Speakeasy talks with Aaron Rose
It’s been nearly two decades since street art first made its way out of the back-alleyways and train yards of New York City and into a make-shift gallery on the Lower East Side. Alleged Gallery was one of the first indoor spaces to profile the margins and as such became something of a hub for artists operating in irreverently free forms.
“At the beginning there were never any ‘goals’ attached. The only goal was to have fun and share stuff with our friends,” says Alleged’s founder Aaron Rose, who has now profiled the movement he helped to ignite in the feature documentary Beautiful Losers. “And this was the most important message we could bring to life in the film.”
“When street culture started, there were like 80 people in the world who did it,” he says on the phone from LA. Rose describes a tight-knit ‘family’ of artists across all disciplines – graffiti artists, skateboarders, painters, photographers, zinsters and musicians who subsisted on an ethos of DIY creativity and a philosophy that boiled down to art for art’s sake. “There was a lot of support, but a lot of copying and that is how movements are born. We needed each other, for the criticisms and the compliments.”
As an extension of the original communality of the movement, Rose was determined that Beautiful Losers be a collaborative filmmaking experience. He rented a rundown house in LA, set up the edit suite in the living room and invited his creative community to “hang out and give us their ideas”. The result is a film that looks and feels like an art show: a gallery of stories, compulsions and curiosities that found their intersection somewhere between a shared ideal and the walls at Alleged.
The beautiful losers of Rose’s film turned into some of the most influential creators working today. Together they’ve exhibited at the likes of MOMA, created campaigns for Pepsi, been commissioned by Geffen Records and inspired a movement that shaped popular culture around the world. And they still create freely for the streets.
GL: Beautiful Losers is also the name of a group exhibition you put on with the artists from Alleged Gallery. Which came first? The chicken (exhibition) or the egg (film)?
AR: Originally Joshua Leonard and I started shooting openings when it became obvious that there is a buzz going on. We were shooting for about a year before the idea for the exhibition came along. The film project pre-dated exhibition but it was called something like ‘Untitled Street Art Movie’ somewhere around 2002. We just started shooting on the fly interviews with people in galleries. Once the exhibition started it made sense to create the film alongside it and share a name that people would recognise.
GL: You use the word ‘we’ when you refer to the filmmaking process in your director’s statement. Was the film a collaborative effort and were the artists involved?
AR: The ‘we’ is because it’s very much a collaboration. Sometimes it’s hard for me to take the director’s credit. The film only happened because I guaranteed the artists involvement all along. It became a film we were making together. I sent cuts to all different artists and had them chime in on the direction. Not just artists though, a whole community of filmmakers, musos and creative friends in LA. We had periodic screenings at various points where we showed rough cuts and people could come and hang out and give us their ideas.
That was the way we made the film too. Rather than using a post-pro facility we rented a house in not the nicest part of LA. We put the edit suite in the living room with couches and there was a really chilled out vibe. Money Mark set up a music studio in one of the bedrooms and we had a production office in one of the other bedrooms. There were always people hanging out. So it wasn’t your typical editing scenario. It was a big hang all the time. It was very communal.
GL: So the artists contributed to way film was actually shaped.
AR: Yeah I don’t think the film would have happened if I hadn’t guaranteed them that.
GL: How did you manage being both director and subject? And why did you choose not to make that explicit in the film – You’ve chosen to ‘interview’ yourself rather than use first person narrator?
AR: I never wanted to be in the movie. Had I known, I don’t know I would have embarked on the project (laughs). It came down to needing something to string the film together. We had all these amazing stories but no through-line and so Alleged Gallery was how everyone knew each other – it was the through-line. We tried multiple edits without me being a part of it and it wasn’t working. People were confused at how everyone linked together. By default I had to be interviewed and tell those stories so that the narrative makes sense. In the end it was fine and the collaboration thing helped because I could separate myself from it and let other people work on it. I viewed myself as a character in the film rather than a director.
GL: How did you draw the perimeter around the artists you included – was that ‘the’ group of artists who burgeoned during that particular time in the 90s or were there others in the group?
AR: We interviewed almost 100 artists for the film. It was a huge movement and the ones featured, although well-known, are not the most important of the group. It was a hard call as we had some incredible interviews that donated their time that didn’t make the cut. We chose stories that were the most thorough and the most diverse. For example Espo was an archetype for the graffiti writer’s story. We interviewed ten others but focused on Steve so you get to know Steve. Barry McGee is a graffiti writer but comes from a west-coast perspective that is different from Steve’s story. Barry was also crucial to the film so he could tell Margaret’s story. It became a jigsaw puzzle based on these maps we did with chalk and paper.
GL: Does a version of the film exist with all the interviews on it?
AR: Yes there is a version of Beautiful Losers which exists that has everybody in it. It’s a total train-wreck. Most of the artists totally understood what we had to do. It would have been a disservice to keep them all in and wouldn’t have been complimentary to put them in a film where people couldn’t make heads or tails of who people were.
GL: Talk about the collective atmosphere and how intricately the artists were all linked and how they fed off each other.
AR: When street culture started there were like 80 people in the world who did it. It wasn’t as huge as today where there are legions of them in every city. We pretty much all knew each other fairly well because we were very isolated and doing our own thing. So the artists did know each other. At one point it was a small family. And everyone influences everybody. As Thom says in the film, when you’re young you’re like ‘Dude, you’re biting my shit’ and there was a lot of fighting because people would copy each other all the time. Then you get older you realise that everything is cool. There was also a lot of support – and a lot of copying – but that is how movements are born. If you think about punk music, it’s all kind of the same song, just different people’s take on it. So at a certain point there was a lot of exchange going back and forth. Eighty percent was positive and the rest was about egos. You’re trying to figure out who you are as an artist when you’re in your early 20s and most of us weren’t very secure at that point so we needed each other – for the criticisms and the compliments.
GL: There’s this intrinsic idea that comes through in the film that the only thing we ever have to be is ourselves. I was wondering in what ways this idea had been lost or forgotten along the way as you became more successful and older – and then how has it also been remembered and re-embraced? And has there been friction over the ebb and flow of this sentiment’s importance?
AR: When Margaret passed away in 2001 I also shut my gallery and that was around the time of 9/11 - and the NY artists who are in the film had studios down there. So it was like three punches in the gut within three months. It was a heavy time. There was a period of time for about a year when we all lost who we were. With Margaret passing away the family broke apart. It was a very painful time for everybody in that group. The movie parallels that in a weird way. We had to pick ourselves up from that loss of innocence, because it was all pretty light before that and it got pretty heavy all of a sudden. Life wasn’t all fun and games and wacky weird artists. I had some serious financial problems. It was a hard time and I think I speak for all the artists in saying that we hurt for a long time and it was only through coming together through the group exhibition, Beautiful Losers, that we came back together and really healed. A lot of us hadn’t seen each other in years. I think those messages in the movie about just being yourself were all as a result of losing yourself because of tragedy and then coming back and reuniting and realising that not only are you OK but the world is OK. We’re still alive and let’s make art.
GL: So it was as much about reminding yourselves of that message as it was about telling other people?
AR: Oh yeah. It wasn’t about preaching to an audience at all. They were hard years. In retrospect they were crucial to our development but at the time it really stunk.
GL: Do you feel that post all of that, now that everyone is older and wiser, that everyone is still managing to keep true to that philosophy of making art for each other, for the sake of having fun and sharing it? Is that possible?
AR: Yeah, I think so. I know that sounds like a bold statement. But lives change. A couple of artists have recently had children and switched career paths a little because of the responsibility of raising a family. Things happen in your life that change you and I can’t fault anyone for that - but for the most part the vibe still exists. And no matter how big the projects get too. I was in conversation with Mike Mills and he’s about to go into production on a new film. There’s a lot of money at stake and it’s with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Ewan McGreggor. It’s a big Hollywood movie and there’s a lot of pressure but at the same time we talk about it the same way we talk about the drawing of a rainbow he just made (laughs…).
GL: Was there a sense amongst the artists whose careers were taking off at that time back in the '90s that they maybe weren't 'outsiders' anymore but had actually started to become 'in' - and did that realisation change the way you all operated and the mood amongst everyone?
AR: Yeah, it's a very interesting thing to go through when you define your self as an outsider and build a whole life around saying 'I am against' - I am not society, I am against society - and all of a sudden the New YorkTimes is calling you. It's a total identity crisis! I should be saying 'Fuck You New York Times!' If I'm real... but then at the same time you're an artist and want your work to reach as many people as possible and in some ways it's really an honour that the New York Times is calling you. So there's definitely this 'check your head' moment of 'What? How do you manage this? How do you stay true to your values?' You've also sold your values to legions of young people who believe in this, who are making art themselves because they believe in what this is about. So you have a responsibility to be that and keep that part of you.
I personally always try to make sure I'm doing things that aren't for money - just making zines and giving them away to my friends, or doing weird projects or keeping myself tied to the street no matter how big the projects I'm tied to are. Barry McGee does the same, although he's relaxed on tagging now because he has a daughter. But for a long time, the bigger the show, the more money he was making, the more graffiti he felt he'd have to do. He had to balance it out - do more illegal stuff to balance out the success. It's a unique place to be in, especially in this world which is so success oriented. I call it punk-rock-ville.
GL: I want to talk about Jeff and the Pepsi campaign. It was a beautiful ad but that interview felt defensive and it left me feeling that perhaps there was disagreement in the group about the ethics behind doing that ad. I was wondering what the fuller story was there?
AR: It’s funny because I’ve got some criticism from the artists in the movie who felt that it was my responsibility to take a stand against corporations, but for the documentarian side of me, it wouldn’t have been totally right to say corporations are evil because people like Mike, Jeff and Shephard work within that structure easily and actually prefer it to the art-world in many cases. So I tried to present it as a balanced argument. Chris and Jo are not into it but someone like Jeff feels that it’s a stronger venue for his art. He’s interested in communicating on a mass level. Same with Shephard Fairey and the Barack Obama campaign. He’s interested in reaching as many people as possible in the most pop way possible. There’s different philosophies operating, artist to artist, and not everybody agrees. There have been some serious dinner debates!
GL: It’s clear that everyone has their own personal stand in the film but I got a sense that Jeff was being defensive rather than just saying ‘This is who I am and that is OK’. I also didn’t hear interviews with people who were against what he did. Why did you choose to not show really explicit articulations of people who are really against corporate jobs?
AR: Good question. Maybe I was too soft on it. There are a couple of dissenters right at the beginning of that scene – Steve and Chris and Jo Jackson. I don’t know that I had anyone on film criticising Jeff directly which would have affected a dialogue coming in like that. It’s an interesting point and maybe that’s a place where as a filmmaker I could have done a better job.
GL: For me it’s not about Jeff’s work particularly, it’s about the larger question. I had a debate about that line between ‘making art’ and ‘selling out’ with the people I watched the film with. It’s a hard line to draw. Where do you personally draw that line?
AR: I say no when I’m not allowed creative freedom. Jeff’s the same and he speaks to that in the film. When the client says ‘Do it your way. We want you’ it’s a big shift in the corporate world, especially the advertising world where the people who are making the decisions and hiring Jeff for campaigns are the same age as us. They’re ad agencies run by 25-year-old fans. We’re being hired by these kids who have money and say ‘I love what you do and I have money , let’s make a project together’ rather than the way you traditionally think of advertising as old men in suits.
GL: This was Pepsi – which is not the worst product in the world but not the best either. Mike does car adverts. Where does the line stop – cigarettes, alcohol? How do you draw that line of what’s OK to support and what’s not OK to support?
AR: I am never motivated by money. I have to like the client. I have to like what they do. My name’s on it, no matter what it. I have to believe in the product and the people I’m working with and a lot of it for me boils down to that relationship. I meet the agencies and the clients and get a vibe from them. Sometimes it’s a really cool product that I believe in but the people are jerks and I don’t do it. I think it’s about finding very clean collaborations where everybody comes out feeling like they sacrificed a little and won a little. You trust your gut. And there have been a couple disasters for all of us.
GL: I got a sense that all you guys were very ‘of the time’ in that early 90s period, and the world is now a different place to when you started making art. Do you think artists today could have the same impact as you guys did? Do you think the same thing could happen today? Street art is not an underground art anymore. It’s completely visible. Was this a movement that was very of the time and of the place?
AR: No I think there are kids right now in a garage wherever you are, hanging out, making art together. Our story is the same story that’s been told over and over again. It happened in Paris, at CBGBs, the punk scene in the 70s, at Warhols Factory and it happened with the Dogtown scene in Venice. Movements and people coming together to make things is the way people are. More so, with the aid of technology to communicate, those elements can grow even larger.
At same time it does boil down to the physicality. I think you have to spend time with each other in person. Those scenes bloom all the time and every so often, which is what happened to us. The cultural times happened to take a big leap at same time we hopped on the scene and we were in tune with that. And that hasn’t happened a lot since then but it will. Culture is always moving and there will be that group of creative people who have been working in secrecy and underground for years and it will hit that moment and it will all pop. It’s happened over and over through history so I can’t imagine that we’re the end of it.
GL: Do you continue to discover new artists and exhibit them?
AR: As much as I can. I’m the old man in the group now (laughs) and I’m aware of that and respectful. I try not to intrude on the scene and keep my distance. I keep my ears to the street and have a couple of 21 year-old agents to tell me what they’re into. But I don’t know if it’s my job to be constantly on the pulse of the underground. I love seeing things gestate more than I love seeing them bloom.
~ Ghita Loebenstein 2009.
It’s been nearly two decades since street art first made its way out of the back-alleyways and train yards of New York City and into a make-shift gallery on the Lower East Side. Alleged Gallery was one of the first indoor spaces to profile the margins and as such became something of a hub for artists operating in irreverently free forms.
“At the beginning there were never any ‘goals’ attached. The only goal was to have fun and share stuff with our friends,” says Alleged’s founder Aaron Rose, who has now profiled the movement he helped to ignite in the feature documentary Beautiful Losers. “And this was the most important message we could bring to life in the film.”
“When street culture started, there were like 80 people in the world who did it,” he says on the phone from LA. Rose describes a tight-knit ‘family’ of artists across all disciplines – graffiti artists, skateboarders, painters, photographers, zinsters and musicians who subsisted on an ethos of DIY creativity and a philosophy that boiled down to art for art’s sake. “There was a lot of support, but a lot of copying and that is how movements are born. We needed each other, for the criticisms and the compliments.”
As an extension of the original communality of the movement, Rose was determined that Beautiful Losers be a collaborative filmmaking experience. He rented a rundown house in LA, set up the edit suite in the living room and invited his creative community to “hang out and give us their ideas”. The result is a film that looks and feels like an art show: a gallery of stories, compulsions and curiosities that found their intersection somewhere between a shared ideal and the walls at Alleged.
The beautiful losers of Rose’s film turned into some of the most influential creators working today. Together they’ve exhibited at the likes of MOMA, created campaigns for Pepsi, been commissioned by Geffen Records and inspired a movement that shaped popular culture around the world. And they still create freely for the streets.
GL: Beautiful Losers is also the name of a group exhibition you put on with the artists from Alleged Gallery. Which came first? The chicken (exhibition) or the egg (film)?
AR: Originally Joshua Leonard and I started shooting openings when it became obvious that there is a buzz going on. We were shooting for about a year before the idea for the exhibition came along. The film project pre-dated exhibition but it was called something like ‘Untitled Street Art Movie’ somewhere around 2002. We just started shooting on the fly interviews with people in galleries. Once the exhibition started it made sense to create the film alongside it and share a name that people would recognise.
GL: You use the word ‘we’ when you refer to the filmmaking process in your director’s statement. Was the film a collaborative effort and were the artists involved?
AR: The ‘we’ is because it’s very much a collaboration. Sometimes it’s hard for me to take the director’s credit. The film only happened because I guaranteed the artists involvement all along. It became a film we were making together. I sent cuts to all different artists and had them chime in on the direction. Not just artists though, a whole community of filmmakers, musos and creative friends in LA. We had periodic screenings at various points where we showed rough cuts and people could come and hang out and give us their ideas.
That was the way we made the film too. Rather than using a post-pro facility we rented a house in not the nicest part of LA. We put the edit suite in the living room with couches and there was a really chilled out vibe. Money Mark set up a music studio in one of the bedrooms and we had a production office in one of the other bedrooms. There were always people hanging out. So it wasn’t your typical editing scenario. It was a big hang all the time. It was very communal.
GL: So the artists contributed to way film was actually shaped.
AR: Yeah I don’t think the film would have happened if I hadn’t guaranteed them that.
GL: How did you manage being both director and subject? And why did you choose not to make that explicit in the film – You’ve chosen to ‘interview’ yourself rather than use first person narrator?
AR: I never wanted to be in the movie. Had I known, I don’t know I would have embarked on the project (laughs). It came down to needing something to string the film together. We had all these amazing stories but no through-line and so Alleged Gallery was how everyone knew each other – it was the through-line. We tried multiple edits without me being a part of it and it wasn’t working. People were confused at how everyone linked together. By default I had to be interviewed and tell those stories so that the narrative makes sense. In the end it was fine and the collaboration thing helped because I could separate myself from it and let other people work on it. I viewed myself as a character in the film rather than a director.
GL: How did you draw the perimeter around the artists you included – was that ‘the’ group of artists who burgeoned during that particular time in the 90s or were there others in the group?
AR: We interviewed almost 100 artists for the film. It was a huge movement and the ones featured, although well-known, are not the most important of the group. It was a hard call as we had some incredible interviews that donated their time that didn’t make the cut. We chose stories that were the most thorough and the most diverse. For example Espo was an archetype for the graffiti writer’s story. We interviewed ten others but focused on Steve so you get to know Steve. Barry McGee is a graffiti writer but comes from a west-coast perspective that is different from Steve’s story. Barry was also crucial to the film so he could tell Margaret’s story. It became a jigsaw puzzle based on these maps we did with chalk and paper.
GL: Does a version of the film exist with all the interviews on it?
AR: Yes there is a version of Beautiful Losers which exists that has everybody in it. It’s a total train-wreck. Most of the artists totally understood what we had to do. It would have been a disservice to keep them all in and wouldn’t have been complimentary to put them in a film where people couldn’t make heads or tails of who people were.
GL: Talk about the collective atmosphere and how intricately the artists were all linked and how they fed off each other.
AR: When street culture started there were like 80 people in the world who did it. It wasn’t as huge as today where there are legions of them in every city. We pretty much all knew each other fairly well because we were very isolated and doing our own thing. So the artists did know each other. At one point it was a small family. And everyone influences everybody. As Thom says in the film, when you’re young you’re like ‘Dude, you’re biting my shit’ and there was a lot of fighting because people would copy each other all the time. Then you get older you realise that everything is cool. There was also a lot of support – and a lot of copying – but that is how movements are born. If you think about punk music, it’s all kind of the same song, just different people’s take on it. So at a certain point there was a lot of exchange going back and forth. Eighty percent was positive and the rest was about egos. You’re trying to figure out who you are as an artist when you’re in your early 20s and most of us weren’t very secure at that point so we needed each other – for the criticisms and the compliments.
GL: There’s this intrinsic idea that comes through in the film that the only thing we ever have to be is ourselves. I was wondering in what ways this idea had been lost or forgotten along the way as you became more successful and older – and then how has it also been remembered and re-embraced? And has there been friction over the ebb and flow of this sentiment’s importance?
AR: When Margaret passed away in 2001 I also shut my gallery and that was around the time of 9/11 - and the NY artists who are in the film had studios down there. So it was like three punches in the gut within three months. It was a heavy time. There was a period of time for about a year when we all lost who we were. With Margaret passing away the family broke apart. It was a very painful time for everybody in that group. The movie parallels that in a weird way. We had to pick ourselves up from that loss of innocence, because it was all pretty light before that and it got pretty heavy all of a sudden. Life wasn’t all fun and games and wacky weird artists. I had some serious financial problems. It was a hard time and I think I speak for all the artists in saying that we hurt for a long time and it was only through coming together through the group exhibition, Beautiful Losers, that we came back together and really healed. A lot of us hadn’t seen each other in years. I think those messages in the movie about just being yourself were all as a result of losing yourself because of tragedy and then coming back and reuniting and realising that not only are you OK but the world is OK. We’re still alive and let’s make art.
GL: So it was as much about reminding yourselves of that message as it was about telling other people?
AR: Oh yeah. It wasn’t about preaching to an audience at all. They were hard years. In retrospect they were crucial to our development but at the time it really stunk.
GL: Do you feel that post all of that, now that everyone is older and wiser, that everyone is still managing to keep true to that philosophy of making art for each other, for the sake of having fun and sharing it? Is that possible?
AR: Yeah, I think so. I know that sounds like a bold statement. But lives change. A couple of artists have recently had children and switched career paths a little because of the responsibility of raising a family. Things happen in your life that change you and I can’t fault anyone for that - but for the most part the vibe still exists. And no matter how big the projects get too. I was in conversation with Mike Mills and he’s about to go into production on a new film. There’s a lot of money at stake and it’s with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Ewan McGreggor. It’s a big Hollywood movie and there’s a lot of pressure but at the same time we talk about it the same way we talk about the drawing of a rainbow he just made (laughs…).
GL: Was there a sense amongst the artists whose careers were taking off at that time back in the '90s that they maybe weren't 'outsiders' anymore but had actually started to become 'in' - and did that realisation change the way you all operated and the mood amongst everyone?
AR: Yeah, it's a very interesting thing to go through when you define your self as an outsider and build a whole life around saying 'I am against' - I am not society, I am against society - and all of a sudden the New YorkTimes is calling you. It's a total identity crisis! I should be saying 'Fuck You New York Times!' If I'm real... but then at the same time you're an artist and want your work to reach as many people as possible and in some ways it's really an honour that the New York Times is calling you. So there's definitely this 'check your head' moment of 'What? How do you manage this? How do you stay true to your values?' You've also sold your values to legions of young people who believe in this, who are making art themselves because they believe in what this is about. So you have a responsibility to be that and keep that part of you.
I personally always try to make sure I'm doing things that aren't for money - just making zines and giving them away to my friends, or doing weird projects or keeping myself tied to the street no matter how big the projects I'm tied to are. Barry McGee does the same, although he's relaxed on tagging now because he has a daughter. But for a long time, the bigger the show, the more money he was making, the more graffiti he felt he'd have to do. He had to balance it out - do more illegal stuff to balance out the success. It's a unique place to be in, especially in this world which is so success oriented. I call it punk-rock-ville.
GL: I want to talk about Jeff and the Pepsi campaign. It was a beautiful ad but that interview felt defensive and it left me feeling that perhaps there was disagreement in the group about the ethics behind doing that ad. I was wondering what the fuller story was there?
AR: It’s funny because I’ve got some criticism from the artists in the movie who felt that it was my responsibility to take a stand against corporations, but for the documentarian side of me, it wouldn’t have been totally right to say corporations are evil because people like Mike, Jeff and Shephard work within that structure easily and actually prefer it to the art-world in many cases. So I tried to present it as a balanced argument. Chris and Jo are not into it but someone like Jeff feels that it’s a stronger venue for his art. He’s interested in communicating on a mass level. Same with Shephard Fairey and the Barack Obama campaign. He’s interested in reaching as many people as possible in the most pop way possible. There’s different philosophies operating, artist to artist, and not everybody agrees. There have been some serious dinner debates!
GL: It’s clear that everyone has their own personal stand in the film but I got a sense that Jeff was being defensive rather than just saying ‘This is who I am and that is OK’. I also didn’t hear interviews with people who were against what he did. Why did you choose to not show really explicit articulations of people who are really against corporate jobs?
AR: Good question. Maybe I was too soft on it. There are a couple of dissenters right at the beginning of that scene – Steve and Chris and Jo Jackson. I don’t know that I had anyone on film criticising Jeff directly which would have affected a dialogue coming in like that. It’s an interesting point and maybe that’s a place where as a filmmaker I could have done a better job.
GL: For me it’s not about Jeff’s work particularly, it’s about the larger question. I had a debate about that line between ‘making art’ and ‘selling out’ with the people I watched the film with. It’s a hard line to draw. Where do you personally draw that line?
AR: I say no when I’m not allowed creative freedom. Jeff’s the same and he speaks to that in the film. When the client says ‘Do it your way. We want you’ it’s a big shift in the corporate world, especially the advertising world where the people who are making the decisions and hiring Jeff for campaigns are the same age as us. They’re ad agencies run by 25-year-old fans. We’re being hired by these kids who have money and say ‘I love what you do and I have money , let’s make a project together’ rather than the way you traditionally think of advertising as old men in suits.
GL: This was Pepsi – which is not the worst product in the world but not the best either. Mike does car adverts. Where does the line stop – cigarettes, alcohol? How do you draw that line of what’s OK to support and what’s not OK to support?
AR: I am never motivated by money. I have to like the client. I have to like what they do. My name’s on it, no matter what it. I have to believe in the product and the people I’m working with and a lot of it for me boils down to that relationship. I meet the agencies and the clients and get a vibe from them. Sometimes it’s a really cool product that I believe in but the people are jerks and I don’t do it. I think it’s about finding very clean collaborations where everybody comes out feeling like they sacrificed a little and won a little. You trust your gut. And there have been a couple disasters for all of us.
GL: I got a sense that all you guys were very ‘of the time’ in that early 90s period, and the world is now a different place to when you started making art. Do you think artists today could have the same impact as you guys did? Do you think the same thing could happen today? Street art is not an underground art anymore. It’s completely visible. Was this a movement that was very of the time and of the place?
AR: No I think there are kids right now in a garage wherever you are, hanging out, making art together. Our story is the same story that’s been told over and over again. It happened in Paris, at CBGBs, the punk scene in the 70s, at Warhols Factory and it happened with the Dogtown scene in Venice. Movements and people coming together to make things is the way people are. More so, with the aid of technology to communicate, those elements can grow even larger.
At same time it does boil down to the physicality. I think you have to spend time with each other in person. Those scenes bloom all the time and every so often, which is what happened to us. The cultural times happened to take a big leap at same time we hopped on the scene and we were in tune with that. And that hasn’t happened a lot since then but it will. Culture is always moving and there will be that group of creative people who have been working in secrecy and underground for years and it will hit that moment and it will all pop. It’s happened over and over through history so I can’t imagine that we’re the end of it.
GL: Do you continue to discover new artists and exhibit them?
AR: As much as I can. I’m the old man in the group now (laughs) and I’m aware of that and respectful. I try not to intrude on the scene and keep my distance. I keep my ears to the street and have a couple of 21 year-old agents to tell me what they’re into. But I don’t know if it’s my job to be constantly on the pulse of the underground. I love seeing things gestate more than I love seeing them bloom.
~ Ghita Loebenstein 2009.