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Spraygraphic Interview with Artist Noah Lyon
By Spraygraphic | September 26, 2008
Spraygraphic Interview with Noah Lyon
SG: Please tell us about yourself?
NL: Let me answer that question by answering the next 14 questions.
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
NL: New York City
SG: What mediums do you work with?
NL: I’ll take a medium and take it to the extreme. So it would be way more than medium, more like maximum. Maximum rock’n’roll. Maximum markers. I use paper too. But maximum doesn’t always mean the biggest it also could be, like, the smallest. So I’ll take a 1”x 1” piece of paper and make the most incredible drawing ever, nowhere near medium, if it were a pepper it would be the most hot and if it were Bob Marley it would be the most high. One-inch drawings turn into one-inch buttons & I’ll make the most of that too. Like make the maximum amount of buttons. I think 50,000 might be the max. Anyways that’s where I’m at right now. Way beyond medium. Push it to the limit, walk along the razor’s edge. I’ll make a painting with no paint. Is that medium or minimum? I try to work as little as possible. Minimum work, maximum results, any medium, bring it on.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
NL: Like I said no work is the best work so usually I’ll take something old and try to pass it off as new. I do work about 10 years in advance just so I can sit around doing nothing all day. That’s conceptual art.
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
NL: I pull my boxers up to my nipples and walk around the house. You’d be surprised. A lot of really old men do that with their pants. They wear the waist of their pants around the middle of their chest. That’s where I get a lot of my ideas from, the elderly. So I’ll strip down to underwear & yank them up really high. That’s pretty much the equivalent of me putting on my thinking cap. Who the cap fit, let them wear it, that’s what I always say. For my birthday (September 11th - gifts and honorariums are always welcome) my wife is going to buy me a rasta hat with big dreadlocks attached to it. I think that should help with the creative process. I also like prune juice. I make my own corn syrup free Dr. Pepper. The secret ingredient is prune juice. That’s one reason people call me Doctor Ninja.
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
NL: I gonna have to go with God on this one. Vaya con Dios. Divine inspiration. The Gods and the Earths, the 85%ers, devil and connivers, there are a lot of the latter in NYC so they keep me on my toes.
Right now though? Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique. Dr. Alimantado – The Best Dressed Chicken In Town. Wu-Tang Clan, boom. Look at Public Enemy – It takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. You can just look at a record & it’s inspiring, you don’t even have to listen to it. Funkadelic and Dead Kennedys those two groups, pick a discography & I’ll eat it for breakfast. Wu-Tang, I said it before and I’ll say it again, life moves pretty fast. Check out the Gravediggaz – 6 Feet Deep. All of Lee “Scratch” Perry’s early records. Run DMC. Anything groundbreaking. I’ve watch Superbad 15 times. I would personally like to invite Jonah Hill & Michael Cera to my house to smoke weed. Even if they don’t smoke weed. Maybe Jonah Hill wants to smoke weed but Michael Cera doesn’t. It doesn’t matter. Anyone from the cast of Freaks & Geeks is welcome to my house, anytime. I watched 3 seasons of Arrested Development this week. That was funny. The Butthole Surfers’ early records were very influential so I’m revisiting that stuff. My wife’s cooking is inspiring. Anyone who is great at what they do. Music, humor and sheer genius that’s what I take to heart and put in my art. I’m a scratch DJ and because I’m handicapped I’ll never be able to do what DJ Q-Bert does. But what he does with a turntable is inspirational. I also like terrible graffiti, botany and baseball caps. And t-shirts, I love t-shirts. I’m inspired by punk rock shirts. I’ve been wearing the same bunch for 15 years. White silkscreens on black shirts, classic stuff like G.I.S.M. and Crass. I have a Jello Biafra tour shirt with a fist coming out of a toilet. It has a much more iconic graphic impact than Metallica’s “metal up your ass” shirt even though I think that one came first. It’s really hot in New York now & the Jello Biafra shirt is from ’91 so it’s nice and breezy. Did I mention that I cut the arms off? The Scientist Wins the World Cup record is blowing my mind right now. I’ve been diggin’ in the crates a lot lately finding awesome old records for $2 - $3. Cypress Hill shit from ’91. Boogie Down Productions, old hip-hop and then I dig deeper for all the records that that music samples. I found a dope Ramsey Lewis record yesterday. I find people the most inspiring. Peace to the Gods & the Earths of Brooklyn. Word is Bond. I love my wife. She’s my #1 inspiration. After that I just keep my eyes & ears open.
SG: Where has your work been seen?
NL: Lot’s of fancy art galleries, most recently the Armory Show in NYC, Art Basel in Switzerland. Plus lot’s of not so fancy places like the Deitch Projects toilet, non profit places like Space 1026 and ABC No Rio. My buttons are on people everywhere. So that’s like a traveling exibition that’s always open to the public. People who wear Retard Riot buttons may not know my name but they’re showing my work. I had an installation in Bejing last month. I have 9 blogs, there’s 9 members of Wu-Tang so that’s how my website is formatted. People see what I’m up to there…
http://retardriot.com/drawings
http://retardriot.com/paintings
SG: Where will it be seen next?
NL: My gallery, well I don’t own it, but they’re a bunch of nice Swedish people that show my work, is Brandstrom Galleri in Stockholm. I should have another show coming up there, maybe in 2009. My new zines are always at Printed Matter in New York. I have a couple prints for sale at the New Museum right now. I have a drawing in a traveling show called Penned. It’s up in Baltimore right now. Every month I put new buttons up here http://retardriot.com/buttons. I’m looking for a new space to show here in New York, I’ve got some installations up my sleeve. I’ll put one up right now, right before your eyes. Next to a lantern or a slice of pizza.
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
NL: Make everything spin. It would be nice to do a project that had a huge budget. I want a billion dollar grant to make art. Then I’d do installations galore. And make computers make everything spin until everything whizzes off into space.
SG: What is your favorite color?
NL: I enjoy the whole spectrum, but if I have to pick three: Red Black & Green. The red is for the blood in my arm. The black is for the gun in my palm. And the green is for the herb that grows natural. I’m revolutionary but gangsta. Also R. B. G. are internet colors. I look good in red. So if it’s a matter of affiliating with a gang strictly based on colors I’d roll with the Bloods. But if I had to choose base on graffiti styles I’d be a crip. Once the Blue Man Group put one of my drawings on an album cover without my permission. I wonder what that album sounds like. Probably weird as hell.
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
NL: My favorite artist is me, because I can create my wildest dreams. I have a very vivid imagination. If I can think it I can make it. I’m not very good at oil painting though so if I want to see a Van Eyck or a Bruegel I have to go to a museum. I like Heironymous Bosch but I can emulate his style pretty well. When I imagine Bosch I think of content & I can bust out my own evil shit, but when I think Pieter Bruegel the Elder his hand style is impeccable. I can’t paint the way he does.
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
NL: I read High Times magazine every month. It’s the only magazine that’s about a plant. And it’s the same plant every month. It’s astounding. Abert Camus – Exile and the Kingdom. And a 33 and 1/3 book on Paul’s Boutique. I stayed up all night just so I could finish it that’s how good that was. I write book reviews so there are 50 other books I should be reading. Oh, I’m reading a Krazy Kat book by George Herriman. Fantagraphics put that out. They publish lots of good comic stuff. Another book I’m into is Bill Daniel’s Mostly True, that’s a good book. It’s all about Hobos.
SG: Ever do a self-portrait? Where is it now?
NL: Everything I make is a self-portrait. When you look at any of my work you’re looking at least some piece of me. If you wanna know what my physical being looks like here’s a recent self portrait. http://www.retardriot.com/photos/2008/07/08/i-see-you-seeing-me-believe-me/
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
NL: The window of my Brooklyn apartment waving my fist at those pesky kids.
SG: Any final words of advice?
A fool who persists in folly becomes wise. Oi!
Topics: Artist Interviews |
October 1st, 2008 at 5:19 am
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