Everyone knows Raymond Pettibon. Even if you don’t recognize the name, his inky cross-hatched lines and confident handwriting have probably swirled around your eyes at some point—interconnecting webs of history, baseball stats, freight trains, surfers, musical announcements, and scathing critique in words and images—getting stuck somewhere deep in the back of your skull. As distrust in popular journalism has become more mainstream, artists have stepped into the void, telling the stories in a search for some deeper truth, compounding ideas that maybe most would be afraid to touch. Through his distinctive marks and poetic voice, every subject Pettibon draws becomes part of his world.
Pettibon’s aesthetic influence is so wide that, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 30 years, you’ve seen something he’s drawn, or someone who’s trying to draw like him. Chances are also high that one of your friends has a tattoo of something he drew, and it’s probably the best tattoo they have. The dude gets around. The son of immigrants, today, Raymond Pettibon—who grew up in LA and rose to prominence in the 1980s punk scene—is as American as apple pie. And you know who loves America more than Americans? The Europeans. For that reason, this October, the German mega-dealer, David Zwirner (who has represented him since 1995), is opening a new post-Brexit outpost in Paris with a show of past and present iconic American Pettibon drawings.
Every good story needs transgression, and this artist couldn’t stop if he tried: anti-war, anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment. He has been yelling the same shit forever, but his message is more pressing now than ever before. Maybe you didn’t even notice, but Raymond Pettibon is the elephant in the room.