WESTERN EXHIBITIONS Eric Lebofsky 2009

An Interview over email with: ERIC LEBOFSKY by Julia Burghi, 2009

You've entitled your upcoming show "Superfreaks." What constitutes a Superfreak?

The starting definition was a variant of superhero whose power is derived from character flaws and antisocial behaviors like passive aggression and neurosis, as opposed to ESP, fireball-slinging, or the ability to control the weather-- mental cases or manipulators distinguished from their plebian counterparts only by their costumes. However, as I've been drawing, the definition has changed in a subtle way but with large implications. Now, the definition would read as: a superhero whose powers are derived from character flaws and transgressive behaviors, distinguishable from their civilian counterparts by ornate costumery OR the literal embodiment of their issues. The last part opens things up, in that I'm now also portraying fantastical characters who are what they project. For example, I made an "Anachronism Man" drawing in which the character is quite literally a ghost in a machine. I've also broken my rule about not depicting fantastical superpowers. There hasn't been any fireball slinging, but there has been an ESP Superfreak. It's just too tempting, and truer to the dictum of my imagination. I'm coming to see this project from an aerial view with regard to my drawing practice. I might even go so far as to say that all the drawings I have ever made could be classified as "Superfreaks," whether of people or objects or whatever.

The plan is to complete one Superfreak drawing per day for a whole year starting on your birthday, August 10th. Is there something about your 32nd year that is special or related to the work, or is it just an easy way to measure the work and project?

I often make one per day, but my actual goal is to POST one per day. There are days where I make a few, and there have been days where I have gone without. I have always loved how a narrative unfolds on an LP due to song sequencing. Having a small cache of drawings allows me to play with the blog in this fashion-- create narrative implications via sequence. The fact that the blog format is predicated on sequence has activated my album production mode. Making a drawing feels like making a drawing, but self-curating a blog is more in keeping with the time-based production side of my practice. Also, strangely, I find myself increasingly invested in the jpegs over the actual drawings. They drawings feel like a conduit on the path to jpeg-hood. I'm hoping that seeing them in the physical space of the gallery will complicate this relationship even further. The project is more about reaching my 33rd birthday, as opposed to starting my 32nd. The birthday cycle is just a good index into which you can plug in various discipline/habit-based pursuits. Given that there are autobiographical aspects to anything I draw, this works for me. Better than a new year's resolution, in my opinion.

What is your process like, particularly for your drawings? Many of them seem to be related; are they done at the same time or in a spurt or is this work a continuous strand of thought/expression with formal similarities?

I approach music in a manner which I would consider painterly-- I am concerned with textures, colors, intervals, etc.-- how the manipulation of these things resonate with me internally, and how they will resonate with the listener. With drawing, it's much more left-brained, more like writing an essay. I think that my paintings are closer to being drawings, my music is closer to painting, and my drawing is closer to writing. How this displacement happened, I'm not sure. Drawing, especially when I'm doing it a lot, has a "book of days" or semi-diaristic feel to it which I appreciate. It allows me to visually order thoughts or ideas in novel ways which I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. It has a therapeutic value for me, but one that feels atavistic, slightly naughty. With regard to regularity of production (spurt vs. flow)- it depends on my current life situation. I've worked at a full time job for awhile, and that tends to force me into a spurt-oriented mode of production. But it can also lend itself well to flow when I'm feeling disciplined.

Your work is very stylized. Do you have a particular source of inspiration within art/art history or did the style come to you in another way?

My drawings are built out of an almost typographic vocabulary, and I think this is because they evolved from the margins of school notebooks, and alongside penmanship classes. There are proscribed rules. If you were to design your own font set, for instance, you couldn't make an "a" look too much like a "d", or else you would risk illegibility. These are the type of rules I'm dealing with. However, the rules can also bend and mutate to the point where they have changed considerably, sometimes into something else entirely. Style's vitality depends on its impermanance, even though its foundations need to be fairly rigid. That's the paradox of style. I think the stylized nature my drawings imbues them with a common vocabulary through which nuance can be expressed in an authorial voice, not unlike fiction. The authors I most enjoy tend to write stylized prose.

How do Superfreaks fit into your work as a whole? Are they a point on an artistic trajectory or more of a personal artistic destination?

Though I pursue many avenues to fulfill different creative needs, the products of these labors are all under the aegis of self-knowledge. A recurring theme in my work that insists on being heard is transgression-- content that is at odds with conventional manners or customs, as well as ego transgression through the act of making. So from that angle, I guess I'd say I'm making stylized drawings and pop-songs toward an abstract expressionist-esque ego-dissolve endpoint. How weird is that? There's a term I heard a couple of years ago that I really like-- Hornfuck. It refers to when saxophonists blow free-jazz type lines, but without the nuance and finesse of a real practitioner. There's that side to my production, too, the Hornfuck side, and I think it's important to have some of that going on at all times-- it's the primordial ooze of improvisation, the state before an improvisation has been shaped or modeled in any way. The daily blog post format will allow me to explore my Hornfuck drawing side more than usual, once I've been keeping it going for awhile and I find myself in the the deep end of the pool. My music side doesn't need cajoling-- since I play the saxophone, Hornfuck is always close at hand.

In many of your drawings you substitute (and even adorn) body parts, particularly sexual and genital ones, with objects. Can you explain the significance? Are you questioning or making a statement about objectification? Does it have to do with the fetish-ization of objects in contemporary culture?

I don't think I do a lot of statement-making in my drawings. Mostly, I react unconsciously to things (internal and external,) as I'm VERY impressionable. I will listen to or watch an advertisement, and be completely absorbed. I don't feel like it's gullibility per se, as I can observe my own behavior. It's more like an extreme receptivity to the power of suggestion. Like many artists I have known, I think I tend to see beyond the societally sanctioned constructs of gender, so I do like to play with it in the drawings, though not in a way that I would classify as critique. My fetishistic depiction of objects is symbiont to my actual fetishization of objects. I go through phases thinking about different types of objects, often musical instruments, and this tendency works its way into the drawings. So, my confusion between or blending of sexual and material objectification, is it a form commentary? I guess maybe it is, but not consciously?

You've decided to make a blog part of the Superfreak project. What does the internet as a means of communication to your audience provide that is important for you, especially in regards to this work?

It provides a lot, I think. I really enjoy the internet as audience. Many unrelated people from all over wind up checking out your work, and their pleasure isn't predicated on previous knowledge-- checking out a link is kind of like popping into a bar. You went to see your girlfriend's brother's band headline, but maybe it's the opening band that really knocks your socks off. Because my work is unusual but generally expository, it is often enhanced by the peek-a-boo element of surprise. Having a daily blog is taking these dynamics in good directions, or maybe interesting ones if not good ones. Usually, interesting is good.

back to images
back to info