Aaron Rose

HS: Much of the art you work with, and the shows you curate, focus on subculture or outsider art. As the figures and topics related to the shows become more “insider,” and get more mainstream gallery coverage, has your definition of outsider art changed?

Rose: No, not really. I think being an outsider is something that comes from inside. No matter how much attention an artist or culture gets, if the person in question is really one who lives contrary to society, it doesn’t really matter if they’re accepted or not.

HS: How do you balance a reverence for the roots of this work with, for lack of better term, the cool factor now associated with artists like Templeton?

Rose: I ignore the cool factor.

HS: This show brings together three artists who haven’t been previously shown together. What is your process, as curator, bringing together the works and conceiving of a cohesive story line through the material?

Rose: The cohesive story line is cultural rather than aesthetic. I didn’t really go into this exhibition with a plan like “I want to choose works that focus on this or that.” The connections are inherent in the lives of the artists themselves. I simply looked for groupings that gave hints to each artist’s roots, while at the same time showing nice examples of their most recent work.

HS: As your career progresses who are the people that influence your thinking?

Rose: I’ve been spending a large amount of time with 80+ year old x-Catholoic nuns. I think they have had the biggest influence on me lately.

HS: I think every generation has a moment when their artistic endeavor, born outside the core art world, finds a place within it. It might be Grandma Moses, and a paint by numbers style, that is given cultural significance for a particular time. What accounts for contemporary skateboard and punk aesthetics filtering into a more national (and global) art conscious as it has in recent years?

Rose: In my opinion it simply has to do with a generational shift. The kids who grew up with skateboarding/graffiti/punk and all the associated DIY subcultures are now moving into positions of power in our world. It makes sense that the mainstream visuals of our culture would start to reflect the ideals of that group. This has happened over and over throughout the history of time.

HS: Working on magazines, in film, and with gallery installations -- is there a singular process for you? How do you mediate between media?

Rose: It is all really the same process really. I try to make everything I do visually inspiring, emotionally charged and somewhat educational at the same time. My process doesn’t really differ between mediums. I have a big bulletin board in my studio with all the ideas on it and when I’m lucky they somehow merge into cohesive concepts. The mechanics of the actual execution are of course different, but everything pretty much contains the same basic steps. Rough sketch, gather material, editing, final assembly.

HS: The spread of street art via the web has taken out some of the interactive nature of it all. Viewers might loose the sense of discovery. What’s your take on this, and, do you see the growth and interest in digital display as fertile ground for new types of art?

Rose: I think the internet is a good tool, but it’s hardly the end-game. You can use the internet to gather information, but it simply cannot replace the experience of real life. One must live, really live to enjoy all the fruits of this life. It cannot be gotten through a screen.

HS: As a collector, what do you look for?

Rose: I never collect for investment. I always buy things because they move me in some way.

HS: The last thing you saw that truly blew you away?

Rose: I really liked Elliot Hundley’s recent show at Regen Projects in LA. I also just re-watched Jim Jarmusch’s “Stranger Than Paradise”. I hadn’t seen it in a really long time. I forgot how amazing that film is. A friend of mine, Baylis Glascock, just lent me a film he made in the 1960s about Javanese Shadow Puppets. That totally blew my mind.

HS: Any future projects that are bubbling?

Rose: Making a book with Barry McGee, finishing a new issue of ANP Quarterly, directing some commercials and a music video for a weird Mike Watt, Money Mark and Raymond Pettibon, working on the beginnings of a feature film, painting suitcases and guitars, working on scooters…lots of stuff.