making
work that married the context of an art fair to the idea of life in that cell seemed to
Juliano-Villani like a concise conceptual move, interesting to her as a decision that
could elevate the paintings to a level of appreciation beyond what she’d shown in the
same context one year prior (she included two small paintings with a group of other
artists presented by Rawson).
But Some Deaths Take Forever also became a comment on how painting insists on
not dying, and furthermore isn't afraid to. People keep on painting even though its
death has been widely, loudly publicized, encoded into discourse, refuted only to be
resurrected and re-publicized, discussed and dissected at length in art schools before
being rendered in a fog of suspicion.
Juliano-Villani entered the scene, did well, then capped off the season by activating
the space within three sides of an art fair booth, leaving a window wide open into her
world. In doing so, she employed the form of a representational, even religiously
oriented triptych about infinite death——Death that will not finalize until forever
comes to an end. It’s a cheeky way to declare her enterprise already dead, since for
her it’s been about the fear of injury, anguish, and the grave all along. Moving on,
ready for painting’s next apocalypse, she is savvy enough to include a caveat: she’ll
be finished when forever is over.
The 2013-14 season was her breakout, but Juliano-Villani and painting will be dying,
together, for a long time. If her debut year leads to a long career, the kind of career
that sets an example for future generations of ambitious young artists, enrollment at
art school grad departments may suffer. This is too bad, but not really. Juveniles like
Jamian with chips on their shoulders to rival the size of their hearts aren’t mistaken if
they believe that good art has a shot at withstanding mortality, and that
obsequiousness to academia isn’t the only way to make it. They may find that when
they dream at night, it is not of discourse. Instead, they dream of whatever they want.
Images, top to bottom:
1. Jamian Juliano-Villani, photographed at home by Sam McKinniss.
2. Some Deaths Take Forever, acrylic on canvas, 2014, courtesy the artist and
247365 Gallery.
3. The Devil's Cookbook, acrylic on canvas, 2013, courtesy the artist and Rawson
Projects.
4. Messy View, acrylic on canvas, 2013, courtesy the artist and Retrospective.
mousse 44 ~ Jamian Juliano-Villani
THE POWER OF ILLUSTRATION
B Y J O N AT H A N G R I F F I N
jona
your p
jamian
shit that I l
“paper cuts
angle. Each
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Warner Br
aesthetics.
from the 6
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use Disney
who I feel
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can, and th
ing to make
jg: jjv: W
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ments from
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I’m after. I
and are tra
hyper-spec
jg: it is rea
obscur
jjv: T
James Ros
needs to fi
interests ar
The riotous, lurid paintings of Jamian Juliano-Villani
speak in a language familiar from popular culture,
but they articulate things never dreamt even by the
most twisted imagination. Aliens having sex, suicidal
trousers, and deviant Japanese river imps are just a few
of the images that populate her paintings. Despite her
work’s irreverent tone, Juliano-Villani is involved in a
serious, introspective exploration of her own psyche, of
the ethics of appropriation, and of the possibilities for
contemporary painting.
jg: derstan
jjv: W
then I’d co
see them. S
up they we
think I’m ju
jg: jjv: I
skipped gra
art should
the test of
to be anyth
good, or v
all full of sh
jg: paintin
jjv: I
abstraction
much more
not open-e
Above - Midnight Snack, 2013.
Courtesy: Rawson Projects,
New York
Right - Wavy Fox, 2014.
Courtesy: Retrospective
Gallery, New York
jg: explici
264
Mousse, Summer 2014
her
na
he, of
s for
mousse 44 ~ Jamian Juliano-Villani
jonathan griffin: At the risk of sounding facetious, where do
your paintings come from?
jamian juliano-villani: Well, first of all, I just want to paint
shit that I like. So I make lists. Words like “scarecrow in an empty cornfield” or
“paper cuts” or “martial arts.” I’ll try to think about them from a psychological
angle. Each painting requires about twenty hours of research, looking for the
ideal references on how to represent these hyper-specific things. I don’t do any
sketches, at all. It makes it stale. I try not to edit—the paintings are purely additive—and I don’t use Photoshop. I don’t know how! The whole point is that
I want to marry these things together that aren’t really supposed to be there, so
they all have to be from the same hand.
jg: But you’re copying other people’s hands too.
jjv: Sure. I might use a Chuck Jones animation background that he did for
Warner Bros. I love obscure animation too. Each country has its own cartoon
aesthetics. Hungary has a rich history of really progressive, fucked up animation
from the 60s and 70s; Marcell Jankovics did some amazing stuff… especially
Sisyphus (1974). Ralph Bakshi, too, in the U.S.—he’s the fucking man. I’d never
use Disney though. The references I use are generally from people I admire,
who I feel need to be re-evaluated or recontextualized. It’s this simultaneous
exploitation and homage. I’m trying to make the most emotive paintings that I
can, and the most personal, but through other people’s voices. Because I’m trying to make really populist images. If it’s just coming from me, it doesn’t count.
jg: So are your references intended to be recognized by the viewer?
jjv: Well they’re iconic. But they’re removed just a little bit. They’re like
something that you knew from childhood but you can’t quite place. Sometimes
you just recognize the time period. My parents were commercial printers, so I
grew up looking at all this weird graphic design from the 70s and 80s. Advertisements from that time were so much more effective because there was less fluff.
They communicated more directly. But it’s not some sepia vision of kitsch that
I’m after. I’m drawn to references that are self-aware, follow a specific agenda,
and are transparent. I feel most art runs away from its references. I’d like to be
hyper-specific about what I’m taking in.
jjv: They’re not just meant for the art world though. I hate these highbrow
/ lowbrow distinctions, because they imply taste, and class. I’m just trying to use
things that my little brother gets, and the Verizon guy who comes to my studio
gets. My paintings are meant to function like TV, in a way. The viewer is supposed to become passive. Instead of alluding or whispering, like a lot of art does,
this is art that tells you what’s up. It kind of does the work for you, like TV does.
jg: A number of your paintings, like Midnight Snack (2013), deal with
racial stereotypes in ways that could make some people uncomfortable. Can
we talk about that?
jjv: Yes, please! In that painting, you’ve got these black characters taken
from a Ralph Bakshi animation, and hands representing white guilt reaching out
of the freezer compartment. The whole thing with Bakshi was that he was attacking these racial stereotypes in his work, but it was so progressive that his intent
got confused. He was white and Jewish. But actually he grew up in Brooklyn,
had a black girlfriend, went to a predominantly black school. This was his life.
It’s really not about race; it’s about real world shit. And because I’m white and
I’m a girl, people assume it’s a parody or trope of racism. It’s not. This isn’t a
bullshit excuse, but a reason. I was raised largely by black women. My parents
are from Newark, and I worked and played in their silk-screening factory there.
The people who worked there looked after me. But it’s also like, there are black
people in the world; why the fuck wouldn’t I paint them? What the fuck is postrace? Everyone’s such a pussy, walking on eggshells. And for the most part, the
only time that black artists are recognized is because they’re doing something in
a white world. That’s bullshit.
jg: Is that comparable to your problems with feminism?
jjv: Yes, I feel that being a feminist artist is too singular, and polarizes your
audience. You get acknowledgment for doing something in a “man’s world.”
When I paint women, I paint them the way they are viewed through the lens
of westernized visual culture. Big tits, big ass, lots of hair. Because that’s what
we expect women to look like, or our subconscious does: it stereotypes them,
much like we do with anything that isn’t male and white. Instead of dodging the
subject by painting asexual waifs on a beach, I’d rather confront these things and
play them out so they are total non-issues.
jg: There’s an interesting paradox in your work in that, on the one hand,
it is really graphic and quickly legible, and on the other it can be extremely
obscure in its references and confusing in its narrative.
jjv: The thing that prevents the work becoming an emptier version of a
James Rosenquist collage is the narrative. That’s where I come in. Something
needs to filter out what gets used and what doesn’t, so my personal taste and
interests are always first, references second.
jg: Do you ever feel like you’re making things you don’t completely understand yourself?
jjv: Well for a long time I was working for other artists, 40 hours a week;
then I’d come home and do my own paintings, and I figured no one would ever
see them. So I painted whatever I wanted. And only later I realized how fucked
up they were. And they’re extremely personal. I must seem fucking crazy! I
think I’m just really angry.
jg: What about?
jjv: I guess I’m angry because I’ve felt alienated by art. I went to school,
skipped grad school and never felt a sense of kinship with my peers about what
art should be. I’ve always felt pretty alone in that regard. So many things pass
the test of what is “good” or “bad,” and I’m frustrated that there doesn’t seem
to be anything beyond that polarization. What the fuck even makes something
good, or valuable? I don’t know, do you? I just want everyone to admit we’re
all full of shit.
jg: With your new triptych, Some Deaths Take Forever (2014)—your
largest work to date, which is done in a more photorealist style than your
other paintings—are you thinking about the categories of high versus low,
or major versus minor genres?
jjv: Well, it’s funny because everyone thinks I make these really fucked
up crazy cartoons. The thing is, I don’t really like cartoons. I like what they do.
I like that the black line is really legible. It’s about ethics. I’m not doing these
paintings because I like painting. I don’t. I’m making them because I want people to look at painting differently. It’s about privilege, what art is, how people
understand art. It’s about the Other; it’s about why some things are recognized
and other things not.
jg: Can you explain a bit about the painting?
jjv: It’s based on the cover of an album from 1980 by Bernard Szajner, who
I’ve known since we collaborated on a video when I was an undergrad. He was
the inventor of the laser harp, which was used by Jean-Michel Jarre in the first
post-Mao concert in China. Bernard gave him permission to use it, but Jarre
never credited him, and so Bernard disowned his invention. These issues around
copyright, ownership and authenticity are important to me—everything I do
involves appropriation of references—but this was also just because Bernard
and I are friends. The album, Some Deaths Take Forever, was put out by Amnesty
International in support of prisoners on death row. Each of the three panels of
the painting is the size of a cell at Alcatraz. On the left panel, I’ve repainted the
image of a hand holding an extinguished candle from the album. But then I’ve
added smoke, and on the right is a new, lit candle.
jg: You’ve said in the past that you don’t believe that contemporary
painting has any obligation to acknowledge its own history.
jjv: I think making paintings about painting—especially about historical
abstraction—is way too self-indulgent and masturbatory. I think illustration is
much more powerful. Illustration actually gives you something. It’s not lofty, it’s
not open-ended, it’s not bullshit, it’s explicit. Art’s already alienating enough.
jg: But aren’t your paintings also open-ended, no matter how graphic or
explicit they are?
jg: I’m really interested in the tension in your work between your selflessness—your homages to other artists, your collaborations, and the lack of
a single distinctive aesthetic—and then, on the other hand, how everything
gets filtered through your subjectivity. You’re even putting yourself in some
of your paintings.
jjv: I’m really explicit about my references, and I archive them all, for every painting. One day I hope to do a book in which they’re all listed alongside
the paintings. Plus each person takes different things. The things I use are hyperspecific to my interests and to me.
265
mousse 44 ~ Jamian Juliano-Villani
I dipinti s
Villani si s
veniente
cose che
ta avrebb
pantaloni
giappones
popolano
rente della
in una se
psiche, su
sibilità de
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to, da d
Jamian Ju
semplicem
cui prepar
passeri in
da carta” o
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così da tro
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re modific
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mano.
JG: P
mani a
JJV: Cer
va dello s
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mi piaccio
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realizzato
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userei ma
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Above - Some Deaths Take Forever, 2013.
Courtesy: the artist and 247365, New York
Right:
In The Zen Garden, 2014.
Courtesy Marlborough Chelsea, New York
Before Supper, 2014.
Courtesy: Retrospective Gallery, New York
Below:
Tony Tuff, 2014. After Midnight, 2014.
Untitled, 2014. All works: Courtesy:
Retrospective Gallery, New York
JG: I
per ess
JJV: Beh
distanziam
vamo qua
ciamo fati
riconoscia
tori erano
do sotto g
anni Setta
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la sensazio
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JG: C
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JJV: Que
ti una ver
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tervengo i
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266
THE POWER OF ILLUSTRATION
di Jonathan Griffin
I dipinti sfrenati e sgargianti di Jamian JulianoVillani si servono di un linguaggio familiare, proveniente dalla cultura popolare, ma parlano di
cose che nemmeno l’immaginazione più contorta avrebbe mai partorito. Alieni che fanno sesso,
pantaloni “suicidi” e perversi folletti dei fiumi
giapponesi sono solo alcune delle immagini che
popolano i suoi quadri. Nonostante il tono irriverente della sua opera, Juliano-Villani è impegnata
in una seria indagine introspettiva sulla propria
psiche, sull’etica dell’appropriazione e sulle possibilità della pittura contemporanea.
Jonathan Griffin: A rischio di sembrare faceto, da dove nascono i tuoi dipinti?
Jamian Juliano-Villani: Beh, innanzitutto voglio
semplicemente dipingere roba che mi piace. Per
cui preparo degli elenchi. Parole come “spaventapasseri in un campo di granturco deserto” o “tagli
da carta” o “arti marziali”. A quel punto cerco di riflettere su di essi da un punto di vista psicologico.
Ciascun dipinto richiede circa venti ore di ricerca,
così da trovare i riferimenti ideali per rappresentare queste cose iperspecifiche. Non faccio mai
schizzi preparatori, perché fanno sì che il prodotto
finale risulti stantio. Cerco anche di non apportare modifiche – i dipinti procedono esclusivamente
per aggiunte successive – e non uso Photoshop.
Non saprei come farlo! Il punto è che voglio mettere insieme cose che, in realtà, non dovrebbero trovarsi lì, per cui devono provenire tutte dalla stessa
mano.
JG: Però copi anche ciò che è stato fatto da
mani altrui.
JJV: Certo. Per esempio, è possibile che mi serva dello sfondo di un cartone animato che Chuck
Jones ha disegnato per la Warner Bros. Inoltre
mi piacciono le animazioni dall’atmosfera cupa e
misteriosa. Ogni paese ha la propria estetica per
quanto riguarda i cartoni animati. L’Ungheria ha
una ricca tradizione progressista nel settore dell’animazione, davvero fuori di testa, che risale agli
anni Sessanta e Settanta: Marcell Jankovics ha
realizzato cose straordinarie... in particolar modo
Sisyphus (1974). E poi c’è anche Ralph Bakshi negli
Stati Uniti, lui sì che è dannatamente bravo. Non
userei mai i cartoni animati della Disney però. Di
solito mi servo di riferimenti a persone che ammiro e che ritengo che debbano essere rivalutate e ricontestualizzate. Si tratta, al tempo stesso, di uno
sfruttamento e di un omaggio. Il mio tentativo è
quello di produrre quadri che siano il più possibile
personali e capaci di generare emozioni, ma attraverso le voci di altre persone, perché sto provando
a creare immagini davvero populiste. Se proviene
tutto solamente da me non conta.
JG: I tuoi riferimenti, pertanto, sono pensati
per essere colti dallo spettatore?
JJV: Beh, sono iconici, ma c’è anche un certo
distanziamento. Ricordano qualcosa che conoscevamo quando eravamo bambini, ma che ora facciamo fatica a collocare con precisione. A volte ne
riconosciamo semplicemente l’epoca. I miei genitori erano stampatori, per cui sono cresciuta avendo sotto gli occhi questi strani progetti grafici degli
anni Settanta e Ottanta. Le pubblicità a quel tempo erano molto più efficaci perché c’erano meno
sciocchezze. Comunicavano in modo più diretto.
Tuttavia ciò che vado cercando non è qualche visione in seppia del kitsch. Ad attrarmi sono i riferimenti consapevoli di sé, che seguono un programma e hanno delle finalità e che sono trasparenti. Ho
la sensazione che la maggior parte dell’arte fugga i
suoi riferimenti. Io, invece, vorrei essere iperspecifica riguardo alle cose a cui attingo.
JG: C’è un interessante paradosso nel tuo lavoro nel fatto che, da un lato, sia davvero esplicito e immediatamente leggibile e, dall’altro,
possa essere estremamente oscuro per quanto
concerne i riferimenti e disorientante per quanto riguarda la modalità narrativa.
JJV: Quello che impedisce che l’opera diventi una versione più vuota di un collage di James
Rosenquist è la componente narrativa. È qui che intervengo io. Serve qualcosa che faccia da filtro per
ciò che viene utilizzato e ciò che non lo è, per cui
il mio gusto e i miei interessi personali vengono
sempre al primo posto e i riferimenti al secondo.
riconosciuti è perché stanno facendo qualcosa in
un mondo bianco. Sono tutte stronzate.
JG: Hai mai la sensazione di creare lavori che
nemmeno tu riesci a comprendere completamente?
JG: È un po’ come con i tuoi problemi con il
femminismo?
JJV: Beh, per molto tempo ho lavorato per altri
artisti, quaranta ore alla settimana; poi tornavo a
casa e realizzavo i miei dipinti e pensavo che nessuno li avrebbe mai visti. Per cui dipingevo tutto
ciò che volevo. Solo più tardi mi sono resa conto di
quanto fossero fuori di testa. E sono anche molto
personali. Devo sembrare completamente pazza!
In realtà credo di essere solamente molto arrabbiata.
JG: Per cosa?
JJV: Credo di essere arrabbiata perché mi sono
sentita alienata dall’arte. Sono andata a scuola,
non ho frequentato la scuola di specializzazione e
non ho mai sentito una reale affinità con i miei colleghi su che cosa dovesse essere l’arte. In tal senso mi sono sempre sentita molto sola. Mi provoca
frustrazione il fatto che non si riesca a superare
la polarizzazione “buona” e “cattiva” nell’analisi di
un’opera. Cosa accidenti determina se una cosa è
valida? Io non lo so, e tu? Voglio solamente che
ammettiamo che ci hanno riempiti tutti di stronzate.
JG: In passato hai detto che non credi che
l’arte contemporanea abbia alcun obbligo di
riconoscere la propria storia.
JJV: Penso che realizzare dipinti che trattano di
dipinti – e in particolare di astrazione storica – rappresenti un atteggiamento di gran lunga troppo
autoindulgente e masturbatorio. Credo che l’illustrazione sia molto più potente. L’illustrazione, in
realtà, ci offre qualcosa. Non è elevata, non è indefinita, non è piena di stronzate, è esplicita. L’arte è
già abbastanza alienante.
JG: Ma i tuoi dipinti non sono anch’essi indefiniti, indipendentemente da quanto siano vividi o espliciti?
JJV: Sì, però non sono pensati solo per il mondo dell’arte. Odio le distinzioni tra highbrow e
lowbrow, perché implicano i concetti di gusto e di
classe. Cerco solamente di usare cose che il mio
fratellino possa capire così come il tizio della Verizon che viene nel mio studio. I miei dipinti sono
pensati per funzionare come la TV in un certo senso. Si suppone che lo spettatore diventi un soggetto passivo. Invece di alludere o di sussurrare,
come fa gran parte dell’arte, questa è arte che dice
che cosa sta accadendo. In un certo senso fa tutto
il lavoro al posto tuo, proprio come la TV.
JG: Molti dei tuoi quadri, come Midnight
Snack (2013), trattano degli stereotipi razziali servendosi di modalità che potrebbero far
sentire a disagio alcune persone. Possiamo
parlarne?
JJV: Sì, per favore! In quel quadro vi sono dei
personaggi neri tratti da un cartone animato di
Ralph Bakshi e vi sono delle mani, che rappresentano il senso di colpa dei bianchi, che escono dallo
scomparto del congelatore. Nel suo lavoro Bakshi
voleva attaccare gli stereotipi razziali, ma lo fece in
un modo così rivoluzionario che la sua intenzione
fu fraintesa. Era bianco ed ebreo. Ma era cresciuto
a Brooklyn, aveva una fidanzata nera ed era andato
in una scuola frequentata per lo più da neri. Questa
era la sua vita. Non è questione di razza: è il mondo
reale con tutte le sue stronzate. E siccome io sono
bianca e sono una donna, tutti pensano che si tratti
di una parodia o di una metafora del razzismo. Non
è così. Non è una palla, non mi sto giustificando,
sto spiegando le mie motivazioni. Mi hanno cresciuta in larga parte donne di colore. I miei genitori
sono di Newark e ho lavorato e giocato nell’azienda di serigrafia che possedevano laggiù. Le persone che ci lavoravano badavano a me. Ma ci sono
anche persone nere nel mondo: perché accidenti
non dovrei ritrarle? Che accidenti vuol dire postrazziale? Sono tutti delle pappamolle, è come se
camminassero sulle uova. E nella maggior parte
dei casi, le uniche volte in cui gli artisti neri sono
267
JJV: Sì, mi sembra che essere un’artista femminista sia eccessivamente limitante e che polarizzi il
pubblico. Si ottiene un riconoscimento per il fatto
di fare qualcosa in un “mondo di uomini”. Quando dipingo delle donne, le dipingo nel modo in cui
sono viste attraverso la lente della cultura visiva
occidentalizzata. Tette grandi, culo grande e tanti
capelli. Perché è questo l’aspetto che ci aspettiamo che le donne abbiano o che il nostro inconscio
si aspetta che abbiano: sono ritratte come stereotipi, esattamente come accade con qualsiasi cosa
che non sia maschile e bianca. Invece di eludere
l’argomento ritraendo bambinelli asessuati su
una spiaggia, preferisco affrontare queste cose e
portarle fino all’estremo, fino a farle diventare dei
non-problemi.
JG: Con il tuo nuovo trittico, Some Deaths
Take Forever (2014) – la tua opera più grande
fino a questo momento, realizzata in uno stile
più fotorealistico degli altri tuoi dipinti – stai
riflettendo sulle categorie di alto e basso o sui
generi principali rispetto a quelli minori?
JJV: Beh, è buffo perché tutti pensano che io realizzi questi cartoni animati folli, fuori di testa. Il
fatto è che in realtà a me non piacciono i cartoni
animati. Mi piace quello che fanno. Mi piace il fatto
che la linea nera sia leggibile. È una questione di
etica. Non realizzo questi dipinti perché mi piace
dipingere. Non è così. Li realizzo perché voglio che
le persone guardino la pittura in modo diverso. Ha
a che fare con il privilegio, con che cosa è l’arte e
con il modo in cui la gente la comprende. Ha a che
vedere con l’Altro, con il perché alcune cose sono
riconosciute e altre non lo sono.
JG: Puoi fornire qualche spiegazione sul dipinto?
JJV: Si basa sulla copertina di un album del 1980
di Bernard Szajner, che conosco da quando abbiamo collaborato a un video mentre frequentavo
l’università. Lui era l’inventore dell’arpa laser, che
fu utilizzata da Jean-Michel Jarre nel primo concerto in Cina post-Mao. Bernard gli diede il permesso di usarla, ma Jarre non gli riconobbe mai
il merito, per cui Bernard sconfessò la sua invenzione. Queste questioni riguardo al copyright, alla
proprietà e all’autenticità sono importanti per me
– tutto ciò che faccio comporta un’appropriazione
di riferimenti – ma questo è semplicemente dovuto
anche al fatto che Bernard ed io siamo amici. L’album Some Deaths Take Forever fu distribuito da
Amnesty International a sostegno dei prigionieri
detenuti nei bracci della morte. Ciascuno dei tre
pannelli del dipinto ha le dimensioni di una cella
di Alcatraz. Sul pannello sinistro ho ridipinto l’immagine di una mano che regge una candela spenta che si trovava nell’album. Ma poi ho aggiunto il
fumo e sulla destra c’è una candela nuova, accesa.
JG: Mi interessa molto la tensione, che è presente nel tuo lavoro, tra il tuo altruismo – i tuoi
omaggi ad altri artisti, le tue collaborazioni e la
mancanza di una singola estetica distintiva – e,
dall’altra parte, il fatto che tutto sia filtrato dalla
tua soggettività. Arrivi perfino a ritrarti in alcuni dei tuoi quadri.
JJV: I miei riferimenti sono molto espliciti e li
metto tutti in archivio, per ognuno dei dipinti. Spero, un giorno, di realizzare un libro in cui saranno
tutti elencati accanto ai dipinti. Inoltre ogni persona prende cose diverse. Le cose che adopero io
sono iperspecifiche dei miei interessi e di me.
GALLERIES
Eli Ping Preps New Gallery,
247365 Takes Space for
Manhattan Outpost
BY ANDREW RUSSETH
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Young artist-run galleries are on the move.
After showing work by a number of promising
artists for the past year and a half in one of
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Manhattan’s smaller spaces (and also one of
the trickier to spot from the street—it was in a
Lower East Side basement), artist and art
dealer Eli Ping is moving a few blocks
southeast. In March, he plans to open in a
Installation view of Amanda Friedman’s 2012 show at Eli
Ping. (Courtesy the artist and Eli Ping)
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Street, the building that Canada gallery made
famous and occupied until last year, when it
decamped for larger digs on Broome Street. (Frances Perkins will also become a name partner,
making the full gallery name Eli Ping Frances Perkins.) Brooklyn upstarts 247365, who have also
been showing the work of emerging artists, in Carroll Gardens’ Donut District, since November of
2012, will take over Mr. Ping’s old location, running it as a second, satellite gallery.
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“The gallery in the basement was 200 square feet,” Mr. Ping told us, of the 131 Eldridge Street
space, where he did shows with Ben Morgan-Cleveland, Mariah Dekkenga, Elizabeth Jaeger and
others. “It was a great place for us to start, but the new space is 1,000 feet.” About 700 square feet
in the new location will be exhibition space. Another bonus: The new Eli Ping Frances Perkins will
have a good 100 feet of linear drywall versus only about 6 in the old space. (The last show there, a
handsome, austere video piece by duo Steinman and Tear, closed on Sunday.)
is a
Mr. Ping,
in September 2012. “I knew you couldn’t do a second solo show in the basement,” Mr. Ping said of
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the timing. “It had charm but…” Following in April will be a solo outing by Dena Yago.
Jesse Greenberg, who runs 247365 with artist MacGregor Harp, said their Manhattan location will
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focus on solo shows, with broader curatorial efforts continuing at their Carroll Gardens
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headquarters. “It might be a place for artists to rattle their audience, and present something a little
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more unexpected than their recognizable tried and true works,” Mr. Greenberg said.
Those one-person-show plans aside, they’re inaugurating their new Manhattan outpost with a
group show, called “If the Shoe Fits Like a Glove,” which will have work by Sebastian Black,
Marlous Borm, Miles Huston, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Molly Lowe, Club Paint and Bunny Rogers.” It
opens Friday.
ANDREW RUSSETH ON TWITTER OR VIA RSS. [email protected]
GalleristNY, March 2014
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Jamian Juliano-Villani | i like this art
http://ilikethisart.net/?p=17867
i like this art
contemporary art blog
Jamian Juliano-Villani
Sunday, 19 January 2014
1 of 7
3/13/14 1:55 PM
Contemporary Art Blog, January 2014
Jamian Juliano-Villani
Work from “Gamblers Choice” at Retrospective, Hudson.
“Juliano-Villani’s recent work renders hyperaware chaotic scenes in a bright, rich palette.
Informed by a wide range of sources from ancient Eastern art to 1980s American cartoons,
Juliano-Villani resists the notion that all paintings have to be about the history of the medium.
While she may borrow elements and reference work from a range of sources including the
curvaceous women in Ralph Bakshi’s cartoons, she makes use of inherent overstatements in
imagery to play games of role reversal. In several compositions, small accessory objects hold
against
backgrounds of patterned curtains, bold plant life and spilt drinks. Although visually complex and
layered with references, the artist presents control within chaos.” – Retrospective, Hudson
Jamian Juliano-Villani | i like this art
2 of 7
http://ilikethisart.net/?p=17867
3/13/14 1:55 PM
Art Matters | Two Downtown Manhattan Gallerists Join Forc...
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/art-matters-t...
JANUARY 14, 2014, 5:11 PM
Art Matters | Two Downtown Manhattan Gallerists Join Forces Upstate
By DAWN CHAN
Retrospective, the newest art gallery in the hamlet of Hudson, N.Y., inaugurated its
space this past Saturday night with “Gambler’s Choice,” a sold-out show of bright,
cartoon-inflected paintings by the 27-year-old Brooklyn-based artist Jamian JulianoVillani. Seemingly worlds away from the white-cube spaces of Chelsea two hours to
the south, Retrospective features vintage checkerboard floors and a sculptural tree
branch in the bathroom that serves as a toilet paper holder. The project is the
brainchild of the art dealers Zach Feuer and Joel Mesler, fixtures of the New York and
Los Angeles art worlds. Feuer, who moved upstate several years ago and commutes to
his eponymous Chelsea gallery, says he wanted to try something “outside the pressure
cooker.” Even Retrospective’s name alludes to what Mesler, the owner of Untitled
Gallery on the Lower East Side, called the “speed of the art world” — in which younger
and younger artists land exhibitions surveying their already oversize careers. “But
‘Retrospective’ also sounds like an ’80s rock band,” he adds.
The two are clearly having fun with the space. This October, a group of artists will
design a Halloween-themed haunted house. And throughout the year, Retrospective
will host an experimental exhibition space — curated by Tom Eccles, the executive
director of the Center for Curatorial Studies at nearby Bard College — staged in the
one-square-foot gap under a loose tile near the front door.
As Feuer notes, Hudson is already home to many well-known artists, such as Brice
Marden and David Hammons. Some have also set up shop: the former Guggenheim
fellow Nancy Shaver has run Henry, a cult curio store a few blocks down Warren
Street, since 1998; on the same strip, the artist Laleh Khorramian opened the
boutique Laloon last summer. Marina Abramovic, meanwhile, is planning to open a
namesake institute in 2016 in a former theater to be renovated by Rem Koolhaas’s
Office for Metropolitan Architecture. And the town and its environs are seeing an
influx of creatives from across the cultural spectrum. In 2010, the musician Melissa
auf der Maur and the filmmaker Tony Stone opened the performance space Basilica
Hudson in a reclaimed 19th-century factory steps away from the town’s train station;
the celebrated New York chef Zak Pelaccio (Fatty Crab and Fatty ‘Cue) opened a
Hudson restaurant, Fish & Game, last year. “There’s a connoisseurship up here,” says
Mesler. And although opening night marked only his third visit to town, the L.A.-born
New Yorker is already looking to buy a farm in the area. “I want a chicken coop,” he
says. “I want to work hard in the city and sell art, then come up here and play with
chickens.”
1 of 2
3/13/14 2:00 PM
The New York Times Blog, January 2014
Jamian Juliano-Villani Talks Feminism, Art School And Sake
A curvaceous, jet black, aardvark-like vixen puffs on a cigarette while perusing the
contents of a refrigerator, which includes a fish spurting water, a slab of meat topped
with birthday candles, a cyclops turkey sandwich... and possibly a corpse. Welcome
to the world of Jamian Juliano-Villani -- an overstuffed, hyper-saturated flatland full
of toxic leftovers, robust bosoms and exploitation of all shapes and sizes.
Midnight Snack, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
Juliano-Villani is a Brooklyn-based, 26-year-old force to be reckoned with. The ambitious young painter skipped graduate-level art studies in order to work in the studio
of Erik Parker, an artist with a similarly electric palette. Parker's influence is visible in
Juliano-Villani's canvases, mixed with a bit of James Rosenquist's pop sensibility and
Robert Crumb's libido. The frenzied images give the feeling of flipping through the
most gorgeous lineup of Saturday morning cartoons you've ever seen, with all of the
visual stimulation and no hint of resolution.
We reached out to Juliano-Villani to learn more about her current exhibition, and in
the process discussed the pitfalls of art school, the importance of sake and why she
disdains feminism.
Rec Room, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 inches
Cartoons seem to have heavily influenced your work. What were some of your favorites growing up?
Everyone always assumes I loves cartoons. I'm aware the way my paintings look and
my age of 26 (being a child of the 90's) makes that connection. But I'm really not a car-
toon fan. What I do like about them is the way they dictate communication -- their
graphic quality really kills any sort of suggestion of abstraction. I'm all about explicitness; not crude, but legible. I feel painting has gone farther and farther away from expressing yourself and is now all about expressing painting traditions. Who cares
about that?
Heat Wave, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 72 inches
Let's talk about "Heat Wave," because I can't stop looking at it. What is going on
here? Is there a story unfolding or is it straight-up image overload?
Well, the show is called "Me, Myself and Jah", so I started the painting thinking about
what a personal judgement day could look like. Some of the other works in the show,
such as Stoneware [featuring a pile of dishes abandoned for what looks like a long
period of time], Devil's Cookbook [showing the Devil himself flexing and bopping
around, prepping for the last day on Earth, cooking up a pot of M.C. Escher] along
with Bounty Hunter [a painting of a driver, possibly a version of myself, being
chased by unseen bounty hunters, depicting the few seconds before death, in which
you can see the driver's spirit exiting the car right before they get hit with a rocket!]
all relate to the biggest painting, Heat Wave.
Heat Wave is a literal and metaphorical "heat wave" in a sake-bar-cum-strip-club.
Everyone wants to get naked and shed their clothes. The giant snake (the only one
who can actually shed his skin) has his own agenda, eyes on the prize -- a big ass
steak. The central figure, a beautiful black woman, is trying to fan herself off everywhere... under her skirt, her face. The figures on the fan are called Kappa, mythological Japanese water creatures that are prone to bad behavior. The ones I specifically
painted on the fan are lifted from a Japanese sake company that in the '70s made illustrations of Kappa for their campaign to appeal to their American clients. The Kappa have this exploitational look to them. "Japanese" for Americans by Japanese. Such
a total role reversal that the power relationship gets super confusing. I'm all about hierarchies. Heat Wave is an example of that. Nothing is more dominant than the other,
visually or culturally or conceptually.
A lot of your works portray a dramatized sexuality in a way that reminds me of being a kid and being in awe of sensual grown women. How do you see sexuality
playing out in your works?
Well, first off, I'm like 95 pounds and kinda flat -- no curve envy! But if I'm going to
paint a woman, I want it to be recognized ASAP as a woman. In our Westernized visual culture, a woman has big tits, big ass, little waist. I just want it to look like what
[we] imagine a symbol of a woman looks like. And I'm explicit about that.
Who are three artists you couldn't live without?
I have the tendency to go off for a while about this, so I'll keep it short and sweet: Van
Hanos, Joshua Abelow and Brian Belott.
Bounty Hunter, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
You've mentioned that art schools can have a toxic effect on budding artists. What
would you recommend to young artists looking to hone their skill?
I went to Rutgers for art and decided to skip grad school because I didn't want certain types of indulgent and cyclic texts and essays to give me content for my work.
But some people benefit from grad school and it's right for them. I'm not trying to
shit talk MFA programs, but in my own experience, I suggest trying to work for an
artist you respect or admire, who really knows their shit. Shoot them an email and
cross your fingers. I learned more about how to paint in six months working for an
artist than my whole education in undergrad. And you can't screw around, your job
pays your rent. It'll make you learn fast. Real fast.
In an earlier interview you said "I hate work done by a woman that is about being
a woman," which I thought was really interesting and a not-often expressed sentiment. Can you expand on this a little?
I have such a disdain for feminism, but in regards to painting, making paintings
about being a woman generally only appeals to other women. Making paintings
about being black only appeal to other black people. I paint women, as well as other
ethnicities than my own for a reason -- they are simultaneously democratic and exploitational. And at the top of the totem pole you have the white male painter making paintings about whatever he wants. I want to use that method of doing whatever
I want. As history has shown us, the white male approach has been pretty successful.
Stoneware, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches
Wicked Ago Feel It, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 22 x 22 inches
Don't Touch Mi Tomato, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 34 x 36 inches
The Devil’s Cookbook, 2013, Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 inches
Jamian Juliano-Villani's "Me, Myself and Jah" is on view at Rawson Projects until October
20, 2013.
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Jamian Juliano Villani: Me, Myself and Jah
We were lucky enough to feature Brooklyn artist Jamian Juliano Villani in our latest issue. Here we talk to
her about Jersey accents, gender, and efficiency in art. Jamian’s first solo show Me, Myself and Jah, opens
at Rawson Projects in New York on September 14th.
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CM: Your work has a very cartoonish vibe, like corrupted Disney or twisted Looney Tunes. Did you watch
a lot of cartoons growing up?
JJV: I mean, as much as any kid… but I’m not super into cartoons in particular. I definitely like how legible
cartoons are to look at; they do tons of shit in a simplistic way, so, I think they’re a pretty efficient and
populist way to go about making paintings.
The Editorial Magazine, July 2013
When you say ‘efficient,’ do you mean efficient for telling a story, or just for getting across a general visual
experience?
Well, both. The narratives in my paintings (if they have one) usually have some subliminal ethos
underneath everything that’s going on. But they have a lot of information so I feel it’s good to give
something solid to focus on, like the cartoon quality…It kind of socializes the paintings with whoever
wants to look at them, if that makes sense. They’re democratic!
There’s definitely some subliminal ethos going on here. It’s funny, they are light-hearted and disturbing at
the same time.
Totally. You know how when you hear something totally awful, like that someone’s friend died? And you
get nervous and anxious, but you don’t know how to respond, so you end up laughing out of some weird
reaction? They’re kind of like that.
Where did you live before coming to Brooklyn?
NEW JERSEY!
Do you have one of those accents?
I definitely have a Jersey accent. I went to a state school (Rutgers) so maybe that gives some insight into
why my shit looks the way it does (laughs).
Are state schools a nasty place to be?
No, it’s the best. You don’t get wrapped up in masturbatory art programs, and you have bio-chem kids in
your drawing class. It reminds you other people exist besides yourself and the Blinky Palermo rip-off
you’ve been working on.
I was surprised to discover you are a lady when I looked you up online. I don’t know why I just assumed
you were a guy based on your art. I can’t believe it.
That rules! I get that all the time!
Especially because your name is pretty gender-neutral.
It kind of works out; I hate work done by a woman that is about being a woman, or looks like a woman
made it. You can just tell, you know?! It looks soft or something. I’m gonna get killed for that one. I think
some woman artists are great, like Gertrude Abercrombie and Wendy White. Wendy White is doing
things Ruscha dreamed of, she’s an example of a woman painter doing it totally right.
Do you have a favorite artist?
Mike Kelley, hands down. John Welsey is a close second, and all the Chicago imagists, Morandi too! I
could go on forever, but I won’t (laughs). I think its tough, really loving an artist’s full body of work. I want
to look at it all day, but if I did, I’d make a shittier, watered-down version of their work.
It can become hard to distinguish between your own ideas and something you’ve seen from someone you
admire.
I actually kind of stopped looking. I think if I just stick with the things I like to paint, and paint them the
way I know how, it’ll stay fresh for me. There’s too much cool shit out there!
Jamian Juliano Villani, Me, Myself and Jah: September 14th- October 20th, Rawson Projects,
233 Franklin Street Brooklyn NY 11222
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© 2014 The Editorial Magazine
Jamian Juliano-Villani Hits
Hudson, Opening Zach Feuer
and Joel Mesler’s New Gallery
City dealers christen upstate space
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BY ZOË LESCAZE 1/13 11:20AM
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Jamian Juliano-Villani’s got problems. “I don’t
have a studio yet, I work in my room, I have
no tooth,” said the frenetic 27-year-old
painter, pointing to a gap near the front of her
mouth. She lost the incisor by grinding her
teeth about six months ago, but said she’s
been too busy to get it fixed. “Today I actually
START THE SLIDESHOW
took my first nap in almost a year,” she
continued. A relief, because before that, the
Jersey-born, Bed-Stuy-based artist hadn’t slept in three days. Walking down the street, she said,
“every garbage bag was moving all of a sudden.”
Ms. Juliano-Villani should be able to rest easy now. Saturday night marked the opening of
Retrospective, the new exhibition space in Hudson, N.Y., co-owned by dealers Zach Feuer and
Joel Mesler, who mounted seven of her gleefully lurid, cartoony paintings for their inaugural show.
Retrospective, a small, street-level storefront tucked beneath a slightly derelict apartment building
on the town’s main drag, will provide a platform for emerging artists, a vision reflected in its name.
“Often when people do their first show, they try to sum it up, they try to make it a conclusive thing of
everything that happened before, so in a lot of ways, the first shows feel broader than shows when
the artists are older and making these singular statements,” said Mr. Feuer. “It’s funny to think of
looking back at the start.”
The fuchsia door frame, black-and-white checkerboard floor and busy opening (a band of children
ran through the crowd wearing Hello Kitty dresses and rain boots) complemented the zany action in
Ms. Juliano-Villani’s paintings, which often feature exaggerated animal-human hybrids that evoke
R. Crumb characters like Andrea Ostrich and work by Basil Wolverton and Ralph Bakshi. The
radioactive palette and patterns owe a lot to Eric Parker, in whose studio Ms. Juliano-Villani worked
until recently.
Mr. Mesler only visited Hudson for the first time two weeks ago, but he and his wife are starting to
look for a house in the area, where Mr. Feuer lives. It may be helpful to have a toehold near town,
where one finds rapidly deteriorating colonial homes and high-end antique stores alike, as the two
dealers are staking out new satellite spots for Retrospective projects.
“There are all these empty spaces around town, so there’s going to be auxiliary shows all the time,”
said Mr. Feuer, mentioning various apartments, empty storefronts and houses. Just a day before
The Gallerist, January 2013
the opening, Messrs. Feuer and Mesler secured a new two-bedroom row house. “I think eventually
some part of the residency will be there, but we might do shows there, too,” said Mr. Feuer.
“Zach and Joel are two of the most weirdly smart people you’ll ever meet,” said Benjamin Godsill,
head of Phillips’ Under the Influence sales in New York, at the opening. “Oftentimes their ideas
sound outré, and then you get into them and you realize, ‘Oh this is exactly what should be
happening, this is exactly the antidote to the many things that are ailing the art world.'”
Being outside the city curbs, for instance, the attention deficit brought on by busy, 12-opening
nights. “It’s nice to just really be here,” said Mr. Godsill. “No one is going to come up and talk to me,
no one is going to interrupt this conversation.”
Ms. Juliano-Villani said that while she liked how escaping city made showing “a little less
intimidating,” she was a bit apprehensive about the show’s visibility. “I was saying to Van [Hanos,
who has the next show in the space], who the fuck is going to come to Hudson? It’s so far.”
The art world may already be in Hudson, though. As Mr. Feuer pointed out, Lucien Smith made a
bunch of his paintings in the area, Brice Marden, Ellsworth Kelly, Michel Auder, David Hammons
and Glenn Ligon live close by, dealer Jack Shainman is opening a 30,000-square-foot space in
nearby Kinderhook, and Marina Abramovic plans to unveil her eponymous institute just across the
square from Retrospective, though some have questioned whether it will open. “Hopefully it does,”
said Mr. Feuer, “because I think a lot of people want to see eight-hour performances strapped to a
chair.”
Ms. Juliano-Villani, who was driving back down to the city later that night, nearly brought a Hudson
native home with her: earlier that day, Mr. Feuer Instagrammed a shot of Ms. Juliano-Villani and
Mr. Hanos holding a kitten in the pet store near Retrospective. Ultimately, she decided to keep
things simple. “I forget to eat, to shit, to sleep myself, so a cat would be a bad idea,” she said
outside the gallery. “My betta fish was dead in a week.”