Guanabee Editor, Daniel Mauser caught up with Mexican artist, Daniel Guzmán to discuss his latest show on exhibit at The New Museum (April 23 through July 6) in New York City.

Double Album, the exhibition shared with Canadian artist Steven Shearer, is described as “an array of visual mediums to explore the overwhelmingly male world of rock ‘n’ roll and other subcultures”. This early retrospective, which covers a little over 10 years of Guzmán’s work, ranges from early William Burrough’s-inspired word collages of pubescent males to 1960’s serial murder portraiture and the lighter Gabriel Orozco prehispanic influenced-drawings and Spider-man wire sculpture. All pieces have a Rock ‘n’ roll undertone.

After previewing the show, I was introduced to Daniel Guzmán —an everyman, short and strong featured, calm in posture and collected in mood—he is nothing like what I expect. I approach him and share with him that I am also from Mexico —desperate to find a channel to make him comfortable. But no need. Daniel, I would later find out is always at ease. We start talking:

Guanabee: Daniel, tell me a little about yourself.

Daniel Guzmán: I live in Mexico City. I was was born and bred there and I received my degree at Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in 1993. I grew up in a humble household. My mother was a teacher at a public school. My father was a shoemaker. I visited my maternal grandmother in Oaxaca, Mexico quite a bit.

Guanabee: In a recent interview for the show’s catalogue, you describe William Burrough’s novel, Naked Lunch’s influence on your work. One can clearly see sexual perversion and violence in your drawings during this period. Tell us what the process of working with these subjects was like.

Daniel Guzmán: Well, in the 90’s I met pedagogues Abraham Cruz-Villegas and Gilberto Aceves-Navarro who introduced me to Burroughs and to a whole slew of ideas and thought processes that I had never been exposed to. Before that, my schooling was practical, literal, and I had not worked with a conceptual idea deliberately. In fact, the process for me has never been deliberate, it has been organic, so when I produced the Naked Lunch inspired pieces, what would later be entitled the “Carne Negra”, (“Black Meat”) series, these incredibly sexually and violently charged pieces were the result.

Guanabee: I was excited to meet you and see your work, in part because we are paisanos, so I expected to see icons and elements in your work that are typical from artists in that part of the world, but i was relieved to see that it’s not limited to that. Are you conscious about omitting these “Mexican” components (ie. bright colors, political commentary) from your work?

Daniel Guzman: Again, the art process for me is more organic. It lends itself from experiences I have lived, literature that has influenced me and objects that surround me. For example, the piece “Que extraordinario que el mundo exista”, (“How extraordinary that the world exists”), a simple white bucket, photographed in urban Mexico demonstrating its various uses in daily life, is typically Mexican, but that may not be necessarily obvious to most people.

At this point in our conversation, we were rudely interrupted by former strip-club owner of the Gold Club trials fame, Steven Kaplan, who was sporting a “Tribeca Film Festival” messenger bag, and semi-opaque flicks inside the museum; he kept on trying to connect with Guzman by strenuously trying to decipher the artist’s work. Daniel listened patiently to him till Kaplan ran out of things to say. Then we continued:

Guanabee: Social commentary is spare in your work. In fact, I would say you shy away from that and attach yourself to music as an escape. Would you say that is accurate?

Daniel Guzmán: Music can be social and political, but not necessarily so. I have an awesome Rock ‘n’ roll collection and when I approach the work, certain singers and songs pop in my head, and I incorporate them into my pieces. Sometimes, I only realize later that I did. I am a Rock ‘n’ roll artist at heart.

Guanabee: In the three-part collage piece, “Hijo de tu puta madre: Fé, Esperanza y Caridad” (“You son of a bitch: Faith, Hope and Charity”) there is an array of drawings, phrases, clippings, one of which is a mirror with the words “Killer’s Eyes” inscribed in them. Additionally, human skulls made of Styrofoam and clay play a big part in the show. Do you have a fascination with the subject of death?

Daniel Guzmán: I see death as a celebration of life rather than as the act of perishing. In “Hijo de tu puta madre”, I began to steer away from the strong, intense emotions that Burroughs had ingrained in me. I learned a lot about myself and how I worked, and I allowed myself to follow my unconscious. At this point I draw back to the artist Gabriel Orozco, who just like myself transcends the didactic in his work. I began producing the pre-hispanic influenced drawings. As for the skulls, they represent Rock ‘n’ roll culture.

Guanabee: How did this collaboration with artist Steven Shearer and The New Museum get jumpstarted?

Daniel Guzmán: Richard Flood, head curator at the museum saw my work in Mexico and thought it would make a great double feature with Steven’s, whose work also includes elements of Rock ‘n’ roll. Steven is from Canada and I am from Mexico and a wall divides his work from mine in the exhibition —Richard always jokes that I am going to climb over it.

Daniel Guzmán’s work drives from the unconscious, it is pure heart and unadulterated mind on paper. The exhibit is smart, fragile, pure, and elegantly raw. An example of this simple honesty is the piece, “Tristeza Eterna” (“Eternal Sadness”), a melancholic ode to materialism. One of Daniel’s personal favorites, the piece is composed of simple strings of gold-painted chains ligned up vertically spelling the word by which the piece is titled. For Daniel Guzmán interpreting his unconscious is the process, he unintentionally dismisses over-thought processes and attention-whore performances. This makes him, in our eyes, one of the most refreshing and influential artist’s living today.

Images [The New Museum Double Album Exhibit Official Page]