NEWS: Angry Penguin Attacks SG's Resident Porn Star

CULTURE: Angry Penguin Attacks SG's Resident Porn Star

Zak Smith probably doesn't need much of an intro on this site. SG's resident alt-porn star and artist extrodinaire has a new art book out, but don't ask whats its called, as the book's title has become quite the controversy due to a certain publishing company (Penguin Books) getting its panties in a twist.

Regardless of what the book's called (Illustrations For Each Page of Gravity's Rainbow), readers should check it out because it's guaranteed to be hot.

A while back I had the pleasure of interviewing Smith in New York after some anal porn release party (I think?). He was more than willing to give insight into his creative process:


Zak Smith's works are the antithesis of cliche. His portraits and abstracts are unpredictable, challenge convention and expectation, are appealing to look at, overflow with passion, and instigate a bevy of questions—basically all the qualities you want art to have.

Of the Gravity's Rainbow project, Smith says, "the book is so overdone and intricate and complicated and I want my pictures to be like that, so I figured I could do worse than to try to literally make a visual equivalent of the book." His unique visual interpretation of Gravity's Rainbow does more than state what is written on the pages, the illustrations offer another way to enjoy the novel.

What drives you to create?
Well, I used to say 'I'm only good at two things and they don't pay you to do the other one'—but now they do pay me to do the other one. So I'm not sure, exactly...

At what point did you realize that you have an exceptional talent for art and could probably make a living off it?
You say that as if those two things are related. I was never sure I could make a living off my work--I only knew that I had to try because I was sick of moving boxes and making tacos and teaching people how to pass their GMAT exams.

Are you consciously a "New York" artist? Or are you an artist of our times?
Well, I think many of the artists about my age were influenced by the fact that, when we were growing up, all the fine art sucked. The political stuff had no effect if, like me and my friends, you already WERE a little Nicaragua-researching, pro-choice-marching, gay-rights-sympathizing anarchist and--as far as how it looked--well it looked like things you already knew about before you walked into the museum--so there were no visual surprises there either. Every art show seemed redundant in every way. So I think a lot of artists of my generation discovered that there was a visual golden age ocurring over in comic books and cartoons.

As far as being a New York artist, well I paint stuff that's in New York, and sometime I make pictures about, y'know, books—all that's pretty New York, I guess. But I don't feel much affinity with the ideas in the Chelsea scene—although I think all artists feel like they're surrounded by art that's totally different from what they're into. Greg Crewdson's the only artist I've ever met who seems to think there's a lot of other people making art that relates to his.

In one interview you are described as the "bored 20-something-year-old." Are you still ? Were you ever?
No. Sometimes I go to this pizza place on the corner and I have to wait for them to make a meatball sub and I forget to bring a book and then I'm bored—but otherwise I'm never bored. I'm much too irritable to get bored.

How much of your work would you say is calculated and how much is spontaneous?
Well it usually takes a long time to finish a thing so I go through stages—I generally kind of improvise for a while and then step back and say "Well what've I got here? What does it need?" and then it gets more calculated and then I go back to improvising and back and forth and whatever.

What exactly about the book Gravity's Rainbow made you want to devote an entire series of work towards it?
I was a big GR fan and basically nobody I knew had read it but I thought about it a lot and doing the piece was sort of a way to have a conversation about a book I liked without necessarily having to form a book club or something.

What similarities can you suggest between your work and that of Pynchon?
I don't think that's for me to say—I mean, you're asking me to say how I'm like someone who I think is a genius. I try to make things that are beautiful and complicated, he DOES make things that are beautiful and complicated. Beyond that I'll just let people who know the stuff see if any other dots connect.

I do think that the time GR was published is pretty familiar—there's an election-stealing sack of shit trying to extricate his ass from a poorly-thought-out war that was begun on false pretenses while everybody tries to ignore it while listening to crappy, overproduced dance music.

You must be pleased with the results, how do you feel about the project in retrospect?
Actually, I'd redo a lot of those pictures today if I wasn't busy with other projects—I learned some things doing it. Even though my work had always been influenced by illustrators I never really had to deal with the difference between actual illustration and portraiture before that and I think I screwed up in a lot of ways. Drawing a verb—an action—sometimes has to be approached differently than drawing a noun and I think some of the stuff at the time was just like "Oh well, gotta do page 684." Hopefully not TOO much of it, though.

What other artists do you like? You mentioned a lot of literaterary giants—Bukowski, Rushdie, Joyce etc.
Nicholas DiGenova, Phil Frost, Helen Levitt, William Eggleston, Bernini, Ian McKeever—I like lots of people. Maybe just not people other painters like.

Do the women you capture inspire you? Where does desire come into your work?
It's like I said, I guess—I paint stuff I think about. I think about pretty girls an awful lot.

And the octopus? What is it about octopi that you find implicitly or overtly erotic?!
Nothing really, it just seemed like the girl/octopus combination would give you lots of options to play with, visually. That "100 Girls and 100 Octopuses" piece was just about pure painting, really, trying to make up gorgeous variations.

So, your life...What is the typical Zak day? You produce phenomenal amounts of work—how many hours are in your day?
I get up around noon, I turn on NPR. If NPR's no good I put on some CD...take a shower, call the pizza place and ask them to start making my sandwich, get dressed, go get the sandwich, eat the sandwich while I read something, check my e-mail, then work until 4 am. Sometimes I listen to books on tape or stuff I found on the internet while I work—I listened to George Plimpton yesterday. I listen to South Park when it comes on at like 1 am...

Solitude or social? Preferences?
Well, you kind of have to like being alone to do what I do, but they have this expression in German—"He who would fuck must be friendly", so, y'know...

Links:
art and porn
Dont forget to check out the octopus T-shirts in the SG store.

I find the title of this post misleading.

i've been looking forward to having these paintings in book format for a while now since i never got to see the show(how long ago did i first hear about them?) i guess penguin thought people would confuse it with their latest version of gr, the one with the frank miller cover.

i did get to look at them on a pynchon site, however, and its just stunning work.

Penguins are evil, people should know by now.

Why are penguins such assholes?!?

(somebody had to say it)

Now I understand why I got the cryptic message that delivery of GRI:1PFEP was delayed. I love removing stickers.

Penguins are definitely NOT evil. Didn't you ever do the Kenosha Kid?