KIM JONES
“My favourite time to
do Mudman is when
no one expects or
knows that I’m going
to do it”
“The Xs and dots are fighting each other for the control of the
space they live in,” he says. “A little like the way we live. They are not
simply flat diagrams. They are alive. At least to me.”
Jones’s other work has included more or less figurative depictions
of mythological figures, drawing and painting on photographs
of himself, of Mudman, of Playboy models. There are also sculptures
of what look like three-dimensional townscapes mounted on the back
of jackets, so they can be worn as a different kind of living sculpture.
Jones is hardly a household name. His 30 years of work has had
limited exposure, but in recent years he’s been in group shows at LA
MOCA, the New Museum and MoMA in New York, the Pompidou
Centre in Paris, as well as having solo shows at Pierogi Brooklyn
and Leipzig. And now the Luckman Gallery is holding the first full
retrospective of his art, which will be followed by his inclusion in this
year’s Venice Biennale.
There’s a sense that Jones may be an artist whose time has
come. Contempt for the war in Vietnam led to contempt for the poor
grunts who fought it. That seems to be one thing America has learned;
even the strongest opposition to the Iraq war is now accompanied by
the need to ‘support our troops’, both politically and emotionally. The
warrior artist who has been to war, brought back news and reconfigured
it as conceptual or performance art is an intriguing proposition: a man
of his times.
I asked Jones if he had any plans to do a Mudman walk as part
of the retrospective. “I still do Mudman,” he said. “I haven’t done it in
a while, but I plan to do it as long as I can. I have no plans to do it at
Luckman. My favourite time to do Mudman is when no one expects or
knows that I’m going to do it.”
above: Untitled, 1990 (installation view, PS1, Long Island
Kim Jones: A Retrospective, is at the Luckman Gallery, Los Angeles, City). Photo: Melissa Hayden. Courtesy Luckman Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles
until 19 May; Mudman: The Odyssey of Kim Jones, edited by Sandra Q.
Firmin and Julie Joyce, is published by the MIT Press; work by Kim Jones facing page: Untitled, 1995–6, graphite on paper, 36 x 28 cm. Photo: Jim Bush. Collection Susan Lorence. Courtesy
is included in this year’s Venice Biennale, 10 June to 21 November Luckman Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles
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