Raymond Pettibon | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Pettibon in 1984 | |
| Born | Raymond Ginn (1957-06-16)June 16, 1957 (age 67) Tucson, Arizona, U.S.[1] |
| Education | UCLA |
| Known for | Drawing,Video art,Installation art |
Raymond Pettibon (bornRaymond Ginn, June 16, 1957) is an American artist who lives and works inNew York City.[2] Pettibon came to prominence in the early 1980s in the southern Californiapunk rock scene, creating posters and album art mainly for groups onSST Records, owned and operated by his older brother,Greg Ginn. He has subsequently become widely recognized in the fine art world for using American iconography variously pulled from literature, art history, philosophy, and religion to politics, sport, and sexuality.
The fourth of five children born to R.C.K. Ginn, an English teacher who published several spy novels;[3] his mother was a housewife.[4] Pettibon grew up inHermosa Beach, California.[5] He was raisedChristian Scientist.[2] He earned an economics degree fromUCLA in 1977[3] and worked as a high school mathematics teacher in the L.A. public school system for a short period, before pursuing and completing his BFA in 1977.[6]
In 1976, his brother, guitarist/songwriterGreg Ginn, founded the influential punk rock bandBlack Flag. Initially, Pettibon had been a bass player in the group when it was known by the name Panic. When the band discovered that another band called Panic existed, Pettibon suggested the name Black Flag and designed their distinctive "four bars" logo, a stylized black flag rippling in the wind.[7] Around the same time, Pettibon adopted his new surname, from the nickname petit bon (good little one) given to him by his father.[8] Pettibon's artwork appeared on fliers, album covers and gift items (T-shirts, stickers and skateboards) for Black Flag through the early 1980s, and he became well known in the Los Angeles punk rock scene.[9]
Pettibon is married to video artistAïda Ruilova, with whom he has a son.[10] He is an avid sports fan.[11]
Known for his comic-like drawings with disturbing, ironic or ambiguous text, Pettibon's subject matter is sometimes violent and anti-authoritarian. From the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, he was closely associated with thepunk rock bandBlack Flag and the record labelSST Records, both founded by his older brotherGreg Ginn. In addition, Pettibon designed the cover of the 1990Sonic Youth albumGoo; bassistKim Gordon had been a longtime admirer of Pettibon's art and written about him forArtforum in the 1980s.[3] Beginning in the mid-1980s, he became a well-known figure in the contemporary art scene.
Pettibon works primarily with India ink on paper and many of his early drawings are black and white, although he sometimes introduces color through the use ofpencil,watercolor,collage,gouache oracrylic paint. He has stated that his interest in this technique is a result of the influence of artists such asWilliam Blake andGoya, and the style of political editorial cartoons.[12] His drawings come out by the hundreds. He started to publish them as limited-edition photocopied booklets in 1978. These booklets, which he continues to produce as "Superflux Pubs," are considered "the sum of his ideas and aesthetics".[3] Pettibon started working in collage in the mid-80s with simple newsprint elements collaged onto black and white images.[13] In his new works, the artist again uses the means of collage.[14]
As Holland Cotter noted inThe New York Times:
Mr. Pettibon is, with gratifying regularity, a sharp political critic. It is the most interesting thing about him. His targets can be quite specific: the drug-wrecked hippie movement of the 1960s, the American war in Iraq. Yet his entire output, despite interludes of lyricism and nostalgia, and a running strain of stand-up humor, is a steady indictment of American culture as he has lived it over the past 60 years.[15]
A retrospective of Pettibon's work entitledA Pen of All Work, spanned three floors of New York City'sNew Museum in 2017.[16][17]
For New York'sHigh Line, Pettibon created a temporary billboard in 2013, displaying a 2010 baseball drawing calledNo Title (Safe he called ...) and featuringJackie Robinson of theBrooklyn Dodgers sliding home.[18]
In addition to his works on paper, Pettibon has also made animations from his drawings, live actionshot-on-video films from his own scripts (each focusing on theAmerican counterculture of the 1960s-1970s),[19] unique artist's books, fanzines, prints, and large permanent wall drawings that often include an arrangement of his own works on paper almost creating aninstallation of collage. In the early 1990s, fellow artistMike Kelley played guitar on an album of songs that Pettibon recorded for the independent label Blast First out of New York and London.[3] He is now the lead singer of the Niche Makers, a band based in Venice, California.[20]
Together with German sound artist Oliver Augst he released the musical "The Whole World Is Watching" (withSchorsch Kamerun,Keiji Haino and Marcel Daemgen) in 2007 as part of theMaerzMusik festival of theBerliner Festspiele, Berlin.
Pettibon's artwork inspired the music video for the 2011 song "Monarchy of Roses" byRed Hot Chili Peppers. Pettibon is also mentioned in the song's lyrics.
In June 2013, a new documentary series,The Art of Punk was released on YouTube. The first episode features the art of Black Flag and Pettibon.[21]
Pettibon began exhibiting his work in group shows in galleries in the 1980s. In 1992, Pettibon was invited to participate inHelter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s, curated by Paul Schimmel at theMuseum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA).
In 1993, Pettibon was included in theWhitney Biennial along with Noni Grevillea. By the mid-90s, Pettibon had exhibited extensively, including exhibitions at theMuseum of Modern Art, New York; theMuseum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA);Kunsthaus Zurich;White Columns, New York. In the late 90s, Pettibon to exhibited internationally including shows at theTramway (arts centre) in Glasgow, Scotland, theHammer Museum, Los Angeles and the 1997Whitney Biennial.
In 2002, Pettibon participated indocumenta XI in Kassel, Germany, curated byOkwui Enwezor. In 2004, Pettibon participated in theSite Santa Fe Fifth International Biennial exhibition: Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque, curated byRobert Storr. For this exhibition, he created his first animation using his own drawings. That same year, Pettibon participated in theWhitney Biennial for the third time and was awarded the prestigiousBucksbaum Award for his installation of drawings.
In 2007, Dominic Molon of theMuseum of Contemporary Art, Chicago organized an exhibition titled,Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll since 1967, and included a selection of Pettibon's original drawings fromBlack Flag concert flyers and album covers.
In 2008, Pettibon participated in the California Biennial, organized by Lauri Firstenberg, which featured one of his works as a large billboard on theSunset Strip in Los Angeles. In 2010, Pettibon participated in theLiverpool Biennial curated by Lorenzo Fusi. In 2011,Rizzoli released a comprehensive monograph, edited byRalph Rugoff, the most comprehensive publication of Pettibon's works to date.
Since 2018 his workNo title (if you can) and has been part of the permanent collection ofColección SOLO at its museum in Madrid (Spain). Temporary exhibitions also show his paintingsBroken at Last, andSonic Youth cover signed by the artists andKim Gordon.
Barry Blinderman gave Pettibon his first solo exhibition at theSemaphore Gallery in New York in 1986.[4] In 1995, he had his first major solo exhibition atDavid Zwirner Gallery. By the mid-1990s he had his first solo museum exhibition at theKunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, which traveled to Paris. In 1998, a self-titled show opened at theRenaissance Society in Chicago, and traveled to theDrawing Center in New York; thePhiladelphia Museum of Art; and theMuseum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2002, he had a solo exhibition,Raymond Pettibon Plots Laid Thick, organized by Museu D’art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), which traveled to Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo and GEM, Museum Voor Actuele Kunst, The Hague, The Netherlands.
In 2006, Pettibon had a major solo survey exhibition at the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga, Spain that traveled to thekestnergesellschaft in Hannover, Germany. A comprehensive catalogue was produced on the occasion of both exhibitions. In 2007, Pettibon participated in theVenice Biennial,Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind: Art in the Present Tense, curated byRobert Storr for which he created a unique wall drawing installation.
Monographs of Pettibon's work include: Raymond Pettibon, published by Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malaga for his solo exhibition in 2006 at the museum in Malaga, Spain and subsequently traveled to the kestnergesellschaft in Hannover, Germany. Whatever You're Looking For You Wont’ Find It here, published by the Kunsthalle Wien to accompany Pettibon's exhibition in 2006; Turn to the Title Page, an artist book that was specially created as a part of Pettibon's one-artist exhibition at theWhitney Museum in 2005; Raymond Pettibon: Plots Laid Thick published byMACBA in Barcelona, Spain in 2002; Raymond Pettibon, published byPhaidon Press, Inc. in 2001; Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work, published byPhaidon Press, Inc. in 2017; Raymond Pettibon: The Books 1978–98, edited by Roberto Ohrt and published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter Konig and DAP, New York in 2000; and Raymond Pettibon: A Reader, published by thePhiladelphia Museum of Art and theRenaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 1998. That same year theRenaissance Society also published, Thinking of You a limited edition artist book. Raymond Pettibon, published byKunsthalle Bern, edited by Ulrich Loock in 1995.
Pettibon's work is included in the collection of many museums and institutions worldwide including: The ArmandHammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; TheArt Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL;Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas; Ellipse Foundation Contemporary Art Collection, Lisbon, Portugal;Colección Solo, Madrid; FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, Lille, France;Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland;Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, Germany;Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA;Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA;Ludwig Museum, Köln, Germany;Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI;Museion, Bolzano, Italy;Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands;Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL;Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA;Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA;Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, Linz, Austria;Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA;Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA;Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO;Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany;San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Stiftung Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland;Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom;Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada;Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN;Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; WIMNAM/CCI,Centre Pompidou, Paris, France.
Raymond Pettibon is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes. In 1991, he was awarded theLouis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award for which a catalog was produced. In 2001, theMuseum Ludwig named Pettibon the winner of itsWolfgang Hahn Prize. In 2003, Pettibon was awarded the Grand Prize of Honor for his participation in the 25thBiennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, Slovenia. For the 2004Whitney Biennial, Pettibon was invited to create an installation of drawings for the exhibition. He was awarded theBucksbaum Award for his installation, the world's largest award given to an individual artist.[24] (TheBucksbaum Award is awarded every two years and is always given to an artist whose work is displayed in that year's Whitney Biennial.) As part of the honor, theWhitney Museum organized a solo exhibition that opened in the Fall of 2005, featuring new works and published an artist's book for the occasion. Most recently, Pettibon was awarded theUniversity of Vienna'sOskar Kokoschka Prize for 2010. Established by the Austrian government in 1980, following the painter's death, the Kokoschka Prize is awarded to a contemporary artist every two years.
The artist is represented by Regen Projects, Los Angeles andDavid Zwirner, New York. He regularly shows with Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin andSadie Coles HQ, London. In 2011, on the occasion ofBen Stiller andDavid Zwirner’s Artists For Haiti charity auction atChristie's, Pettibon'sNo Title (But the sand), sold for $820,000.[25]
The following people who were the subjects to Pettibon's tapes:
