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Lari Pittman:[br]I think as chaotic as American culture is—

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sadly, ironically, or even perversely—[br]I thrive on that.

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I’m able to carve out[br]a tremendous amount of freedom

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and even more particularly in Los Angeles.

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I can control this idea of aesthetics and beauty—

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micromanage it more here[br]than I could in cultural situations

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where there is such a strong,[br]established code of aesthetics—

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that it’s still the wild west on some levels,

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that you can still paint [br]it any which way you want.

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I want to offer a painting that[br]somehow the viewer has to stand in front of it

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and almost not believe it.

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But in the act of not believing it,[br]what they’re actually seeing,

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they get swept away in it.

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Everything about it is fake and artificial,

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but they get transported somewhere far away.

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That’s a great thing.

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The work is visually available to everybody.

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Multiple viewers can approach it very differently.

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For example, I’m always excited when[br]the UPS man or the water man comes in,

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to the front of the studio, and makes a delivery—

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and they immediately just respond [br]to the work and thumbs up,

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that type of thing.

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I will not high five though.

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But I’m also interested that [br]the work occupy a denser,

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critical territory that would [br]require a different type of audience,

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maybe a different type of visual literacy.

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The work is not confined to one demographic.

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The work has the capacity to [br]navigate between these very,

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very distant polls of the [br]populist and the elitist.

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There’s a very, very strong [br]Mediterranean core to who I am.

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And quite frankly I need a lot of sun.

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I was born in Glendale, California,[br]but my formative years were in Colombia.

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My mother is Colombian.

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My father is southern,[br]from the United States,

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from a Protestant background.

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So I grew up in a very...not [br]a contradictory world,

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but a hybrid world.

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I had a pet chicken named Jaime,

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that I remember my aunt [br]Ligia bought for me at Sears

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when we were living in Colombia.

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Then we moved to my mother’s [br]family town near the equator.

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I was not going to leave Jaime behind.

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My father asked the captain or the pilot [br]if I could bring the chicken on my lap

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and that was fine,[br]it was all cleared.

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My grandmother was with us [br]living for a while in Cali

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and I requested that we make [br]a traveling outfit for Jaime,

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so we made a vest.

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I was just very proud and I was never made fun of.

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It was just that kind of [br]idea of totally normative.

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And so my father was with me[br]and I was allowed to have my chicken,

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fully dressed for travel on my lap.

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I think that that kind of pre-condition of

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allowing me to express a fey side,[br]I guess, as a young boy,

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was given full reign and never, ever commented on,

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and I think that that’s why the [br]decorative aspect of the work

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comes systemically, organically,[br]naturally to me because

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it was really allowed to bloom and blossom[br]and wasn’t curtailed or curbed when I was a child.

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I’m grateful for having a charmed life[br]and a certain amount of privilege

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I’m very excited and thankful for.

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But even within that framework of[br]living somewhat in a bubble,

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I think what keeps me radicalized is[br]being aware of the overwhelming hatred

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that is exhibited by the American population

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and through actual legislation [br]against homosexuals.

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I can lead quite a pretty life (LAUGHS),

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but it’s always quickly clarified by those[br]very aggressive strains in American culture which,

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in a way, wonderfully puts me in my place.

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I will not leave painting.[br]I won’t leave it.

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I won’t leave it down.

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I think it comes from a deep cultural pathology[br]that maybe homosexuals might have.

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That is, you fix something up—[br]that kind of service component of one’s kind,

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of looking at things and fixing them up.

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That’s kind of how I looked at[br]painting in the ‘70s,

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because it was a completely[br]abandoned thing.

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And I was kind of thrilled that it was abandoned.

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And I maybe had a chance to fix it up.

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The impetus for this painting[br]really comes from Mexican retablo

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which is a devotional painting on tin

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and I think it dates roughly [br]from mid to late 19th Century.

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I’m an avid collector of these anonymous painters—

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of these retablos that were [br]used as devotional imagery.

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I’m attracted to them ironically as an atheist.

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I’m attracted to religious art

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simply because it usually [br]shows a hyperbolic moment

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like the suffering or martyrdom of the saint—

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or, in this case, a very dramatic moment[br]in the life of Christ.

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So I do look at this religious image[br]through a secular lens.

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And then, actually,[br]this little painting was able to

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give me the cues for the color [br]palette in the painting itself.

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Although now I need to have a more [br]destabilizing color introduced in it.

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I’ve always taken from the retablos,

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but it’s more about a type of painting technique—

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a kind of decorative, applied arts technique

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by which they embellish the [br]surface of the retablos.

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And that I’ve been doing for over twenty years.

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But this was the first time I sampled so directly.

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I think it was because it was about figuration.

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Every morning, I have a walk about,[br]looking at all the cactuses that we’ve planted.

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Really studying them.

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This is the first time that instead of inventing[br]or fabricating a painting,

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that I’m actually referring to[br]something very specifically

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that I’ve been looking at every morning.

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What I think still has to happen[br]in a painting like this is that

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we’re seeing the setting and [br]we’re seeing a list of nouns.

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And there are a list of adjectives.

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So the nouns are all being modified.

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But, linguistically, what isn’t happening [br]in this painting is the verb yet.

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In all of the paintings—

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and especially in the ones that I showed[br]in New York at the end of last year—

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it really is a form of poltergeist or [br]animism that’s inhabiting the scene.

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The tableau.

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Clearly, something is occurring [br]in this area of the painting.

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Some sort of shift of identity of a space,[br]but we can’t name it.

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But, then, a way for me to [br]somewhat sublimate it back down

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and for it not to seem too spectacular,

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I’ve placed a spider web over it to somewhat...[br]like a net, to somehow corral the effect a bit.

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It’s a central part of the painting,[br]but again it’s still not enough

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for it to be the verb of the painting.

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And somehow I think the verb of the [br]painting has to occur somewhere in here,

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somehow to activate the branches of the cactus

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even at the expense of it being [br]a little bit more allegorical.

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That I wouldn’t mind.

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I’m not resisting the invasion of[br]that aspect of my private life,

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which is the garden really clearly[br]finding its place in the work.[br]

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I don’t respond to the idea of nature at large.

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I prefer landscaping.

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And landscaping as a way to[br]push back a little bit the chaos of nature,

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of the kind of violence of it.

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So it’s imposing a type of [br]rational gardening structure

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over these cactus and succulents.

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We’re not as keen on a type of naturalism[br]so the garden has a very decided mannerism to it.

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The cactus are the surrogate structure.

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And the garden is one elaborate metaphor.

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One of the things that gardening [br]induces in the gardener,

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for good or for bad,[br]is a rumination on mortality.

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Because you have a concentrated and

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very compressed relationship to [br]the life and death of plants.

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You think about that a little bit more[br]than if you didn’t garden.

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It becomes a heightened [br]synopsized life and death cycle

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over and over and over again.