Interview with Marvin tiberious Crushler

q)Please introduce yourself.

a)My name is Marvin tiberious

Crushler 

q)Where do you live and work? 

a)I live in rock city Milano, I work

in rock city Milano and in

different countries of Europe

q)How would you describe

your work to someone who has

never seen it? 

a)My work is based on a the Powerfull

tenderness that is used institutionally by

Rennasaince people and naturally by

street people.  I try to mix and study

the two approaches to life and line.  

q)How did you start in the arts?

How/when did you realize

you were an artist?

a)My mother was a Contemporary dancer

and my dad was a hitchiker, I grew up

in an artists squat so I suppose art was

just like a favorite coat always in my

backpack.

q)What are your favorite art

materials and why?

a)I like every thing out there, I recently

went drawing on the street with a sugar beet,

it really stays on cement but only lasts

like 3 drawings and then becomes like

a fleshy mush.  

q)What/who influences you most?

a)I really like my friends I paint with

or sing with or hop trains with, these

little poems that people give away are

better than any Van Gogh or internet

q)Describe a typical day of art

making for you.

a)Holy shit dude, eat one banana together

with five people on the top of a Naples

ghetto while painting a huge figure, mixing

everyones styles and the neighborhood

Postman who keeps his goats in the abandoned

school we climbed to the top of comes round

with a rifle but ends up giving us a bunch

of bread and goat cheese

q)Do you have goals, specific things

you want to achieve

with your art or in your career

as an artist?

a)I never think about this, my mother

really gets on my ass about this and some

important people have told me to have goals

and specific plans but then you walk out

into the streets and it's like a freestyle poem

much bigger than you or the way you walk so

lets just hold on to the term career and try

and focus on serious things like line or

color, yeah I'm fucked.

q)What contemporary artists

or developments in art

interest you? 

a)I like to be exposed to many details,

I think many contemporary movements and

ideas have values that are only expressed in

application but are never questioned to that

point so you just have to appreciate a detail,

most of the developments that have touched me

profoundly have come from poor honest people

being themselves and thus questioning everything.

q)How long does it typically take

you to finish a piece?

a)My process is very random because I have

made paintings that are 80 meters x 12 meters

in the middle of a three day rave party and I

lost like 5 hours plotting to kill the dj but have

also made little cutsy hand sewn baskets to

hang in the street with my grandma which took

like an hour to make but like 4 hours to install

because the security guys were all on my

ass so I really cant say, variable!

q)Do you enjoy selling your pieces,

or are you emotionally

 attached to them? 

a)Yeah I like to sell things because I am a

volcano, I live in a house of creations that is

waiting to explode, sometimes I think if I make

one more drawing the entire building will sink,

I am attached to some things but then I think that

I am more attached to the smell of the metrò in

Paris after they clean it, if I had a bottle of Paris

metrò smell on a hot August night I would'nt

even sell it to the best gallery goon on earth.

q)Is music important to you?

If so, what are some things

you're listening to now?

a)I play the saxaphone, my grandmother

was so poor that she would give us a song for

christmas instead of presents, she'd teach

you every note and word at the kitchen table

on christmas morning, music is the soul of man

and his only explaintion for many things

philosophy dances around.  I listen to everything

except everything, there is alot of NON music going

round,sometimes in Italy I think music does'nt exist,

not on the radio or in the street and bars anyway,

I really like the "red worms farms" from 

Italy and Ronin 

q)Books?

a)I read a bunch of stuff in two languages because

I find books on the street in Italy, I got a few spots

behind book store where I know on Wednesday

there are free books, this wednesday I found a crazy

book by a french accademic from the 17th century

who explains how the popes were the first rulers to

use a new kind of mental force and not physical force

and how this lead to Rennaisance painting, I was reading

this shit on the Milan subway and pissing my pants

because I did'nt have a ticket and was thinking how

to explain to the controller guys that a subtle chain

of historical dogmas had sucked up my ticket money

but they never asked.

q)What theories or beliefs do you have regarding

creativity or the creative process? 

a)I like to think that it's all good but seriously there

has to be discipline and willingness to listen, these

are the most difficult things to nurture 

q)What do you do (or what do you enjoy doing)

when

you're not creating?  

a)My girlfriend says I talk in my sleep about new

projects so it's fair to say that I dont really rest so

much but I like to get some shitty beer and dance

my ass off or talk to tram drivers about the Milan zoo,

that's what this guy the other day said about San

Lorenzo square, "a fuckin zoo" he kept saying,

"there's every type of animal." It's just a square full

of drunks but after he said it was the "Milan zoo" I liked

to imagine how every type of animal would hang out

looking for weed and sex.  I guess I like that normal

ordinary poetry goin round.

q)Do you have any projects or shows coming

up that you are

particularly excited about?  

a)I am gonna do some shows in old laundrymats

during mi-art, I got some official shows in May in

San Francisco and in June in Naples and Milan, I am

hoping to be on the streets for awhile, I'm doing some

projects about immigration and local identity in Milan,

even though I'm a bastard foreigner I pay rent so

kiss my meneghin ass.

q)Do you follow contemporary art scenes?

If so, how? What

websites, magazines, galleries do you prefer?  

a)I like to look at magazines at a big bookstore in Milan,

or shows in big galleries, I have'nt found one big thing

that totally gets me interested, I like the little things,

the details are nice, I think alot of people that get big

are worried about their perfect ass and aint shakin it,

we only live up to 70 or 80 years so I dont understand

all this defending of territory or substance, I think like

90 percent of scenes are defence walls so it seems like

a waste of energy to get to that 10 percent of discussion,

I know alot of people who love to defend, I think this is

a contemporary measure of beauty but far from timeless,

so yeah I like textbooks, free books and talking to bums.

q)Ask yourself a question you'd like to answer, and

answer it. 

a)Hey Marvin, what is Urban Identity and how

fictional is it's crisis?  I think if you hang around

cities enough you learn that colors and economic

backgrounds are a common denominator that

arrive to a certain point and then the Polis is just

an innaccurate collective of interests like getting a

beer or feeling the closness of skin, the warmth of

something real.  Using  terms like Urban to describe

aethstetics or a form of poetry is just a packaging

much easier to live without, if we want to really explore

the nature of cities we should be prepared to spend

enough time together inside of them to realize that

most of street life is fiction, its like Puccini out here

still,we're chasing that dream, that diva or lucky star,

America or BROOKLYN!, Urban Identity is not a rap

star thing or a marketing status. It is who is doing

the dishes or running your local venues, Urban identity

is you particpating and being aware of how

you are participating.

q)Any advice for aspiring artists? 

a)It is REALLY important to encourage others

and the small things that they give away, one of

the most amazing things about art or this type of

sensibility is that it is all, so believe in all, make

your distinctions not to be above something but

to be in it, BE IN IT! be in your city, be in a conversation,

be involved to the point of singing, crying or painting

yourself away to a common voice that REDUCES

INSECURITY for all.  I do'nt know if I have ever achieved

such a thing but it is enough to try, this is my only way

of defining art, enough to try, enough to try and open

all the ways of being here, not to be right or wrong but

to have a lot of fun with alot of people, alot of

interpretations of the same line or thought that I thought

was mine but is really, all.  So yeah, get funky with the all,

don't close yourself in gallery or punk or profit or prophet,

do it all, no lifestyle is infinite! 

q)Where can we see more of your work online? 

aI been doing lots of video art here:

www.myspace.com/marvin_crushler

also

www.flickr.com/marvin_crushler

or

www.ryan-spring.com