The Tamesis
Exactly. The artists I like don’t look at it in this condescending light. I know people will try to say, this is youbut I won’t let it go.
There was an artist named Olivier Mosset who created these monochrome paintings, and when I was first getting into the art world, I was dating a French woman who had a little Mosset. I said, “This reminds me of a nice, clean wall.” I took out a marker and walked over there, but she said, “No, no, no, noNo. ” I was just joking, but she said, “Oh my God, no,” and soon she told Olivier, the artist, “Oh—I’m dating this guy, and he’s one of these doodlers, and he’s going to put tags on your paintings.” Olivier said to her: “Ha–that’s a very interesting idea.” “So I met with Olivier, and I was talking about Ad Reinhardt and Barnett Newman, and he said, ‘You know those guys?’ ” I was 19 or 20 years old, but I was like, “Look, I love this thing. “
We collaborated – I put labels on three or four of his paintings and they were exhibited. One of the pieces I tagged knee art pimpI wrote in my book about how I thought the Red Brigades [Brigate Rosse, a violent far-left Italian paramilitary organization] may appear. I didn’t realize how high-sounding the gallery was, but I thought it might be happening because they were doing political graffiti, attacking different politicians; they were shooting people in the knees.
I once had one of their t-shirts; I heard about them through Clash. I wore it once to meet my Italian father-in-law for dinner and when he saw me wearing the shirt he freaked out and told me I couldn’t wear it in public-
Oh shit.
Regardless, you are in the flow of things now. Your graffiti work is being taken seriously; you will meet soon [writer and editor and Warhol figure] Glen O’Brien and became part of the cast of his legendary cable access show TV party.
They became my family – those guys really mentored me for about three or four years from late ’78 to about ’81. This is critical – I met Chris [Stein] and debbie [Harry] From the elite of new wave and no wave music such as Blondie and John Lurie. The Mudd Club opened at that time, so we all went there together TV partywhich further immersed me in scenes with a variety of different types of creators.
Was it there that you also met a graffiti artist who was known as SAMO at the time?
no, let [Jean-Michel Basquiat] We met at a party but we became better friends through dating TV partyand soon we began to attract the attention of an art dealer in Rome. Some people are curious. Others just see us as savages destroying public property – many of them was But there are some creative people among us who are trying to emerge. I feel like what we do is contextually similar to what new wave and punk did.
