Three Girls I Want To Sleep With But Cannot (coming by late March 2010)
A photo series from the point of view of a formerly single man looking back on life. When we choose a partner for a monogamous relationship, we do it to the exclusion of other possibilities. These photographs are a document of that life relinquished. These are not trophy pictures, but pictures of what might have been. Arika, please don't be mad.
Death Bear
Death Bear is about curing pain. After something bad happens to you, there are physical reminders left behind that can trigger the pain of the event. When summoning Death Bear (through text message), he arrives at your door, enters your home, and collects the items with difficult memories attached. He takes them back to his cave where they disappear forever. Death Bear can talk, but he cannot tell you what items her has collected to this date because they are gone. They are gone. His job and only job is to make the items that bring people pain or prevent them from moving forward with their lives, disappear.
Death Bear FAQ:
Q: Does Death Bear talk?
A: Yes, but he will not speak as anyone other than Death Bear. Also, he is solitary and has never experienced a relationship, so he may also be confused by your emotional trauma.
Q: What items has Death Bear collected?
A: This cannot be said because once the objects are in Death Bear's cave, they are gone forever.
Q: Is this Death Bear's first time?
A: No, this is Death Bear's 6th weekend out of his cave collecting objects.
Q: Does Death Bear care about helping people?
A: Yes and no. If there were something else for him to do, he would do it. But there is only his cave and its powers. He is a bit like a hoarder whose items disappear.
Free Bouncy Rides
The Free Bouncy Rides are a man in a soft, blue fish mascot costume, holding a framed sign that reads, "Free Bouncy Rides." Continually bouncing his knees up and down, he sits on a NYC subway platform bench, enticing strangers to be bounced on his lap. This piece is a response to aging. I don't want to get old. Moving from childhood into adulthood, we are all expected to make certain sacrifices and accept new responsibilities. A few examples are to start a family, cultivate a career, or live more conservatively. From these pressures, I've regressed to the interests and entertainment of a child, hence you can call this regression art. At the same time, I've chosen to retain some of the unsavory elements of adulthood within this work. The child's world (i.e. goofy, rainbowy, and playful) is married to the often dark world of adults (i.e. sexual, deviant, and creepy). Both worlds are expressed in the Free Bouncy Rides at the same time. I think when these two worlds are mixed together rather than experienced independently they express who I am at this time or who I want to be.
Interaction and Criticism
Interaction with the public has been what has kept me going since the Chinatown Garbage Tour. If it wasn't for the interaction, I'd feel like just another lonely, broke artist sitting in his studio. I've taken a lot of criticism for "needing attention" but this is performance art, so the more attention I can draw to my work the better. What would you have me do? Not get attention? No chance. The reason I need the attention is because the more people who know my work exists, the better because they can interact with it (or at the very least interact with the idea in their mind). My work is by its nature interactive (Death Bear, Chinatown Garbage Tour, and Free Bouncy Rides), so the more people who interact with it, the more successful I consider myself to be at the end of the day. So the more media outlets that call attention to it, the better because people will know it exists, and again, they can interact with it in some form, and spread the message. Unfortunately, this leads to criticism directed at me for being an "attention getter" or "media whore." Stop hating. See, I don't have gallery representation at this time, so I use the media, the public, and the blogs to disseminate my work. And of course, they in turn use me for readership and entertainment value. It's a symbiotic relationship that benefits the both of us.
Candy Crack Delivery Service
Candy Crack is a homemade 100% sugar crack cocaine imitation. It is multi-colored and multi-flavored with snow cone syrup, dried, and then sealed in dime bags. Customers or users can call or text the delivery service, and a man in a plush fish mascot head and white tuxedo will deliver to their home in person usually within an hour. This piece is an attempt to embody a child in dress and character while taking pleasure in imitating the sins of the adult world. It's make believe for adults, and similar to the Free Bouncy Rides, elements of the innocence of a child's world (i.e. goofy animals, candy, costume) are mixed with the ugliness and seediness of the adult world (i.e. deadly drugs). The Candy Crack is delivered in Williamsburg and Greenpoint because these neighborhoods are something like college without the homework. To me they are playlands for adults who don't want to grow up, and can stay numb to reality with alcohol and drugs for quite a while (a bad thing?) So Candy Crack fits in perfectly, since it is about adults pretending to be kids.
Chinatown Garbage Taxidermy Tour
The Chinatown Garbage Taxidermy Tour took place monthly between July 2007-June 2008 in New York City. The free, interactive tour was created for several reasons. First, to teach people how to safely collect pieces of dead animals (fish, frogs, etc.) from Chinatown garbage. Second, to teach how they could sew these pieces together to make sculptures. And third, the tour was intended to attract new people to taxidermy through flourishes of theatrics like costumes and random oddity.
A.D.A.M. Project
The A.D.A.M. Project (A Dead Animal Man) was a sculpture of a human built entirely from animal parts completed in January 2008.
The thirteen species included in the finished human being were: chicken, conch, cow, crab, deer, dog, duck, eel, fish, frog, lobster, rabbit, and shark.
New Animals
Took parts and pieces of animals from everywhere (roadkill, hunters, Chinatown) and sewed them together to make a new animal kingdom imitating the work of God.