Two Johns and a Whore: Conjugating Myself

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Sunday’s LA Times let the cat of the bag:  If you read to the end in the awesome profile of Mat Gleason, you’ll see that I’m an artist and I’m curating an art show that opens January 11, 2014 at Coagula Curatorial.

Part of the reason I began writing about art is that I love it (the other part is that it is a job and it’s awesome to get offered a gig doing what you love). So here I am, the editor of an art website, curating a show which if I wasn’t curating I would be writing about (and probably with better sentence construction!). So I guess I should write about it, even though it feels in many ways like shameless self-promotion–though more importantly it’s excited promotion of artists whose work I like, and is a show that is pretty wow (if I do say so myself).

Here’s why  I would be writing about this show: “Two Johns and a Whore” is the gallery debut of two artists who create outside of the white cube: Award-winning performance artist and actor John Fleck, and filmmaker John Roecker. “Two Johns and Whore” features internationally known Los Angeles-based artists Anthony Ausgang, Stacy Lande, Louie Metz, Mike Street and Kelly Thompson; plus Sheila Cameron who created the notorious “Free Katie” tee-shirts and took on NY art critic’s Jerry Saltz’s challenge to  make 55 works of art in 3 months with no allusion to fairy-tale; San Diego-based visual artist, author, and musician Rafael Reyes; Bradford J. Salaman who is on exhibit at Lancaster’s Museum of Art and History through January 5;  singer/artist/writer/director/ Jane Cantillon; adult star and author Oriana Small Nazworthy (aka Ashley Blue); multi-media artist Kelly Blunt; and artist Mimi Universe, who owned Silver Lake’s popular Iota Gallery.

John Fleck is one of NEA 4, the lynchpins of the culture wars, and his one-man shows delve into love, sex, death, families, pop iconography, and celebrity culture. John Roecker’s first feature film, Live Freaky Die Freaky is a claymation re-visioning of the Manson Family; his documentary, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Gay Male Porn Stars, was banned by Amazon;  an article I wrote on Firedoglake.com which was x-posted to Huffington Post changed that. Both are heroes of mine; they fearlessly and unabashedly dive into their work with passion and fierce dedication. Their lives are also works of art; they are constantly creating, while inspiring those around them.

I know both the Johns socially, we have meals in others homes, celebrate the holidays together. Earlier this year I was taking Curator’s College from Mat Gleason which gave us a chance to not only co-curate a one night show with art from his office, but to pitch him on a dream show. Three nights before the pitch class, I went to dinner with Fleck and his boyfriend Randy at my favorite neighborhood restaurant Papilles, and John mentioned he was curious about doing an art show. Roecker–who I have known since he opened the Silver Lake shock shop, You’ve Got Bad Taste and curated an LA punk rock retrospective at Track 16–had over the past couple years told me he wanted to show his art in a gallery. Lightbulbs went off as the Bordeaux went down and our braised lamb arrived at the table: Two Johns…two Johns…what goes with “johns”?  Whore. Two Johns and a whore, duh.

The whore part was easy to figure: Eleven or twelve artists interpreting “whore” and/or prostitution.  And I know at least a dozen artists. One thing Mat had stressed in Curator’s College was “associations.” Who you know, how you know them. I’m lucky that somehow a lot of artists and I have crossed paths before I started writing for CARTWHEEL. So I asked a couple of them:

If I could do this, would you participate?

And then on pitch day, I pitched Mat:

Two Johns and Whore, John Fleck, who like Karen Finley [Mat had shown Finley at Coagula and brought her to Miami for the Miami Art Fairs in 2012] one of the NEA 4. John Roecker,  controversial filmmaker. gallery debuts for both of them.

The I listed off a few artists who had said yes. He liked it. And I was serious.

So over the next couple months, I checked in with Mat about dates. He said yes, definitely, once he got everything worked out at with move from 977 to 974 Chung King Road and Kim Dingle’s show was in place. I had a yes and a date (which turned out to be during the LA Art Show and photo la, talk about great timing!), and went for it, putting together the final list of artists for the whore portion, and cheerleading my Johns. Meanwhile, I took Mat’s class, Art World Boot Camp to learn more about the how to of art in LA.

And because it was part of class, I had to create and show two pieces of art. Okay, I had made punk rock fliers like decades ago; my interior design sense doesn’t suck, I can take nice pictures, and I can rough out ads, but make art? Yikes. I went ahead and did it anyway, since stepping  outside one’s comfort zone is necessary for growth. The pieces didn’t suck  too badly.

At Art World Boot Camp show, one of the artists in “Two Johns and Whore” asked if I wanted to be in the Arroyo Arts Collective Show, and another artist friend recruited me for Meme Democracy, a show at her gallery.  Was this because I was “good”? I’m not that naive. I edit an art website. But I appreciated their encouragement of my fledgling ability.

So while my curating show with artists who are my friends, and writing about it for the website I edit might be considered a conflict of interest, I can’t not write about it. It’s an awesome show.

So tl/dr: Expect to see more blog posts about Two Johns and Whore, not just because I edit CARTWHEELart.com, but because the artists are great and the show is provocative.

Two Johns and Whore opening reception Saturday January 11, 2014, 7pm to 11pm. The show runs through January 25 at Coagula Curatorial, 974 Chunk King Road, 90012.

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John Fleck in his studio

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Fleck’s Mad Women explored the relationship between Judy Garland and her son Joey, and Fleck and his mother. Mad Women won the 2012 LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Solo Performance.

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 In 1990 National Endowment for the Arts, under pressure from conservative politicians, pulled grants to Fleck and his three fellow performers, who then sued the NEA. The case went to the Supreme Court. Justice Scalia wrote in  his concurring opinion that NEA was not required by the Constitution to fund certain works of art:

 “John Fleck, in his stage performance ‘Blessed Are All the Little Fishes,’ confronts alcoholism and Catholicism. During the course of the performance, Fleck appears dressed as a mermaid, urinates on the stage and creates an altar out of a toilet bowl by putting a photograph of Jesus Christ on the lid.” Justice Scalia, concurring in NEA v. Finley, (quoting Note, 48 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1545, 1546, n. 2 (1991)).

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John Roecker has had his share of controversy. You’ve Got Bad Taste, the Silver Lake store he ran with Exene Cervenka stocked breast shaped sponges, Patty Hearst’s FBI “Wanted” posters, and John Wayne Gacy’s paintings and offended some locals who staged protests and threw a brick through the store’s window. The store helped birth Silver Lake’s alt scene in the mid-1990s.

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Roecker’s mixed media piece celebrating his documentary Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Gay Porn Stars. The film was banned by Amazon until I wrote about the censorship for Firedoglake and Huffington Post, which got GLAAD involved.
Amazon now carries Everything You Ever wanted to Know About Gay Porn Stars.  Yay, internets!

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Roecker will buy paintings at the 99Cent Store and paint over them. Sometimes he slips his art back into the store and watches to see if anyone will buy it at the sticker price of 99 cents.

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