INTERVIEW : 2008-10-23 Joseph Arthur's Wig: Hair manifesto (by Dave Jaffer)
Joseph Arthur's black and white and baby blue spiritual nerve
Photo: Danny Clinch
Artist-singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur gets it all down on paper in Wig
"My art is spiritual nerve," Joseph Arthur writes in a manifesto for Wig, his upcoming exhibition at Galerie Pangée. The manifesto satisfies two goals: It allows Arthur to poetically explain what the show’s about as well as what the show entails.
From a van en route to York, Pennsylvania, Arthur clarifies both, plainly saying that "the idea of [Wig] is 40 wigs and a kiddie pool.
"I guess it’s just about life and death really, and the specific technique of painting that I kind of have developed over the last few years, and in particular, the last year or so," he continues. "A lot of times people will say [my painting] looks like hair to them, and that always bugs me, like I said in the manifesto. So I started thinking about hair and ‘Why does it bug me?’ and I realized that what I think I’m painting is really alive, and hair is dead."
Singer/songwriter Arthur is no stranger to the visual arts. Completely self-taught, he started painting over 15 years ago, and often conflates music making and painting. Nominated for a Grammy for Best Recording Package for his work on the 1999 EPVacancy, Arthur will occasionally paint while playing solo acoustic shows, as he did at O Patro Vys during the release of 2007′s Let’s Just Be.
"We haven’t been on the road in a while so I’ve just basically been painting a lot," says Arthur, on the production of Wig’s works, "so most of everything I’m showing is pretty new, you know, and it’s all on paper. Everything works on paper apart from the wig sculpture I plan to make, but I haven’t made that yet."
