I love being fooled. Whether a carnival huckster, con artist, pickpocket, or infomercial salesperson, anyone who hides behind the armor of a carefully rehearsed routine fascinates me. My obsession with infomercials started as a child, and Ronco was my favorite; any problem in the world melted away when the Pocket Fisherman commercial came on. That voice, part carny talker and part uncle, was Ronco founder Ron Popeil. I applied my tip money toward buying the Pocket Fisherman and other miracle inventions like the food dehydrator, Inside-the-Shell Scrambler, and GLH-9 Hair in a Can, which I used in a painting. I wonder who owns that hair-piece. I even wrote fan letters to Mr. Popeil and received cordial replies.
When I type the word Ronco on my MacBook, spellcheck changes it to rococo, and I grin from ear to ear. Infomercials skillfully manufacture desire, which is itself a form of tension, a one-sided longing for that which is craved. If you look beyond the chocolate sipping and ass pinching, you’ll find that eighteenth- century French Rococo painting is full of such tension. François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Antoine Watteau, and Nicolas Lancret painted desperate, lustful pictures, using frivolity to mask melancholy as if something cherished were coming to an end. Rococo images are often dismissed as trivial, pastel-hued, and decorative, three things I happen to love. They are also highly skilled paintings by successful artists. With brushstrokes that glow as if painted with liquefied silver, a Fragonard embodies the conceptual framework of its message, one of fragrant luxury, classical reference, loss, and sexual fantasy.
Some critics and instructors use the word decorative pejoratively, as if severity and discord make a painting good. They probably couldn’t make a successful decorative painting if their powdered pink cheeks depended on it. What they fail to recognize is that the will to decorate doesn’t only arise out of levity and frivolity, but also out of doubt and uncertainty. Reality is questioned, reexamined, and improved through the process of ornamentation. I believe that it’s impossible for an artist not to reflect his or her times; however, art is not a mirror, it’s a container. Everything goes in, but only the artist decides what to reveal, and how; the painter Robert Motherwell said, “It’s an intellectual decision to paint emotionally.” Painting should be more than eye candy, but every painter should know how to make really good candy. Studying decorative arts can help an artist integrate disparate elements into a cohesive whole that delights the eyes. Pleasure is, itself, content.
Every painting is decorative.
Manufactured desire is equally as enticing as fabricated environments. Every few weeks for the past fifteen years, my close friend the photographer Arne Svenson and I meet for lunch at the Olive Garden in Chelsea; we call it our “Ladies Luncheon” because our spouses are professionals with day jobs. With some of the finest restaurants on earth within a one-mile radius, we go to Olive Garden because it has the kind of watered-down, one-size-fits-all environment that is an ideal forum for our very real conversations. We talk about the art world, share career triumphs, and have supported each other through the deaths of parents all over bowls of overcooked spaghetti and meatballs. I love scripted, corporate hospitality and planned environments because they make those tender, unexpected human moments all the more poignant.
As I type this, I am sitting in a cobalt-blue neon banquette under a fake rainforest at the Peppermill Resort Spa Casino in Reno, NV. Casinos relax me because they are the most honest places on earth; everyone knows that the house always wins. No lies. Casinos are also planned corporate environments that appear to run effortlessly while thousands of workers labor in concealed hallways, offices, and stations operating the controls. Any experience that puts a wide gap between what you pay to see and what is hidden attracts me. This division between front room and back room is why I don’t like restaurants with open kitchens. When I go out for dinner with my wife or friends, I want to be immersed in a carefully orchestrated front-room experience, not see pots of boiling potatoes; I’ve worked in enough restaurants. Although I labor for months in my studio, my exhibitions are strictly front-room experiences. No one is allowed into the kitchen. My videos are styled after cooking shows for this reason: to give people a glimpse of the boiling potatoes.