52nd City

Q'n'A w/ LJ Lindhurst

On Friday night, my old pal LJ Lindhurst will be coming back to town, to show at Mad Art Gallery. The three-person gig called "Flight Risk" will feature performance from Jennifer Weigel and paintings by Tim Meehan and Lindhurst. Owing to the digital age we live in, I checked in with the former Webster University Journal film critic via ELECTRONIC MAIL!

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Here we go!

You've visited Mad Art while on a trip back home to St. Louis. What were your impressions?

Why, 52nd City's own Thomas Crone introduced me to Mad Art. I was also a bit familiar with it because my sister worked as the bartender at the Hi-Way Bar next door. (If you ever go to the Hi-Way Bar, please do not forget to wear your top hat and monocle, and please extend your pinky while sipping your champagne, because that place is freakin high class all the way.)

My first impression of Mad Art was, I have to show my work here! The space is completely gorgeous; it's worth visiting just to see the Art Deco architecture and the remains of the old police station. It is just a really cool gallery.

What's the focus of your work in this show?

I'll be showing ten paintings from my Lock Series. These are Photorealistic paintings of padlocks and chains in various states of decay, glimmering in bright sunlight. These are meditations on truly seeing one's surroundings, and taking a moment to find beauty in the details of even the most stark urban landscape. They are also devout works of Photorealism; I'm an old-school Gearhart Richter-style Photorealist, devoted to rendering the photographed image as accurately as possible in paint. We're kind of a cult amongst painters, so this is a fine opportunity for the St. Louis arts community to get to see a type of art that goes beyond your typical gallery offerings of landscapes, Abstract Expressionism, or even Contemporary Realism. (Not that there's anything wrong with those genres! I'm just saying, this is something you don't get to see every day.)

What do you know of the other artists on this bill?

I actually don't know too much about them. I'm sharing the bill with Tim Meehan and Jennifer Weigel. Tim Meehan is showing work that has multiple layers of imagery and meaning; he uses overlapping textures, images of birds, and the natural landscape to explore childhood memories, and his impressions of nature. This work sounds like it will be a nice relief for the eye after viewing my intensely-focused, somewhat claustrophobic paintings.

Jennifer Weigel is going to be doing a performance piece called Sustenance. Apparently, this is part of a series of pieces that attempt to dissect the very nature of the art opening. From what I gather, the opening itself will be the subject of this piece. I'm very curious to see how this plays out; the interaction of the people with the art, the food, the drink, and each other, will all be part of the performance. Jennifer's work is quite interesting--you can check out her Web site to see more: http://home.earthlink.net/~cwilbur202/ It's nice to see artists who are willing to go out on a limb like this, and do something completely avant-garde--it is also nice that St. Louis has a gallery like Mad Art that will host that kind of performance art.

I may have an irrational dislike of New York. Are you okay with that?

What's the matter? Did someone make fun of your pants? AGAIN?

What should visitors to the show say to your family? Things like "I remember going to school with Little Jackie?" or the like?

I don't understand why people should be saying ANYTHING--they should all be too busy writing checks! to me me meeeeeeeee!

And anyway, it's not a good idea to harass my dad; he doesn't like hippies, and he will likely be carrying several concealed weapons. (I forgot to ask, does Mad Art have a metal detector?)

What's next for you?

I guess I'll go back to my old routine of getting rejected by every gallery in New York City. It's a lot of fun!

But seriously, I am working on a series of smaller paintings based on these creepy Mickey Mouse Club dolls my sister found at a flea market in Lafayette Square. If she only knew how obsessed I'd become with these dolls, she may have thought twice about giving them to me! (I'm also starting to think that maybe they get up and walk around my apartment while I'm asleep, but I have no concrete evidence.) Hopefully, I can paint a number of these pieces for a show I'll be having at Brooklyn Collective (http://www.brooklyncollective.com) in October.

I'm also working on a large Xerox collage installation based on The Unabomber Manifesto, entitled, Today Seemed Like a Good Day to Write To All of My Dead Friends. I'm fascinated by the Unabomber Manifesto, and by Theodore Kaczynski. His manifesto is just amazing and terrifying; it perfectly encapsulates intellectual impotence in an overwhelmingly chaotic world that is feeding on itself through out-of-control technology, science, religion, and oppressive government. It's ripe for exploration, and I feel such a natural response to it. I'm also fascinated by the fact that just about everyone I discuss this idea with tells me, "That is not a good idea." I love how even now, people find his words and ideas actually dangerous, like they could do someone harm. The whole thing is just crazy.

Where can people find your work?

Right now I've got work at two galleries in Brooklyn: the fabulous Jan Larsen Fine Art/Gallerie at theXpo (http://www.thexpo.com) down in DUMBO, and Jack The Pelican Presents (http://www.jackthepelicanpresents.com) in Williamsburg. At the risk of sounding like a hopeless ass-kisser, I have to praise both of these galleries for their unique sensibilities, and I am really proud to be a part of their collections.

What am I missing?

Well, you DID forget to ask questions that praise me in a roundabout way. Where are the questions like, "How did you get to be so amazingly awesome?" or "How could you be so beautiful AND so talented? I just don't get it!"