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"I was blown away by the surrealist nature of it all, while being set in contemporary London," is how the American artist Thaddeus Strode describes his first intensive experience with Michelangelo Antonioni's award-winning thriller "Blow Up" during his time at the California Institute of Arts. The 1966 film tells the story of a fashion photographer who secretly photographs a couple in a park, thereby uncovering a supposed love triangle. When he enlarges the prints, he thinks he has uncovered a murder. The blowing up of the images symbolizes the delicate connection between perception and truth - and Thaddeus Strode also repeatedly returns to the relationship between reality and fiction or illusion in his own work.
The etching "Blow Up (ghosts of youth gone by)" shows, as the title suggests, the fleeting appearance of a ghostly character from Antonioni's masterpiece. Drenched in London rain, it is also inspired by Kurt Cobain. Thaddeus Strode aims for the fantastic, the irrational. More important to the artist than a clear narrative is the psychological and pictorial power of the images. Thus, they reflect the complexity of our existence in times that are anything but safe. This is perhaps precisely why they touch us so deeply.
When did you watch „Blow Up" for the first time and why did it fascinate
you and still does?
I believe I first saw "Blow Up" when I was an art student, at California Institute of Arts, in one of their film classes. I was blown away by the surrealist nature of it all, while being set in contemporary London. The pace of the film itself, investigative, which felt otherworldly. Isolationism juxtaposed with contemporary life. Going between reality, non-reality, or a perceived reality. That's a subject narrative that I really think a lot about my own work.
How do movies influence your work?
I've always been influenced by films. I've often thought about my paintings as theatrical and working within theatrical stage or as if it's a film still from an ongoing narrative film.
I've always loved films from the 60's, 70's. Avantgarde films and new wave cinema from that period. Also cheap exploitation films, horror films, especially 60's Italian "Giallo" horror films (Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci etc), 60's Italian "spaghetti westerns"(Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, Tonino Valerii). Also various art/Avantgarde related films such as "Two Lane Black Top", "The Last Movie", "Rendezvous", "Easy Rider", "Vanishing Point". Obviously Michelangelo Antonionis "Blow Up", and his other films, "The Passenger", "Zabriskie Point" etc. I especially appreciate where the visuals out-way the linear narrative in those films. The idea that there's more fantasy involved than actual historical relevance or rational. There are liberties being used that are more visual, and less about a Literal script. The visuals being psychological and painterly, and go deeper into the viewer than regular narrative films of that time.
Could you explain the motif in the etching? What kind of character do we
see?
The main character in the etching is of a disaffected youth maybe from the film itself. Maybe a brief image that appears on the streets of London in the film. Drenched in London rain. Or like a "ghost visual" at the club scene, where The Yardbirds are violently playing to the crowd of zombie-like-youth. That scene always gets me. I also, wanted to reference, Kurt Cobain, being this kind of ghost like figure. Youth culture always present.
What does the puddle symbolize, the indicated heads?
The Puddles are just referencing the drips of the London rain. Being caught in rain, momentary situations. The heads are more ghost figures. They're not completely defined. Heads, faces in a crowd. They kind of disappear within the coming rain, and landscape.
Just at the end of “Blow Up”, when everybody kind of just slowly disappears. Or all were just imagined.
SAre etchings an integral part of your work?
I have done etchings in the past, silk screen prints. They have both referenced aspects of my other paintings and drawings, sculptures as well. As well as infusing my paintings with different ideas. Affecting a different process. So they've been very important into my own artistic exploration.
If you think of 2017, what turns up in your mind?
The election of a fascist in America, and the beginning of the demise and ultimate destruction of America.
About the artist
Thaddeus Strode (*1964 in Santa Monica) is a painter, draftsman, and sculptor. Raised in the surf, skateboard, and punk rock scenes of Venice Beach and inspired by hippie culture, horror films, and comics, his work is permeated with pop cultural references as well as philosophical questions, all freely and excitingly combined. His works have been shown internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the Kunsthaus Zürich, Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, the Kunsthalle Vienna, the Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Thaddeus Strode lives and works in Los Angeles.
