We thought Gary Johnson might be the end of the magazine. His work is so powerfully weird and tears up mainstream America ideals with no remorse that for us to consider it cover worthy material was a test of what RVA stood for. We wanted to push art in Richmond but how can you push the limits without showing challenging art? Art should upset people at times or its not doing its job, plus this artist was a Richmond native who wasn’t doing abstracts, horses, dogs, landscapes, and the ilk that was/is the art market in the city, how could we not run it. Gary Johnson’s work ain’t selling nowhere in this town! BUT damn it made us argue about its merits, made us question ourselves and we thought that was what made it important.
Seriously, if you are a sensitive person don’t check out the rest below the break. The work still bothers me. – Tony
We thought Gary Johnson might be the end of the magazine. His work is so powerfully weird and tears up mainstream America ideals with no remorse that for us to consider it cover worthy material was a test of what RVA stood for. We wanted to push art in Richmond but how can you push the limits without showing challenging art? Art should upset people at times or its not doing its job, plus this artist was a Richmond native who wasn’t doing abstracts, horses, dogs, landscapes, and the ilk that was/is the art market in the city, how could we not run it. Gary Johnson’s work ain’t selling nowhere in this town! BUT damn it made us argue about its merits, made us question ourselves and we thought that was what made it important.
Seriously, if you are a sensitive person don’t check out the rest below the break. The work still bothers me. – Tony
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Some of the most attention grabbing and powerful art can be work that sarcastically parodies the materialism of our culture, the façade of the “perfect” family, abusers of power and corruption in politics and religion, and the boundaries of our sexuality. Gary Johnson got most of his artistic steam from being a radical youth in the sixties. His generation was one of experimental rebels standing up and displaying their disdain against all areas of American life, especially where authority was seen as oppressive. The humdrum of middle-class life that annihilated the self in narrowness of vision and smallness of heart was railed against. Johnson was in college in Richmond in the sixties and felt compelled to creatively comment on the irritations he experienced. Gary enlisted friends and coordinated scenarios with costumes and props, and photographed these darkly comedic “cartoonish” narratives that poke, prod, and push the viewers’ buttons. Throughout the sixties, seventies, eighties, and early nineties he has mainly worked with black and white photography although he has gone back in and hand colored certain prints. Johnson decided to start a greeting card company in the eighties using this format to showcase his tongue in cheek images to the younger, more appreciative generation. He’s shown his work at many places over the years, mostly smaller alternative galleries as well as some coffee shops and restaurants. His affinity for photography has sparked collage work as well. “Over the last few years I’ve found the quality of Xerox is now very accurate. I enjoy cutting and splicing of images and putting it all together.” These days, Gary mainly focuses on the collage work stating the inaccessibility to a darkroom, photography equipment, and props. “Also, with creating these images over the years I’ve got a lot of my aggression and disdain out of my system,” Johnson admits. He feels our society and government are now so out of control that he no longer is interested stating his disgust through photography and collage. “I’ve gotten older, I don’t intend to do to much more parody on current issues. I look around at the state of our culture; it’s to the ridiculous point of being a parody of itself. Why would I want to continue to make fun of something that has gotten so uncontrollably over the top? It would just be creating a parody of a parody.”
by Parker
