A conversation with the artist Raymond Pettibon is a master class in ellipses. There are breaks, fits and starts, and halting gaps. This is a man with a lot on his mind, and he’s in no rush to communicate it all. To talk to him, you have to slow your metabolism and get into his groove.
"Everything here is a work in progress," says Pettibon, 59, who appears to be wearing pajama bottoms for the workday in his SoHo studio. He's a philosopher-king who manages to combine grumpy world-weariness with a completely open mind.
A long pause ensues. Traffic noises waft in from the street below.
"I don’t have any idea how it will all play out," he finally says.
To get into the topic at hand–his big survey show at the New Museum, "Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of All Work," through April 9–you have to go sideways, since this artist always has something uncanny in his peripheral vision.