MAGAZINE 1985
interview and translation by Didier Lestrade
But who are they? Are they
artists ? Are they opportunists? Are they the next big thing or just hippies?
Who cares? Magazine investigates...
Here comes the bitchy interview of the issue ! Two pages of revenge, of truth,
accusations and mean gossip. Issue after issue, Magazine which is not an art
publication nevertheless tries to understand that very dirty tinte word that
is Art - and most of ail its connections with sex !
The Dix 10 group consists of Roma Napoli and J. J. Dow Jones. Both would be
just average painters if their process wasn't different from most other painters.
They first became famous in January 83 when they organised in Paris their first
« Supermarket of Art » where paintings were sold at the price of
the abject they were representing. This process, more than just an artistic
joke or even
provocation, means something. According to Dix 10, nothing is sacred and for
them Art is nothing but a market, and only that. Of course, it's wonderful to
be part of it and that's why Dix 10 have a lot of respect for the Art machinery,
even if it gives them the opportunity to play with il. Maybe the market is the
ultimate degree for Art, just like real estate is the ultimate for property,
or labels for fashion, etc.
One can easily argue that Dix 10 are surely former hippies, that they like to
provoke people, etc. But ail that is secondary. Their own idea of art for ail,
their un-commercial and colourful figurative art (that habit to have exhibits
where
paintings represents flowers, toys or dildos), the disregard they have for the
art market which never respects any work that isn't worth 4 figures sums, ait
that was bound to please us.
Didier Lestrade : Where
did you gel that name, Dix 10 ?
J. J. Dow Jones: Oh, because one night we were joking and found that, that's
how. We wanted an abbreviation, not our real names. It's not important anyway.
Didier Lestrade :Is it important for you to be French ?
J.J. :Ah. The fact of being French. Well, there's an incredible nationalism
in international art. The Germans defend German painting, the Italians defend
Italian painting, and no use mentioning the Americans Everybody takes refuge
in nationalistic strategies and of course there are connections. The Germans
arrived in the States much sooner than the French because the German figuration
started in '73-74. So we really can say that the Italians, Americans and Germans
have been working together for quite a long lime. It's true that when the French
got there, the Americans had that reaction of thinking : « We're not going
to give importance to the French again ! They've had enough ! » And, it's
a fact the Ecole de Paris in 1910-1940 was all-important.
Didier Lestrade :Do you mean for example that if there's such a void in England
in art it's because nobody wants them to be important ?
J.J. :Exactly. The English never really had painters. The English have a very
low position.
Didier Lestrade :How do you react to that yourselves ?
J. J. : We don't care.
Roma Napoli : We're always on the move, we go places.
Didier Lestrade :Yes, but your captions are in French, aren't they ?
Roma : Sure, we write them in French. We're French so we do it in French, that's
all.
J. J. We don't kill ourselves over it, really
Roma : For instance, we stayed in Milan for 6 months, just to gel to know the
people there. And we're soon leaving for the States.
Didier Lestrade: You mean you do your exhibitions in a town, then you gel fed
up and just leave ?
J.J. :Yeah, we always move. We really don't want to work like in Paris where
artists have exhibits every three weeks.
Didier Lestrade :Isn’t it a strategy to be in the public eye ?
J.J. :Sure, but we're not interested by that. We don't work like that. We don't
offer an avant garde or underground ambience, we don't want to show fashionable
or clever pictures, we just paint. Our principle is that nobody can deny that
art is only a business.
Didier Lestrade: But it's always been that way, has it ?
J.J. :Yes, but today it gels to bigger proportions. For instance now, every
two months a new art magazine is created. Well, you don't see that in just any
period of time.
Roma : : Painting is much more an event thing now.
J.J. :It's really speeding up. When you open an art magazine you realise that
a third of the newspaper is only ads for galleries and that the whole content
is devoted to a minority of artists so the range is very reduced. You realise
how much art magazines are only a showcase for galleries. It's only advertising.
We're not against it though, it's just that we don’t accept that false
deepness of the art world anymore.
Didier Lestrade :OK, but you still pretend you're painters.
J.J. :We just paint objects. To sell them. You know, in 1982 we could have jumped
on that boat, like everybody, and be part of the neo-expressionism. Nothing
was keeping us from taking a piece of something, paint on it and sell it. Furthermore,
we were in that milieu, we know Combas and Di Rosa.
Didier Lestrade So why didn't you do it ?
J. J. Because we thought it was HORRIBLE (Laughs.)
Roma You see, at that time there were loads of painters who were doing the same
thing and only 5 or 6 came out of it. It was obvious it was a take over, just
like it's now a take over with graffiti art.
Didier Lestrade: What do you mean by a take over ?
J.J. :Well. When you have five main galleries in Paris like Farideh Cadot, Templon,
Lambert, Beaubourg, Gillepsie who exhibit at the same time the same artists,
when everybody invests on the same kind of art, this is called a take
over.
Didier Lestrade :And you don't believe that totally romantic idea that it's
an art movement coming to life, that they've got to help it, etc. ? (Laughter.)
Roma : Came on, are you kidding ? No
J. J. It's even worse than that. For example, in 1967-1972, the whole psychedelic
movement produced a tremendous amount of painting, everybody was painting. But
art critics didn't want it because they had invested in Minimal and Conceptual
art and so didn't want to write about anything else.
Didier Lestrade :Do you mean that what happens in the art world is just the
same as what happens in the record business, where record companies set the
trends and withdraw everything else ?
J.J. :Exactly. It's only a financial market. Combas and Di Rosa were used to
make money. But the Italians, Germans or Americans are even more expensive.
Basquiat sells his paintings $20 000 apiece !
Didier Lestrade: But you must be told that you're from the same crowd, no ?
Roma : In the beginning, yes. But the difference between the New Figuration
and us is that another painter will take a canvas and paint what's on his mind,
or a story, his feelings, whatever. Whereas we only paint art world. We don't
care about the outside world, we don't speak about the feelings of the streets,
about breakers, graffiti, etc. For example, we don't care about the price of
our paintings, we're net social. We don't say that we've got to open up the
art market to everybody. If it does, se much the better.
Didier Lestrade But it's important that people buy.
Roma : : Yes, but that system of giving the painting the price of what it represents
is a way of getting out of the rules of the art market. Our prices can go from
a few Francs to millions.
Didier Lestrade It's very cynical.
J.J.: Yes, but it's a completely absurd work, it's net a conscious cynicism
to annoy people. The big 80's myth was : « Let's broaden the art market,
lets make the prices reasonable ! »
Didier Lestrade More accessible art, and ail that ?
J. J. Yes, art at 4 000 Francs !
Roma : Art for executives ! (Laughter.)
Didier Lestrade How come the art world is such a nasty one, were everybody is
jealous ?
J.J.: Because it's a struggle.
Didier Lestrade No, the struggle is everywhere, but there's definitely something
special in art.
Roma : : Because it's a lest bourgeois milieu and most of the gallery owners
are pathetic ; most of them are former antique shop owners, that's why 1
Didier Lestrade Who annoys you the most in the art world
Roma : Nobody !
J. J. Templon for instance is an international agent l He knows his job by heart,
he has a large capital at hand, he works with big galleries in the States, in
Switzerland
Didier Lestrade Something 1 always wanted to know is why the New Figuration
has such a naïve, childlike image ?
J.J.: That's mostly in France, not so much in Italy and Germany. It comes from
the comics 1 guess.
Didier Lestrade isn’t a way of making the art world younger, because it's
totally controlled by 40-60 years olds ?
J.J.: Well, look at what happened in New York. When Americans realised they
were stuck in Minimalism, Conceptual and Hyperealistic art, when they saw Italians
and Germans getting over, they decided they had to do something, they had to
find new artists, and that's how they found Schnabel and the like. Then some
art brokers - that exists ! - and gallery assistants started opening galleries
to do events, they hired everybody from the East Side, graffiti people and all,
solely because they felt it might work. To make an event you need some money,
a place and a party. So you have a party with 4 graffiti artists, you invite
the gentry because you know it and everybody discovers graffiti art, along with
some new wave music, at bit of cruising, a bit of Zulu and it works 1 You sell
some of the pieces and right after that you are in the international market
! The problem is that you end up swallowing anything, anyhow. For instance in
Paris, Agonies B empties her shop, puts 3 sloppy paintings on the walls and
creates a Parisian event, a happening !
Roma : : Right now and for some time now in art, you just sell personalities.
You sell a Picasso, a Dali, a Haring, you sell more or less provocative people.
What we sell is net ourselves, it's the idea of Dix 10 working on art.
J.J.: It's a rather intellectual matter : we know what the unconscious world
is worth. You end up with the pretext idea and Poivré who has created
the plane- pretext. Poivré is a painter - quite a successful one - who
only paints planes.
Only planes. He decided once for all that he painted planes because, maybe,
unconsciously, he needs to paint planes 1 (Laughter.)
Didier Lestrade At a pinch, the work that you do, you could do it without being
artists yourselves.
J.J.: Yes, we might not paint at ail.
Didier Lestrade Do you think you’ll go on doing Dix 10 for ten years time
with variations on a series, just to show that the system is idiotic ?
Roma : : We don't know. Hm Well, we're going to do Dix 10 well
Didier Lestrade Do you think Dix 10 will be a spring board for you ?
J.J.: No, anyway, as far as I’m concerned I won't change concept. 1 can
change everything but 1 don't think 1 want to do anything else.
Roma : : And things evolve in art, things can happen.
Didier Lestrade You really think that things are changing ?
J.J.: Sure they don't so much but you have fluctuations. For example, in France
in '81, the budget of the Ministry of Culture got multiplied by two. And it's
a fact that it gave a boom in painting. Lots of museums opened new rooms,
bought new art. Se there was an effervescence.
Didier Lestrade And you think it's a good thing, apart the fact that it made
some people live ~
J.J.:Then it's a good thing. In '86, if the majority changes, that budget will
change too and it's obvious there will be a slowing down of agitation.
Didier Lestrade Is there still some people who ask you if what you do is art
?
J.J.: Sure.
Didier Lestrade Are you asked some other questions like in the 60's : «
What does it mean ? », etc.
Roma : : Oh yeah.
Didier Lestrade It's great.
J.J.: Anyway we don't care. The fact is that our work has nothing to do with
what’s done in art these days. People are still in that idea of painting
like Picasso clic.
- Tel/ me what happened in Berlin with your sex shop of art.
Roma : At the start it wasn't something meant to be subversive, even if sex
is still a taboo. When we first go to Berlin, we wondered what to do to Germans.
New, Germans are in painting for a long time and always into sex. Castelli,
Salome, Fetting They don't do any sex shop exhibits though
Didier Lestrade Oh come on, you're not going to tell me there's a sexual situation
in German painting today, aren't you ?
J.J.:Well, Germans were the first one to bring sex in art and -
Didier Lestrade Well, 1 don't agree. When you open an art magazine, there's
never anything on sex. And you can't say the contrary.
J.J.: That's why Germans are in advance
Didier Lestrade But what does it mean advance when everybody is late ? OK, everybody
is 30 years late, the Germans are 25 years late, so what ? First of ail, Germany
is totally non-sexual.
J.J.: That's precisely why we did a sex shop over there. First of all, we didn't
sell anything (laughs).
Roma : : We did the sex shop without really thinking at the taboo. After all,
it's just a subject like any other one. But we discovered something, that net
only Germans didn't buy anything but when they die, they only bought the less
sexual objects. For instance, we did some inflation animal paintings for zoophiles
(laughter), with some slightly bigger assholes than the usual, well it wasn't
very obvious se that's the few things that we sold ! We couldn't believe it.
Didier Lestrade 1 am getting to the sick stage where art doesn't interest me
if it's not sexual.
How did gays react in Berlin ?
J.J.: The same. Very remote, very voyeurs.
Didier Lestrade But Berlin has a reputation for being sexual and wild.
Roma : 1 guess all that is over. It's very narrow minded.
J. J. It's obvious that in Paris it would have been funnier and it would have
worked better. You know, in Berlin we put a red curtain at the door to make
it look like a real sex shop and Salerne did come to the exhibit but he didn't
come in, he just peeped thorough the curtain and the door !
Didier Lestrade That's good gossip. Do you sometimes give gossip to Ben ?
J.J.: Oh nooo.
Didier Lestrade And your selves, do you fight a lot ?
Roma : Sometimes
J. J. Let's say we argue a lot (laughter).