It was a lovely night. Great turnout, friendly people. And I actually wasn't all that nervous; I didn't have time to be. Right at the beginning of the event, I had a few friends stop in to wish me well, and it just kept rolling on from there. As soon as I finished talking to one person, someone else stepped in to talk with me. I often feel conversationally awkward in these kinds of situations, but everyone was so nice, so generous, that it was all just a pleasure.
It is a bit odd to talk exclusively about yourself and your art for more than two hours straight. As someone who's rather full of himself, you'd think that it wouldn't bother me. But it got to the point where the gross accumulation of me, me, me was a bit embarrassing; by the end of the evening I had a sore throat from talking about myself so much.
When G and I arrived at the gallery, several hours before the opening, Michael Upchurch, the arts writer for the Seattle Times, was already there, looking at the show and making notes. He had reviewed the group show that was my introduction to Winston Wächter and had said nice - and really smart - things about my work. So I was thrilled that he wanted to interview me for this show. When we spoke on Tuesday afternoon, he couldn't have been nicer, and the resulting review/interview that appeared in the paper this morning couldn't have been more flattering. It's been quite a week, and I'm very grateful for everyone's kindness.
In case you haven't heard: Richard D. James (UK), better known as Aphex Twin, a musician who started making electronic music in his teens, later started using artwork both in images and videos where he copies his face all over, everywhere, like there are lots of him around. Usually it's a half evil or lunatic face with a grin. In one case, maybe even more, he even changes to a woman: in 1999 single cover of "Windowlicker" (details from my memory) but I think he is actually far from real crossdressing or things like that. These things only happen in his creative art. So many parallels with you!
ReplyDeleteOh, I'll check him out. Thanks so much for the suggestion.
DeleteUnless one likes (obscure) electronic music, he is pretty unknown, although in his field, the electronic music, he is one of the absolutely top stars since 1990's. Hmm, only now I recall that he has another thing common with the contents of this blog: he wrote some music to a movie called Marie Antoinette, here's a video of that, a very short track (maybe shorter than original in the album): https://youtu.be/HIFq8iZMjZQ His music is so varied, from deep and sleepy ambient to beating techno and hard electronics, and then also... this incredibly beautiful piece in that movie! But to mention one of those sick asylum-type of things where he copies his face to many at the same time, see Come to Daddy original video made by Chris Cunningham. A note of warning though: I suggest to silence the music and actually, the video is rather disturbing, in fact a short horror movie. The original video for his track Donkey Rhubarb is both visually and melodically much more acceptable, there his face is over big fluffy bears: https://youtu.be/G0qV2t7JCAQ . And the last example, https://youtu.be/NaDIAZ05drQ -- picture of himself in old style (don't know the author, most probably himself) but music rather quiet.
DeleteA general note. Having found such a blog and artist is the second time for me when I see someone using his own face in various ways in art so that's why I wanted to introduce Aphex Twin as another example of that. The are made by both of you is interesting and haunting at the same time.