One of the era’s most prolific conceptual artists and composers Mark Mothersbaugh has been making postcard art every day for the past 50 plus years. And this is on top of composing and scoring over 150 films, television shows, video games and hundreds of commercials and interactive pieces through his multimedia studio, Mutato Muzika. All the while making music and performing with pioneering band, DEVO. After he thought he was told that his “potscards aren’t art,” Mark set out to create books that explained his favorite medium and practice with one out now: Apotropaic Beatnik Graffiti. Released by Blank Industries, the neodada Beatnik stream of consciousness poetry and graffiti book represents one human’s shamanistic observations of life in a wiggly world, and it’s all centered on eyes. We had the opportunity to catch up with Mark and his artist-in-chief, Siena Goldman aka S. Putnik. Krysti Joméi: I ordered the first edition as a present for Jonny. Mark Mothersbaugh: Sorry, it didn’t come for Christmas. You should just say you want a refund now. Krysti: Yes! I want a refund from the artist. (laughs) Mark: I’m delighted that we’re doing this. Jonny DeStefano: Thank you Mark. So let’s talk about APO-TRO-PAIC Beatnik Graffiti. Krysti: We’ve been practicing that — A LOT. Mark: So you know I draw postcards every day. You’ve been a supporter of that by publishing them in your magazine, which delights me to no end. The two things I enjoy most are getting up in the middle of the night and making a card and showing up at the studio before everybody else is here and writing a piece of music that’s not even going anywhere. It's just gonna be in my car and that's it. So five or six years ago, I said something like, “I do art every day” to somebody, and they said to me — or at least I thought they did because I have tinnitus issues because of Devo — “Those postcards aren’t art.” And it No. 123 was somebody that had watched me do them every day for a long time. And I was like, wow, that's interesting that somebody that knows me really well had that take on it and it made me think, Well, I want to do a book about the cards to explain them. That was how it started. I wanted to take all these cards and present them like a diary — one man’s observation of planet Earth. I used to give away these cards and they’re different every time. Sometimes they’re on top of an actual old postcard or sometimes they’re on paper that I pre-prepared with images, collages or things. And they always were a way to store pieces of information that I observed or overheard or thought about or had a nightmare about or was bored out of my mind and just started drawing something. And I was kind of surprised. I didn’t even know what I was doing when I started and it came out to be something by the end. And I had started putting them in red binders. You’ve seen pictures I think? Krysti: Yeah! At Myopia [Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, 20142015]. Your postcard room. Mark: Before I did the Myopia show, it had never occurred to me to take those books and open them up so public people could walk in. The idea was shocking to me and I resisted it for a while, but Adam [Lerner] [former Director of MCA Denver] was insistent on it. He is a very amazing human and he curated the show. But when I saw them laid out like that it made me think about them in a different way. It even changed my art a little bit because it was so private before that. I said and drew things that I wouldn’t want anybody to see. I was in shock when we were setting up the show the first day. I started pulling [binders] PHOTO BY CURTIS TUCKER
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