With Nelly, Anne Emond takes us into the scandalous life of writer Nelly Arcan, who burst into the literary establishment with her first semi-autobiographical novel: Whore. [Read more…]
Elle Reeves Steps Into The Center
Elle Reeve’s excellent reportage for HBO’s Vice News. Below is her interview with Christopher Cantwell, a self-described white nationalist, and her coverage of the events in Charlottesville as they tragically unfolded. Plus, a little sweet to help suck down the sour: Christopher Cantwell buckles, sheds tears (for himself) and, praise Jesus, prattles out his own private phone number (third clip), should anyone want to speak with him personally: [Read more…]
An Interview With Frank Lloyd Wright
In a somewhat combative 1957 interview, a flinty and surprisingly conventional Mike Wallace interrogates an unwavering yet ever-thoughtful Frank Lloyd Wright.
Pit Bull Without Papers
An Interview with Victor Gastelum
by Pancho Lipschitz
Don’t call Victor Gastelum a stencil artist. Yes he wields an X-Acto blade like the Master of the Flying Guillotine, but long before Bansky was spraying 2-D cliches onto London walls, Victor was creating images that resonated like stills from an unknown film noir. It’s hard to remember now that there was a time when low riders and Mexican wrestlers were not in rap videos and beer commercials, but it was during those late 80’s and 90’s that Victor took the stuff of his childhood visual culture and created images that contain both literal and figurative depth. We sat in his studio in Long Beach and talked about his journey from making Punk flyers to working at SST Records and navigating the art world like Mr. Magoo. [Read more…]
Footnotes To 4:44
Interviews with Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Common, Chris Rock, Mahershala Ali and others as they discuss issues such as systemic racism, troubles with honesty in relationships, the readiness to love, mentorship and much more.
An Interview With Chéri Samba
Arabella Hutter von Arx reviews Art/Afrique: Le Nouvel Atelier (above), a group exhibition highlighting a dozen wondrous and visionary artists from Africa, including the great Chéri Samba. Below is a three-part interview with Samba:
Cracked Actor To Cracked Actor
Cracked Actor (Live, Los Angeles ’74)
Sweet Thing/Candidate (Live, Los Angeles ’74)
In honor and in celebration of Cracked Actor, the new live release from David Bowie’s infamously depraved yet musically stellar ’74 tour (the new album narrows in on one evening, his September 5th show at Los Angeles’ Universal Amphitheater, which I had the blearied pleasure of attending!), Riot Material scratched up a BBC documentary from that same tour, titled Cracked Actor: A Film About David Bowie. The 1975 film, viewable below, is directed by Alan Yentob: [Read more…]
The Artist Formerly Known as Frohawk
An Interview with Umar Rashid
by Pancho Lipschitz
It would be easy to say that the alternative histories portrayed in the works of Umar Rashid are perfectly timed to reflect the era of “alternative facts” taking place in this historical moment. But the truth is, if you are going to make art intended to talk, both directly and indirectly, about the oppression of people of color and the suppression of their history, there is no time in the modern era when the work would not seem timely.
As Frohawk Two Feathers, and now Umar Rashid, the artist re-imagines 18th century history in images that recall traditional portraiture, folk art and Native American art but updated with details from the contemporary world. The mash-up allows him to speak simultaneously about the past and the present, accompanied by a complicated written narrative that must be read to fully understand the work. [Read more…]
Words And Wanderings With Anthony Hassett
On Saturday, January 21st of this year, Tony welcomed me into he and Erin’s warm home. Greeting me at the door with a big hug and smile, Tony, despite his ongoing lengthy battle with cancer, was his usual self: cracking gallows humour jokes about his health, about the newly inaugurated President Trump, the cop-rotten planet, and so much more. [Read more…]
Painting The Elephant In The Room: A Conversation With Justin Lyons
Justin Lyons is a mixed media artist living in the Florida panhandle. We spoke with him on the eve of his solo exhibition at the Bruce Lurie Gallery in Los Angeles.
CHRISTOPHER HASSETT: Before addressing your most recent work, I wanted to briefly touch on a few signature elements in what is considered to be pivotal career pieces, elements which not only define but help flesh out your global visual language. This language, by the way, initially and superficially registers as being quite primitive, even crude, but upon spending time with these pieces it becomes apparent that something more thoughtful and sophisticated is taking place. [Read more…]
An Interview With Neville Wakefield, Curator Of Desert X
Neville Wakefield is the Curator and Artistic Director of Desert X, a site-specific contemporary art exhibition ongoing throughout the Coachella Valley from February 25 to April 30, 2017. RIOT MATERIAL spoke with Neville on the eve of Desert X’s launch.
CHRISTOPHER HASSETT: What is it about these artists you’ve selected for Desert X that speak to you personally, or speak to a greater vision you’re trying to articulate through the exhibition, and I refer to them more as an inter-connective group as opposed to distinct individuals? [Read more…]
Riot Material Talks With Desert X Artists Jennifer Bolande, Glenn Kaino, Phillip K. Smith III and Tavares Strachan
Desert X, a site-specific contemporary art exhibition in the Coachella Valley, curated by Artistic Director Neville Wakefield, will become the sweeping canvas for work by established and emerging artists, whose projects will amplify and articulate global and local issues ranging from climate change to Tribal culture, immigration to tourism, gaming to golf. The exhibition, which opens to the public this weekend, 25 February, will focus attention on, and create a conversation about, environmental, social and cultural conditions of the 21st century as reflected in the greater Palm Springs area.
In an online roundtable discussion, RIOT MATERIAL spoke with Desert X artists Jennifer Bolande, Glenn Kaino, Phillip K. Smith III, Tavares Strachan about the desert, their driving visions, and their particular installations. [Read more…]
Patti Smith And David Lynch Speak Of Film, Music, And The Creative Impulse
Kerry James Marshall: Mastry
Kerry James Marshall on the idea of representation, contemporary vision, and the elevation of Black imagination. [Read more…]
An Interview with Sam Durant
Multimedia artist Sam Durant is both an activist and artist who uses his work to highlight lesser known and forgotten histories. Through his art, he helps the public to uncover and acknowledge our histories, both in order to understand how we got to the present moment historically and to offer correctives now. [Read more…]
A Quiet, Cutting Torch Toward Activism
An Interview With Jael Hoffmann
By Rachel Reid Wilkie
Jael Hoffmann is a metal sculpture artist living in the Northern Mojave Desert, just north of Los Angeles. Her rough, nearly primitive sculptures stand at highway’s edge like creatures in a mythic scene, their anointed god a sleepy chief who towers just west in the form of 12,132’ Olancha Peak. Large, wind-worn, lively on the land, they are in constant, animated banter with drivers who speed past, and all the more friendly and engaging for those who stop, stretch their legs, and stroll about the land. Rachel Reid Wilkie spoke with Jael on a gorgeous winter day following heavy snowfall in the Sierras. [Read more…]
Nudging Chaos Into The Frame
An Interview With Harry Gamboa Jr.
by Pancho Lipschitz
Harry Gamboa Jr. is best known as the co-founder of ASCO, the mas chingon performance art group to emerge from the 70’s and 80’s. But his post-ASCO output, in a wide variety of media, has continued to defy the boundaries of categorization and commodification. Working with a new group of performers he published the photo-novela Aztlángst 2, a poetic grito against corporate culture, constant wars, digital surveillance and the criminalization of “others”. [Read more…]
The Moment Worth Struggling Toward
An Interview with Erin Currier
CHRISTOPHER HASSETT: There seems to be an explicit call to action in much of your work, or at the very least the demand that one take note of some supreme injustice in the land or amongst peoples. Yet what I appreciate about your work is that, more than it being mere critique or some one-dimensional, stop-action capture, it instead offers a way forward, and in my mind that way forward is dependably the right way forward. I’m thinking of, as an example, a new work of yours titled American Women (Dismantling the Border). Can you speak more to this idea of there being a constructive framework or, rather, this inherently optimistic baseline level of production which seems not only to shape but lay a distinctive stamp across your entire arc of expression? [Read more…]
Bowie Meets Burroughs
London, 1974
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS: Have you ever met Warhol?
DAVID BOWIE: Yes, about two years ago I was invited up at the Factory. We got in the lift and went up. When it opened there was a brick wall in front of us. We rapped on the wall and they didn’t believe who we were. So we went back down and back up again till they finally opened the wall and everybody was peering around at each other. That was shortly after the gun incident. [Read more…]