“Perhaps I’ve this silly feeling that artwork can save the world,” the Los Angeles–primarily based artist Llyn Foulkes mentioned in an oral historical past carried out for the Smithsonian Archives of American Artwork. That was in 1997. Now, in 2024, Foulkes, one of many authentic artists to point out at LA’s storied Ferus gallery within the ’60s, would possible be the primary to confess that it hasn’t.
If something, the world has, by most accounts, gotten worse. However our darkish occasions seem to be good ones to point out work by Foulkes, an artist New York Occasions critic Ken Johnson as soon as praised as capturing a “temper of ethical indignation, anger and grief leavened by darkly visionary hilarity.” An exhibition of latest and outdated work opens tonight on the New York gallery A Hug From the Artwork World; it’s particularly timed to the US election. The present, which runs by way of the tip of the 12 months, is named “The Untied State of America.”
At age 89, Foulkes could not be taking part in his sprawling, vaudevillian one-man-band instrument, which he calls merely The Machine, however he continues to make artwork that’s no much less eccentric—and no much less pressing—than it’s ever been.
On this present, there’s a 2022 piece displaying a person with a bloodied face holding a sickle, his eyes obscured by the Ukrainian flag; a 2022 portrait known as Ivanka, by which the previous President’s daughter is created from, amongst different issues, a fraction of an animal cranium and a clown’s collar; jokily surrealist, borderline Boschian drawings from the ’40s by way of the ’60s; a 2017 piece depicting Mickey Mouse promoting land within the American West; and a 2016 self-portrait as Mickey Mouse beached on a Trump lifeboat.
ARTnews requested Foulkes some questions over e-mail in regards to the political scene.
ARTnews: This present has been particularly timed to open 5 days previous to the 2024 US election. Why is that vital to you?
Llyn Foulkes: Democracy is on the road. Traditionally talking, assholes are usually unhealthy leaders. As an artist it’s my obligation to make clear the great, the unhealthy and the ugly. I want there was extra good about politics, battle, and land grabs, however there isn’t.
Since this present consists of works courting from the previous ten years, I’ve to ask: how did your work change after the 2016 election and through Trump’s presidency? You’ve made darkish and bizarre “portraits” of presidents prior to now like The Golden Ruler (1985), which exhibits Reagan. There’s a portrait of Ivanka within the present. Have you ever painted Trump?
Conceptually, it hasn’t modified a lot. As I become old, the mediums shift as I dive into extra bronze and sculptures. Trump and the 2016 election sadly impressed me to do my job. So far as depicting Trump, he’s in all places, simply not in a direct portrait. Proper now, he doesn’t deserve a portrait just like the skilled statesmen earlier than him, he’s a real hack.
You’ve made numerous work referencing Richard Nixon. Corruption-wise, Trump has been spoken of as Nixon on steroids. What’s your tackle comparisons of the 2 of them?
Nicely, for starters, they’re each crooks, one being knowledgeable, the opposite, an newbie.
How did your work change after the January 6 rebel? Your work has all the time appeared to me to evoke a darkish pressure inside American patriotism. What had been you considering on the day of the rebel?
January 6 wasn’t a lot of a shock to me—enterprise as regular in MAGAland. It didn’t sit proper with me, though one thing like this was anticipated if he had been to lose the election. I keep in mind considering the media was fortunate to have one other shitshow to sensationalize.
There have been so many issues involving Disney not too long ago that call to mind your Mickey Mouse work—and a brand new work within the present is Beached, a mummified self-portrait as Mickey Mouse on a Trump lifeboat. Individuals are going into debt with a purpose to go to Disneyworld; a man is suing on behalf of his nut-allergic spouse who died after consuming at a restaurant there; there’s a tiff with Ron DeSantis over Disney’s criticism of a state regulation that restricted the educating of sexuality in faculties.
It’s good to see Walt and his Disney legacy take a success. They may go down finally, though it might take 600 years. Disney’s complete function since inception has been to indoctrinate younger youngsters into backwards values; fairly sick when you ask me. Consumerism is the demise of the soul, and our capitalistic society is lastly beginning to get up to that.
I perceive the present features a sort of storyboard instantly out of your studio. Some issues included in it are an vintage cutaway view of a .38 pistol and, close by, an precise pistol; framed birds’ nests and animal skulls; a tomahawk stone; a highway signal that warns of curves up forward; a sheriff’s badge; an image of Charlie Chaplin; a corn cob; a grenade; seashells; a ticket for a 1966 Beatles live performance at LA’s Dodgers Stadium; your drivers license that expired in 2015; a bit of driftwood on which is scribbled “Journey to Huge Sur August 1984.” There are examples of your personal work blended in with souvenirs, thrift retailer finds, issues taken from the road. All of that is positioned above and round a sofa that appears prefer it may double as a sleeper or a web site for psychoanalysis. Are you able to inform me a bit about this agglomeration of objects and the way it has impressed you over time?
The wall is my life. Work, private, and all issues between, typically bridging the hole between the 2. Individuals have gifted me objects, I’ve discovered objects, and sure, among the objects are works of mine that I’ve by no means proven within the context of any gallery or assortment. The wall is difficult. I’m, too.
You’ve made works prior to now that reference the Vietnam Warfare and the Gulf Warfare. What has been your response to the newest, and ongoing, two wars (in Ukraine, and in Gaza)?
It’s a pity. My coronary heart goes out to the entire folks whose lives have been modified and misplaced due to authorities and company greed. They are saying World Warfare II introduced us (me) out of the despair; what a sick strategy to put corn on my desk.
Your retrospective from 2012, which appeared on the Hammer Museum and the New Museum, appeared very darkish on the time, in its references to America. I ponder if now it could simply seem to be our actuality?
I knew we had been going on this path. As quickly as Trump introduced his candidacy, I saved saying he’d win. Shit.
Gauguin as soon as made a big portray known as The place Do We Come From? What Are We? The place Are We Going? Should you had been to create an art work with that title immediately regarding america, what do you suppose it could appear like?
I’m not too positive what it could appear like, however Gauguin asks an important query. In regard to america, we must see what occurs on November 5.