Category: Heroes

Robin Hely

Whatever his shortcomings as a human being, he’s undeniably an amazing artist. And his sociopathy and his genius kind of go hand in hand.

“As an artist, I have a big problem,” he said to me once. “I don’t really like art. I just love fucking with peoples’ heads.”

Yeah.

“Interventionist performance art”, he’s calling it now. Previously known as “interactive public theatre”. I still like “reality art”. Whatever it is, it’s something else.

Interesting review of “Sherrie“. Origin of the spycam. Missing Person –> Who Is Robert Henley?. Oh, and then there’s this. Changed my life, y’know.

I miss the evil bastard. He’s never dull.

(Previously.)

The KLF

Identified by many names, but effectively the partnership of Jimmy Cauty & Bill Drummond, active from 1987-1997.

Although best known for their musical endeavours, their real game was large-scale discombobulation. They terrorized the worlds of pop music and fine art in equal measure, in between writing an extraordinary book called The Manual, amongst numerous other curious exploits. But their most inspired Work was also one of their simplest: literally burning a million UK pounds in cash money on a remote Scottish island in 1994.

Both parties remain active in the fields of art and music. Cauty, notably, making and selling postage stamps for his own self-declared sovereign country, whilst in his spare time misguidedly buying dodgy second hand vans, crushing them into cubes, and sucessfully selling them back at cost to the dealerships he bought them from, as works of art.

Charles Shaar Murray on Drummond in The Independent, 2000 (via Wikipedia):

“[He] is many things, and one of those things is a magician. Many of his schemes… involve symbolically-weighted acts conducted away from the public gaze and documented only by Drummond himself and his participating comrades. Nevertheless, they are intended to have an effect on a worldful of people unaware that the act in question has taken place. That is magical thinking. Art is magic, and so is pop. Bill Drummond is a cultural magician.”

Boyd Rice

See previous. Also linkable, in a way, to Korine; it’s all about the Unified Aesthetic.

It doesn’t really matter whether he’s making noise or pictures, mounting exhibitions consisting of random objects found in thrift stores, appearing as the official advocate of Satan in surreal TV chat show debates, reminiscing fondly about his youthful pranking exploits, writing books about Rennes-le-Chateau and the “place where history and myth intersect”, spearheading eccentric and uniquely tasteless underground art movements or designing Tiki bars – his real Work is simply being the entity called Boyd Rice, and doing whatever the hell it is that Boyd Rice is wont to do. And it’s fucking great.

Illuminating 2004 interview with Brian M. Clark:

BRIAN: Do you personally do things like that?

BOYD: I do certain things like that…

Marilyn Manson

From The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell:

Marilyn Manson was the perfect story protagonist for a frustrated writer like myself. He was a character who, because of his contempt for the world around him and, more so, himself, does everything he can to trick people into liking him. Then once he wins their confidence, he uses it to destroy them.

For better and/or worse he remains a huge inspiration and influence.

I can’t figure out whether I haven’t listened to Eat Me, Drink Me yet because I’m afraid it’ll be crap, or because I’m afraid of what it’ll do to me. But I suspect the latter. Which means I will, and suggests that (all evidence to the contrary) he’s still got it.

He’s beautiful, fascinating, complex, disturbing, amazing, and a laff riot to boot. And I don’t care what anyone says about his paintings. I think they’re nice.

“I’m not trying to shock or scare you. I’m just a threat.”

(Link of particular note in this context: The Nachtkabarett.)

Dolly Sen

From The World Is Full Of Laughter:

‘Reality’ is the greatest brainwashing technique ever successfully utilised and maintained. It makes the truth ludicrous and highly inconvenient to believe.

Website bio:

“I had my first psychotic experience aged 14 and stopped going to school. A series of dead end jobs followed. Pretty early on I decided I didn’t want any more of the 9-5 shit and spoon race, and began to write… and maybe watch 70s cop shows.”

Dolly Sen is a writer, director, artist, film-maker, poet, performer, raconteur, playwright, mental health consultant, music-maker and public speaker.

Since her much-acclaimed book ‘The World is Full of Laughter’ was published by Chipmunka in 2002, she has had 3 further books published, had a succession of performance roles around Europe and places like The Young Vic, Trafalgar Square and The Royal Festival Hall; did a poetry tour and won a poetry award from Andrew Motion; directed two plays and several films, appeared on TV, and has done spoken word at City Hall and Oxford University.

This is staggering since she dropped out of school at 14 and has no formal qualifications. She has also had to share her life with severe mental health problems. She was told she would never amount to anything but would end up in jail or Broadmoor and she believed this and was on her way there when she changed her belief into the one of believing she could do anything she wanted to do.

This proves that the mind is an amazing thing; it can drive you mad and inspire you in the same breath. And that you can do anything if you believe you can do it.

Awesome audio interview.

Happy birthday, Dozza. Love your work.

Harmony Korine

Of course.

Gummo and A Crackup At The Race Riots especially. Julien Donkey Boy not so much. I’m looking forward to Mister Lonely, but I’ve no idea if I’ll actually like it.

It’s not about specific pieces of work, of course – it’s about him. Him and his Unified Aesthetic.

Introduction to Collected Screenplays:

charles eames was most notably an architectural engineer, a furniture designer, a man of scientific theory, but most impressive to me were his films – films about toys, spinning tops, toy towns, toy soldiers, toy trains. he will be remembered first and foremost as a creator of chairs. he did not give philosophical credence to his own separate and varied modes of creation; in essence his chairs and his films were one and the same. the content was king, and thus developed a ‘unified aesthetic’ that brought the walls down and allowed him to work free of any of the self-imposed restraints that most artists suffer.

personally, i have published books of fiction, books of photos, displayed my art in many galleries and in many forms, made recordings of banjo music, written and directed films, composed a symphony using only the same three black keys on the right-hand side of the piano, and i most importantly am now trying to revive the tap-dance scene by developing an entirely new repertoire of semi-improvised, extremely technical, avant-garde dance structures. (please do not think i am joking; it would be of the deepest misunderstanding to interpret my intent, my dream, as somehow being an ironic display. i am admittedly not as advanced at the moment as i need to be before i showcase this next phase in my career. if my dream comes to fruition and i am capable of a total tap revolution, then i declare without any hesitation or pause a complete and total abandonment of my involvement in the cinema and all other areas of artistic contention. i need to go where i am most useful.)

the point being: everything from me had previously been deposited inside me. this is due to the force of a sacred entity whose identity i will take to my grave. this curse/blessing was bestowed upon my being without any previous knowledge and total disregard of personal choice in the matter, with no consent. and when i am dead, perhaps i too will be best remembered for a chair i once built.

Yes.

Danielle Freakley

AKA The Quote Generator. See also: Artist Running Space, Text Masks, Fotolog.

Hero turned mentor. Unique case.

I wanted to post some excerpts from the surreal, amazing Neurocam application that brought her to my attention in the first place, but of course I can’t. Oh well.

I heart you, DF.

Keep on redeeming garbage and doing that beautiful, masochistic, discombobulating lived performance art. (And have fun in New York.)

Carol “Riot” Kane

I discovered Riot earlier this year via Chaos: Year Zero, a blog kept by her imaginary daughter from the future.

This was Kane’s homemade response-tribution to Nine Inch Nails‘ 42 Entertainment-executed Year Zero ARGstravaganza (which I also liked, incidentally. Despite its many dodgy elements).

Riot likes NIN. A lot.

She also has a (sporadic) blog of her own.

Website bio excerpt:

Riot is the gun toting, plaster casting, ass kicking, punk rock verison of the Greek poet Homer, brilliantly translating pre-existing legends of the band she follows into truly epic works of art. With preternatural determination, she writes and illustrates graphic novels, builds elaborate sculptural installations, and directs short films all inspired by her Rock Warrior Life.

Many Artists have constructed works of Rock Star fantasty, projecting themselves into Rock Music’s Realm. However, these artists sit safely on the fence between fantasy and dream reality. From their protected, pejorative, perch they can expound on the intricacies of the precise lighting techniques of each rock iron or reiterate, ad nauseam, the phallic implications of the microphone. They may cast an eye into this place contemplating the passions that motivate musicians and their respective fans but they have yet to stick a soft, well-manicured, overwrought toe into the fetid angry waves of the real Rock Arena.

Riot not only crosses that boundary, she does everything in her power to blur and destroy that line, slamming a well heeled boot into the glass wall to stand battered, bruise, and euphoric on the other side. Functioning in both the art and the rock worlds to the consternation of many an art patron and avid rock fan, Riot is often unsure herself in which world she stands; stomping through an art opening in all her purpled splendor or drawing at the rail while the sweaty screaming masses surge behind.

Art and music aren’t the only worlds she walks between.

(Apart from anything else, I like her coz she seems spookily like an alternate-universe manifestation of my long lost ex girlfriend Sarah – if she’d ended up becoming an artist, instead of doing a PhD in economics.

Hooray for alternate universes.)

Peter Greenaway

Of course.

My most enduring art hero.

I originally became obsessed with Greenaway in my midteens via his features of the 80’s. But although I still love and remain hugely influenced by The Draughtsman’s Contract, ZOO, Drowning By Numbers, The Cook, The Thief et al etc, it’s really his early (mostly short) stuff that gets me the most excited these days.

Like, puddling. Just thinking about it. Still, after all these years.

A Walk Through H, Dear Phone, Windows, The Falls.

OMFG, The Falls.

(Note to self: buy these two DVDs the second you have two cents to rub together. We need to watch them, repeatedly.)