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Guy Richards Smit: I was born and raised in New York City, my dad was an art historian. For me, it was really old school—I got really into 30s radicalism, murals, and just the idea of pamphleteering. But I was never very interested in [contemporary] studio art, people being so locked in a world of aesthetics. I liked the idea of commentary, satire, a certain meanness, a certain kind of anger…
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No, I liked art that had a certain kind of meanness—not in an elitist way, but kind of an anger that was direct in a way that was not compliant.I was in grad school at Rutgers, and I saw Mike Smith's work, an early video artist. He did this character, "Mike." He's this everyday loser. There's this video, " Go for It, Mike," and it's the saddest, most amazing celebration of averageness that's ever been made. I saw that and realized this is what I want to do.It was so direct and so full of pathos, and you couldn't stop laughing. And then he has a character called " Baby Ikki"…he's a 60-year-old man now, and he gets into a big diaper, and he looks like a baby from the 50s or something. It's the stupidest fucking thing you've ever seen, but you're riveted; he does this thing where he'll offer someone a Snickers bar or a banana, and they'll say "No thank you"—and then he'll take it back and kind of smush it and offer it to them again. Then he'll throw it at the person, but he does the mimicry of the baby's movements so perfectly that you're completely… it's like a play. There are no words spoken, it's just this stupid thing.And visually, he's just a funny-looking guy, with a permanent five o'clock shadow.So I knew that what I wanted was different, and I didn't know how to do it. I kept making pretentious attempts…Like what?
I had a "sad terrorist" character. I remember making this video that was really long, I was getting into these jump cuts, and didn't really land.
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Jibz Cameron: Well, I was a theater kid– I was really into performing and I thought I was going to be an actor, I loved dance. But as soon as I hit adolescence, I went downhill fast. I dropped out of high school, and I ended up becoming a sort of an angsty punk. I left home really early, and then I wasn't going to be an actor because I was hanging out with my queer little artist friends who were playing music and whatever.
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Jaimie Warren: I'm still trying to figure it out, but mostly for many years I've basically been an organizer of sorts. When I was young, my thing was always organizing people to do stuff like giant capture the flag games or haunted houses or stuff like that. And I've been in the Midwest till last year, so it's always been about making your own entertainment.
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I know… I pull from it, but if I have Missy Elliot in a painting, I know more about Missy Elliot than I know about Fra Angelico. [Laughs]Jibz—have you ever been in front of an audience that you felt was the wrong audience for you? And bombed?
Jibz: Yeaaahhh… I've done regular stand-up, and that's a totally different world. If you perform in front of an art audience, they know that they're looking for many things. When when I do stand-up, it's very clear when things are not going very well. The costuming [of Dynasty Handbag] gives it this other dimension where I can just go into Weirdotown when I want to, which is good.
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Guy: Yeah it was because of them! [laughs] No, I first started doing Grossmalerman in '96. And I was doing it live a lot. And he started off very antagonistic. He'd show up sweaty…He's always kinda sweaty.
Well yeah that's his whole thing. Basically, when I first invented him, he was kind of this Julian Schnabel character. Everything I hated about painters. I love painting, but I've never been, like, a tech head. I've never cared about brushes. Being like that is somewhat laughable to me. And so I'd come out and do these things, and some of them I would do so well that people were offended by my jokes.Because he was such an asshole?
Yeah, he was an asshole, he was this sexist jerk. This is in the mid 90s. Art school was really different. There was alternative comedy, but I feel like you can get away with a lot more now. People would be really angry.
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Yeah, she was there… and Martha Rosler has defended the work to kids, too. But it was literally at a time when the work had to be defended.Were you in character during the whole residency?
No, no, not at all! Which was probably, actually, worse because I'd show these videos and people would be like, Why do you want to make these… Why do you want to make the world a little worse? Who's this shitty person, and why do we have to watch him?But one of the reasons I made them as videos is because I was terrified to do them live. In the first videos there would be no laugh track, just these awkward pauses. And I'd be alone in the room doing this stand-up, like Stand Up in Defense of Painting. And the funny moment actually happens in the pause, you're just like luhhhuguugh.Jaimie, have you ever bombed?
Jaimie: Well, um, performance stuff is still pretty new to me–in that it's something I lead and do myself. I think I've done it a dozen times or so. I can't watch video of myself, still. I'm just starting to be OK with it. I still have to drink a little bit.So what I did with Jibz a year and a half ago…I was terrified and very nervous, and I can't really see the audience when I was doing this. I did a performance as Little Richard, who transformed into GG Allin and then… first, I was a head on a plate of food and then everyone would eat the food, and then I would bust out of this table with all this food on it and underneath there was a piano with Little Richard, and then I'd rip off all my clothes and underneath I was naked GG Allin. I wasn't naked, I had a nudie suit on.
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Jaimie: In case someone takes a picture!!
Jibz: This is always such a hard question for me, about the influences. It's all in there. All those people, all those books, all that music, all those films, all the celebrities.Jaimie: Roseanne Barr singing the National Anthem in 1990.To me, that's the greatest moment in history.Jibz: [Laughing] That is fucking incredible, Jaimie Warren.See Jaimie Warren's Horrorfest 2015 from this month's VICE magazineFollow art critic Whitney Kimball on Twitter.