Raymond Pettibon
| Raymond Pettibon | |
|---|---|
| Born | Raymond Ginn June 16, 1957 Tucson, Arizona[1] |
| Nationality | United States |
| Education | UCLA |
| Known for | Drawing, Video art, Installation art |
Raymond Pettibon (born Raymond Ginn on June 16, 1957) is an American artist who lives and works in New York City.[2]
Pettibon came to prominence in the early 1980s in the southern California punk rock scene, creating posters and album art mainly for groups on SST Records, owned and operated by his brother Greg Ginn. He has since gone on to international acclaim, earning several awards and exhibiting in major galleries and museums.
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Early life[edit]
Black Flag logo designed by Pettibon
Born the fourth of five children to R.C.K. Ginn, an English teacher who published several spy novels,[3] Pettibon grew up in Hermosa Beach, California.[4] He was raised Christian Scientist.[2] He earned an economics degree fromUCLA in 1977[3] and worked as a high school mathematics teacher in the L.A. public school system for a short period, before pursuing and completing his BFA in 1977.[5]
In 1977, his brother, guitarist/songwriter Greg Ginn, founded the influential punk rock band Black Flag. Initially, Pettibon had been a bass player in the group when it was known by the name Panic. When the band discovered that another band called Panic existed, Pettibon suggested the name Black Flag and designed their distinctive “four bars” logo.[6] Around the same time, Pettibon adopted his new surname, from the nickname petit bon (good little one) given to him by his father.[7] Pettibon’s artwork appeared on fliers, album covers and gift items (T-shirts, stickers and skateboards) for Black Flag through the early 1980s, and he became well known in the Los Angeles punk rock scene.[8]
Pettibon is married to video artist Aïda Ruilova, with whom he has a son.[9] He is an avid sports fan.[10] In 2014, Pettibon sold his Craftsman-style house in Venice for $1.219 million.[11]
Work[edit]
Known for his comic-like drawings with disturbing, ironic or ambiguous text, Pettibon’s subject matter is sometimes violent and anti-authoritarian. From the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, he was closely associated with the punk rock band Black Flag and the record label SST Records, both founded by his older brother Greg Ginn. In addition, Pettibon has designed the cover of the 1991 Sonic Youth album, “Goo”; bassist Kim Gordon had been a longtime admirer of Pettibon’s art and written about him for Artforum in the 1980s.[3] Beginning in the mid-1980s, he became a well-known figure in the contemporary art scene.
Pettibon works primarily with India ink on paper and many of his early drawings are black and white, although he sometimes introduces color through the use of pencil, watercolor, collage, gouache or acrylic paint. Pettibon’s drawings encompass the spectrum of American culture from the deviances of marginal youth-culture to art, literature, sports, religion, politics, and sexuality. Motives include Charles Manson, surfers, baseball players, vixens, homicidal teenage punks, Elvis Presley, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and the cartoon figureGumby. Pettibon’s works on paper combine the drawn image and text, both borrowed passages from literature and text written by Pettibon himself. Some images appear alone, but most often they are paired with handwritten snippets of text, either the artist’s own, or quotations from Henry James, John Ruskin, Christopher Marlowe, William Faulkner, James Joyce, and others.[12]
Pettibon has stated that his interest in this technique is a result of the influence of artists such as William Blake and Goya, and the style of political editorial cartoons.[13] His drawings come out by the hundreds. He started to publish them as limited-edition photocopied booklets in 1978. These booklets, which he continues to produce as “Superflux Pubs,” are considered “the sum of his ideas and aesthetics”.[3] Pettibon started working in collage in the mid-80s with simple newsprint elements collaged onto black and white images.[14] In his new works, the artist again uses the means of collage.[15]
Public art projects[edit]
For New York’s High Line, Pettibon created a temporary billboard in 2013, displaying a 2010 baseball drawing called No Title (Safe he called …) and featuring Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers sliding home.[16]
Other projects[edit]
In addition to his works on paper, Pettibon has also made animations from his drawings, live action films from his own scripts, unique artist’s books, fanzines, prints, and large permanent wall drawings that often include an arrangement of his own works on paper almost creating an installation of collage. In the early 1990s, fellow artist Mike Kelley played guitar on an album of songs that Pettibon recorded for the independent label Blast First out of New York and London.[3] He is now the lead singer of the Niche Makers, a band based in Venice, California.[17]
Pettibon’s artwork inspired the music video for the 2011 song “Monarchy of Roses” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. Pettibon is also mentioned in the song’s lyrics.
In June 2013, a new documentary series, The Art of Punk was released on YouTube. The first episode features the art of Black Flag and Pettibon.[18]
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