Art

At Ease with Attaboy

by Alfonso Manosalvas on January 07, 2010 at 02:20AM

As loose, with it, and individualistic as we all hope we are, we rely on genres, sub-genres and market segmentations to help us to put things into categories. There’s just no escaping getting a label slapped on stuff and, admit it – we all want to belong to something, even if it's an anti-something. Just like the music world is splintered into scenes like dubstep, lo-fi, shoegaze and rumcore (OK, we made that last one up), the art world has its schisms too. Currently, there’s a groundswell around a new genre sometimes called "outsider," "outlaw," and "low-brow" art among many other monikers. Part of this scene came out of the California hot-rod and tiki culture. Another part of it came out of the world of indie animation and comic book art as an art form, and yet another seems to come out of a mash-up of Addam's Family/Victorian-era/goth-dom.

Some of what brings together this wave of artists is accessibility and marketability – they’re taking the piss out of the rarefied kingdom of fine art and making art easier to see and, believe it or not, to own. That’s not to say that many of these artists are any less talented or creative than the art world lions—you’ll see some pretty intricate technique and aesthetic in much of this new, outlaw art. Artists like Attaboy (Daniel Seifert), Skot Olsen and (Gary) Baseman are at the vanguard of this scene, creating paintings, action figures, giclees, skateboards, books and much, much more.

At the center of this world is Hi-Fructose magazine, created by artist Attaboy and his fiance, artist Annie Owens. I recently caught up with Attaboy to talk publishing, art, and their crazy custom "adult toys," that is, super-cool figurines that have names llke Axtrx, The Winged Shmee, The Gooberry, and 20 Qwezshuns.

We've been talking about today’s art scene as if it's a unified movement when in fact, it may be more of a loose gathering of different artists and styles, responding to where the rarefied world of "highbrow" art is today—what's your take?

I think it’s more of an empowering attitude; scenes and movements tend to come and go. People feel like they can check out/listen to any music they like. Why are there such barriers in the fine art world? For years folks felt they were being conned or not educated enough to like art. And there’s no reason for that. What’s going on is a response to that. I know there’s a lot of people who just realized that they can collect and see more visual art. It’s as if they’ve finally received the permission to do so. That doesn’t mean pure, high concept, stark conceptual art has no value, it’s just that its caretakers propagated an insulated elitist environment to protect their investments. If approached today, curators would never let a Michelangelo or Donatello (both illustrators who worked for their main client, the church) into a museum. That’s OK. The scared abstract snobs will die off or do what they do best, follow the money.

Now there are galleries all over the world doing their own thing, without looking for validation and there are big-pocketed collectors willing to invest in what they like, not something someone tells them they should like. Or, we’ll start our own museums…don’t get me started!

How do you create your characters? Are you an old-school doodler who bumps into them along the way or do you work out the concept in your head for a character before putting pen to paper?

They’re more like personal diary entries, little messages hidden inside the fortune cookie for people to read with their tongues while chomping on the tasty cookie part.

Is there a back story regarding your use of punctuation to create some of your figures, such as Axtrx and 20 Qwezshuns?

Oh yes, they’re an homage/response to Shinto-esque Japanese thinking, where everything has a soul. I wanted to take something (punctuation marks) literally so much that it became distorted. As if punctuation marks we use everyday we based on actual creatures from long ago. That’s why they’re spelled wrong: The Axtrx (*), Qwezshun (?), etcera. Each time we use their mark, they grow in power. My original goal was to send something thoughtful but bizarre back to the Japanese and make them wonder for a change...

So, who or what is the Gooberry?

Gooberry is the first designer plush with a pull string that "speaks." It was manufactured by a great little Bay area punk rock record company. Each Gooberry has been freshly picked from a secret Gooberry Patch before ripening just for you! Like a newborn's skull, their soft skin has yet to be fully formed, so a Gooberry is very impressionable and extra-sensitive to your each and every touch!

I've heard you've done some animation work. The name Disney came up...and also vaudeville?

I created and directed a 5-minute short for a certain mouse-eared company. It was animated by my new friends Ghost Bot (who did all those Esurance commercials). The music was created by the awesome Bay area performer/DJ Mike Relm. It’s strange and mainly for kids and available on iTunes for free download.

I Hate Cartoons, an Animation festival that I created 5 years back which merges Independent Animation and Human Cartoons like my friend Daniel Smith (the Guinness Book of Records champion) Rubberboy, the Yo Yo King, might be rearing its ugly head in the next year for a second time. The animations are fresh and amazing with vaudeville acts before and between. It’s the way people used to go to the movies, an amazing night out for a short attention span audience.

How did Hi-Fructose come about?

Annie and I find it ridiculous that we started an art magazine. It’s bizarre and has changed our life completely. It’s the only thing we ever worked on together and that just might have been the special ingredient as we both come from different perspectives. We just got engaged, but we’ve been married to the mag for nearly 5 years now, so it’s been a steady climb. It was a lot of hard work and the result of careful decisions. We’re proud to help launch the fine art careers of some very deserved artists and to cross-pollinate the mindset imaginative. We’ve hired on a good group of folks as well and we’re humbled by the response of the readers. Many surprises are in store for Hi-Fructose in 2010, including our big HF Anniversary Group show in LA.

You've been successful at getting Hi-Fructose into major retailers like Barnes & Noble at a time when print media seems to be receiving last rites – where do you see print media going?

I don’t think print is dead. But a certain wasteful business model of print magazines is dying and has polluted the eye-scape for too long…but in fact there are some magazines, like Hi-Fructose, that are actually thriving. We do have a website (with videos, event photos and timelier articles) but the print mag is insanely popular. Our circulation keeps growing and HF is fully stocked at major retailers and available all over the world. Our advertisers are enthusiastic as their ads are printed beautifully and the readers respond and actually like the ads.

People love to keep the mag, Prisoners of penitentiaries and suburbia love to rip out our pages and frame them. Those are high compliments which we keep working hard to deserve.

You touched on the whole nu-vaudeville/art thing. How's the West coast scene these days? We've heard that there used to be plenty of wild art happenings, like mini-Burning Man events. Are we too late to make the scene?

It’s weird to see the un-promoted things (group mob events, massive pillow fights, machine art shows) that used to happen on the San Francisco streets by groups like the Suicide Club, Survival Research Laboratories and the Cacophony Society be embraced (or co-opted) by advertising firms. Most of these things never made it to film or video, but exist only in the eye’s mind. Ten years ago, I kept tracing all the strange, weird and wonderful things to this area.

So what’s next for Attaboy?
In February 2010 Attaboy and Burke will reform and do a few shows, and I have a new kids book coming out called You Might Be A Monster. We cover all bases!