Leo Fitzpatrick: 20 Year Issue
Portraits by Elena Saviano
Leo did this interview and claimed that he visits an average of forty five galleries on a normal outing.
This seemed like a lie to me. Or maybe not a lie, but an exaggeration. Even for the guy who starred in Kids and founded and ran the beloved Public Access gallery in New York City for years, this number seemed high.
Leo went on a gallery crawl counting the number of places he was able to visit and take in between noon and six in the afternoon, and that true number was fucking enormous. However, in his follow up email he said, ‘just to not seem like an asshole, let's call it 20,’ so that’s what we’re calling it. Still, an enormous number signifying a certain compulsion, but if it’s a compulsion for art, then it’s an understandable one.
My favorite part of this interview with actor/artist/gallerist Leo Fitzpatrick is when he talks about feeling better after seeing art or music. He gets at something often lost and forgotten in those cultures, which is that these things aren’t supposed to be a social scene or an engagement to be dreaded. They are simply supposed to make you feel.
This is my favorite part of our conversation because it presents Leo’s perception with such clarity and ease. These things feel. That is what they are for. Art isn’t about being seen at the art show or the free wine in plastic cups. It is meant to elicit in you, something, and it is as simple as that. A simple idea that takes someone as blatant and clear as Leo to lay out for us, sitting across from him at his kitchen table in the East Village.
Do you do this very much?
No, nobody asks me to do interviews anymore. I’m on the other side of it at this point because i’m older.
In what way?
I’m the guy who asks the questions now, to the younger generation because they’re more interesting.
I feel like I’m usually the person asking the questions. I’m a professional question asker. Why’re you interviewing people?
Generally in an art context. Magazines, catalogs for shows, things like that. I think the reason that people are comfortable talking to me is because I don’t make it about a certain thing. I’m more interested in a conversation than tackling questions.
What is your thing right now?
That’s a good question. I don’t have a thing. I had an art gallery for the last thirteen years, and I had a radio show - I’m from this generation of New Yorkers who learned to multitask because you wanted to contribute as much as possible and put in more than you receive. The longer you live in new york, you realize that this is a losing battle because the culture is shifting so much. The old new york is gone.
What do you mean?
I mean the new york that I moved to, that I wanted to be a part of. It was very creative. Creative people did multiple things. I’m not sure if its because of social media or whatever- things just seem over saturated and put out there in such a way that nothing holds any importance any more. It’s all super fleeting and going by super fast. Wait, to back track: my group of friends back in the day was very diverse. There was the skater kid, the punk kid, the hip hop kid, the actor kid, the visual artist. I don’t think you see that kind of diversity anymore. I don’t even know what this question is. Basically, I think that New York has become too expensive for a real experimentation.
I agree. What you said about things going by so quickly, I think that usually in art, ephemerality lends value to things. The appeal of things like zines is that there are a certain finite number of them, they are impermanent, so you value them more. With social media, things are ephemeral because you just scroll right past them. It’s different. It is dumb expensive. This might be a shitty statement, but no good art comes from the wealthy.
Having financial support can definitely lend you things that not having money would prevent you from having. A bigger studio, proper art materials. But it will also make you less hungry. Whenever I do studio visits with artists, they are always kind of apologizing for their studios because they are small or in their house, but I prefer an artist who has to work a little harder and really be passionate about what they’re doing. Generally they have a 9-5 job, and I always really respect an artist who takes nights and weekends to work on their craft as opposed to someone who gets to sit in their studio all day. I like someone who has to work a little harder to put their voice out there.
“I felt guilty that I was given this opportunity that other people really longed for, and who was I to take it for granted? When you go to auditions and see people who really want it, I felt like I was wasting their time and my time. ”
I think that the constraints of poverty can also be helpful because it makes you resourceful. You can’t buy an eighty-foot canvas. You have to do a mural instead.
For me, I have no relationship with graffiti-
You never wrote graffiti?
I never wrote. I wasn’t even a good look out. I was the guy who pictured himself getting caught. I wouldn’t do it because I wouldn't be good at it, but I respect it like crazy because it’s such a passion. The risk vs reward is way crazier than any type of other visual art.
You never wrote ‘mom’ on a wall?
Never, I was too into skateboarding.
But don't the two go hand in hand?
Yeah, I had lots of friends who did it growing up, but I’m pretty good at knowing when I’m not good at something.
Monster Children began in 2003. What were you doing in 2003?
I don’t even know how old I was. What year is it now? Oh, shit, yeah. I guess I was twenty six, living in New York City. I was probably just having a good time. New York at night was as important as day time. You got as much done talking to people and going to bars and building your community as you did during the day. The difference between then and now is back then, every night of the week, there was something you had to go to. All of your friends were DJ’s or threw a party or owned a bar. Monday night you would go to Lit. Tuesday night you would go to Sway. Every party would be completely different and full of people. Now, I mean, it’s not even appropriate for me to go out anymore.
*It is also of note that Leo was filming The Wire in 2003, which he remembered immediately after this interview was over.
What do you mean appropriate?
Like, age appropriate. I don’t fit into New York’s current bar scene.
I didn’t intend to talk a whole bunch of shit, but I will say that the current bar scene is fucking terrible.
I mean, it’s fine. It’s just not my cup of tea. Obviously there's much better stuff happening in Brooklyn than Manhattan, but I’m so old that I live in the city. I missed the whole thing of moving to Brooklyn. I never had to, I always found cheap shitty apartments in the city. This apartment is all my wife. I would still have a mattress on the floor and a pile of clothes in the corner if I was left to my own devices.
Alright, pits and peaks. Biggest triumph, and biggest fuck up in your career.
Probably my biggest triumph is avoiding having a career. I’ve never done just one thing. At one point I was an actor, at another I was a DJ, at another I ran a gallery.
Do you not still act?
No, not really. It never made financial sense being an actor.
I mean, neither does being an artist. Do you enjoy acting?
Ehh… no. I came into acting very strangely. I was picked off the street and did it to make money, but I’m not the type of person who likes to wait for a phone call and the jobs I got were not that exciting. I basically did it out of guilt. I felt guilty that I was given this opportunity that other people really longed for, and who was I to take it for granted? When you go to auditions and see people who really want it, I felt like I was wasting their time and my time. Someone else would appreciate this more than I would and get more out of it than I would. I would do it to please other people and make it look like I was trying.
Do you like art?
Yeah but I see a lot of bullshit in it too. If we weren’t doing this today, I’d go and see some galleries, but it wouldn't be two or three galleries, it’d be forty five galleries. To me it is a manic obsession. I’ll do multiple neighborhoods, and you can literally see forty five in a day.
I mean, physically you can, but you need to spend some time in front of a piece, right?
Do you? I don’t know. It’s kind of like how people work out sort of obsessively. It’s a manic compulsion. I don’t if I’m doing it for the act of doing it or if I’m actually getting something out of it. I can see the hypocrisy in my own shit. I do feel better after I go and see art or music. Last night I saw Run The Jewels and I was kind of like, ‘I don’t know if I want to go,’ but I went and had a great time.
Alright, what’s your lowest low?
Fuck, maybe not having a career. Being forty six and trying to figure it out. I wish I went to trade school or something because those people have an eye on retirement or savings or stability. The life I’ve chosen for myself, there’s not a lot of that. I have some savings because I’m good with money, but I don’t have much more than that. I only got health insurance when my kid was born.
If you could give 2003 you some advice, what would it be?
It would just be, ‘chill out.’ I don’t think you need much more than that. Maybe more be chill than chill out, but somewhere in that philosophy. I think we all struggle with shit and it can be overwhelming but it doesn’t do you any good to overthink things. Like I said, I contradict myself all the time.
I mean, you compulsively look at forty five galleries in a day. Sounds like you might not be that chill.
Yeah but I feel good after, I like to keep my brain active. I like to compulsively read and other people wouldn’t see the problem with that, but I’m like, ‘why am I so obsessed with reading? Am I procrastinating?’ because I’m a really good procrastinator.
What is Monster Children to you? What is the importance or value of published physical media?
I think that twenty years is a test of time. That’s pretty major. The information that is locked away in those pages is more important now than it was twenty years ago. So much culture has gone through that magazine that it can be referenced for the next twenty years. People should go back to issue one and look at what was happening and how those things influence today. Social media is fine, but to have a printed thing that is tangible that you can hold and flip through, if you take care of it, it’ll be around forever. Things change so fast that it’s cool to have a document of things that happen in real time, and you can look back and reference it.
Get your hands on the 20 Year Anniversary Issue, here.
