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Frequently asked questions

PART 4

 

Carl Jung self actualization and Hollywood

 		 

 

 

 

 

Q:  It is riveting the way things unfolded and your points of reference in terms of what you were exploring with John Decay.  Were you using John Decay to explore the shadow side of who you were in order to lead to a path of self realization or was it to revel in this bad boy persona?

JL: No it wasn't so much to revel, I was very much interested in  Abraham Maslow's models of self-actualization as well as Carl Jung. It was a place I wanted to fully delve into and to understand and realized this was the way of accessing my true path. In doing so finding my real self.  It was like the path of the aghori in some respects in alchemically turning darkness into light. Realizing that your shadow self is not or even a part of you results in liberation. Self realization came at a much later point upon my investigations into Buddhism, Sufism, Taoism, Advaita vedanta and so forth.

Q: It seems like PIG was ahead of it's time?

JL: Yes Pig magazine was and maybe still is ahead of its time. Still cannot imagine anyone doing that today.  Especially making fun of some of these important and powerful art critics, art dealers and artists.  Maybe this is precisely why I had to end it after only 6 volumes.

Carl Jung
 

How to suck your thumb by John LeKay 1991

  

 

Q: Where can I buy PIG?

JL:  I don't know. I get asked  that question a lot but I don't have any copies.  I actually destroyed 90 percent the originals a few years years back.  I think I only have a small part of Pig 6 somewhere. I have been told there are copies out there somewhere. I mean it completely sold out ,every single copy that was made.

 

Q: What does PIG mean?

JL: Abbreviation for Politically Incorrect Geniuses.

Q: Would you ever do a another printed magazine?

JL: I get asked that  question a  lot. That's what got me to do heyoka magazine and also wanted to print it at first.  Yes I would like to do maybe something brand new. Something different.

Q: Pig magazine is not the same as the Italian Pig magazine?

JL: No, it gets a bit confusing but  I actually wrote them back in 2003 when they started doing theirs and told them about mine and now they go by pig mag.  Their one means  People In Groove.  Its also more about fashion, and music, not so much art. Quite different other than the title.

Q: So is it  the title PIG or pig magazine? I guess you should know the proper name of it!  Good to sort out any confusion re Italian Pig?

JL:  I always just referred to it as pig, or pig magazine, not really PIG with big letters. The reason I added the upper case is because that's how the question was sent to me in an email but some people always write PIG for some reason. I remember Gretchen Faust used to refer to it as P.I.G because it looked more intellectual and not so scary that way. (Laughs) She edited one of them.
 

 

The Italian Pig magazine. People In Groove  Founded 2003

  

 

 Pig magazine. Politically Incorrect Geniuses by John LeKay founded 1991

  

Q: The whole sex dolls part of the story really says a lot about egos.  Was this your intention?

JL: Yes it was about inflated egos among other things.  In my mind, a blow up doll is a perfect representation of one's inflated ego. I mean it's really comical but that's just the tip of the ice berg.

Q: The art gallery world seems willing to laugh at anyone but themselves? Why do you think that is?

JL:  I believe there is a certain amount of narcissism and blindness involved in the art world. Yes the art world does like to see itself as above it all and poke fun at every one and every other industry like the fashion industry, Hollywood and so on, but cannot bare to have the mirror reflected  back at itself.  This is what I discovered when doing Pig magazine. Especially the art critics and art dealers who seem to react the harshest and most defensive at times and the most disturbed by it.

Q: It must have been painful to go through all of those difficult experiences?
JL: Yes it was until I let go and accepted it and saw through the Lila, the game, also forgave myself as well as other people for their part in it but it was also very funny at times and the laughs were well worth it.  
 
Q: Buddha said that the higher the order the greater the chaos that surrounds it.  In what way do you interpret this idea?

JL: The brighter the sun, the darker the shadow  it castes. There was once a spiritual seeker that met a sadhu in India and asked him what is the path to god. The sadhu said "When you can see the Sacred Ganges River and an open sewer as being one and the same, you have found God".  The same applies to all other dualities and opposites. Order and chaos is just one of them.

Q:  Did you feel like you beat the system?

 

JL:. No not at all, it wasn't about beating anything. Trying to beat the system or anything else is futile and a total waste of time. By nature I'm not a competitive person or never cared about wining or losing anything. That's why I love the writings of Lau Tzu. To me its all the same thing. when you know how to see through the game on a metaphysical level, then you will see what a joke it all is.

 

Q: What is the difference with your Harmonic convergence piece and your other installations?

 

JL: The obvious difference with this particular piece and my other installations are many. For one, this piece was planned for a specific theme "Morality Cafe". I would never have attempted what I did within another context or another theme. Other people were also unwittingly participating in the creation of it.

 
 

Aghori sadhu

  
 

My life is a Mountain of lies By John LeKay for Pig magazine 1992

  

 

I was very conscious and aware of not only my behavior, but also the behavior of others and I wanted to capture these behaviors and freeze them in the piece to make a point about the ready made concept and other things like the authority over one's art work and also to break down the boundaries between art and life. I was also working on my play the Year of The Pig and knew that I was going to be writing about it in Act 3 and of using the altercation as it unraveled and then including this in the piece. I mean the Harmonic Convergence scatter piece its self as well as Act 3.

 

Q:  So it was about a power struggle and control?

 

JL: Yes, because some people are under the illusion that they are in control of themselves, their feelings, emotions and thoughts, their immediate environments and to some degree other peoples. The reality is most people are not. Especially when suddenly this perception of control is taken away, they can react in various ways. It's interesting that some people notice things, only when their attention is aroused by some sort of dis-equilibrium, a difference between their expectations and the actual incoming message. Interrupting patterns of learned behavior or responses is what my art is also about. This element of surprise and the unexpected, the unpredictable as it were. There was this writer for the New Yorker who wrote about it at the time and picked up on most of this.

 

Q: What did you mean by spontaneous scatter pieces?

 

JL: Improvising on the spot, kind of like sculptural jazz music.  Sometimes I used to work that way in my studio, in which I'll change something at the last moment. Sometimes it's out of dissatisfaction with a piece being too predictable or contrived or not working in another way. For someone not knowing me personally and watching me work, it may look disorderly, but it really is not.

 

 

 

 

Q: Are you saying you condone that sort of spontaneous action?

 

JL: No, definitely not, it wasn't worth the headaches because in the end not too many people really cared about what I was really trying to say.  That is, the art gallery is one of the last places in our culture where some semblance of freedom of expression is still permitted. The museums and non-profit organizations are restricted because of funding and politics, etc. That's what makes the art gallery so precious. When art dealers start calling the shots in making decisions about what is art and what is not, I think it's very dangerous for not only art, but for society in general.

Q:  What about the readymade concept?

 

JL: I gave a great deal of thought before and during the installation, to the theme of the show "Morality Cafe" and to the press release, the idea of ethics etc. I thought "Morality Cafe" was an ideal situation and context to take a risk and do a piece like that. The most important thing in my mind is annihilating this ready made concept and reversing Duchamp. Really saw it like a game of chess with him, not the art world at all.

 

Eye of God by Fred Tomaselli  for Pig magazine. 1992

  
 

Jeff Koons Vacuum cleaners, Plexiglas and fluorescent lights
 

  

Q: How do you mean?

 

JL: My work was a critique on the readymade concept and abuse of it, the commercialization and comodification of it by artists absurdly applying it to everything. I was taking the concept to its logical conclusion; playing the end game. I thought instead of making art myself, I could just buy art from my contemporaries and then show it as my own. Like buying a Jeff Koons Vacuum cleaner or a Julian Schnabel painting for example and showing them "as is". I mean who made the law where one can use a urinal as a readymade and not a canvas with broken dinner plates stuck to it? 

 

Q:  What did you mean when you said it was inspired by the artistic furies of Jackson Pollock in the piece you wrote? 

 

JL:  I was thinking more in terms of energy and metaphysics. I think that creativity and destruction are two sides of the same coin. I like the way the Hindus illustrate it with Shiva the God of destruction, Brahma the God of creation and Vishnu as the balance in between that keeps the opposites together.

 

Robert A. Johnson, the Jungian analyst, talks about that in one of his books. "Whenever we pluck the fruit of creativity from the golden tree, our other hand plucks the fruit of destruction. Our resistance to this insight is very high. We would all love to have creativity without destruction, but that is impossible". What I was referring to was non-duality.

 

Q: So you're saying that one cannot exist without the other?

JL: Yes, like the opposite poles of a magnet.

 

Q: Do you think you broke down the barrier and crossed the line between art and life?

 

JL:  Don't know. At that time, I was writing about art imitating life and vice-versa in the Year of the Pig and for Pig Magazine which got a lot of people bent out of shape. Take the television news media for example, for some people it's a form of real life entertainment. The division between Hollywood and life is getting thinner all the time.  Look at all prolefeed and newspeak and all those trashy daytime talk shows, people selling their ghastly secrets, real life court television and murderers becoming movie stars like OJ Simpson back then acting out their real life psycho dramas like celebrities.  It's all about sensationalism.  All this stuff sells, and it’s real bread and circuses for the masses. To keep them distracted, addicted and confused with all that nonsense. The art world has also cashed in of this and has become just as trashy and sensational. 

 

Art, like the news, is a mirror.  It's ironic that people try to imitate Hollywood, which is a supposed imitation of reality, which in turn is an imitation of an illusion.

 

Q: Do you think your intentions were misunderstood by the public and perceived as anarchy?

 

JL:  Yes, maybe, whatever you want to call it, a scatter piece or anarchy or both, or something else doesn't really matter to me. The reality is, whatever happened was a  part of the piece, including the screaming matches, Erik and Kenny fighting, the crashing glass and the police banging on the door, the barking dogs and the thunder and lightning. That's why I facetiously titled it "Harmonic convergence". In some respects it was much like Artuads theater of cruelty.

 

Marilyn Minter for Pig magazine. 1992

  
 

Antonin Artaud

  

 

Artuad  said Without an element of cruelty at the root of every spectacle, the theater is not possible. In our present state of degeneration it is through the skin that metaphysics must be made to re-enter our minds” (Artaud, The Theatre and its Double.

 

I wanted to shatter these dualistic art world illusions and these false perceptions about this ready made and the art world in general. On another level I was attempting to connect people with something more primal,  more savage, more brutal, honest, true and deeper within themselves. Connecting people with their consciousness.

 

Yes some people thought it was Anarchy and I was called an anarchist,  a revolutionary and more but others thought it was the most authentic scatter piece they had ever seen.

 

Q: How do you think the art world will react to this?

 

JL: I don't know or really care one bit about the art world and have not cared about it in almost 15 years so why would I care about it now. (Laughs). Seriously freedom does not come with the thought police in your head. The art world is a gilded cage. Who in their right mind would want to live in a cage? No matter how fancy it looks you are still a trapped little bird.

 

This tale by --Aesop illustrates this nicely.
"Discouraged after an unsuccessful day of hunting, a hungry Wolf came upon a well-fed Mastiff, the Wolf asked what the Dog had to do to earn his food. "Very little," replied the Dog, "Just protect my master's house and family and be obedient to his demands." The Wolf pondered this quite carefully--for he had to risk his own life almost daily to earn his food, and then with little assurance of success. The Wolf, who was tempted to adopt the Dog's mode of living, then happened to notice that the hair was rubbed bare from about the Dog's neck. The Wolf asked what caused this affliction, the Dog replied that it was of no significance, "It's just the place where my collar and chain rub." The Wolf abruptly stopped and exclaimed, "Your Chain! You mean you are not free to come and go as you please?" "No," responded the Dog, "but what does that matter?" "A great deal," replied the Wolf as he trotted away into the forest, "A great deal."

 

Dismissal is the usual modus operandi of dealing with something like this because it will be perceived as being too threatening and dangerous again and so on. There are serious reputations at stake. The art world and its art critics are so utterly predictable, because they are all a part of the game. It's much easier for them to just ignore it and pretend it's not there. To face reality is not easy.  I think that's why I have always admired Duchamp and his stance of total nonchalance toward the art world. He was absolutely right and saw right through it.

 

Look what he said here. "The entire art scene is on so low a level, is so commercialized-art or anything to do with it is the lowest form of activity in this period. This Century is one of the lowest points in the history of art, even lower than the 18th Century when there was no great art, just frivolity. Twentieth Century art is a mere light pastime, as though we were living in a merry period, despite all the wars we’ve had as part of the decoration"   

 

Look at how low the art world it has become since then. At this point I see not too much  difference with the art world and American Idol. its no different from going to Disney world with all these silly art fairs. Its the reason why I have almost nothing to do with it anymore.