JAMIAN JULIANO-VILLANI

THE DELIRIOUS EXCESS that courses through Jamian Juliano-Villani’s irreverent paintings thwarts any easy effort at interpretation. Instead, viewers of the artist’s exhibition “It” at Gagosian’s 541 West Twenty-Fourth Street location in New York must submit to the works’ madness, accepting the paintings as visual capers. An avid collector of dollar-store books and a connoisseur of populist Americana, Juliano-Villani incorporates a diverse array of references into the exhibition’s works, including regional quilts, an advertisement for SpaghettiOs, and a painting by Australian artist Dale Frank called Art Nazis Must Die (Self Portrait), 1989. The paintings are varied in style, ranging from a cartoonish portrayal of the dog from the children’s book Where the Red Fern Grows to a photorealistic self-portrait of the artist with a transparent Flos lamp over her head, rendered as if through a fish-eye lens. 

More than a prankster, Juliano-Villani is an expert in matters of bad taste. One recent painting, Tuxedo, 2023, is a black monochrome with white lettering reading ALEX KATZ, with Gagosian’s logo along the top of the canvas, suggesting a bootleg exhibition advertisement—and floating the possibility of the esteemed painter being poached by the mega-gallery. She likewise plays with breaches of decorum in the new works’ mode of production: Juliano-Villani outsourced the canvases to reproduction painters in China, providing modified found images and specifying dimensions for the facsimiles. The results, which she calls “human AI,” are bizarre paintings channeling window displays, advertisements, and signage. The nearly eighteen-foot-wide Ashley,2024, depicts a seated, barefoot Jean-Michel Basquiat floating in a gessoed white void, kicking his foot up onto an overturned chair. He stares at the viewer, slightly hesitant, one of his toes oddly sausage-like. The image is repeated and cropped, suggesting a misprinted billboard. 

When I visited Juliano-Villani’s studio before her exhibition, she had pulled an all-nighter installing a solo exhibition of scale-model houses by Donna Dennis at O’Flaherty’s. Founded by Juliano-Villani in 2021, along with painter Billy Grant and musician Ruby Zarsky—I was also briefly involved—the freewheeling New York gallery has become known for eclectic (and occasionally lawbreaking) programming, including “The Patriot,” an open-call show featuring 1,128 artworks, which led to a dozen police arriving to contain the crowds in July 2022.

    —Lola Kramer

JAMIAN JULIANO-VILLANI 

THE REASON I DO WHAT I DO is because I love art and I love ideas. I’m trying to make the most of the time that I have. Seeing Ashley [Bickerton] go through physical decline, knowing that his time was limited, and watching him prepare his last show changed my entire perspective. He was stuck in a wheelchair, looking at the future, knowing that his next show would happen without him. It was inspiring to see someone in this position continue to use their mind and every last ounce of strength to make art. I saw this, and I was like, “What the fuck am I doing?” You never know when this [life] is all going to end. If you don’t have your body or your physical faculties, what are you going to do? How do you do it? My show “It” is basically dedicated to him. 

That’s why my painting of Basquiat is called Ashley. There’s a song that Basquiat’s band, Gray, made about Ashley called “The Mysterious Ashley Bickerton.” But there are layers to these decisions. Sometimes, it’s about representing something in a different context. Everyone knows who Basquiat is. He’s also part of Gagosian’s history. I wanted to remix an image of him. People are doing murals of Basquiat all over the city. It’s the same thing. Tuxedo is also an homage. It’s titled after the black-and-white painting that Basquiat made in 1982. It’s an arranged marriage that would never happen in real life, but I respect the shit out of both Alex and Larry, and also, I really liked the way it looked. They’ve never worked together, but I want to be the middleman. 

People always want to know why I make paintings of cultural phenomena or reference consumer culture. I gravitate toward images that feel like I’ve already seen them before. It’s like when you see a dollar store mascot for a brand, or a cartoon that’s slightly off. You know what it is, but it’s an anomaly. It’s like an imprint. They’re peripheral icons. 

For some reason, artists are supposed to be morally responsible. We’re supposed to be “smart.” But artists have to be open to everything, especially in our bullshit field, which is a rip-off to begin with. When you paint something, you present something. It doesn’t mean that you believe in it. It’s not inherently “promotional.” You’re letting people figure it out for themselves. Whatever you want to think the painting is, that’s on you.

I approached this show with a DJ mentality: editing and presenting. I’m a vehicle for ideas. I’m the tool. People get worked up when they hear that I had the paintings made in China, but I don’t see the problem. I’m an ideas person. I’ve been collaborating for years; I’ve had assistants for years. I don’t see the difference. This show is not about fetishizing the medium. I’ve already done that. I want to be able to make art until I die, so why would I kill myself just to know that my hand touched every part of the canvas? I’ve avoided doing what my dad’s done my entire life, corporate advertising and sign printing, yet here I am. Getting this shit printed. And yet it’s mediated through another father figure, Ashley, and adding the remnants of all these other things that have slipped through the cracks.

Around the time Billy and I were making our show “The Patriot” at O’Flaherty’s, we became obsessed with this stuff called Brownie Brittle. The whole product is the discard, the unwanted crust of the brownie. We found it at a deli near the gallery. If you look at images of that show, we installed it in the back room, suspending the bag in the air by chaining it to the walls from four corners. It took us forever to figure it out. We also glued Brownie Brittle all over the walls in the show, and no one noticed. If I had my way, the press release for “It” would be the story on the back of that bag. I hate the idea of a self-congratulatory press release. I don’t want to prove why the thing is the way it is, explain, or make excuses. In advertising, when you make an ad that praises itself, it’s called doing a “victory lap.” It’s jerk-off central. We’re not there yet. We’re still moving. Why would we try to historicize something that’s still happening? 

I want to be remembered as someone who changed how people look at art. I want people to be comfortable asking questions. I want people to be comfortable with fucking up. You can be funny and intelligent at the same time; it’s easy to forget that. I’m willing to be embarrassed to make it all happen.

“Jamian Juliano-Villani: It” is on view at Gagosian, New York, through April 20.