Friday, September 09, 2005

Raymond Pettibon

I was reading this article about a slide lecture he gave last year. I love this part and I have to share. plus i am stalling on leaving to go to the studio because i am crazy.

(Projects a new slide.) Here we go. 'To punks no one are more hated than posers, except for the artists who draw them.' Well, okay, anyone who's read the program notes and anyone who knows anything about me, knows that punk is, uh...I mean, in art, you have... Well, this (conference) is on the subjuect of creativity, but that's very pompous. And I'm sorry for not apologizing before, but usually I come onstage and I apologize. 'I'm not a genius. I'm not creative. I'm not a renaissance figure. I'm not heroic.' I won't admit that I'm an artist because there's only so much I will dedegrade myself. Just imagine this is like an accident - I'm sure it will happen to all of you, if it hasn't happened before. Sometime you'll find yourself onstage with an audience and (maybe) you, like I did, had that dream every night in (your) life for the first 40 years. The years pass, I don't remember. In the dream I was naked. I was in front of the whole class - the class of artists, which is situated just below working class. Well, no - just below indigent or homeless. You know, I would love to be able to say, 'I'm just homeless. I'm unemployed. I don't need a braek. That's what I am, okay?' Then to have to admit that I'm an artist... Man, that is low. What is more sef-degrading than a homeless person with pretensions, you know? What? Why don't you just admit it and live with that? But within the art discourse, or what we call 'the game' on this side of the microphone, beyond that I'm a nothing person.

Why the hell I'm here, I don't know. They gave me the goddamn mic, and I'm just trying to work myself out it with our patience. Because I'm situated within an art historical context, which is punk... (it goes on)



This is from Tokion magazine - jan/feb 2005. i don't know why i never bothered to read this article. So what do you think he really thinks? I think the homeless thing is funny. But is it all just an act? posturing out of self-defense? did he not have ambitions? i mean he agreed to give the lecture. not to diss necessarily but ?? Anyway, once again i am too lazy to really express myself. leaving now.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Joking and not. Needing a brake and resenting your dependence on gallery system.
Punk? It's like David Sedaris now that he is a richy living in France.

Anonymous said...

It seems easier to bad mouth the system in those situations when he is so firmly established in the system he is critiquing. Now turning down such a lecture might have made a bolder statement.

Corny said...

ok, here's some gossip I heard a few years ago...
I've heard he is a cronic heroin user , has anyone heard that? If it's true it makes me think he's not as poserish as he is comming off...
My issue with RP is the repetitivness.
s t r e t c h ---------- Y A W N

fairy butler said...

corny, yes, I agree. he bores me now. 10 years ago no. as for the h factor I have not heard that exactly. I hear that he is very agoraphobic and helpless and weird - which could tie into the h thing.?

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