Studio Visit

Studio Visit: Derek Lerner

January 2019

Derek Lerner in his studio in front of a large work in progress.

Studio Visit: Derek Lerner

Part One: (SCROLL DOWN TO READ PART TWO)

Derek Lerner (b. 1974 Jacksonville, FL) is a New York City-based artist whose drawings obsessively explore the complexities of contemporary issues concerning human interaction with and destruction of Earth’s environment through a series of visual metaphors that never allow for a certainty of place. He coalesces questions about how complex systems work, over-consumption and over-population into ironically beautiful visual metaphors that reference mapping, satellite photography, microscopic imagery or deep space photography, as well as signs, symbols, tags and random marks found on the streets of urban environments.

New visual elements introduced in recent compositions represent Lerner’s enduring interest in the digitization of everyday life and the technological singularity (the hypothesis that the invention of artificial intelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in a highly evolved superintelligence that initiates unfathomable changes to human civilization). The components of each composition multiply and attach themselves to one another or consume others like runaway artificial intelligence, cancer, fungi, and suburbs encroaching on farmland or one nebula engulfing another.

In December 2018 we visited Derek Lerner in his Brooklyn studio to discuss the history of his work, major influences, profound experiences in his life that affected his work and where his work will take him in the future.

RHC: You grew up in Jacksonville, FL in the 1970s and 80s. Can you identify experiences or ideas from your childhood that now in your 40s you can recognize in your current work or way of working?

Lerner: When I was 12, my stepfather and I built a small building together in our backyard. It had a poured concrete foundation, water, electric, and a serious roof constructed just like our house. Looking back on it now it was quite an accomplishment and I think I learned a lot from the experience. Other than my bedroom which had a drafting table in it for years, I’d say that “tool shed” became my first real art studio.

My best guess regarding anything that has lingered in my work from childhood until now, would be ideas about repurposing and recontextualizing. I was obsessed with model making as a kid and would take parts from different models and glue them together, “tricking out” whatever I was building, making up something new. I was one of those take everything apart and try to put it back together types. Outside of that, I’d say magic is definitely something I still think about. My uncle, Phil Cay, was a musician and professional magician and taught me quite a bit, primarily sleight of hand close up magic. The discipline it takes and manipulation of perception, creating wonder and mystery, is still very interesting to me.

RHC: After you graduated high school from the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, FL , you then received your BFA from the Atlanta College of Art. What experiences from young adulthood/college have a direct bearing on your work today?

Lerner: When I was in college my father bought me my first Apple Macintosh computer. Around that time, maybe 1993, my roommate came home one day and said his friend who was doing neurology research at Emory University (also in Atlanta) would let us come check out “the internet”. Using the Mosaic web browser we immediately started looking for art websites. I suppose it kinda goes without saying how much Apple and the web have affected the world, but... I was in art college in the early 90s so…

RHC: Your work developed over many years from a more expressive attitude, influenced by graffiti, comic books, and graphic design, toward a more minimal approach of today. Please explain some of the influences or reasons that lead you in this direction.

Lerner: Growing up as a street skateboarder listening to rap, post-punk, goth, and industrial music; that all played into my attitude towards making art as a teen. From an early age, I immediately gravitated toward Robert Raunchenburg's work, primarily due to his multidisciplinary approach. I was also really into David McKean's and Kent Williams's graphic novels. I started writing graffiti in the mid 80s after a friend moved back to FL from NY. Personally I’d say my work is not influenced by graffitti because I’ve always sort of kept graff in a separate box. It’s one of those “it is what it is” things for me. I’d say that some of the tools and materials I use were learned by being a writer for such a long time, and every now and then, some graff references seep their way into my art, but that just might be more muscle memory than anything else. I’d say, in regards to minimalism, that I’ve always made work of that nature. However, what I’ve focused on more recently would be in terms of medium choice. My decision to create a body of work that utilizes only ink and paper has been years in the making and has gone through a reductive process over that time. I needed to do quite a bit of trial and error in order to get to a place that just felt right for the vision I had in my head. In high school I made a bunch of drypoint etchings, ironically while taking a photography class. Eventually Intaglio became a love hate relationship for me. I’m still enamored with how the lines hold the ink but never fell in love with the entire process. I’m much more interested in originals than I am editions. Maybe vague but definitely plays into my decision making process.

RHC: Environmental issues and technology are strong currents in your work. What is it about these topics that compel you to center your studio practice around them?

Lerner: I tend to make work about things that I have an emotional reaction too. In some cases it is motivated by wanting to learn more about the topics. Even though what I make is, at its core, dealing with complex systems, I’m not approaching these subjects in a clinical manner. The expressive nature of my early work that you mentioned previously is still interwoven into everything I do today, although hopefully quite a bit more refined than my work as a teen. I’m simply intrigued by human interaction with technology as well as how we affect this planet.

Part Two:

RHC: You mentioned the influence of photography on your work. This is not readily evident when looking at your drawings. What relationship is there between your work and photography?

Lerner: I’m constantly shooting photos and videos mainly as reference materials. Every now and then I’ll capture an image that I might consider to be art, but more or less I tend to use photography as a tool or means to an end, conceptually speaking. I suppose most recently I’ve enjoyed looking back on all the images I’ve collected and seeing how my daily intake slowly makes an impact on my work or how what I’m thinking about at that time pops up repeatedly in the randomness of my recording. I feel this can really be experienced looking through one of my CACHE books; a blurry line between what the drawing is and where a lot of the inspiration comes from.

RHC: Speaking of your CACHE books…last year you published the first edition of this ongoing anthology series that relates to your work. Please explain their importance and your impetus to publish them.

Lerner: Over the last 20+ years I’ve increasingly become more interested in documentation. Maybe my motivation grew out of ideas surrounding memory or lack thereof, or maybe it’s about dreams, I’m not really sure. I began shooting photos with a Minolta SLR film camera my grandmother bought for me while I was in high school. It was for that photography class I mentioned previously. One of the best assignments I remember from that class was to create a “joiner” (process of taking many photos of a particular subject and then collaging i.e.… joining them together to make a larger composition). Keep in mind this was pre digital photography, actually even pre Internet. This layered, and to a certain degree, nonlinear mechanism of storytelling or image making has been something that’s stuck with me. The aspect of time and space which can potentially be injected into these types of images resonates.

Even though I still keep a sketchbook handy on most occasions, I’ve transitioned more so into utilizing an iPhone for note-taking and day-to-day photography. I’ve thought about shooting some chromes again. There’s just something that is still very beautiful to me about shooting on film, but in all honesty, most of the time what I’m doing is collecting visual notes or references that either inspire or relate to my larger body of work. This series of books primarily grew out of my desire to present all of the visual note-taking I had been doing, and continue to do. In a way, I had become frustrated with publishing these collections of images and thoughts online. As users of social media, “we are the product”, producers and broadcasters of content, which keeps others engaged and returning to any given social media platform. We are also the consumers, and in some cases the creators of advertising within these systems. There is an interesting TED talk by Jennifer Golbeck titled The Curly Fry Conundrum: Why Social Media ‘Likes’ Say More Than You Might Think that relates to some of my motivations. I’m sure you can see how easy it might be to fall down the rabbit hole on all this. I eventually decided that it’d be much more substantial if I translated all the “digital stuff” I’m constantly collecting, consuming, and creating into tangible physical art objects, something more closely tied to traditional sketchbooks.

Lerner: For many years I've been intrigued by the idea of objectifying digital/virtual creations and have made a few pieces with this in mind. There is an intentional immediacy and improvisational tone to these publications. I think the content in terms of concept will expand and contract over time. These books are sort of nonlinear time capsules and the collections of documentation, inspirations, references and peeks into my studio practice, similar to what some call a data-body.

RHC: Your work alludes to a complex urban density. Are there places, real or imagined, that you draw inspiration from...places that influence how you create your fictional spaces?

Lerner: Usually there are a great many points of inspiration and references bouncing around my head while I’m drawing. For the most part there are few occasions any specific real locations become pronounced or focused upon in my work. I made a drawing referencing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and another about the highly polluted Newtown Creek in Brooklyn. For my MTA commission I created six drawings all referencing the surrounding area of the Avenue X subway station in Brooklyn where it’s permanently installed as six large scale glass compositions. I sometimes think about William Gibson's fictionalized Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis, a massive urban sprawl environment taking up the entire East Coast of the US. I definitely think about the cities depicted in the films Blade Runner, Ghost In The Shell (1995 anime version), Gattaca, and Fallen Angels, among many others.

RHC: Earlier you mentioned the influence of magic on your thinking...which is a bit of a surprise. How does this relate to the illusion of space you create with the numerous layers of ink you add to your drawings?

Lerner: I think part of what I was attempting to express is how the repetitive nature of practicing a slight of hand magic trick requires an enormous amount of dedication and skill in order to reach any sort of WOW moment. Sadly, one of the best card manipulators in history, Ricky Jay passed away recently. If you’ve not had the chance to watch the documentary Hustlers, Hoaxsters, Pranksters, Jokesters and Ricky Jay, please take a moment to watch and have your mind blown. (https://youtu.be/iWM4qQWwnu0)

For years I’ve been interested in social psychology and in 2006 I made a multiuser open source sockpuppet artwork titled RobinAstro.txt (https://dereklerner.com/robinastrotxt). There is a great FRONTLINE documentary titled The Persuaders that’s worth watching if you happen to be interested in the subject. In terms of how all this translates into my drawings, I’d say that the more I’ve focused on and refined what I’ve been doing, the stronger and more complex, both visually and conceptually, the work has become. I kind of like the thought of a viewer looking at what I made and thinking “Holy shit! How the hell did someone do this”…or even better… “Why did someone make this?”. Maybe this is where the layers you mentioned come into play?

Part Three:

Derek Lerner: In Between Exhibition Sept 8-Oct 22, 2017 at Robert Henry Contemporary

RHC: I’d like to return to technology for a minute. Other than photography, how does digital technology affect or influence your otherwise hand-made drawings? And, I’m also thinking specifically of your CACHE anthology of artist books.

Lerner: I think of it as a tool, just like any other hammer, art supply, book, film, etc. It has the ability to make many things more efficient and easier to accomplish, yet at times more cumbersome and convoluted, so a double-edged sword. For example, when I began utilizing aerial photography and satellite imagery in the 90s as a point of reference, I mail ordered prints from a governmental agency. Now I just open up Google Earth. I recently read someone say, “Google earth is one of the most incredible things ever created by man but is taken for granted as if it were nothing”. It’s obvious how interwoven technology is with our lives, however I’m still interested in the digital divide.

In terms of how technology plays into my CACHE books, I’d say that it would be the printmaking process, as they are in fact run on a digital press. It would be ridiculously costly to publish an edition of 10 hard cover 252 page books on an analogue press. I don’t really think that was the point of your question though. However, it’s a similar thought to what I was describing previously about wanting to shoot photos on film, but based on the type and quantity of imagery I’m capturing, the lab fees would be insane, so I’m happy shooting digitally.

Outside of digital tech being a tool/resource for me, I’m still very interested in its effects, both good and bad. If you've not yet watched Charlie Brooker’s series Black Mirror, I highly suggest it.

RHC: Often the gallery is asked if you make prints of your drawings or prints in general. As you know and we’ve discussed, we feel making prints of existing drawings is like making fancy posters of an artist’s work. That said… and considering the influence of photography on your work, are you working on anything that might include all of these - tech, photo and editions?

Lerner: Definitely a topic we've discussed at length. It’s also something I’ve put a lot of thought into over the years. I personally think of my CACHE books as editions of prints, but I know your question is about art for walls. In my opinion reproducing an original as an edition devalues the original piece. I’m not opposed to exhibition posters etc, but in terms of pigment printed signed/numbered editions of reproductions of originals, I’m simply not interested in that. Open editioned prints and/or commissioned limited-usage/licensed art is a different type of thing all together. This subject is definitely a grey area, especially if you start considering things like Samsung’s Frame TV or other digital presentation platforms such as LinkNYC.

AVEX1(station), 2016 MTA Arts & Design commission, Avenue X Station in Brooklyn NY, F train line, One of six 48" x 156" compositions (5 panels ea.), Fabricated 0.875" depth laminated tempered glass

The only time I’ve reproduced original work as prints for display was for my MTA commission and there were a great many well thought out reasons as to why I chose to go in that direction. For that public artwork I needed to achieve a fairly large scale for six unique pieces. I really wanted the final execution to look like actual drawings on paper even though these were to be fabricated as laminated glass. Because the originals were created specifically for this commission and conceived of to be translated into a much larger size as permanent outdoor public art, I was comfortable with having the originals reproduced in this way. I suppose it’s all about concept and intent at the end of the day. This also was quite a substantial endeavor which, in my opinion, ultimately made the original drawings more valuable due to the added historic aspect involved.

Most recently I was commissioned by Lululemon to create site specific artworks for their Columbus Circle and SoHo locations in NYC. The three dimensional digital drawings I made were produced as large scale prints and are part of a new series I’ve been working on titled “Infrastructure”. Also as part of this series I recently exhibited a multimedia installation piece at BULLET SPACE in NYC titled “Reliance (V1 & B1)”. I utilized GPS, a camera phone, and Google Earth to record and map locations of fire hydrants encountered during my daily commutes. There’s a video and limited edition box set of digitally printed, signed and numbered “trading cards”.

Derek Lerner, Reliance (B1), 2018 ElectroInk on 100% recycled archival cotton paper, each 3 5/16" x 2 3/16" (8.3cm x 5.5cm). Limited edition of 10 box sets, 3 3/4" x 2 3/4" x 1 1/2" (9.5cm x 6.9cm x 3.8cm), 50 prints per box, each individually signed and numbered.

Lerner: Many years ago I used a lot of laser prints in multiple ways in order to include either photographic, text or graphic imagery in my mixed media pieces. It was in lieu of using screen printing because some of the line work I wanted to achieve was too thin for the mesh of the screen to hold well… and I could just hit the print button and shove a piece of Rieves into the printer. Lately I’ve been considering utilizing pigment printing, but as an element or layer included in original drawings as opposed to prints in edition. Basically going back to some of my older thinking/process but approaching it in an archival manner.

RHC: So, now that we’ve learned a little about your biography and some history of your work, what are some new idea that are intriguing to you and how might they play out in future work?

Lerner: Well, if I told ya…I’d have to kill you. Seriously though, at the moment I’m deeply invested in the largest drawing I’ve ever made and enjoying it quite a bit. As you know, my work takes a great deal of time to complete. The additional scale is playing a factor in regards to where my attention in the studio is placed. The more that I have progressed with my “Asvirus” series, I’ve realized that working in large scale… just does it for me. Something really nice about how immersive the experience of creating the drawing is, as well as viewing the art both near and far, is hitting a sweet spot in terms of how I’ve envisioned these fictional abstracted spaces/places to be.

Conceptually speaking, I’m continuing to push forward including some of my more digitally focused thoughts as well as layering in some additional theoretical physics reference points. I’ve recently been listening to Leonard Susskind, professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, talk about the multiverse, holograms, voxels, etc. I'm sure I'll continue to think more about “man machine interfaces”/UI/UX i.e. human interface experiences when it comes to interacting with digital technology, however in the near future my fingers will still be burning and sore while making drawings with ink onto paper by hand.

Derek Lerner in his studio standing in front of the largest drawing he has ever made. A work in progress. December 2018.

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Derek Lerner

Derek Lerner

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