visions: from london with love

cc xx juan antonio olivares

if you checked out These New Puritans' video for "Attack Music," you know that artist and Cheap Champagne bud, Juan Antonio Olivares has been stomping around London for the past few months. today he graced our eyes with his new creations from across the pond.

cc: what gets you going about tromp l'oeil?

jo: I'm not entirely sure why I'm fascinated by trompe l'oeils. I guess that's why visual tricks are fun. I like that "Aha!" moment of realizing that what you think you are seeing is really something else. It's a traceable genre in art since Parrhasius' painting of a curtain in a competition with Zeuxis in 5th century Athens. I think the first trompe l'oeil I saw (or didn't see) was this huge boulder in our yard that my dad found on the street and was actually made of styrofoam.

cc: yves saint laurent?

jo: I generally love YSL's collections--such a great balance of timelessness, elegance, and ahead-of-the-curve subtlety. Yves Saint Laurent led such an exciting life (and was also an avid collector of art).

cc: blackberry messenger?

jo: BBM is so instant that it makes me feel like I'm right next to someone even when they're in another country. (I have really bad separation anxiety)

cc: tools?

jo: Tools reference every possible thing that they can make. Atleast to me they do. I think they're really beautiful objects. There's so much craft in tools themselves. So I've made them subjects in my photographs.

cc: poppers?

jo: Poppers make me considerably less rational. They're an occasionally much needed break. Sometimes I like not thinking too deeply and feeling more ;)

cc: richard serra?

jo: His sculptures can potentially kill you. They have such incredible presence. And they are just made of steel, a material that is everywhere, present even in the buildings where the sculptures are exhibited, it's just hidden behind the walls. I love how their forms invite you to engage with them.

cc: daylight?

jo: There's nothing like feeling sunlight hit your skin. It feels so primal. I'm really into morning light too, it feels intrinsically romantic.

cc: cuban sandwich?

jo:

cc: basketball shorts?

jo: I started wearing basketball shorts kind of as a joke because I'm really bad at the sport. But I like the way the material moves. It's like an everyman's silk.

cc: kinkos?

jo: Kinko's (now known as Fedex Office) is such a ubiquitous establishment in the world, specifically because it's tied to Fedex, a company whose goal is to link the world and collapse a sense of distance between people. I make work in Kinkos because they have offices everywhere (weirdly there's only one in London) and I want to bypass a sense of 'skill' or 'technique' in what I make--essentially anyone could be making what I am making.