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Spraygraphic Interview with Ray Beldner
By Spraygraphic | December 5, 2007
Spraygraphic Interview with Ray Beldner
SG: Please tell us about yourself?
RB: I am a sculptor who lives and works in San Francisco. I got a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, CA. I’ve been around awhile–I’m old enough to remember the first moon landing. I remember exactly where I was when John Lennon got shot. I saw the Challenger blow up. I didn’t grow up with cable, MTV or a VCR. I never used a computer until graduate school. The first computer I bought cost $7000! My first cell phone was the size of my shoe. It weighed 2 lbs and the battery lasted 1/2 hour…
SG: What mediums do you work with?
RB: I don’t work with very traditional media. I often refer to myself as a “conceptual materialist.” I work with various materials–anything related to the concept of the project: wood, metal, plaster, oil, water, urine, dirt, glass, books, US currency, porn, found and stolen items.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
RB: It varies from series to series. I find ideas and inspiration from everyday life. Sometimes an idea demands a certain material or approach to realizing it’s conception, sometimes a particular material drives the idea of the project.
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
RB: From the amazing and never-ending supply of images on the Internet.
SG: I’m interested in how art is portrayed and valued in our society, so I recently did a whole series of large-scale ink-jet prints about famous works of art that I found in the backgrounds of amateur porn websites. I used the small, digitally degraded jpegs with no other manipulation than to crop them to call attention to the background artwork and minimize the sexual acts. It was pretty funny–pornless porn…
SG: Can you tell us a little about your series, Counterfeit. How did it all begin?
RB: Counterfeit was a series in which I selected key artwork by famous artists, such as “Fountain,” by Marcel Duchamp, “Three Flags,” by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn,” (to name a few examples) and re-made them out of sewn US currency. I started making artwork out of money because as an artist, educator, and part-time art appraiser, I am often asked to assign an economic value to my artwork or others. By remaking “signature” artworks by 20th century masters, I was hoping to broaden the discourse about art in general to include discussion of its social, historic and aesthetic values.
SG: How did you get involved with the “Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age?” Which pieces did you have in the show?
RB: I really can’t remember how I met the curator of the show, Carrie McLaren, or how I got in. I do know that everyone in it was either sued or threatened to be sued for copyright infringement. Over several years, the show traveled from New York to Chicago, Philadelphia, Portland, Florida and San Francisco and I had various Counterfeit pieces in it: a portrait of Chairman Mao, based on Warhol’s portrait, A big “O” based on a sculpture by the Pop artist, Robert Indiana.
SG: Can you tell us a little about Items That I Have Taken From People That I Know.
RB: In my current series I call “Items I Have Taken From People That I Know” I approach the concept of appropriation in a different manner than the “Counterfeit” work while still examining issues pertaining to value. The title is pretty self-explanatory. Each object that forms the assemblages is stolen, mostly from friends and family. I can’t be sure, but I reckon that the stolen items are of little economic value. I swipe them solely for their aesthetic appeal and to fulfill my practice of looking, discerning, and acquiring the components needed to complete work. After all the objects are assembled, I flock them with ground money, both to obscure where they came from and to give them a seemingly greater economic value.
SG: What was the most expensive thing that have taken from someone you knew?
RB: Since I don’t know their personal, sentimental or historic value, so I can’t really answer that one.
SG: Where has your work been seen?
RB: Most recently, in “Kapital” at the Kent Gallery, “Trading Places: The Art of Financial Exchange” at the New York Mercantile Exchange, “Material Abuse” at Caren Golden Fine Art, “Living With Duchamp” at the Tang Museum, Skidmore College and in “Greetings From the American Dream” at the Riverside Art Museum. I also have work in the permanent collections of the Federal Reserve Board, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Oakland Museum, and the San Jose Museum of Art.
SG: Where will it be seen next?
RB: Some neon pieces will be on display in March 2008 at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, and I have a solo exhibition scheduled for Fall 2008, at the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.
SG: What is your dream art assignment?
RB: Just having unlimited time in my studio with no interruptions.
SG: What is your favorite color?
RB: Green, of course.
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
RB: Quite randomly my book is: “A Concise Guide to Judaism.” My magazine is The New Yorker.
SG: Ever do a self portrait? Where is it now?
RB: Many. Most artists do. I have no idea where any might be.
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
RB: Next to my studio, I’d say Bernal Bubbles. It’s a laundromat that I own. I run art lectures out of there on the first Saturday of every month.
SG: Any final words of advice?
RB: Don’t do what I have done. Don’t play with your food, steal, look at porn or waste money.
ART: 1) Love, 2) How Mao, 3) Untitled, 4) Hot huge, 5) Items I Have Taken #9, 6) Items I Have Taken #5 — 2006
Topics: Artist Interviews, San Francisco Art Scene |
