POP UP DAVID GOOD DESIGN x WOLF & BADGER
Wolf & Badger
SoHo, NY
2018
In celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, I partnered with London-based boutique Wolf & Badger for a week-long Pop Up. I created a custom installation using digital picture frames, moss, found GIFs, and collage to explore how the Internet has blurred the lines between what is true and what is false.
DAVID GOOD DESIGN X LITTLE SKIPS
Little Skips Café
Bushwick, Brooklyn
2018
Little Skips, a buzzing Bushwick mainstay café curates bi annual shows to support local and emerging artists. Inspired by my roots of using Instagram as a medium to create, consume, and share art, I tiled the work in a 3x3 fashion to mirror the Instagram grid. Each piece was signed to reflect the obsession with self, particularly as it pertains to social media, self branding and content creation. The prints were for sale, however, the gold guilded frame with my hand written Instagram handle cost a hefty $15,000 as it’s price was determined $1 per each follower on Instagram. As I gained and lost followers on Instagram, the price would fluctuate accordingly.
DAVID GOOD DESIGN
GG's Social Trade and Treasure Club
Brooklyn, NY
2017-Present
I was invited to showcase work at GGs Social Trade and Treasure Club in Brooklyn, NY (2017). GGs is "a cooperative vintage shop, art gallery, and community organization that provides a playful third space for intersectional collaboration, social entrepreneurship, and alternative movement building." The main attraction of the exhibition, namely the phallic toy, is a piece I created when exploring God. The juxtaposition of the dildo nailed onto a plaque against a pink background, placed high humorously subverts notions of gender, patriarchy, and power.
As a gay man who has first hand been unjustly objected to de facto and de jure homophobia, I sought to do a project confronting this deeply rooted form of bigotry. The LGBTQ+ community has alarmingly high rates of suicide, been victimized by past administrations through their intentional neglect of the AIDS epidemic, denied basic human rights, been bullied, beaten, and murdered by hate groups throughout the United States and beyond. Challenging any such institution whose foundational values are heteropatriarchal is not only looked down upon by the status quo, but can even be dangerous and have legally severe consequences.
Punitive measures for forms of graffiti such as wheatpasting or tagging intimidate potential “perpetrators” in an effort to silence a specific set of people with “unfavorable” opinions. In an effort to circumvent the legal ramifications of vandalism, I created gay confetti graffiti and call it “Gayfitti.”
I wrote phrases such as “I’m Gay,” “Guess What?” “You’re Gay,” “Still Gay,”“Woke, Broke, and Gay,” etc. on double sided, small, colorful pieces of paper. I used a risograph and an industrial mechanized cutting machine to efficiently and cost effectively print thousands of these cute little gay pieces of paper.
Rather than using spray paint to mark a building or having to skiddishly wheat- paste a poster onto a construction site, Gayfitti can simply be thrown into the air. The wind then blows the Gayfitti around, and distributes our message among city streets. In theory, if caught by the police, participants at worst may incur minimal legal ramifications such as a fine for littering, a much less severe punishment than for tagging or wheatpasting. Gayfitti does not destroy property.
Gayfitti is potentially a highly effective, attractive form of resistance because it is cheap to produce and can be disseminated quickly and abundantly. A single individual can litter thousands of these within minutes, so imagine the exponential capabilities of larger groups. Further, Gayfitti can be adapted to other causes such as Black Lives Matter or Women’s Rights issues with a simple change of words. Gayfitti introduces an unbiased platform for self expression.
What else offers an unbiased platform of self expression that is accessible to many and capable of dispersing information within seconds? The Internet.
Gayfitti is not only a form of digital art in the sense that it hits on digital art thematics such as visual pollution, activism, and information, but is also a metaphor for the Internet in and of itself.
In the same spirit of guerrilla-like methods to encourage cross causal participation, I organized kite flying events to further self affirming activism.
I designed kites with the words “Gay as Fuck” on them and invited People of Color, Women, religious minorities, and other members of the LGTBQ+ to write “Black as Fuck” or “Female as Fuck” on their corresponding kite. While these kites are to be flown throughout the United States, the process of marginalized groups flying these kites together builds community and encourages intersectionality. I created a website that gives potential participants a mission statement, DIY instructions, and a link to a supplementary Facebook page. Each of these components serves a purpose to bolster our cause.
The mission statement, of course, is as follows: “Women. LGBTQ+. People of Color. Immigrants. Join our movement and unite through collective action to fight racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. Help us fight through intersectional participation and build community networks through DIY project and events.” The methodology is also displayed on the landing page: “We designed kites to be used at locally organized events across America. For every marginalized group there is a slogan, ending in the words “As Fuck,” such as “Gay as Fuck,” “Female as Fuck,” and “Black as Fuck.” Participants come together and fly them without giving a fuck high in the sky. We have provided instructions to make these at home or with your community, as well as kites available to order.”
The Facebook page then functions as a forum and gathering place to mobilize. Events can be created on variably scaled localities and the DIY aspect brings people together who may not be connected otherwise. Making the kites will inevitably yield connections within and across race, sex, gender, religion in an engaging, exciting way. Flying the kites will build solidarity, while simultaneously promoting the movement. People are encouraged to share, hashtag, and tag United as Fuck in photos, videos, or other such forms of documentation. This method depends on the participants to propagate social media content. In doing so, a larger online community will form.
I completed my M.F.A in Communications Design at Pratt Institute in 2017. I focused on the evolution of art since the invention of the computer. I looked at hundreds of digital art works and wondered "if life imitates art, then what do GIFs and memes say about life now?" I collected the themes of digital art since the 1950s to present day and used modernism, post-modernism, and "metamodernism" to contextualize the work. I then created a series of projects mixing and matching these themes. In addition to reading an endless amount of material, writing a thesis over 150 pages, scrolling for hours and hours through sites like giphy.com, much of my methodology consisted of research through making. Like the Internet, these projects are dynamic, prolific, some even elusive, ultimately functioning as a robust cultural narrative.