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Arranging Tangerines Episode 43 - A Conversation with Kris Graves
5 Plays1 year ago
In this week’s episode, we welcome Kris Graves (and his associate Frank Francis) to our gallery and onto the podcast to discuss a multitude of topics including life with a baby, the charm and uniqueness of Queens, the origins of Hip Hop, Graves’ early commissioned work, museums’ and cultural institutions’ feelings about NFTs, Black Lives Matter, the role that race plays in art, history, and society, working day jobs, and how NFTs can be gate keeper resistant, and what is next for Graves. Originally recorded February 13, 2023
Kris Graves (b. 1982 New York, NY) is an artist and publisher based in New York and California. Graves creates artwork that deals with societal problems and aims to use art as a means to inform people about cultural issues. Using a mix of conceptual and documentary practices, Graves photographs the subtleties of societal power and its impact on the built environment. He explores how capitalism and power have shaped countries -- and how that can be seen and experienced in everyday life. Graves also works to elevate the representation of people of color in the fine art canon; and to create opportunities for conversation about race, representation, and urban life. He photographs to preserve memory.
Graves received his BFA in Visual Arts from S.U.N.Y. Purchase College and has been published and exhibited globally, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Getty Institute, Los Angeles; and National Portrait Gallery in London, England; among others. Permanent collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Getty Institute, Schomburg Center, Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Brooklyn Museum; and The Wedge Collection, Toronto; amongst others.
Frank Frances (b.1983 Columbia, SC) is a NYC-based artist whose work challenges the everyday perceptions of memories and prejudice with close studies of photography’s materiality and dynamics; he is no stranger to being both voyeur and subject.
He has shown in solo and group exhibitions domestically and internationally at Sasha Wolf Gallery, The Studio Museum of Harlem, Glasshouse, Carriage Trade and Werkstadt Graz to name a few. Reviews and features of their work have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vice, NPR, ArtInfo, Bomblog, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek among others. He received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. His first book Remember The South is published by Monolith Editions
https://www.instagram.com/krisgraves/
https://www.instagram.com/kgpnyc/
https://www.instagram.com/frankfrancesstudio/
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to Arranging Tangerines, presented by Lydian Stater.
00:00:05
Speaker
Conversations with contemporary artists, curators, and thinkers about the intersection of art, technology, and commerce.
00:00:10
Speaker
Your hosts are me, Alessandro Silver and Joseph Wilcox.
00:00:14
Speaker
I know what to do.
00:00:15
Speaker
I know what to say.
00:00:17
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
00:00:19
Speaker
I know what to do.
00:00:20
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
00:00:22
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
Introducing Chris Graves
00:00:34
Speaker
This week's guest is photographer Chris Graves.
00:00:37
Speaker
Chris Graves is an artist and publisher based in New York and California.
Chris Graves' Photography and Societal Issues
00:00:40
Speaker
Graves creates artwork that deals with societal problems that aims to use art as a means to inform people about cultural issues.
00:00:47
Speaker
Using a mix of conceptual and documentary practices, Graves photographs the subtleties of societal power and its impact on the built environment.
00:00:54
Speaker
He explores how capitalism and power have shaped countries and how they can be seen and experienced in everyday life.
00:00:59
Speaker
Graves also works to elevate the representation of people of color in the fine art canon and to create opportunities for conversation about race, representation, and urban life.
00:01:08
Speaker
He photographs to preserve memory.
Casual Banter and Podcast Environment
00:01:11
Speaker
Welcome, Chris.
00:01:12
Speaker
You get used to it.
00:01:13
Speaker
You have done a lot of these.
00:01:16
Speaker
Not in person.
00:01:16
Speaker
No?
00:01:17
Speaker
Get up.
00:01:18
Speaker
I've done like one or two, but it's all good.
00:01:22
Speaker
Well, we'll be number three.
00:01:26
Speaker
Or four.
00:01:30
Speaker
And, you know, if it's terrible, we just won't publish it.
00:01:35
Speaker
As long as I don't say anything really bad.
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:39
Speaker
I don't give a shit.
00:01:40
Speaker
I mean, I obviously don't give a shit.
00:01:41
Speaker
I can maneuver live words very well.
00:01:50
Speaker
Well, with that being said, thank you, Chris Graves, for agreeing to be on our podcast.
00:01:54
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:54
Speaker
Thank you for having me.
00:01:57
Speaker
um it's right down the street i mean like we walked here from our like where we both live um and it's 10 minutes away from here so it's great it's awesome seemed quick because you were like on duty till eight here by 8 15. it was real quick very convenient yeah yeah and on duty uh with a new baby with a baby child 11 months old that's still alive sleeps at night that's awesome how's the sleeping
00:02:21
Speaker
This guy sleeps.
00:02:22
Speaker
That's good.
00:02:23
Speaker
He sleep trains for like two nights, and then he sleeps through the night since then.
00:02:27
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:02:27
Speaker
It's kind of insane.
00:02:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:28
Speaker
We got pretty lucky as well.
00:02:30
Speaker
I have a niece.
00:02:32
Speaker
She's 15 months, and she's very... Not sleeping?
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:35
Speaker
But I think the parents are also very... They're not... Trying.
00:02:38
Speaker
They don't know that they're... That's just bad parenting.
00:02:40
Speaker
No.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:41
Speaker
They might be listening.
00:02:43
Speaker
I assume they're not.
00:02:46
Speaker
It takes patience, right?
00:02:49
Speaker
It's...
00:02:51
Speaker
Well, I'm still new at it, right?
00:02:53
Speaker
Like, I think I just started.
00:02:54
Speaker
So for me, it's like, I just want more time to figure it out.
00:02:58
Speaker
Meaning like I would like to do less things so I have more time in the day to kind of figure out more.
00:03:03
Speaker
So that's where I'm at, kind of.
00:03:05
Speaker
And that's a good attitude because it's like, every time my wife and I thought we figured it out, it would be some kind of horrendous thing that reminded us that we,
00:03:14
Speaker
Like I remember she was having a hard time sleeping.
00:03:18
Speaker
We were like, this is ridiculous.
00:03:19
Speaker
She's fidgeting.
00:03:20
Speaker
And we finally, I forget, after music or whatever, probably the noise machine from some kind of bunny or something, we finally went down.
00:03:27
Speaker
And we literally high-fived.
Parenting Experiences: Sleep Training
00:03:30
Speaker
And I look in the monitor.
00:03:31
Speaker
I'm like, what's that?
00:03:32
Speaker
And I open the door.
00:03:33
Speaker
She had vomited like 360.
00:03:34
Speaker
She was sick.
00:03:37
Speaker
So that's what she was trying to tell us.
00:03:40
Speaker
I see.
00:03:41
Speaker
It's a bad coincidence there.
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:44
Speaker
No, we put him down for a night.
00:03:47
Speaker
Well, let him cry for like 25 minutes.
00:03:50
Speaker
I was going away to photograph at Disney World and my wife was like, if this kid's not like sleeping through the night by the time you go, it's going to be like, it's not going to be good.
00:03:59
Speaker
And I was like, let's do this sleep training.
00:04:03
Speaker
So we came back from Portland to try to sleep train a kid on a delay.
00:04:10
Speaker
Maybe that's the trick.
00:04:13
Speaker
fucking slept man.
00:04:14
Speaker
I mean a kid still sleeps.
00:04:15
Speaker
It's been like seven months since then.
00:04:18
Speaker
You're good until they regress.
00:04:19
Speaker
They do regress.
00:04:20
Speaker
How many wins?
00:04:21
Speaker
It's usually like two.
00:04:23
Speaker
Two-ish?
00:04:23
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:24
Speaker
I mean okay.
00:04:25
Speaker
But it's fun at that point.
00:04:26
Speaker
That gives me good time.
00:04:28
Speaker
That's great too.
00:04:29
Speaker
There's a regression.
00:04:31
Speaker
I feel like that's how parents kind of mark their existence is like there's times when they're able to be a person and times when they're no longer.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:41
Speaker
I don't have any kids.
00:04:43
Speaker
Sorry.
00:04:45
Speaker
We have four people in this room.
00:04:47
Speaker
Three have been speaking.
00:04:49
Speaker
With me is my dear friend and amazing photographer, Frank Francis.
00:04:54
Speaker
Say hi, Frank.
00:04:56
Speaker
Hello.
00:04:56
Speaker
I just love you, Crash.
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, we're both living in Long Island City right now.
00:05:03
Speaker
I don't know if that's public information, but I just put that in there.
00:05:05
Speaker
It is now.
00:05:06
Speaker
Yeah, I'll take it back.
00:05:07
Speaker
No vaccine.
00:05:09
Speaker
And he has a seven-year-old, which is good.
00:05:11
Speaker
This is also, you're just blowing up his spot.
00:05:13
Speaker
Oh, man.
00:05:17
Speaker
Social security number and bank account information.
00:05:20
Speaker
Only the last four digits.
00:05:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's right.
00:05:23
Speaker
The last four, man.
00:05:25
Speaker
But Queens.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yes.
Queens' Influence in Hip-Hop Culture
00:05:27
Speaker
Grew up?
00:05:27
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:28
Speaker
Queens kid.
00:05:30
Speaker
I grew up on the east side by JFK, like a town named Laurelton, which is Rosedale, which is like a tribe called Quest.
00:05:39
Speaker
It's from there.
00:05:40
Speaker
The Fat Boys?
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, the Fat Boys.
00:05:44
Speaker
You remember the Fat Boys?
00:05:46
Speaker
Those three just, yeah, the Fat Boys.
00:05:49
Speaker
Anyway, they were rappers.
00:05:50
Speaker
They were kind of good.
00:05:51
Speaker
And they live a bright- I get the sense that they maybe weren't that good.
00:05:55
Speaker
They were good for that time period.
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
00:05:57
Speaker
They made a hit.
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:59
Speaker
They had a hit.
00:06:00
Speaker
Not many people had hits.
00:06:01
Speaker
Not many people get hits.
00:06:02
Speaker
That's true.
00:06:03
Speaker
They were known in the city.
00:06:04
Speaker
And I think that if you can just be known in the city, you're good.
00:06:07
Speaker
You don't need worldwide shit if you live in New York City, I don't think.
00:06:11
Speaker
I don't know if this is controversial, but I think when hip-hop hit Queens is when it really matured.
00:06:16
Speaker
Like you had Nas, you had TypeCo Quest.
00:06:18
Speaker
Oh, my God.
00:06:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:06:22
Speaker
Run DMCs for Queens as well, Hollis.
00:06:24
Speaker
Love Queens.
00:06:25
Speaker
Love Queens.
00:06:26
Speaker
Can't do that.
00:06:27
Speaker
South Bronx.
00:06:28
Speaker
South, South Bronx.
00:06:30
Speaker
South Bronx.
00:06:31
Speaker
So I work, full disclosure, I also work at Fotografiska.
00:06:36
Speaker
And we have a Hip Hop 50 exhibition right now, which you guys are more than welcome to come.
00:06:41
Speaker
I'm going to come to Fotografiska on Tuesday to meet with Sophie.
00:06:44
Speaker
Oh, perfect.
00:06:45
Speaker
Awesome.
00:06:46
Speaker
So it's a funny week for that.
00:06:47
Speaker
Awesome.
00:06:48
Speaker
Photographiesca, there it is.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, please, go on with your Queens is better than the Bronx.
00:06:53
Speaker
I'm just saying you just see the pictures and you just see the development.
00:06:56
Speaker
Yeah, of course, the Bronx.
00:06:58
Speaker
It was so early.
00:07:00
Speaker
It was slightly different than music only when it was in the Bronx, I think.
00:07:03
Speaker
And that's the difference between when you got to Queens, it was more about putting things on track, production and making that happen to get out into the world.
00:07:13
Speaker
We had viewers at that point.
00:07:15
Speaker
But before that, you didn't.
00:07:17
Speaker
So they were on the streets.
00:07:19
Speaker
every night dancing and partying in the Bronx.
00:07:22
Speaker
And that is the fucking, the birth of hip hop.
00:07:25
Speaker
Like rapping is what Queens did.
00:07:27
Speaker
Well, the birth of hip hop happens in the Bronx.
00:07:31
Speaker
Of course.
00:07:31
Speaker
So it's different.
00:07:32
Speaker
Like it can be, it goes both ways.
00:07:33
Speaker
I guess I love, I mean, I love Queens rappers the most, of course you got it.
00:07:37
Speaker
You got to represent.
00:07:39
Speaker
I'm from Jackson Heights, so.
00:07:41
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:07:42
Speaker
But yeah, you're correct.
00:07:43
Speaker
And not to make a correlation between NFTs and hip hop, but yeah, the early people that started with NFTs, you're kind of playing around with it and then you pick it up on the secondary and the third and start making things that might be a little bit more conducive to markets and
00:08:00
Speaker
Let me think about that.
00:08:01
Speaker
That's a lot right there.
00:08:02
Speaker
That's a big question.
00:08:03
Speaker
And it's not even a question, right?
Artists and NFTs: Meaning vs. Commercial Success
00:08:05
Speaker
It's just like an observation.
00:08:06
Speaker
It's just like an observation.
00:08:08
Speaker
I feel like NFTs for me is, I think it's personal for everybody, though.
00:08:11
Speaker
I think it works different for everybody.
00:08:13
Speaker
Most people are not, like the people, like the artists are not thinking about what the collectors do.
00:08:18
Speaker
or, you know, care about, right?
00:08:20
Speaker
Like that's not, well, I shouldn't say that.
00:08:22
Speaker
I should say that like there's artists that do care a lot about selling artwork and there's artists that like, first off, want to make great work.
00:08:32
Speaker
And they're not usually the same artists.
00:08:36
Speaker
Sometimes they are.
00:08:37
Speaker
They can be, but they can be.
00:08:38
Speaker
I can, you know, if I want to sell something,
00:08:41
Speaker
I'll figure out a way to try to sell it.
00:08:43
Speaker
It's that 50-50 shot.
00:08:48
Speaker
What's bad?
00:08:49
Speaker
It's all just spending money and putting things on a blockchain.
00:08:53
Speaker
I'll spend $12 to see if I can sell something for $1,000 almost all the time.
00:08:58
Speaker
That's a much cheaper bet with a better turnout than most things.
00:09:02
Speaker
It still has to be worth it.
00:09:03
Speaker
It still has to be a piece that you want to
00:09:06
Speaker
that you want to put out into the world or it means something but the earlier career but the early folks right they weren't there was no market right the people in 2015 2016 whatever that like that like historic lineage of blockchain art but people bought it people did so there was a market i guess there was yeah
00:09:24
Speaker
I mean, it wasn't like a billion dollar.
00:09:26
Speaker
It was like it wasn't like people money.
00:09:29
Speaker
Right.
00:09:29
Speaker
Pennies on the dollar.
00:09:30
Speaker
But shit, man.
00:09:31
Speaker
Somebody sold.
00:09:31
Speaker
I mean, still like those things you sold.
00:09:33
Speaker
They sold millions of those penny things.
00:09:35
Speaker
People made a lot of fucking money.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah.
Blockchain Archaeologists and Historical Value
00:09:37
Speaker
I wonder if that's kind of where we're at again.
00:09:39
Speaker
Right.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, but even the projects that did not sell, they're still, what do you call it?
00:09:44
Speaker
They're still wrapping the old whatever blockchain that might not be compatible with the current.
00:09:51
Speaker
Classic?
00:09:52
Speaker
And I think they call them blockchain archaeologists, and they're going back and saying, do you want to resell this thing that never worked out, never panned out?
00:09:59
Speaker
And they're like, yeah, sure.
00:10:00
Speaker
Well, yeah, because now it's like a part of history, right?
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's like a historical thing.
00:10:04
Speaker
oh that's like what what the that's awesome it is the fountain piece right by Duchamp like nobody cared about it for like 40 years right um and then people cared not not to say that like whatever it's amazing it's amazing Duchamp NFTs where we start this conversation what was this the beginning of the sentence was like just a whole nother atmosphere I love it it started with Queens
00:10:29
Speaker
uh but that's right that's the thing i think i i enjoyed most about shop baby that's what we're doing here exactly queen city shop um looking into your work i mean i think i so i i came across your work through nfts but then in looking at your prior work you've always you've been this amazing photographer thank you who
Archiving Photography with NFTs
00:10:48
Speaker
utilized nfts um
00:10:49
Speaker
So it feels like whether or not NFTs were there, you're a photographer first and foremost.
00:10:56
Speaker
But then utilizing the medium to disperse and, I guess, acquire.
00:11:01
Speaker
For me, it was more like archive.
00:11:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:04
Speaker
Because...
00:11:06
Speaker
there's web to didn't allow you to have an archive, right?
00:11:09
Speaker
Like if you don't pay for the subscription to your website, then it goes away and that doesn't exist.
00:11:14
Speaker
Right.
00:11:14
Speaker
So where can, where can artwork exist that can't be taken away?
00:11:19
Speaker
Like it just has to exist there.
00:11:20
Speaker
Like you can put it out there, sell, sale or not.
00:11:22
Speaker
It exists.
00:11:23
Speaker
And it's part of your name that goes back to maybe you, hopefully.
00:11:26
Speaker
I mean, we'll see if that is actually the truth at some point, but yeah, that's,
00:11:32
Speaker
That was it, like having an archive that was not my responsibility.
00:11:38
Speaker
I think that's kind of it.
00:11:40
Speaker
I like my work, and I've been trying really hard to show you only the best things that I've ever done.
00:11:47
Speaker
So I'm trying to put it out there, and then if you like it, awesome.
00:11:51
Speaker
I mean, I think 175 people bought Confederate monuments for me.
00:11:56
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:11:57
Speaker
I was like, great.
00:11:57
Speaker
That's like a black and white Confederate monument.
00:11:59
Speaker
You chose the one you wanted, and I sold it to you.
00:12:03
Speaker
That's a cool thing about the blockchain.
00:12:04
Speaker
That's just never happening in like a gallery ever.
00:12:07
Speaker
That is amazing.
00:12:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:08
Speaker
And half the buyers are anonymous, right?
00:12:10
Speaker
So you don't really know who's getting them.
00:12:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:13
Speaker
And it's great.
00:12:14
Speaker
And they're giving them to other people, which is awesome too.
00:12:17
Speaker
I mean, somebody bought like, can I buy 40 of them and just give them to my friends as Christmas presents?
00:12:22
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:12:22
Speaker
I was like, of course.
00:12:24
Speaker
Of course you can.
00:12:27
Speaker
That's interesting though.
00:12:27
Speaker
I never thought about the archival nature of the blockchain in that way as different from websites and stuff like that because, you know, when everything shifted, because before, if you had wanted a website, you made it yourself, right?
00:12:40
Speaker
You like had, you figured out how to use Dreamweaver or like met somebody who did.
00:12:44
Speaker
Flash, baby.
00:12:45
Speaker
And now it's all Squarespace, right?
00:12:48
Speaker
And you have to pay every single year, every single month or else it's gone, right?
00:12:52
Speaker
Yeah, but you have to pay the FTP before also.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah, but at least it's still- Kind of yours, but then you don't pay the FTP and you don't have any.
00:13:00
Speaker
It's the same, man.
00:13:02
Speaker
It's different, but it's the same.
00:13:03
Speaker
I see what you're saying.
00:13:04
Speaker
You're spending the money and you still don't own it.
00:13:05
Speaker
I mean, somebody's got to pin your NFTs, right?
00:13:08
Speaker
And that could be a thing eventually.
00:13:10
Speaker
And you might have to end up pinning your own stuff if everything falls apart, which I don't think it will.
00:13:14
Speaker
I think things are getting- I think everything's going to get hacked within years.
00:13:18
Speaker
And you'll lose everything you used to have if you didn't save it properly or like put it on a wallet or something.
00:13:24
Speaker
Maybe.
00:13:24
Speaker
But that's the thing.
00:13:25
Speaker
Like you can't like, like somebody has to be doing it somewhere.
00:13:29
Speaker
There's no, there's no, like it can't run on its own.
00:13:32
Speaker
Even if it's like a dispersed network of IPFS and it's like all these like servers, it can't, it can't exist without somebody running it.
00:13:40
Speaker
Right.
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:41
Speaker
But you don't have to pay for it anymore, which is nice.
00:13:43
Speaker
And it might get big enough where it, things get built on top of it so much that there's no way it could go away.
00:13:49
Speaker
which I think is what a lot of people are hoping, right?
00:13:51
Speaker
I don't know.
00:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it's going away.
00:13:53
Speaker
Yeah, I don't either.
00:13:54
Speaker
I think we're already past that point, and then everyone who doesn't believe it is now being flagrant with their money.
00:14:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:02
Speaker
Or with their future.
00:14:04
Speaker
There's going to be more than the world that we live in, and nothing else is even close.
00:14:09
Speaker
So I think that people are just going to keep flocking towards it.
00:14:12
Speaker
as the years go on and they find a use case that matters.
00:14:14
Speaker
I mean, people don't buy photography.
00:14:16
Speaker
Most people on earth don't buy photography.
00:14:18
Speaker
So even to have sales is awesome.
00:14:19
Speaker
I mean, like it's great.
00:14:21
Speaker
So people buy what they want.
00:14:23
Speaker
You know, like they'll buy little trinkets, little stars that they can put on their digital clothing.
00:14:28
Speaker
Like they'll, you know, they'll do.
00:14:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:29
Speaker
What are the things that are in Crocs that people, what do they call it?
00:14:33
Speaker
They have a specific name, right?
00:14:35
Speaker
They do.
00:14:35
Speaker
And somebody said that name to me on an elevator.
00:14:38
Speaker
It's like, yo, check those like fucking pins out.
00:14:40
Speaker
Very cool.
00:14:40
Speaker
And then she was like, she named the thing.
00:14:42
Speaker
And I was like, all right.
00:14:47
Speaker
No, but that's a good point.
00:14:48
Speaker
It's our kids, the ones that are very used to digital assets.
00:14:51
Speaker
They're the ones that are kind of driving this.
00:14:53
Speaker
They will be driving this in the future as far as what is considered a thing.
00:14:59
Speaker
They'll spend more money at it.
00:15:00
Speaker
I mean, like if music goes to blockchain, then kids will spend the money.
00:15:05
Speaker
if real games come to it, kids will spend the money.
00:15:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't get it until I started, like, I was getting all the free stuff on Discord from Tezos, right?
00:15:23
Speaker
And then, like, I started getting ones that were, like, three bucks or whatever.
00:15:28
Speaker
And I started, like, putting my own money into it.
00:15:30
Speaker
And I can't remember...
00:15:32
Speaker
who we were talking to about, oh, it was the last interview we did, but like when you spend money on something, you have a different relationship with it.
00:15:39
Speaker
And so I started seeing this webpage that had all these NFTs on and digital assets.
00:15:42
Speaker
And I was like, oh, these are mine.
00:15:43
Speaker
I
NFTs and Ownership of Digital Assets
00:15:44
Speaker
was like, I bought some of these and I like these.
00:15:46
Speaker
And they felt like real things way more than they did beforehand.
00:15:51
Speaker
And it was just like, there was like a little bit of a paradigm shift that had to happen.
00:15:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's fucking addiction, dude.
00:15:57
Speaker
I mean, like, like, Tezos is a dick thing.
00:16:02
Speaker
I mean, because it's so accessible, right?
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, I have a bunch of shit.
00:16:06
Speaker
I mean, I bought so many NFTs, like $3, $2 and just moving gifts, man.
00:16:11
Speaker
All I want is the moving gifts.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yeah, I don't want still gifts, though.
00:16:14
Speaker
That's kind of I feel like that's gone too far.
00:16:16
Speaker
You can't just like sell me a gift.
00:16:17
Speaker
You can sell me like a moving image like that.
00:16:19
Speaker
And I'm like, damn, $4 for that.
00:16:21
Speaker
I'll have that forever.
00:16:23
Speaker
Nicholas Sassoon.
00:16:24
Speaker
This shit is dope.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:27
Speaker
Am I allowed to curse on this?
00:16:28
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:16:29
Speaker
Please.
00:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, we'll just have to, we're going to have to tag it explicit.
00:16:32
Speaker
It'll be the only episode.
00:16:33
Speaker
No one else curses?
00:16:34
Speaker
No, I mean.
00:16:35
Speaker
We curse all the time.
00:16:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:36
Speaker
No.
00:16:37
Speaker
We just don't say it's explicit.
00:16:38
Speaker
No, we curse.
00:16:39
Speaker
Good.
00:16:40
Speaker
But yeah, before we get too much.
00:16:42
Speaker
You can beat me out with like a.
00:16:44
Speaker
I think that's worse.
00:16:45
Speaker
My wife wants- No, you have to do it well.
00:16:46
Speaker
I remember one music video when I was a kid, and it was for Daytona 500, which is a Ghostface killer song.
00:16:54
Speaker
The music video was Speed Racer, the actual old clips from some old Speed Racer.
00:17:00
Speaker
I don't know why I'm talking about this right now.
00:17:05
Speaker
Instead of the curse words, they didn't change the song.
00:17:08
Speaker
They just put car sounds.
00:17:12
Speaker
when the curse happens, right?
00:17:14
Speaker
The best thing I ever heard as a kid.
00:17:16
Speaker
I mean, I was like, oh, that's fucking awesome.
00:17:19
Speaker
Only Wu-Tang would do some shit like that.
00:17:22
Speaker
And that's what you can do for all the curses that I have now.
00:17:24
Speaker
You can find a fucking car sound.
00:17:29
Speaker
That's cool, because he does the editing, so whatever extra work he has to do, I'm cool with that.
00:17:35
Speaker
Yeah, if you find the Ghostface Killer Daytona 500 car sounds, that would be fucking... And minted as an NFT?
00:17:43
Speaker
I'm not trying to get into a copyright thing with Wu-Tang.
00:17:45
Speaker
They're pretty serious about copyright.
00:17:49
Speaker
They're still... Some of them have guns.
00:17:53
Speaker
They're from Long Island, so we can't talk.
00:17:55
Speaker
They're from everywhere, man.
00:17:56
Speaker
Wu-Tang, Staten, Shaolin, and Brooklyn.
00:18:01
Speaker
I think Method Man's from Hempstead, so I'll take that Long Island.
00:18:04
Speaker
I got some Long Island in me, so...
00:18:06
Speaker
Long Island also, I mean, Long Island hip hop.
00:18:09
Speaker
Oh, for sure.
00:18:10
Speaker
Rock him.
00:18:10
Speaker
100%.
00:18:11
Speaker
But that's the same thing.
00:18:12
Speaker
But I think to go back before we get too much, I guess, into the NFT world.
00:18:18
Speaker
The real, the other Dr. Dre?
00:18:19
Speaker
Not the real.
00:18:20
Speaker
The other Dr. Dre?
00:18:21
Speaker
No one knows about the other Dr. Dre.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to need to know more about that.
00:18:25
Speaker
Oh, he was a... He was a DJ with Ed Lover.
00:18:28
Speaker
Ed Lover, yeah.
00:18:29
Speaker
He had Yo MTV Raps.
00:18:30
Speaker
That was him.
00:18:31
Speaker
The other guy was Dr. Dre.
00:18:34
Speaker
And at that point...
00:18:36
Speaker
The other Dr. Dre was not more popular when this guy was popular here in New York.
00:18:40
Speaker
Dr. Dre was a producer for early Beastie Boys records.
00:18:45
Speaker
And he lived in Westbury, Long Island.
00:18:46
Speaker
Westbury, what up?
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, I remember that.
00:18:48
Speaker
Anyway, what were you going to ask?
00:18:50
Speaker
Oh, just photography.
00:18:52
Speaker
How you kind of came into it.
00:18:54
Speaker
How it became your thing, your go-to.
00:18:59
Speaker
My parents allowed me to go to school for allowed...
00:19:03
Speaker
I only applied to art schools and they were like, okay, that's fine.
00:19:06
Speaker
You can do that.
00:19:07
Speaker
So that was cool.
00:19:07
Speaker
Like they were both went to high school for art, like art, high school art and design, which used to be on like 59th or 57th street in the city.
00:19:16
Speaker
I think it's still around there.
00:19:18
Speaker
But it's like a specialized high school.
00:19:19
Speaker
They were coming in from far.
00:19:20
Speaker
My dad's from the Bronx.
00:19:21
Speaker
Mom's from anyway.
00:19:23
Speaker
I've gone too far back in the story.
00:19:24
Speaker
I pretty much was not really good at anything else in high school or middle school.
00:19:28
Speaker
Like I loved art and I didn't have a photo class yet.
00:19:31
Speaker
But at last year of high school, I had a photo class.
00:19:34
Speaker
So I was like, photo is an art that you can make money at.
00:19:39
Speaker
And no other artist.
00:19:40
Speaker
You can't actually get a job doing
Choosing Photography: Practical Opportunities
00:19:42
Speaker
any other art besides that.
00:19:43
Speaker
By yourself.
00:19:44
Speaker
You can be video, but at that point, you needed a crew.
00:19:47
Speaker
And you can't do that by yourself.
00:19:49
Speaker
So it's not something that you can just do.
00:19:52
Speaker
So that's what it was.
00:19:54
Speaker
I asked my parents for a camera.
00:19:56
Speaker
They said, yeah, well...
00:19:59
Speaker
We'll see if you like it.
00:20:00
Speaker
So like a year and a half later, they got me a camera.
00:20:02
Speaker
Do you remember what your first camera was?
00:20:04
Speaker
Nikon N50, man.
00:20:05
Speaker
It was a great little automatic winder.
00:20:11
Speaker
Because cameras didn't matter.
00:20:11
Speaker
I realized that cameras don't fucking matter.
00:20:13
Speaker
It's a lens.
00:20:14
Speaker
A camera does not matter.
00:20:16
Speaker
Maybe it will fit better on the film plate with a better camera, but that's bullshit.
00:20:21
Speaker
That's all bullshit.
00:20:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:22
Speaker
So yeah, yeah.
00:20:24
Speaker
My parents paid probably double because we bought it in Long Island instead of B&H because did not know that existed yet.
00:20:28
Speaker
Like that was like 15-year-olds don't know that B&H exists.
00:20:34
Speaker
So then got into college, went to Purchase College, which is near White Plains, which is like 25 minutes from us now.
00:20:44
Speaker
For visual arts, they didn't have a photo major.
00:20:48
Speaker
So I just did visual arts and focused on photography and at some point was just only taking photo classes.
00:20:54
Speaker
and came out of college, went back to Long Island.
00:20:59
Speaker
Where my parents are,
00:21:03
Speaker
My dad runs a... He's a manufacturing... We've had computers... We were around computers my whole life, so I already knew that that was part of my life growing up.
00:21:13
Speaker
I built my own computer at like 10 years old.
00:21:15
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:21:16
Speaker
Because he was like, here's the parts.
00:21:17
Speaker
Fucking good luck, dude.
00:21:20
Speaker
Nothing to look it up on?
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:21
Speaker
So I was building... He runs a manufacturing company.
00:21:24
Speaker
He makes remote controls for like...
00:21:26
Speaker
Factories and shit like that.
00:21:27
Speaker
So like receivers and remote.
00:21:29
Speaker
He makes a remote.
00:21:30
Speaker
He makes something in the elevator, the receiver that gets you to the top of the Empire State Building.
00:21:34
Speaker
That's kind of a funny.
00:21:36
Speaker
But anyhow,
00:21:39
Speaker
I was making remotes.
00:21:40
Speaker
I was pretty much putting resistors in green boards in the daytime when I got out of college.
00:21:45
Speaker
Because I refused to do a photo job.
00:21:47
Speaker
I got a job at the GIA, which is Gemological Institute of America.
00:21:51
Speaker
I got a good job.
00:21:52
Speaker
But at that point, it was 2004, and it was $26,000 a year.
00:21:54
Speaker
So I was like, damn, man, like...
00:21:59
Speaker
That's more than my dad's going to pay me to work in his office.
00:22:01
Speaker
But like, I don't want to like live alone, not have shit and then make this a little amount of money and
Early Photography Experiences
00:22:08
Speaker
photograph fucking jewelry all day, like just diamonds.
00:22:11
Speaker
And I was like, this is boring as hell.
00:22:12
Speaker
I don't want to do this.
00:22:13
Speaker
They're like, you can, you can photograph it and then we'll go, you can go to school like to come work with us and do more gem shit.
00:22:21
Speaker
You want to go to gem school after like, I was like, I don't want this life at all.
00:22:24
Speaker
Your life's could have been very different.
00:22:28
Speaker
And the funny shit is, like a year later, I had to photograph fucking jewelry because I wasn't making enough money working at my dad's house.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, anyway.
00:22:40
Speaker
So yeah, I just did, and on the side of doing those jobs, I was photographing little things, like $100 jobs for friends.
00:22:47
Speaker
In college, I was photographing for friends.
00:22:50
Speaker
I went to Purchase College, so Purchase College is like a conservatory school.
00:22:55
Speaker
There's a dance program, there's a music program, classical, jazz, and modern, and there's an acting program.
00:23:04
Speaker
And there's an opera program.
00:23:06
Speaker
So you had a bunch of people that needed headshots and needed dance performances photographed, right?
00:23:10
Speaker
And no one can photograph a dance performance in 1996, right?
00:23:12
Speaker
It's very difficult.
00:23:14
Speaker
You need, like... I was pushing ISO 3200 film, black and white, in the darkroom to, like...
00:23:19
Speaker
outrageous fucking numbers but the shit was looking good because all it was is black and like almost white right like those shits were and oh man that was like a nice grain to the like good texture grain uh and i i just bought like this medium format mamiya like m645 oh dude i have the m645 oh yeah sweet that's a sweet little camera that's my favorite camera i think yeah sweet and then a month after i bought that i had a view camera class
00:23:46
Speaker
and then I had to sell that to get a view camera, like within six months, because that was different.
00:23:51
Speaker
That might have even been why I had to get rid of mine too.
00:23:54
Speaker
You can't keep that if you know a view camera exists.
00:23:56
Speaker
That's the problem with that camera.
00:23:58
Speaker
It's just not, anyway.
00:24:00
Speaker
I don't know, view cameras, that's the one you click on.
00:24:02
Speaker
Get under with a cloth style, like old school.
00:24:07
Speaker
Oh, like Ansel Adams.
00:24:09
Speaker
Yes, I think he used a 4.5, probably used an 8.10.
00:24:12
Speaker
Oh, you're talking bellows and actually physically moving the player.
00:24:15
Speaker
That's fantastic.
00:24:16
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:24:17
Speaker
Yeah, so it was really great to learn from people that knew how to do that, because I would not have that anywhere else.
00:24:22
Speaker
So, go purchase.
00:24:24
Speaker
And...
00:24:26
Speaker
Got out of school, did the little freelance jobs, and then a dude named Luke Abiel, good photographer.
Guggenheim Job and Technical Challenges
00:24:32
Speaker
We were young, man.
00:24:33
Speaker
We went to school together, and he got me a job doing digital technician work for an art photographer, somebody who photographs artwork.
00:24:42
Speaker
So I never photographed artwork.
00:24:44
Speaker
I actually lied.
00:24:45
Speaker
I photographed... Anyway, I applied for a Guggenheim job after that, so I worked for the Guggenheim for 11 years, but I applied for that job...
00:24:54
Speaker
because it was a photo job and I had to lie to like kind of tell, like to say that I actually photographed.
00:25:01
Speaker
So, but it was, all I really want us to know is specifics because the photographing artwork is like really nerdy.
00:25:06
Speaker
Like there's like a whole, it's not nerdy.
00:25:08
Speaker
It's awesome.
00:25:09
Speaker
I love it.
00:25:09
Speaker
It's super technical.
00:25:11
Speaker
Super technical.
00:25:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:13
Speaker
And I love my peoples in it.
00:25:14
Speaker
Like we have our own community.
00:25:15
Speaker
Like we have our own, my community of museum photographers, like thousand of us.
00:25:20
Speaker
I photograph.
00:25:21
Speaker
We have power.
00:25:22
Speaker
We have jobs go through the database.
00:25:25
Speaker
Like if you need a job at a museum, boom, every week there's a new job coming through that database.
00:25:30
Speaker
It's kind of incredible, man.
00:25:33
Speaker
It's incredible, but it's super technical.
00:25:35
Speaker
And I was like, this one camera that no one knows how to use.
00:25:38
Speaker
I'm going to say I know how to use that.
00:25:40
Speaker
Even if you don't.
00:25:41
Speaker
That guy asked on the interview.
00:25:44
Speaker
Do you know how to use that camera?
00:25:45
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, I do.
00:25:46
Speaker
I was like, it's computers.
00:25:47
Speaker
I've been with them for my whole life.
00:25:49
Speaker
There's no way I can't figure that shit out.
00:25:52
Speaker
So then I got the Guggenheim job and stayed there for 11 years.
00:25:57
Speaker
It was great.
00:25:58
Speaker
It was like, it didn't pay enough, but I got like great amount of time.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:01
Speaker
It's a lot of time.
00:26:02
Speaker
But I was doing so much other shit.
00:26:04
Speaker
I started a gallery then the publishing company traveled a lot.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:10
Speaker
It was fun times.
00:26:11
Speaker
I don't know why I was saying, oh, that's how... But I was always making little headshots for people that turned into from $100 jobs, $200 jobs, $300, and then got that Guggenheim job, which was a photo job, paying like $40,000 a year or whatever.
00:26:24
Speaker
And then the freelance started to kick in over the years.
00:26:28
Speaker
I mean, I kept making work that looked like the last work, so people kept knowing I existed.
00:26:33
Speaker
And...
Freelance Photography Growth
00:26:35
Speaker
It just became, it's bigger.
00:26:36
Speaker
You know, I can work enough to like survive, which is good without having to try very hard.
00:26:42
Speaker
I think that's kind of the best part.
00:26:43
Speaker
Like I don't have to go out looking for jobs, but I also don't go out looking for jobs.
00:26:47
Speaker
So like, is that good or bad?
00:26:50
Speaker
It's probably both.
00:26:51
Speaker
I mean, as long as they keep showing up, it's fine.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah, but like shit, man, you can't live like that.
00:26:56
Speaker
Can I actually live like that?
00:26:57
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:26:59
Speaker
I keep touching the wires.
00:27:00
Speaker
You can touch them.
00:27:02
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit about your early photography series?
00:27:05
Speaker
Because a lot of them were like... You're talking about like on the NFTs?
00:27:10
Speaker
I'm talking about photography in general.
00:27:11
Speaker
You have like Megalopolis, like a lot of environmental, like you're going traveling.
Documenting Queens: Ongoing Project
00:27:16
Speaker
Yeah, I've been traveling a lot.
00:27:17
Speaker
The first series I made was called Permanence.
00:27:20
Speaker
And it was like after 11 years or so.
00:27:23
Speaker
Well, actually...
00:27:25
Speaker
I was traveling a lot where friends were because I couldn't afford hotels.
00:27:29
Speaker
It was like get a $400 flight to Berlin, sleep on somebody's floor for five days, and then see it in the daytime.
00:27:36
Speaker
Make pictures.
00:27:37
Speaker
Make as many pictures as possible.
00:27:38
Speaker
Awesome.
00:27:39
Speaker
Try to get better at this.
00:27:40
Speaker
See something that you need to need.
00:27:46
Speaker
So I did that for a while, and after about 10 years, I made that into my first project, which was these kind of landscapes, nothing landscapes,
00:27:55
Speaker
from around the world.
00:27:57
Speaker
But they were connected to my friends and my group of people and some were portraits of those people that I was with.
00:28:01
Speaker
So it was cool, I love that.
00:28:03
Speaker
And on the side, there was no main project.
00:28:06
Speaker
It was like I was doing that and I was photographing Queens always.
00:28:08
Speaker
So at that point I was always like photographing, which is called a Queens affair.
00:28:13
Speaker
And I mean now I have like I think about seven or 8,000 decent historical photographs of Queens that like will show you something that does not exist anymore pretty much.
00:28:24
Speaker
It's kind of sad.
00:28:25
Speaker
I mean, I look back and I'm like, fuck, man, that shit's gone.
00:28:28
Speaker
But how nice to have a project that can continue into forever, right?
00:28:34
Speaker
And then it becomes this historical document that also shows the change and you can keep working on it.
00:28:41
Speaker
I think that most photographers don't have projects that last that long.
00:28:47
Speaker
They have kind of like these things that have end caps on them and they're very specific.
00:28:52
Speaker
start and finish.
00:28:53
Speaker
And so I just think it's interesting to have an open-ended thing, right?
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's hard to think about because it's like, if there's no ending, why am I, what is, what's the purpose?
00:29:03
Speaker
Right?
00:29:04
Speaker
Like, but for me, it's like, I just want to make the photographs.
00:29:06
Speaker
I'm from here.
00:29:07
Speaker
I see it.
00:29:07
Speaker
No one else is ever going to photograph these things.
00:29:09
Speaker
And I think they're really strange.
00:29:10
Speaker
So like, for me, I just want to like be able to look back whenever, because I look at the pictures a lot.
00:29:16
Speaker
I look back a lot to just see like all this weirdness that's changing around me.
00:29:22
Speaker
Do you watch Awkwafina from Queens, Norwalk from Queens?
00:29:26
Speaker
Wait.
00:29:27
Speaker
Oh, yes, yes.
00:29:28
Speaker
I thought you were talking about this other black lady with the Showtime show.
00:29:31
Speaker
What the hell's her name?
00:29:32
Speaker
Z-Way.
00:29:33
Speaker
But yeah, I love that show.
00:29:36
Speaker
Do you remember the episode where she travels back in time?
00:29:40
Speaker
And her neighborhood is the same.
00:29:42
Speaker
She's like, wow, this is really weird.
00:29:44
Speaker
But the neighborhood is exactly the same.
00:29:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:47
Speaker
Like, I live in Ridgewood, and the pictures are like, because they shot a Scorsese movie, like, during the pandemic.
00:29:57
Speaker
The one with the fake faces?
00:29:59
Speaker
I forget.
00:29:59
Speaker
The long Irish one.
00:30:01
Speaker
I forget what it was, like, three hours.
00:30:02
Speaker
The Irishman.
00:30:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:04
Speaker
The fake faces.
00:30:05
Speaker
And they didn't have to do anything.
00:30:06
Speaker
They just had to put old cars.
00:30:08
Speaker
They put old cars in front of the houses, and that was it.
00:30:10
Speaker
That was it.
00:30:11
Speaker
The stage manager was like, oh, okay.
00:30:13
Speaker
We got it.
00:30:13
Speaker
We got it.
00:30:15
Speaker
That's right.
00:30:16
Speaker
I was just talking about that like a few nights ago.
00:30:17
Speaker
Like Ridgewood never changes.
00:30:19
Speaker
Middle Village never changes.
00:30:20
Speaker
Like they just can't yet.
00:30:22
Speaker
They will.
00:30:22
Speaker
Of course.
00:30:23
Speaker
Ridgewood's won't change.
00:30:23
Speaker
Of course.
00:30:24
Speaker
They can't change because they have these like old two-story houses for people that they're never giving them up.
00:30:29
Speaker
It's just not happening.
00:30:31
Speaker
I mean, they will when it's like $4 million for those things.
00:30:33
Speaker
Of course.
00:30:33
Speaker
There's a price.
00:30:36
Speaker
Just wait for inflation.
00:30:41
Speaker
Is that series, so the Queen series you keep going back to obviously.
00:30:45
Speaker
Yeah, I just keep shooting.
00:30:46
Speaker
So I have a camera in the bag or my coat now.
00:30:49
Speaker
So always.
00:30:51
Speaker
Like we have to photograph this.
00:30:52
Speaker
What is this thing?
00:30:53
Speaker
It's new sky, indoor skydiving.
00:30:56
Speaker
What?
00:30:56
Speaker
Half block.
00:30:57
Speaker
Half block.
00:30:58
Speaker
Other side of the bridge.
00:30:59
Speaker
Really?
00:31:00
Speaker
You see this weird white structure going up inside of a building.
00:31:02
Speaker
With a fan and you can just go in there.
00:31:04
Speaker
What?
00:31:05
Speaker
I fly, sorry.
00:31:09
Speaker
This is over.
00:31:09
Speaker
This interview is over.
00:31:12
Speaker
Let's move it over to the iFly.
00:31:14
Speaker
I know.
00:31:14
Speaker
That's the next one.
00:31:15
Speaker
We'll be in there with lab mics.
00:31:19
Speaker
I also saw the Bronx project where you go around and similar.
00:31:23
Speaker
The Bronx was like... Half of my family is in the Bronx.
00:31:28
Speaker
South Bronx.
00:31:30
Speaker
I've always wanted to walk around and make photographs of the neighborhood because it was different.
00:31:34
Speaker
The Bronx is...
00:31:36
Speaker
wasn't leveled.
00:31:37
Speaker
So like, you know, Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan,
00:31:42
Speaker
were leveled out so that you can make a gridded system on the streets.
00:31:45
Speaker
But the Bronx, they didn't do that because it was like no one lived there at that point when they were starting to do that stuff.
00:31:50
Speaker
And also poor people live there.
00:31:52
Speaker
So no need to make it easy, right?
00:31:54
Speaker
So everything's these weird hills.
00:31:57
Speaker
Streets are like staircases, like 188th Street, not that street, but like multiple streets are just staircases, which is kind of incredible.
00:32:04
Speaker
And then on the staircases are apartments and stuff like up it.
00:32:08
Speaker
to like doors to your home so it's like that's weird i want to photograph what like that but i did that like that project was one day because i was getting paid to do that like i had the idea but then a organization named the architecture league of new york or urban omnibus is their their magazine they asked me to photograph the bronx but i was like they they had only a small budget i think it was like 500 bucks and i was like
00:32:35
Speaker
I can do it for a day.
00:32:37
Speaker
So I woke up at like 10 AM on like a gray Saturday, fucking bright gray, man.
00:32:40
Speaker
It was like the best.
00:32:41
Speaker
I couldn't be better.
00:32:42
Speaker
I had a sunset.
00:32:43
Speaker
It was bright gray all day and then a sunset.
00:32:45
Speaker
Boom, man.
00:32:46
Speaker
Made some goodies.
00:32:47
Speaker
That was a good day.
00:32:49
Speaker
I walked about 24 miles and just went from like, you know, the bottom of the Bronx, bottom of the Bronx, like around Grand Concourse, Yankee Stadium area and then went up to Riverdale.
00:33:03
Speaker
which is a lot of walking.
00:33:06
Speaker
But that was cool.
00:33:07
Speaker
Those images are intriguing.
00:33:08
Speaker
I love seeing it literally through your lens.
00:33:12
Speaker
It looks otherworldly.
00:33:13
Speaker
It looks like some kind of strange European country.
00:33:18
Speaker
You can see that something's not right.
00:33:20
Speaker
I think that's when you're seeing pictures and you're like,
00:33:24
Speaker
It's not what you think this city looks like.
00:33:27
Speaker
So I think that's why.
00:33:29
Speaker
And it shows the racism in the city.
00:33:31
Speaker
I mean, you can see it in those pictures.
00:33:32
Speaker
So I think that's why I kind of make the work I make now based on thinking that way about projects.
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:40
Speaker
So that's a good one.
00:33:42
Speaker
That was a freelance job that led to a bunch of other freelance jobs that led me kind of to the work I'm making now.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, I was curious how how often, like commissioned or editorial work kind of like
00:33:55
Speaker
allowed you to make personal work or was the same work, right?
00:33:59
Speaker
Because I think photographers get lucky that way sometimes, right?
00:34:03
Speaker
I don't know if anything's luck, man.
Commissioned Work and Creative Projects
00:34:05
Speaker
But I would say that getting a job is definitely not luck.
00:34:07
Speaker
You work very fucking hard for it every single time.
00:34:11
Speaker
Even though sometimes you get an easy job or a job that comes to you and you're like, oh, well, thank you.
00:34:15
Speaker
I didn't know that was going to happen this week kind of shit.
00:34:17
Speaker
That happens.
00:34:17
Speaker
But usually it's like,
00:34:21
Speaker
you've dealt with some real shit to try to make one good photograph.
00:34:24
Speaker
I just mean like, you know, like the work goes into a magazine or online for like an article, but then it actually can exist as a personal project as a part of your own portfolio.
00:34:34
Speaker
I feel like other artists don't get those types of jobs that often, right?
00:34:39
Speaker
Maybe illustrators.
00:34:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think most people get jobs that are like, can't be personal.
00:34:46
Speaker
Like I have a lot of great like tabletop photographers.
00:34:51
Speaker
that usually you're like, here, photograph this Coke can, man.
00:34:55
Speaker
I mean, like, this is the job.
00:34:56
Speaker
It's not like I can go out and, like, photograph what I want.
00:34:59
Speaker
Well, not what I ever want, but, like,
00:35:02
Speaker
there's some leeway where I don't have to tell them what I'm doing.
00:35:05
Speaker
Like they say, this is the idea, we've agreed on the idea, now I'm gonna go try to make some photographs that actually work for this idea.
00:35:11
Speaker
And you can like them or hate them, but these are the photographs.
00:35:14
Speaker
And that's kind of, I think I learned that in school too.
00:35:16
Speaker
It was just like, I had professors that were like, you know, fuck everyone else.
00:35:19
Speaker
If you think that that is something that needs to be seen, then like that's kind of how it has to be.
00:35:24
Speaker
So maybe that's not gotten me second jobs with a lot of companies.
00:35:28
Speaker
I imagine that it has definitely closed a lot of doors.
00:35:31
Speaker
But yeah, fuck that, I don't care, whatever.
00:35:34
Speaker
I mean, it seems to be working, right?
00:35:36
Speaker
It's all right.
00:35:38
Speaker
It's all right so far.
00:35:38
Speaker
I mean, it's like, it could be better.
00:35:40
Speaker
It could be worse, though, for real.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:43
Speaker
Well, let's talk about some of the new work that that led you to.
00:35:49
Speaker
So Bleak Reality, that was a Vanity Fair project.
00:35:52
Speaker
Commission?
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah, so I think when that was, I think that was 2015 or 16, and I was working with a woman named Kiara that was also a purchase person, a few, way, like, younger, much younger, but I ran a gallery in Brooklyn for two and a half years in, like, 2009, and she would come with another one of her friends, Jules Slewski.
00:36:18
Speaker
who I work with all these people all the time now.
00:36:20
Speaker
We make books together.
00:36:22
Speaker
We do a lot together.
00:36:23
Speaker
And Kiara called and she was like, I have a project.
00:36:27
Speaker
I want to do something with Black Lives Matter.
00:36:28
Speaker
It was when Black Lives Matter was just picking up.
00:36:31
Speaker
And I think that the jobs come to me when the world's burning because I'm photographing landscape in a way that I don't think a lot of other black people can or do get hired for.
00:36:40
Speaker
I would say that probably maybe no other...
Documenting BLM Locations
00:36:45
Speaker
Anyway, not no other, but definitely landscape, architecture, photography is a limited field for black people.
00:36:53
Speaker
so i get the call but kiara was like damn i left it and i like she liked the work uh from the past and like she she's seen it for so long like more than like most other people had so it was a connection that way that they were like hey we want to do something for black lives matter we don't quite know exactly what it is but we want to go to locations where these things have happened and try to figure out like how to make work there and i was like
00:37:18
Speaker
So I was like, yeah, cool.
00:37:19
Speaker
Let me think about it.
00:37:20
Speaker
I'll do the research, try to figure out what places that actually, I wanted to go to places that were obvious killings, not like he also had a weapon or like no, no, like kind of ambiguous anything.
00:37:31
Speaker
Right.
00:37:31
Speaker
And I wanted to go at the times that it happened.
00:37:33
Speaker
Right.
00:37:33
Speaker
So I was trying to photograph at the exact time that they happened in real life.
00:37:37
Speaker
Okay.
00:37:38
Speaker
Um,
00:37:40
Speaker
So yeah, so pretty much that Bronx job led to that.
00:37:42
Speaker
So eventually, I mean, in about two days, I was like, look, I'm not gonna do this job for like $4,000.
00:37:49
Speaker
Like this is like traveling to eight cities.
00:37:51
Speaker
That's a big, big job.
00:37:53
Speaker
So I was like, if you pay for, but I still did it for mad cheap, dude.
00:37:57
Speaker
Like I think about it now, I'm like, I know that I got paid $6,500 to go to eight cities and photograph eight locations
00:38:09
Speaker
And I was like, bet, dude.
00:38:10
Speaker
I was like, look, I can get these flights, like, because it was like pretty much like what I do on a, because I still had a day job.
00:38:17
Speaker
So I still had to do this on the weekends, kind of.
00:38:20
Speaker
Or I just didn't want to use my vacation time because I got a lot of days.
00:38:22
Speaker
Google time gives you a lot of vacation days.
00:38:24
Speaker
Like, if,
00:38:26
Speaker
30 vacation days plus on like literally unlimited sick days.
00:38:31
Speaker
They give you a sick day a month and then cruise until you hit 45, dude.
00:38:35
Speaker
What?
00:38:39
Speaker
Not if you don't want to get paid.
00:38:41
Speaker
Oh, there's a cat.
00:38:42
Speaker
There's a cat.
00:38:44
Speaker
But also, right, you're not trying to take a vacation to go work.
00:38:46
Speaker
You got good medical, too.
00:38:47
Speaker
This shit was a good job.
00:38:48
Speaker
I mean, like, my boss stayed there for he's still there.
00:38:51
Speaker
And it's he's been there longer than I've been alive.
00:38:54
Speaker
So I was like, I'm not moving on.
00:38:55
Speaker
Does he have a side hustle?
00:38:57
Speaker
Freelance photography.
00:38:59
Speaker
He's a landscape architect.
00:39:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:02
Speaker
And he's good.
00:39:03
Speaker
He's been there for a long time.
00:39:04
Speaker
He does his job.
00:39:05
Speaker
I don't know what I was talking about.
00:39:09
Speaker
You were talking about... So Bleak Reality.
00:39:14
Speaker
So how it kind of came about.
00:39:15
Speaker
Oh, and you got paid not a lot of money to go to a lot of places.
00:39:19
Speaker
$6,500 to go to eight places.
00:39:20
Speaker
And that was cool, man.
00:39:21
Speaker
Because I remember booking $200.
00:39:23
Speaker
So I'd fly on Friday night.
00:39:28
Speaker
Fly on Friday night, go to Charleston, South Carolina.
00:39:33
Speaker
Charleston, is that the name of it?
00:39:35
Speaker
Is that Charleston, the city on the water?
00:39:38
Speaker
Charleston, South Carolina to photograph in the morning and then fly right after that photograph to I think Minnesota to photograph where this dude Freddie Gray or no, it's sad because it's like the names man died like a few weeks earlier.
00:40:00
Speaker
Oh, so it was still like a Kai Gurley.
00:40:03
Speaker
It was still fresh.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah, but I didn't know.
00:40:07
Speaker
I mean, I was I was I was just booking flights.
00:40:09
Speaker
I didn't actually know that it was that close.
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:12
Speaker
But when I went there, it was like Minnesota State Fair was happening in the parking lot right next to where this like vigil like kind of shit was going down.
00:40:20
Speaker
I was like, dude, this is a weird, like, I had to walk through the whole state fair to get to it because I was let in a cab at the front of it.
00:40:27
Speaker
Like, it was weird, man.
00:40:29
Speaker
Minnesota's weird.
00:40:30
Speaker
But I haven't seen it that much, so I can't really say that.
00:40:33
Speaker
So I did this on weekends.
00:40:37
Speaker
I would do that, and then I'd then go to Cleveland that, like, next morning to shoot the third thing that weekend and then go back to work on Monday morning and do that three weekends in a row to get, like, the job done.
00:40:47
Speaker
It was cool.
00:40:48
Speaker
I spent about $4,500 on travel.
00:40:51
Speaker
Maybe five grand on travel and bucketed $1,500.
00:40:55
Speaker
Made the photographs and like had the photographs.
00:40:57
Speaker
Because you don't usually get a job that's going to pay you like photograph eight murder scenes.
00:41:00
Speaker
I mean, that's like not really a normal-ass job.
00:41:02
Speaker
So you have to like work with what they'll give you, you know?
00:41:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:04
Speaker
Like to me, I was like, it was worth more to just work with it than to kind of like not get this job and not have the opportunity to like shoot it.
00:41:10
Speaker
Sure.
00:41:11
Speaker
yeah yeah i mean there's like value in the project itself right but photographing that then led to like two google jobs which are more like on like they're out they're on my website but like they they were just like company like google jobs there but it was always for like a kind of a cause and those causes were awesome and then then that led to like nat geo seeing it and then working with them so
00:41:33
Speaker
It's been a progression of just that first shooting the Bronx, pretty much.
00:41:38
Speaker
That's cool.
00:41:38
Speaker
Yeah, I hadn't seen the Vanity Fair piece, but the pavilion where Tamir Rice was murdered, I saw it in Chicago at the Stoney Island Arts Bank when it was disassembled.
00:41:50
Speaker
And so when I was researching for this podcast, I looked it up and I realized they had reconstructed it, so it's up there now.
00:41:56
Speaker
Oh, really?
00:41:57
Speaker
On site, or at least it was recently, I think.
00:42:00
Speaker
It was like a temporary home for it, because I think they were looking for it.
00:42:02
Speaker
for a proper spot.
00:42:04
Speaker
Damn.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:06
Speaker
Goddamn.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:10
Speaker
This is a really, this is fun, man.
00:42:11
Speaker
Check, you see this brickwork up here?
00:42:13
Speaker
It's crazy.
00:42:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:42:14
Speaker
It's like steps of bricks.
00:42:16
Speaker
Is this the roof?
00:42:17
Speaker
Are we on the roof?
00:42:18
Speaker
We're on the fourth floor.
00:42:19
Speaker
We're not.
00:42:19
Speaker
Fourth floor.
00:42:22
Speaker
I think there's six.
00:42:23
Speaker
I feel like they didn't finish this space.
00:42:26
Speaker
I think there's supposed to be another nice wall like this.
00:42:29
Speaker
Nah, fuck that wall.
00:42:31
Speaker
This is way better.
00:42:32
Speaker
Kind of.
00:42:32
Speaker
A little bit.
00:42:35
Speaker
It is hard to nail stuff into that concrete.
00:42:37
Speaker
Impossible, probably.
00:42:39
Speaker
You're going to need a fucking real drill for that.
00:42:41
Speaker
I don't even know how to do it.
00:42:42
Speaker
Like I have to do this in the studio that I have now because it's like half brick.
00:42:46
Speaker
It's a problem, man.
00:42:47
Speaker
You can borrow, we have one of those.
00:42:48
Speaker
We bought a hammer drill.
00:42:50
Speaker
It's like, it's the loudest thing I've ever heard.
00:42:52
Speaker
It's
00:42:53
Speaker
Because we got to hang projectors from the ceiling sometimes for shows.
00:42:57
Speaker
I hope you made the holes and you can just do it over and over again.
00:43:00
Speaker
We're always putting things in different spots.
00:43:02
Speaker
Why would you put it in the same place?
00:43:05
Speaker
We're really bad gallerists.
00:43:07
Speaker
They sell those low projectors now that you push up, right?
00:43:10
Speaker
Those short throws?
00:43:12
Speaker
They're not expensive.
00:43:13
Speaker
They're not?
00:43:14
Speaker
They are.
00:43:14
Speaker
Of course.
00:43:15
Speaker
How does the Testament project work?
00:43:22
Speaker
So I really like the way you use color to amplify color and portraiture.
00:43:30
Speaker
How does that factor in and where does that come in?
00:43:33
Speaker
I think I was just trying to figure out what would give someone their own agency in a photograph.
00:43:43
Speaker
Like natural light is what we're in, or artificial or natural light usually.
00:43:48
Speaker
There's been projects where people are photographing like UV.
00:43:50
Speaker
There's been...
00:43:52
Speaker
but people still don't have control of what that looks like.
00:43:54
Speaker
So I was trying to figure out how to give people control of at least color on their skin.
Testament Project: Color in Portraiture
00:44:00
Speaker
And that was kind of it.
00:44:01
Speaker
I mean, that's how I started thinking about it.
00:44:03
Speaker
I mean, it took many years, a few years to kind of figure out anything that would... I wanted to photograph black men because all these black men were being murdered on TV, like from that bleak reality job work.
00:44:18
Speaker
I wanted to do something with portraits.
00:44:20
Speaker
And I also made videos.
00:44:22
Speaker
So there are those colorful portraits.
00:44:25
Speaker
Men, I did for a year and then photographed women the year after that.
00:44:30
Speaker
Or, you know, anyway, I guess that's like, no, can you even say that anymore?
00:44:36
Speaker
And then...
00:44:40
Speaker
But it took a few years to get to that.
00:44:41
Speaker
It was like making just terrible photographs for a few years to try to figure out like what I was trying to say.
00:44:48
Speaker
But then it happened and I photographed pretty quickly.
00:44:51
Speaker
I mean, it was only about three or four months of photography and then everything else was showing it for some years.
00:45:01
Speaker
And I also made video content, tons of video content.
00:45:03
Speaker
So like there's like a story, every person that has a photograph pretty much told me a story about how they were like kind of
00:45:12
Speaker
you know, typecast or treated poorly because of their race.
00:45:17
Speaker
And it was interesting stories.
00:45:18
Speaker
It was cool.
00:45:18
Speaker
It was like, I never heard that shit before.
00:45:20
Speaker
Even from like friends, cousins, like my brothers, like they were telling me stories after a few drinks.
00:45:29
Speaker
You do have whiskey here, don't you?
00:45:33
Speaker
And they were telling me shit that I'd never heard them say before.
00:45:34
Speaker
And I was like, whoa, this is like,
00:45:36
Speaker
Interesting.
00:45:37
Speaker
And then I just made video content because I didn't know how to do it.
00:45:39
Speaker
I would have people holding, like, you know, the mic that goes up, the fucking hidden mic.
00:45:44
Speaker
I had people holding that in their hands.
00:45:45
Speaker
People were like, you can't have people hold shit.
00:45:47
Speaker
I was like, dude, whatever, man.
00:45:49
Speaker
I need to get the story.
00:45:50
Speaker
We're on a turnpike.
00:45:51
Speaker
There's mad cars.
00:45:52
Speaker
It's the only way I can do it.
00:45:53
Speaker
Anyway, so anyway.
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, so video content and some writing also.
00:45:59
Speaker
Then made some books and showed it around for a long time.
00:46:03
Speaker
But it was pretty much to give people agency back a little bit.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah, they're wonderful images.
00:46:09
Speaker
Thank you.
00:46:10
Speaker
They're strong, and I love the way that, like you said, it's almost redignifying dignity or bringing back some kind of dignity.
00:46:18
Speaker
I hope so, man.
00:46:19
Speaker
I mean, like, I tried to do something a little different, but...
00:46:23
Speaker
Yeah, it worked out.
00:46:24
Speaker
I mean, so far, the art doesn't die, right?
00:46:27
Speaker
We get to kind of live with it.
00:46:28
Speaker
We'll see where it goes next.
00:46:30
Speaker
That's what I was going to say is it's like, and photography especially is funny that way.
00:46:34
Speaker
It morphs over time quite a bit, I think.
00:46:39
Speaker
Totally.
00:46:39
Speaker
And you see it everywhere.
00:46:40
Speaker
You see it other places, you know, like,
00:46:43
Speaker
You see it other places, for sure.
NFTs Democratizing Art Access
00:46:45
Speaker
Which is cool.
00:46:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:47
Speaker
I mean, if stuff stayed the same all the time, it would get boring.
00:46:51
Speaker
Real quick.
00:46:52
Speaker
Sometimes it does.
00:46:53
Speaker
But that's a wonderful thing about NFTs is you've been able to... I mean, some of the subject matter is...
00:46:59
Speaker
it's heady right like photographing these sites where these these individuals were murdered or um talking about race and color um and then like you were saying initially i think you're saying that some of this stuff doesn't necessarily hang in a gallery or go to a museum but it can definitely be sold as an nft and people are ready to kind of like um engage with it redistribute it it's it's just a it's an open place and it's that kind of
00:47:29
Speaker
I mean, I don't know how much money you guys have, but I can't go into a gallery and buy shit.
00:47:34
Speaker
Like, if it's in a gallery, I'm pretty sure I can't afford it.
00:47:37
Speaker
Right?
00:47:38
Speaker
And that's not cool, man.
00:47:40
Speaker
It's not good for, like, humanity.
00:47:41
Speaker
Like, most people on Earth do not want to go to places where they can just not even consider, I mean,
00:47:48
Speaker
Art galleries are not supposed to be for... Well, you know what?
00:47:51
Speaker
It is.
00:47:52
Speaker
Art museums are not supposed to be for sales, but art galleries are.
00:47:55
Speaker
So art museums don't show shit.
00:47:59
Speaker
They show 10, 20 shows a year.
00:48:00
Speaker
They cost a lot of money.
00:48:01
Speaker
They're dealing with a lot of stuff.
00:48:03
Speaker
They're never showing people that don't have a name.
00:48:05
Speaker
I mean, it's like...
00:48:07
Speaker
I shouldn't say it like that, but I should say, like, I have no shot at being photographed, like, shown at the moment unless I either know somebody or, like, I don't know.
00:48:15
Speaker
Or a collector has donated.
00:48:16
Speaker
Probably knows somebody.
00:48:17
Speaker
Or a collector has donated your work to them in some capacity.
00:48:19
Speaker
That could work, but that usually just sits in the basement.
00:48:21
Speaker
Yep.
00:48:23
Speaker
Like that's kind of what happens with that.
00:48:25
Speaker
Not a basement.
00:48:26
Speaker
It's in a cool rack.
00:48:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:29
Speaker
That's funny though.
00:48:30
Speaker
We were, we had our former professor on and we were, we were debating a little bit about all the like blue chip galleries and how they're,
00:48:38
Speaker
you know, only, you know, they're only clients that can actually buy stuff are insanely wealthy, right?
00:48:42
Speaker
And he's like, yeah, but like, that's public?
00:48:45
Speaker
And he's like, some of those shows are good.
00:48:47
Speaker
And he's, I think he had a little bit of a point there.
00:48:50
Speaker
And like, especially in the last couple of years, they've been showing a lot of work that's a little...
00:48:55
Speaker
more thoughtful or a little more- The galleries.
00:48:56
Speaker
The galleries.
00:48:57
Speaker
Oh, the galleries are awesome.
00:48:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:58
Speaker
I mean, like you, there's so many of them, you can't really make any, you can't like make any judgments on them.
00:49:04
Speaker
They're like, everybody's doing a different thing on different floors of their own buildings at this point.
00:49:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:49:08
Speaker
It's all out there.
00:49:09
Speaker
It's all out there.
00:49:10
Speaker
Which is, which is nice for the public.
00:49:12
Speaker
Right?
00:49:12
Speaker
Totally.
00:49:13
Speaker
Totally.
00:49:14
Speaker
But you know, it's,
00:49:18
Speaker
But the public has to know it's there, right?
00:49:19
Speaker
And does the public know that, you know, does the public know that, like, David's Werner's having a show on Thursday at 6 p.m.?
00:49:26
Speaker
Are they really inviting, like, people in their real, like, the community of New York City to, like, see this shit?
00:49:31
Speaker
I don't fucking think so.
00:49:33
Speaker
And it's not welcoming for everyone, right?
00:49:35
Speaker
It's like there's rules and, like, there's an atmosphere.
00:49:38
Speaker
Yeah, but I also don't think it's the gallery.
00:49:40
Speaker
I mean, I don't think it's on the gallery to invite anyone to their...
00:49:42
Speaker
I think that they could do whatever the fuck they want.
00:49:44
Speaker
No, no, no.
00:49:44
Speaker
This is like a systemic thing, right?
00:49:46
Speaker
It's like the market.
00:49:47
Speaker
It is what it is.
00:49:48
Speaker
It's everything, right?
00:49:49
Speaker
It is what it is.
00:49:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:49:52
Speaker
But that becomes... It is what it is becomes like... It's like... There's no movement.
00:49:58
Speaker
Like, there's not enough movement.
00:50:00
Speaker
And there can't be because there's just not... There's gatekeepers and then there's... Everyone has to work outside of that system.
Art Book vs. NFT Collectors
00:50:06
Speaker
And that's kind of where NFT comes to place where you can say like, look, if I can build my own following, then I can...
00:50:12
Speaker
I can get something that like, I run the publishing company and it's like people buy all the books.
00:50:19
Speaker
Like there's some people that buy all the books because they like them.
00:50:23
Speaker
You know, that's good enough, right?
00:50:24
Speaker
And there's no difference between those books and the NFTs that we're selling.
00:50:28
Speaker
There's like no difference.
00:50:29
Speaker
Like it's just, I fucking want to support that project.
00:50:32
Speaker
That's it.
00:50:33
Speaker
And I don't think that like book collectors, like art book collectors and lovers are the same people as NFT collectors, but I think they're like the same kind of people.
00:50:41
Speaker
But I collect both.
00:50:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:43
Speaker
So it's like, you know, I try to go into NFT making zero judgments.
00:50:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:50:48
Speaker
And probably putting out work that also...
00:50:52
Speaker
I think what I've been doing with NFT is releasing work for the most part, like this kind of Confederate and like American history work.
00:51:01
Speaker
A lot of that's online because I wanted people to have to
00:51:05
Speaker
deal with the conflict in a way that was, and the pictures aren't of conflict.
00:51:09
Speaker
They're not of like, I'm not taking a side, but people think, people feel like, feel so much about these photographs that they think I am.
00:51:16
Speaker
And then they start talking mad shit, man.
00:51:19
Speaker
It's awesome to see.
00:51:20
Speaker
It's like crazy to see.
00:51:21
Speaker
If you ever want to see crazy shit, if you go to my pictures on Matt Gio, at Matt Gio on Instagram, you will see comments that are incredible.
00:51:29
Speaker
Like,
00:51:31
Speaker
thousands like they have such a reach yeah big up to Nat Geo I love you guys but yeah they have a big reach and they have a big reach yeah and they don't censor the comments I don't think you can censor comments I don't think you can turn it no you can't turn them off on Instagram you just have comments wow that so if you get like 8,000 comments on like a picture of like a graffiti all over the Robert E. Lee monument yeah
00:51:56
Speaker
I mean, also comments are good for the algorithm, so nobody really wants to turn them off even though, you know, who knows?
00:52:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool.
00:52:01
Speaker
I mean, I was looking through this shit was interesting.
00:52:03
Speaker
Yeah, I recorded it because I was like, I need to just make screenshots of some of this.
00:52:08
Speaker
It's so good.
00:52:10
Speaker
So bad.
00:52:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's some homework for me.
00:52:17
Speaker
No, don't do that.
00:52:18
Speaker
Never look at the comments.
00:52:21
Speaker
There's a time and a place, and it's over.
00:52:24
Speaker
You're talking about NFTs.
00:52:26
Speaker
You're not in it in a small way.
00:52:28
Speaker
You started at Quantum.
00:52:30
Speaker
You have this digital publishing house as well, which publishes digital books of NFT photo books.
00:52:36
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
00:52:37
Speaker
So that's KGPNFT.
00:52:40
Speaker
Yeah, we're just working on our next project.
00:52:41
Speaker
I think our website is kind of like
00:52:44
Speaker
It's nothing right now, which is good.
00:52:47
Speaker
We're trying to figure out how to make it work.
00:52:49
Speaker
What I really want is for things to get better in America with regulations so that we can do this the right way.
00:52:57
Speaker
Do I still need a separate website
00:52:59
Speaker
Because I have those Squarespace websites that you mentioned, like a few of them, maybe three of them actually, and they sell well.
00:53:04
Speaker
Like all things are like working smoothly.
00:53:05
Speaker
I don't have to deal with any bullshit.
00:53:07
Speaker
I can change things on my phone whenever I need to.
00:53:09
Speaker
So it's, they work and that's why I use it.
00:53:13
Speaker
And it makes me money because I don't have to worry about it.
00:53:16
Speaker
And yeah,
00:53:17
Speaker
When they let you buy with Ether, then great.
00:53:21
Speaker
Great.
00:53:22
Speaker
Easy.
00:53:22
Speaker
Like, it's a super simple, like, just give me the option.
00:53:25
Speaker
And then now you are Web3 company and I can take Ether for those books and grow my following.
00:53:31
Speaker
Like, it's I don't know what your question was, actually.
00:53:33
Speaker
I was just thinking about that because I was like, why?
00:53:35
Speaker
Why is this fucking taking so long?
00:53:37
Speaker
But I was just thinking about that today because I just registered our lydianstater.tez address and we have the lydianstater.eth address.
00:53:46
Speaker
And that's like, it's just like one step closer to being Venmo when you have an address like that.
00:53:51
Speaker
Because then all you need is for people to have ether, right?
00:53:55
Speaker
That's very true.
00:53:55
Speaker
That's a good way to put it, actually.
00:53:56
Speaker
That should be like an ad for ENS.
00:53:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:00
Speaker
But it is, I mean, like, it is, we think it's slow because we're in the middle of it, but it really hasn't been that long.
00:54:05
Speaker
And those are the kinds of steps that have to happen.
00:54:07
Speaker
And then as soon as some big company integrates it in like an easy, smooth way where like people are putting in their credit card and they're actually paying in Ether, then it's like,
Web3 and Revolutionizing Art Transactions
00:54:17
Speaker
you know.
00:54:17
Speaker
But is that going to happen?
00:54:19
Speaker
I mean, I think there's a lot of people who don't want it to.
00:54:22
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:54:24
Speaker
I think that's a question mark.
00:54:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's a problem, man.
00:54:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's not ideal.
00:54:32
Speaker
That's what we're in right now.
00:54:33
Speaker
It's like every day.
00:54:33
Speaker
But I have been, I've been, I've been surprised at where, uh, our supporters for the projects we've been doing have come from, um, in, in terms of the crypto space.
00:54:43
Speaker
It's not, you know, it's not who I necessarily would think would jump in and throw us a thousand bucks worth of ether, you know, but it happens and that's, uh, it keeps it going.
00:54:53
Speaker
It keeps it going.
00:54:54
Speaker
And it, and I think it says something about,
00:54:56
Speaker
the people who are excited about that space who are willing to kind of like throw some money at some things that they care about.
00:55:05
Speaker
It's funny who's more open-minded because our thing has always been onboarding traditional artists into the kind of the crypto NFT space and then trying to kind of cultivate collectors from the art world space and seeing if they can kind of, kind of join in on this project and also try to bring in crypto people and,
00:55:23
Speaker
And it seems like the people that are on the crypto side are a little bit more open-minded.
00:55:28
Speaker
And they're the ones that kind of like are more interested in kind of like finding out more about the artists we represent and maybe even their traditional artworks that they have, like say photography, whether it's painting or sculpture.
00:55:39
Speaker
It seems like the other side is a little bit still to this day a little bit more skeptical as far as like.
00:55:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's true.
00:55:46
Speaker
But so it's been an interesting ride so far.
00:55:49
Speaker
Super new, right?
00:55:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:51
Speaker
It's been a year.
00:55:52
Speaker
I mean, it's not been a year.
00:55:53
Speaker
It's been seven years, six, seven years and two serious years, two and a half serious years.
00:55:59
Speaker
Mainstream-ish years.
00:56:01
Speaker
That's really young.
00:56:02
Speaker
We'll see what happens.
00:56:03
Speaker
When did you first get into NFTs?
00:56:07
Speaker
I was thinking about it at the beginning of 2021.
00:56:10
Speaker
Wait, what's COVID year?
00:56:12
Speaker
2020 or 2020?
00:56:14
Speaker
2021.
00:56:15
Speaker
After kind of the initial... I think when they said that they had like, they may have made a vaccine, I was starting to get more pop-like busy.
00:56:23
Speaker
Oh, shit.
00:56:24
Speaker
I don't know why.
00:56:25
Speaker
See, I was thinking like, he must know these Topo Chico bottles because like, he must have been...
00:56:30
Speaker
That one was fine.
00:56:32
Speaker
They do have a lot of spice in them, though, for sure.
00:56:36
Speaker
A lot of spice.
00:56:39
Speaker
Oh, shit.
00:56:40
Speaker
Anyway, you were saying?
00:56:41
Speaker
I don't remember.
00:56:45
Speaker
Oh, 2020.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah, 2021, March, February.
00:56:47
Speaker
I was working with a dude named Justin Navarro Sano really early on.
00:56:52
Speaker
Or just not working with, but kind of like just kind of getting into the scene, like learning.
00:57:01
Speaker
learning and building a base of people that gave a shit, I think.
00:57:07
Speaker
It wasn't a lot, it was enough to get me addicted.
00:57:09
Speaker
I think it was like kind of, you make this eight sales and you see your wallet has $16,000 in it or something like that.
00:57:15
Speaker
And you're like, fuck man, like I just made $16,000 selling like artwork.
00:57:19
Speaker
I haven't done that in prints in years.
00:57:25
Speaker
right or ever and then you're like i would like to know more about this thing i'd like to know everything about this thing in this space right totally yeah and and it gave someone the opportunity to own something that like someone has it like someone actually owns that shit like it's a weird picture like i made it because i was weird and someone actually gave a shit that it was weird and bought it like that is cool and like
00:57:50
Speaker
I don't give a shit.
00:57:51
Speaker
I sell shit for $100 still.
00:57:52
Speaker
Like, I mean, that was the – anyway.
00:57:54
Speaker
But, yeah, I don't care how much it costs.
00:57:56
Speaker
I just want, like, people to own stuff.
00:57:57
Speaker
And I think it's, like – I go with the times.
00:57:59
Speaker
If some people are selling shit for this now, then I'm going to sell some stuff.
00:58:01
Speaker
And if people are selling stuff for more expensive, I'm going to try to sell some stuff.
00:58:04
Speaker
You know, it's – I mean, that's how the market works, right?
00:58:07
Speaker
I don't – some people just go up.
00:58:10
Speaker
Some people just try to get more and more or, like, at least keep a certain level of money coming in.
00:58:14
Speaker
And I think that's cool, too.
00:58:15
Speaker
It's just a different game.
00:58:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:19
Speaker
Are you speaking at the conference coming up again?
00:58:22
Speaker
I feel like we saw you at the last... This is NFT NYC?
00:58:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:25
Speaker
Yeah, I just booked a trip out of New York for that.
00:58:27
Speaker
I didn't even know.
00:58:29
Speaker
I didn't know the dates.
00:58:30
Speaker
No one invited me to anything, so I didn't know the dates.
00:58:32
Speaker
So I'm out.
00:58:34
Speaker
Good for you.
00:58:35
Speaker
No, it's going to be fun.
00:58:37
Speaker
That was fun.
00:58:38
Speaker
I love it.
00:58:38
Speaker
I love the talks.
00:58:40
Speaker
I love the parties.
00:58:41
Speaker
It's always random.
00:58:42
Speaker
And it's all high-class, inclusive, good food, good parties.
00:58:49
Speaker
How much does it cost to do that?
00:58:50
Speaker
Like how much it costs to be a person at FTNYC?
00:58:54
Speaker
An actual person if you're not like speaking?
00:58:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:58:57
Speaker
I think, well, I think tickets are 500 bucks and the VIP tickets are 1600.
00:59:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:03
Speaker
What does that get you?
00:59:04
Speaker
It like gets you into like all the stuff and like the VIP, you get lunch every day and like VIP lounge or whatever.
00:59:09
Speaker
But really they're like, they're like,
00:59:11
Speaker
crowdsourcing all of their speakers.
00:59:14
Speaker
Right.
00:59:14
Speaker
So I mean, they have some keynotes that I'm sure that they're paying money, but everybody else is like getting free entry.
00:59:19
Speaker
And then the people who actually pay are just like paying double for the people who are speaking to not have to pay.
00:59:25
Speaker
That's I mean, that's my opinion on their business model.
00:59:28
Speaker
That is a good way to put it.
00:59:30
Speaker
But it seems to work.
00:59:32
Speaker
No shade.
00:59:33
Speaker
It's a lot to put on a conference like that.
00:59:36
Speaker
I would never.
00:59:37
Speaker
It's pretty well done, in my opinion.
00:59:40
Speaker
It's clean.
00:59:40
Speaker
It's at the fucking Marriott.
00:59:42
Speaker
Or not the Marriott, but is it the Marriott?
00:59:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's at the Marriott.
00:59:47
Speaker
It's good, they have good locations.
00:59:50
Speaker
They're doing their thing.
00:59:51
Speaker
Congratulations to them.
00:59:52
Speaker
I mean, they're fucking really doing it.
00:59:54
Speaker
Somebody has to do it.
00:59:56
Speaker
Margaritaville, that's the other venue they had.
01:00:00
Speaker
They were in the Margaritaville.
01:00:01
Speaker
Margaritaville's a Jimmy Buffett restaurant?
01:00:03
Speaker
Yeah, in Times Square.
01:00:04
Speaker
Yeah, they had the pool floor rented out.
01:00:09
Speaker
And I remember I went with my swimsuit excited to go swimming.
01:00:12
Speaker
Nobody was swimming.
01:00:13
Speaker
Dude, you can't swim in front of other humans like that.
01:00:15
Speaker
I had no idea.
01:00:16
Speaker
And there was people with VR headsets by the pool.
01:00:20
Speaker
But not in the pool?
01:00:21
Speaker
Not in the pool.
01:00:21
Speaker
That seems dangerous.
01:00:22
Speaker
It was not what I was hoping for.
01:00:27
Speaker
There was multiple people with the VR helmets.
01:00:29
Speaker
I think there was only one, but it was enough for me to be like, what is going on here?
01:00:34
Speaker
I have nobody swimming.
01:00:35
Speaker
I'm not feeling this shit.
01:00:38
Speaker
Anyways, well, we'll miss you this year.
01:00:41
Speaker
Have fun.
01:00:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:42
Speaker
As much as you can.
01:00:44
Speaker
This time, pool.
01:00:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:46
Speaker
You should be the only person swimming.
01:00:47
Speaker
I feel like that's not a good thing.
01:00:48
Speaker
I'm not going to be that guy.
01:00:50
Speaker
I can't.
01:00:51
Speaker
I really can't.
01:00:52
Speaker
I don't know, man.
01:00:55
Speaker
That would take a lot of drinks.
01:00:57
Speaker
So what's in the future for Quantum and...
01:01:01
Speaker
So for Quantum, I'm out.
01:01:03
Speaker
You're up?
01:01:03
Speaker
I'm like, we're like, things are changing a lot, and I'm going to just go and do... That's right.
01:01:09
Speaker
You said a new name, right?
01:01:11
Speaker
What's the name of the new project?
01:01:13
Speaker
Oh, no.
01:01:14
Speaker
Quantum still exists, and Quasars, I think, is what you're talking about.
01:01:16
Speaker
No, wait.
01:01:16
Speaker
I don't know what you're talking about.
01:01:17
Speaker
Oh, I guess I don't know.
01:01:18
Speaker
So I'm focusing more on the KGP NFT.
01:01:21
Speaker
Figuring out like what...
01:01:25
Speaker
Cause I think what I'm going to try to figure out is how to get like the museums and like the cultural institutions to, to need to be on the blockchain.
01:01:36
Speaker
So that's kind of what we're trying to figure out with that.
01:01:38
Speaker
Like what kind of project can you put together that really requires a blockchain?
01:01:43
Speaker
Like not just NFT, like what I can't, I can't keep talking about this, but like something a little bit more that connects you
01:01:54
Speaker
It's just, yeah, something.
01:01:56
Speaker
I don't know what it is.
01:01:57
Speaker
Did you see that recently?
01:01:58
Speaker
The Pompidou collected, it was like 30 years.
01:02:02
Speaker
I thought that's cool.
01:02:03
Speaker
Pompidou collected some shit.
01:02:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:05
Speaker
It's happening.
01:02:06
Speaker
It's starting.
01:02:07
Speaker
Slow but steady.
01:02:08
Speaker
I know.
01:02:09
Speaker
That's really crazy because one goes and then you're like, you need to, like, I've been trying to sell to a major museum in New York for a while and they're just like, it's a little early, man.
01:02:17
Speaker
Like, we don't know if we're going to do that.
01:02:20
Speaker
at all.
01:02:21
Speaker
And I'm like, dude, come on, just like fucking, I'll give it to you for free.
01:02:24
Speaker
Just put it in your collection, man.
01:02:25
Speaker
What are we talking about?
01:02:26
Speaker
Just get a wallet.
01:02:28
Speaker
Give me the name of the person with the NFT wallet at that museum and then like, hook me up, dude.
01:02:33
Speaker
Like, what are we talking about?
01:02:35
Speaker
Like,
01:02:36
Speaker
Anyway, so it's, I think it will start at some point.
01:02:39
Speaker
If the Pobby dude's doing it, then you have more, say like, yo, check this shit out, man.
01:02:42
Speaker
Like, come on, man.
01:02:43
Speaker
We're for real.
01:02:44
Speaker
Let's do this.
01:02:45
Speaker
I mean, all you need is you need the first and then you need a follower, right?
01:02:49
Speaker
Isn't that like a theory?
01:02:49
Speaker
You like need the first person to do a thing and then like somebody to follow him and then the floodgates are open.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, the Bronx.
01:02:54
Speaker
I'll take it.
01:02:55
Speaker
Bronx.
01:02:55
Speaker
And then Queens.
01:02:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:56
Speaker
This motherfucker, man.
01:03:01
Speaker
I love it.
01:03:01
Speaker
He's a Queens kid at heart.
01:03:03
Speaker
I dig it, man.
01:03:03
Speaker
I feel you.
01:03:04
Speaker
I feel you.
01:03:06
Speaker
Brooklyn has something to say about this too.
01:03:07
Speaker
Of course.
01:03:08
Speaker
Goddamn.
01:03:09
Speaker
Hip hop, man.
01:03:10
Speaker
So do the museums ask, I'm sure there's apprehensions about what rights do they get with the NFTs, display modalities.
01:03:19
Speaker
I mean, are those the questions?
01:03:22
Speaker
I don't think that's too much.
01:03:25
Speaker
Isn't it just like image?
01:03:27
Speaker
Can we get our board to agree that we need to buy NFTs?
01:03:33
Speaker
Do we even want to tell the board that these things exist and that we need them?
01:03:36
Speaker
I think that's the point.
01:03:38
Speaker
That's where it's at now.
01:03:39
Speaker
It's not like, oh, the screen is like, they don't give a fuck.
01:03:41
Speaker
I don't think they give a fuck.
01:03:42
Speaker
They're buying old VHS tapes from Namjoon Pikes.
01:03:47
Speaker
They're getting historical data that will never look good.
01:03:51
Speaker
So they do not care about the like they care about the value that it brings to society or some sort of cultural reference.
01:03:58
Speaker
That's what I think the museums are about.
01:04:00
Speaker
So once someone comes to a museum with something that looks good, then they'll have to get it.
01:04:08
Speaker
It just has to be the right thing.
01:04:09
Speaker
I don't know what that is.
01:04:12
Speaker
It's something.
01:04:14
Speaker
It's gonna be a mix of things.
01:04:15
Speaker
It's not gonna be just like four paintings by like a famous painter that we need.
01:04:20
Speaker
It's gonna be like a connection to that painting through a web app that gets you or on web three app that gets you to, I don't know.
01:04:29
Speaker
Is it gonna be like Jeff Koons moon pieces?
01:04:32
Speaker
Have you seen those things?
01:04:32
Speaker
It's not gonna be Jeff Koons.
01:04:35
Speaker
They're like literally shipping stuff to the moon.
01:04:38
Speaker
It costs like a million dollars or something to buy in.
01:04:40
Speaker
Yo, this guy needs to go away.
01:04:44
Speaker
He's got really good health care.
01:04:46
Speaker
Of course he does.
01:04:49
Speaker
Dude, this guy is like...
01:04:51
Speaker
It's not good.
01:04:52
Speaker
Whatever is happening with this whole like people liking him.
01:04:55
Speaker
That's like, I mean, I don't know, man.
01:04:58
Speaker
It was fun.
01:04:59
Speaker
I'm on.
01:04:59
Speaker
I shouldn't say things like that out loud, but like enough is enough, dude.
01:05:03
Speaker
Like there's so many artists like trying to like have a living making artwork and you're giving this dude a hundred million dollars.
01:05:09
Speaker
Just fuck off.
01:05:10
Speaker
I don't know, man.
01:05:11
Speaker
I'm not.
01:05:12
Speaker
I can't be that.
01:05:13
Speaker
I can't agree.
01:05:14
Speaker
I can't agree to that.
01:05:16
Speaker
I'm on the Pace Verso Discord channel.
Pace and Jeff Koons Moon Project
01:05:20
Speaker
I love Pace.
01:05:22
Speaker
I work with Pace.
01:05:24
Speaker
So they're doing the Jeff Koons Moon Project.
01:05:26
Speaker
Oh, are they?
01:05:28
Speaker
See?
01:05:29
Speaker
Still love Pace.
01:05:30
Speaker
You got trapped.
01:05:31
Speaker
No, you got to do what you got to do, right?
01:05:33
Speaker
In this world, you got to do what you got to do.
01:05:34
Speaker
I don't know.
01:05:36
Speaker
But anyways, on the Discord, they like launched the project and said how much it was going to cost.
01:05:40
Speaker
And all the users were like, uh, that's more money than we can spend.
01:05:45
Speaker
How much is it going to cost?
01:05:47
Speaker
I think you can buy like fractions.
01:05:48
Speaker
I think they're literally a million dollars.
01:05:50
Speaker
What are you talking about?
01:05:51
Speaker
I don't understand what the project... You know what?
01:05:53
Speaker
You don't want to.
01:05:54
Speaker
It's done.
01:05:54
Speaker
It's something that's going to the moon and you have to pay a million dollars as a human being to buy it.
01:05:57
Speaker
How many people can buy it?
01:05:59
Speaker
I think there's like an addition.
01:06:00
Speaker
Maybe it's 10 or 20 or something.
01:06:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
01:06:02
Speaker
That's easy.
01:06:04
Speaker
So you buy.
01:06:05
Speaker
10 million bucks for a pig?
01:06:06
Speaker
You get the NFT and then like he ships a rock to the moon or something and it's your rock and it goes there.
01:06:11
Speaker
Oh, bam.
01:06:12
Speaker
Can't you still buy moon craters for like 40 bucks?
01:06:15
Speaker
Is that a thing?
01:06:17
Speaker
You can buy the name of the crater or some shit.
01:06:21
Speaker
Oh, you mean name it on the... You can name shit on the moon for sure.
01:06:25
Speaker
And you can definitely name shit on Mars for hundreds of dollars.
01:06:28
Speaker
For sure.
01:06:28
Speaker
I mean, lydianstater.eth is the name of my crater.
01:06:32
Speaker
That's my cash app handle.
01:06:35
Speaker
You can send me money.
01:06:37
Speaker
Send me money there.
01:06:38
Speaker
Oh, man.
01:06:38
Speaker
Fucking Martians in this motherfucker.
01:06:42
Speaker
Oh, God.
01:06:44
Speaker
Okay.
01:06:44
Speaker
Well...
01:06:45
Speaker
Any other questions?
01:06:47
Speaker
I know.
01:06:47
Speaker
I think we covered everything.
01:06:48
Speaker
I had one last thing.
01:06:51
Speaker
This is this photographic series.
01:06:52
Speaker
I hope that I have gone through this whole interview without having or this podcast without answering any of your questions.
01:06:58
Speaker
No, it was perfect.
Photographic Series on NYC Police Precincts
01:07:01
Speaker
You have a series of New York City police precincts, which I absolutely love.
01:07:05
Speaker
Oh, why?
01:07:06
Speaker
Why do you love that?
01:07:06
Speaker
First of all, I think, I hope you were quoting Hilla and Byrne.
01:07:11
Speaker
The Beshers.
01:07:13
Speaker
Because of the matter-of-factness that you kind of present the information.
01:07:17
Speaker
But it's such a troubling, I mean, I grew up by precincts and just walking by them and they mean a certain thing to immigrant families, I'm sure it means different things to other people, but they're not exactly the most inviting.
01:07:29
Speaker
And you kind of proved that.
01:07:33
Speaker
You know, the next project is photographing the inside, like when you walk in like that, that should have been the project, actually, and I think about it like,
01:07:40
Speaker
When I was photographing the outside, I had an assistant or someone that was with me or like somebody who was just working with me for that day, like go in and tell the police that I was there photographing so that I could photograph before that they could stop me.
01:07:53
Speaker
Wow.
01:07:57
Speaker
But I should have been a person inside talking to, but you can't, yeah, photographing a police person is probably not the best idea.
01:08:02
Speaker
No, no, no.
01:08:04
Speaker
It was a nerve-wracking job.
01:08:05
Speaker
It also was one of those jobs.
01:08:08
Speaker
Not a job.
01:08:08
Speaker
It was also a job, actually.
01:08:09
Speaker
That was a job, too.
01:08:10
Speaker
So when I got that Bronx job from the Urban Omnibus, the next year they came to me and said, we want to photograph something about the police.
01:08:22
Speaker
I don't know what it is.
01:08:22
Speaker
And I was like, I would love to photograph all the police precincts.
01:08:24
Speaker
Wow.
01:08:26
Speaker
You know, like that would be actually very cool.
01:08:27
Speaker
We would like you to do that.
01:08:29
Speaker
But they were like, we'll give you like five, like again, $500.
01:08:31
Speaker
And I was like, dude, I can't do that again.
01:08:34
Speaker
It's not like...
01:08:36
Speaker
So they like, I was like, this is what it's gonna cost.
01:08:39
Speaker
Like it's gonna cost me like six grand or five grand or six grand to like go around, hire people for four weekends in a row to drive me.
01:08:46
Speaker
Cause I don't have a license cause I live in New York City.
01:08:48
Speaker
I have a license now, but at that point I did not drive.
01:08:50
Speaker
So I needed someone to drive me around to all these police precincts, like an insane person.
01:08:55
Speaker
And,
01:09:01
Speaker
They were like, yeah, cool, we'll get back to you.
01:09:03
Speaker
And then a year and a half later, they get back to me saying, we found the funding to get you the money to do this project.
01:09:09
Speaker
It was great, man.
01:09:10
Speaker
I was like, oh, I totally forgot about that.
01:09:12
Speaker
That's great, let's do it.
01:09:13
Speaker
So I spent May 2017 photographing every police precinct in New York City.
01:09:21
Speaker
I mean, you said they're uninviting, but some of the buildings are gorgeous, right?
01:09:23
Speaker
They are, sure.
01:09:24
Speaker
Four or five of them are really nice.
01:09:27
Speaker
Really nice.
01:09:28
Speaker
Modern.
01:09:30
Speaker
Modern?
01:09:30
Speaker
No.
01:09:30
Speaker
One's modern.
01:09:32
Speaker
Staten Island has the modern one, but the rest are kind of like this weird...
01:09:37
Speaker
Not the rest, but like about 25% of them have the same architecture and the outside has these like, it's, if you look at all the photographs from that series, you'll see that like there's this thing where if you have five windows, you have like the top of the windows have this like green awning type of deal.
01:09:53
Speaker
It's like a 3D but 2D kind of shit.
01:09:56
Speaker
A triangle and then it'll be a circle, triangle, circle, triangle, circle.
01:09:59
Speaker
Next floor, triangle, circle, triangle, circle.
01:10:01
Speaker
Like it's never the triangle, triangle, triangle, it's never circle, circle, circle, circle.
01:10:04
Speaker
It's all, and on every police priest it's the same.
01:10:07
Speaker
So I photograph like all of them and I'm like, oh, 30 of these buildings that have the same pattern of built, like same stone, same windows, same triangle circle shit.
01:10:19
Speaker
That's what you learn when you photograph the police precincts of New York City.
01:10:22
Speaker
These beautiful facts about police precincts that nobody gives a shit about.
01:10:26
Speaker
They all have the green lights also.
01:10:28
Speaker
That's the one thing.
01:10:29
Speaker
The green lanterns that are now probably just lights.
01:10:31
Speaker
You never find out what the significance of it?
01:10:33
Speaker
I never ask.
01:10:33
Speaker
I don't care.
01:10:34
Speaker
I don't ask cops questions.
01:10:35
Speaker
It's probably Illuminati with the triangles.
01:10:38
Speaker
Possibly.
01:10:39
Speaker
Don't get me in trouble with the cops.
01:10:42
Speaker
That being said, thank you very much.
01:10:44
Speaker
Thank you so much for being a guest on our podcast.
01:10:47
Speaker
I appreciate it.
01:10:47
Speaker
Thank you so much.
01:10:48
Speaker
I'm so, I'm glad that you have me here.
01:10:50
Speaker
This is great to be in this room.
01:10:52
Speaker
We've got the weird ceiling five, five step.
01:10:55
Speaker
I should photograph that.
01:10:56
Speaker
Actually I'll do that later.
01:10:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:58
Speaker
Thanks for having me guys.
01:10:59
Speaker
Thank you.
01:10:59
Speaker
Appreciate it.
01:11:00
Speaker
Thanks.
01:11:01
Speaker
Thanks Frank for being here with us.
01:11:04
Speaker
Frank, would you like to, would you like to have one shout out for the next project that you're working on?
01:11:08
Speaker
Oh yeah, please.
01:11:09
Speaker
Just put out that you want people to see really quick.
Upcoming Show at Blue Sky Gallery
01:11:12
Speaker
Well, I'll be having a show in Blue Sky Gallery in Portland in two weeks.
01:11:16
Speaker
What's the date?
01:11:17
Speaker
Date will be March 1st is the opening.
01:11:19
Speaker
It'll be going all the way through March at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland.
01:11:23
Speaker
Wait, wait, wait.
01:11:24
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about the show.
01:11:26
Speaker
So it is part of the book that I published with Monolith here.
01:11:31
Speaker
Remember the South?
01:11:32
Speaker
There will be about 10 images from that, large scale and small scale.
01:11:36
Speaker
Like nine feet tall.
01:11:37
Speaker
Nine feet tall.
01:11:39
Speaker
11 feet wide.
01:11:39
Speaker
Wow.
01:11:40
Speaker
Dang.
01:11:41
Speaker
So first time going that scale, but also trying to have an impact on the community there because I've heard that they need a little bit of diversity there.
01:11:49
Speaker
Wow.
01:11:51
Speaker
I was going to go across the New York, like the United States is photographing the problems of diversity.
01:11:57
Speaker
And I would tell you that Oregon has less than 5% of black people in it.
01:12:01
Speaker
Wow.
01:12:03
Speaker
That's because Oregon started in the most racist way ever, involving the KKK needing to go west and all sorts of other shit where they didn't allow.
01:12:14
Speaker
There's still some laws on the books in Oregon that are- Eastern Oregon gets fucking weird.
01:12:20
Speaker
That is for real.
01:12:21
Speaker
Oh, solution?
01:12:22
Speaker
There is no way, dude.
01:12:24
Speaker
Eastern Oregon?
01:12:25
Speaker
No, not doing it.
01:12:26
Speaker
No, no, no, no, no.
01:12:27
Speaker
But I lived in Portland, Oregon for three years.
01:12:31
Speaker
Blue Sky is a wonderful gallery.
01:12:35
Speaker
That's a good spot.
01:12:35
Speaker
That was like my home base when I was there.
01:12:37
Speaker
was one of my first big shows was at blue sky gallery actually with this the pictures of like the colorful like men and i was like the first time i got a solo show anywhere i think actually yeah i got rejected from them every every year god damn yeah you got to keep a wine though i i don't really take or i don't really take pictures he's gonna show himself next week yeah we're just we're just gonna have our own show here
01:13:01
Speaker
We're not even kidding.
01:13:02
Speaker
The next show here is me and him.
01:13:03
Speaker
Oh, that's good.
01:13:04
Speaker
That's good.
01:13:04
Speaker
I like that.
01:13:05
Speaker
Both photographers?
01:13:07
Speaker
No.
01:13:07
Speaker
No.
01:13:08
Speaker
I do things with my hands.
01:13:10
Speaker
Sculpture.
01:13:11
Speaker
Well, that's a way to put it.
01:13:13
Speaker
Yep.
01:13:14
Speaker
Take pictures of the things afterwards, though.
01:13:16
Speaker
I dig it.
01:13:17
Speaker
I dig it.
01:13:18
Speaker
But yeah, you guys are definitely welcome to come back.
01:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, thanks so much.
01:13:21
Speaker
We're right down the street.
01:13:23
Speaker
That's awesome.
01:13:24
Speaker
When you're doing another interview, we'll come and just fuck the whole thing.
01:13:28
Speaker
Just so I keep going.
01:13:29
Speaker
Just add people to the interview.
01:13:30
Speaker
I love this.
Contemporary and Crypto Art Platform
01:13:32
Speaker
Also, Frank just did a Viola Davis cover of what?
01:13:37
Speaker
of Architectural Digest, the Kehinde Wiley cover of what?
01:13:40
Speaker
No cover of that, but inside of Departures.
01:13:44
Speaker
Oh, Departures.
01:13:44
Speaker
Oh, wow.
01:13:45
Speaker
The most exclusive magazine in the country.
01:13:48
Speaker
This is Delta, right?
01:13:49
Speaker
Departures.
01:13:49
Speaker
Is that Delta?
01:13:51
Speaker
I don't know.
01:13:51
Speaker
No, Amex.
01:13:52
Speaker
Amex.
01:13:53
Speaker
Amex.
01:13:53
Speaker
Departures.
01:13:55
Speaker
Frank Francis.
01:13:56
Speaker
I'm looking to get the black card.
01:13:59
Speaker
Oh, my God.
01:13:59
Speaker
You got to get invited, right?
01:14:00
Speaker
You got to get invited?
01:14:01
Speaker
The black card seems like an endless pit of despair.
01:14:03
Speaker
I think that's important.
01:14:06
Speaker
You don't want that.
01:14:08
Speaker
If you're making black card money, don't have a black card.
01:14:14
Speaker
Okay.
01:14:14
Speaker
Thank you so much.
01:14:15
Speaker
Thank you.
01:14:23
Speaker
Arranging Tangerines is recorded, edited, and produced by Lydian Stater, an evolving curatorial platform based in New York City with a focus on the intersection of contemporary and crypto art.
01:14:33
Speaker
You can learn more at lydianstater.co, find images at Lydian Stater NYC on Instagram, and follow us at Lydian Stater on Twitter.
01:14:41
Speaker
If you'd like to learn more about Chris's work and Frank Francis, check out our show notes for his website and social media accounts.
01:14:47
Speaker
Big thanks to Tall Juan, who graciously provides our intro music.
01:14:51
Speaker
His albums are available at tallwan.bandcamp.com.
01:14:54
Speaker
And thank you to you, listener, for spending your valuable time with us.
01:14:59
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
01:15:02
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
01:15:05
Speaker
I don't know what to say.
01:15:08
Speaker
I just know I don't want to be like you.
01:15:35
Speaker
I know what to do, I know what to say.