Dave Carnie Bigmouth strikes again
Professional upsetter Dave Carnie is creating carnage in the world of fine art.
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Dave Carnie is a familiar face around Los Angeles. As we sit down at an Argentine place on Fairfax, the table across from us do that indiscrete ‘there’s that guy’ thing people do when their brains slow down. Public perception of Carnie is that of court jester - the cockeyed spirit behind the decade-defining Jackass MTV series who, alongside his cohorts, was momentarily skyrocketed to stratospheric celebrity. He’s also the guy who, at the helm of controversial skateboarding magazine Big Brother, created upset upon middle-America-baiting upset under the reign of Hustler publisher Larry Flynt.
What is less well known about Carnie is that he is a Joycean scholar and an accomplished fine art photographer. Like the best conversationalists, he is all these people at once - now the clown, now the cerebral cultural analyst - skipping from skate punk to gourmand to agony uncle over Argentine steak and Californian wine.
With a new magazine and prestigious exhibition under his belt, HUCK caught up with Carnie to ask: when did ‘artist’ become a dirty word?
You once told us that you don’t enjoy talking about art. Is that because it’s so subjective people inevitably end up talking about themselves?
Well, it is a bit masturbatory, isn’t it? It’s not exactly something you brag about. I suppose that’s part of the reason I feel a little embarrassed talking about it. It also puts me on the same level as all these other buffoons out there bragging about their craft and their art. I think I heard Gwyneth Paltrow on the radio one day waxing nostalgic about her “craft”. She’s an artist, apparently? I mean, if she’s not going to feel stupid saying that kind of shit, somebody has to feel embarrassed for her. I think it’s also because in order for me to talk about my work, or even art in general, I have to open a part of myself that I don’t particularly like people to see. My inner Gwyneth. You could almost say that I spend most of my time and effort trying to distract people from seeing that side of me. I lead the life of a rodeo clown.
During Big Brother’s heyday, some people got really insulted - who were the worst crybabies?
Ronnie Creager was the first one I remember. We ran a full-page sequence of him and someone said, “I wonder what it would look like if one frame were just a big pair of tits?” I think they might have been the first tits in the magazine, too? Anyway, when the issue came out, Ronnie was very upset - apparently because he was unable to show his mother the sequence. He had a tantrum, stormed out of World Industries and destroyed a tree on the front lawn.
Given how commodified skateboarding has become since the demise of Big Brother, have people expected your new magazine, King Shit, to revive those countercultural days?
I don’t think commodified is a word? Anyway, I have no idea what people expect. There’s certainly an element of the Big Brother spirit, whatever that is, in King Shit. And it was there before Ryan [Stutt] approached me about contributing to it. I mean, of course with me and [Chris] Nieratko involved, there’s going to be more than a hint of Big Brother flavour in there. But I think Ryan has always kind of had that attitude on his own. I remember telling him early on that we have to change the name. A magazine with SHIT in the title isn’t going to make it onto US newsstands. Ryan more or less told me to fuck off. Which I admired… but we still have to make some sort of an adjustment to that name if we expect to sell the fucking thing anywhere. I don’t work for ’zines or for free anymore.
Did you see the Jackass juggernaut coming?
Are we still talking about Jackass? No, I thought it was funny, but I didn’t think it would do as well as it has done. Those fellas have done quite well for themselves and I’m proud of them.
For the full interview check out HUCK#019, out now.
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Dave Carnie (text) by Niall Neeson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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