When I invited art curator Kathy Grayson of The Hole to accompany me on my next studio visit, she suggested we check out the workspace of Taylor McKimens, who inspired the famous Mail Order Monsters show that she curated at Deitch in 2007. Taylor's work is at the crossroads of many disciplines (like painting, sculpture, and cartoon art), and it's far from pursuing any romantic, idealistic quest. Rather, Taylor is interested in the details that bring us back to our modest human condition. Find out what Kathy and I chatted about with Taylor below.
Alexandre Stipanovich: Let's start by talking about how you two met.
Kathy Grayson: Taylor, did you see the first show I curated, the Dirt Wizards show? It was probably there.
Taylor McKimens: Yeah, I must have met you there!
AS: And Kathy, what made you want to include Taylor in Mail Order Monsters?
KG: He was the inspiration behind that show. That's why he did the catalogue and everything. I liked his work because it showed this very elaborated vision––he had a very clear style and focused interests. It was like a whole world that you could really inhabit, not just because of the sculpture intervention in the space but because there was this integrity of vision in everything he made and touched. It was just really interesting and I wanted to see him make more of this world.
Recently, he has been making these really major, enormous masterpiece canvases that we showed in New York Minute at the Macro in Rome and at The Garage in Moscow. He also had major canvases in the Mail Order Monsters show that traveled from Berlin to London to Athens to New York. So what I want to do at The Hole in 2013 is show 15 major, bodacious paintings. He did an art fair booth in Los Angeles where he made the booth look kind of unfinished, with these purple boxes that he painted, which were sculptures but also furniture. What we haven't done yet is a MoMA painting show kind of thing. That's what I'm excited to do.
AS: There's a lot of heat in your paintings––visible sweat and drips. You also seem to reference the desert a lot as well.
TM: My stuff can look really sweaty, drippy, and gooey. But is my stuff always like that? I'm not sure. I was really into Garbage Pail Kids and the stuff that was always in MAD magazine.
AS: Who is your favorite Garbage Pail Kid?
TM: My favorites were usually the ones painted by John Pound. #102 Mugged Marcus was always my favorite. As a kid I always obsessed over them. I probably first understood how to paint by looking at them.
AS: There seem to be a lot of oppositions in your work––a figure that looks depressed and gloomy, for instance, might be counterbalanced with joyful and poetic colors.
TM: That is important to me, these opposites. I feel that the best of art has extreme opposites in it, like something that's really heartbreaking and sad, and simultaneously goofy. So you're not really sure how to react to it. The more extreme it can be, the better.
KG: In this diner painting [see left], is there an interest in Americana or the influence of Edward Hopper?
TM: There is a song written by Shel Silverstein that was originally published in Playboy magazine. Bobby Bare recorded a short version of it that's over eight minutes long––it's like a
Alexandre Stipanovich: Let's start by talking about how you two met.
Kathy Grayson: Taylor, did you see the first show I curated, the Dirt Wizards show? It was probably there.
Taylor McKimens: Yeah, I must have met you there!
AS: And Kathy, what made you want to include Taylor in Mail Order Monsters?
KG: He was the inspiration behind that show. That's why he did the catalogue and everything. I liked his work because it showed this very elaborated vision––he had a very clear style and focused interests. It was like a whole world that you could really inhabit, not just because of the sculpture intervention in the space but because there was this integrity of vision in everything he made and touched. It was just really interesting and I wanted to see him make more of this world.
Recently, he has been making these really major, enormous masterpiece canvases that we showed in New York Minute at the Macro in Rome and at The Garage in Moscow. He also had major canvases in the Mail Order Monsters show that traveled from Berlin to London to Athens to New York. So what I want to do at The Hole in 2013 is show 15 major, bodacious paintings. He did an art fair booth in Los Angeles where he made the booth look kind of unfinished, with these purple boxes that he painted, which were sculptures but also furniture. What we haven't done yet is a MoMA painting show kind of thing. That's what I'm excited to do.
AS: There's a lot of heat in your paintings––visible sweat and drips. You also seem to reference the desert a lot as well.
TM: My stuff can look really sweaty, drippy, and gooey. But is my stuff always like that? I'm not sure. I was really into Garbage Pail Kids and the stuff that was always in MAD magazine.
AS: Who is your favorite Garbage Pail Kid?
TM: My favorites were usually the ones painted by John Pound. #102 Mugged Marcus was always my favorite. As a kid I always obsessed over them. I probably first understood how to paint by looking at them.
AS: There seem to be a lot of oppositions in your work––a figure that looks depressed and gloomy, for instance, might be counterbalanced with joyful and poetic colors.
TM: That is important to me, these opposites. I feel that the best of art has extreme opposites in it, like something that's really heartbreaking and sad, and simultaneously goofy. So you're not really sure how to react to it. The more extreme it can be, the better.
KG: In this diner painting [see left], is there an interest in Americana or the influence of Edward Hopper?
TM: There is a song written by Shel Silverstein that was originally published in Playboy magazine. Bobby Bare recorded a short version of it that's over eight minutes long––it's like a