Courtesy of the Artist

Question: What starts with blood and ends with a post-op tranny? Answer: My studio visit with LA based artist Joel Kyack. Luckily there were some bacon strip band-aids on hand. Stepping into the Boyle Heights studio, I felt set up. Was this finger bleeding, paper clip and butane operation staged for me? Answer: No. Joel Kyack is attacking life and art, and sometimes people get hurt. Recently back from a Miami show and departing the following day for Milan, the studio was filled with more convo than recently finished art objects. New York will get its due though come April, when Joel will have a solo show at Kate Werble Gallery in SOHO. Until then, here is my Q and A with the artist:

Courtesy of the Artist

Courtesy of the Artist

BB: Let us rewind a month and revisit Miami where I first saw your work in person. I tackled Basel first and left extremely discouraged. We don’t need to dissect my list of complaints, but one was the lack of passion exuded by the artists and in turn embedded in the objects (with the exception of a booth containing collaged together prayer rugs). Nada turned my perspective around like your Superclogger did to the unsuspecting commuter. If you are not “up to speed” on this brilliant project Artcards readers, check this: http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs/detail/program_id/585

Back at Nada, I was moved enough to buy a Cory Arcangel print of a Paris Hilton CD and then came across your installation for Francois Ghebaly Gallery. It was a feeling of relief – an affirmation that it’s still OK for me to believe in art. It made me angry at all the other lackluster booths. Your work was a visceral plea, asking where all you other mother fuckers at? Did you form any strong opinions in Miami this year as well? Any art you loved or hated, or experiences you care to share with us?

JK: The only real opinion I formed was that it seemed like a really serious place to make and spend money. It’s a very up-front place of commerce, so much more so than the gallery setting. And that was very interesting to see – the kind of work that’s being presented based on that model – and the way the gallery representatives attempted to educate and/or persuade the potential collector. To me it seemed like a huge performance piece where all the dealers were the performers. I have a video of my favorite piece from Basel (see video link below) by an artist and gallery for which both names have been lost, unfortunately, along with the piece of paper I wrote it down on. Fuck, I’m sorry, I feel really bad that I don’t remember. It was an amazing sculpture of a fan, facing upwards, holding aloft a beach ball with a print of the Earth on it and a sail made of a plastic bag to keep it in line. I’d really love to know who made this… Reader challenge! As for NADA, I thought the work of Bill Adams (KS Art) and Aaron GM (ltd los angeles) was exceptional. Aaron’s performance was really amazing.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqQNlZz36xE

BB: Following that thread. Are there other artist’s doing things that your excited about? And delving into art history, any artists you have identified with along the way?

If it’s not artists that have influenced you, what has and does?

JK: Influences? Please note that this is the most partial of lists, and in no order… Anthony Lepore, Melissa Brown, Michael Decker, Marie Lorenz, Simon Starling, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Marcel Duchamp, Mierle Ukeles, EricDuprey, Paul McCarthy, Bas Jan Ader, Stanya Kahn, Ashley Bickerton, Chris Burden, Andrea Zittel, CharlieWhite, Richard Long, Paul Thek, Al Wunderlich, Andre Breton, Jason Rhoades, Matthew Barney, ThomasHirschhorn, Shawn Greenlee, Marina Abramovic, William Pope L. (for his hard criticism of my work), TomSachs, Daniel Boshkov, Skylar Haskard, Raymond Pettibon, Werner Herzog, David Hammons, Ana Mendieta,Don Van Vliet, Terry Riley, John Sherman (rock climber) Dennis Clemens (wrestling coach), Bas Rutten (MMAcoach / fighter) Forrest Curl (tattoo artist), Marc Moran (tree surgeon), my folks and family of course, thereʼs at least a hundred more…

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BB: The breadth of your work is refreshing and seems to come from the experiences of a life lived. New Years Day I met 6 dudes at Rockaway Beach in deep Brooklyn. We made an illegal fire and took a “polar bear” plunge into the Atlantic. I almost mentioned your project, At sunrise, New Years Day, hike to the highest point you can and jerk off until you come. I was worried my friends might think I was steering this gathering in another direction.

You have a fluid balance of art production all coming from the same place yet ending in different mediums. You do performative pieces like the aforementioned along with drawings, collages, photos, videos, and sculpture. Can you describe your art making process in general? Do you seek out a medium you like to use or is it an organic process of whatever brings you to the end goal?

JK: You should have brought it up. I think you should always have your friends be suspicious of your motives, it keeps things exciting. New day, new year… As for my process, I don’t really go looking to make anything particular, I just have ideas that I’m interested in exploring and then I just follow those wherever my instincts tell me to go. I’ve spent a good bit of time learning how to do lots of different things with the idea that it would produce a very organic art practice with interesting, rewarding, energetic outcomes. I work it out on the fly, I’m trying to feast on everything. We live in a physical world, and if in the end your work is going to be a physical thing – and you want it to mean something more than what you can explain away in a statement – I think that you better be having a very serious, hot affair going on with the material and processes around you. Am I being too vague? I just feel, especially now, there are so many great ideas that come to such lousy realizations. I think this has a lot to do with the outsourcing of labor and the de-skilling of the artist, both of which I have serious problems with. But maybe we save that for another conversation.

BB: Let’s get specific on your 2-D work such as the drawings in Flow, River, Flow! from Miami, which related to the kinetic “fountain” sculptures. Are your collages and drawings preliminary sketches you don’t touch after you start making or doing 3-D things or do you work on these simultaneously or even after?

JK: Collages and drawings made about work that will be finally realized in a form other than drawing or collage are worked on always. I’m not so good at beginnings and ends, but I am very comfortable drawing, so it becomes a pretty safe place for me to work out and expand on ideas that I’m seeing though in 3-dimensions.

BB: You have an upcoming show in Milan. What type of work are you showing there?

JK: It is a group show called The shortest distance between two points is often intolerable at Brand New in Milan. It’s a crew of LA artists curated by Andrew Berardini. I have a sculpture in the show, and I will be doing a site-specific performance called Cowboys Donʼt Care.

Check it out readers:

Gallery: http://www.brandnew-gallery.com

Still shots from performance: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=52861&id=144915028871454

BB: You also have a New York show in the spring. Where will this be and what type of things do we have to look forward to seeing?

JK: It will be with Kate Werble, 83 Vandam Street in West SoHo. I think it will be a pretty wet one again. There will be some new fountain sculptures, several videos, some drawings, and hopefully some awesome shit I havenʼt thought of yet. I like to burn it right to the end.

BB: Your drawings of business cards and an installation involving knives has me wondering if you collect anything – related to your art practice or not?

JK: Injuries.

BB: Your work can be large and ambitious. I know Superclogger was brainstormed years before its execution. Do you have other logistical challenging projects stored in your head you look forward to realizing?

JK: Yes, several, and Iʼm hoping to see two of them through by the end of 2012. One will definitely happen, itʼs called Old Sailors Never Die. Iʼve been thinking about it for four years now, and it looks like 2012 will be its unveiling. The real meat of the project takes place out in the big blue sea, both above and below its surface, so Iʼll be buying a boat in the coming months to begin the research for it off the coast of California.

BB: Let’s end in reverse. You did grad school at the University of Southern California and undergrad at RISD. I read you were a Fort Thunder resident. Are we talking Lightning Bolt and Forcefield days?

JK: We are talking those days.

BB: Back in the present – how long have you been in LA and do you have any thoughts on west coast versus east coast artist lifestyles since you have done both? I’m not searching for a Pac/Biggie face off here, that is, unless you want to call some people out.

JK: Iʼve been in LA for 4 years. I think itʼs really different from New York. I can only speak about my experience, but I find Los Angeles a much easier place to get work done. Itʼs easy access to incredibly diverse environments is unparalleled anywhere in this country and very inspirational to me. Socially and professionally speaking, I can disappear easily, slink away without being noticed, and I find a real freedom in that. I can bury myself in my work here in some different way than I could back east. But as I learn more about myself and my practice, Iʼm realizing that I can take the lessons Iʼve learned here with me anywhere, which is becoming more and more of an appealing idea.

Courtesy of the Artist

As for the post-op tranny. We wrapped things up in the studio and took the conversation to the local bar – Redz. Named for the owner, this former male had some sexy photos up of her new self. I can wrap up this article and my visit east LA style – blood in, blood out.