In partnership with David Zwirner Gallery, Highsnobiety is proud to present a series of drawings spanning five decades of work by the artist Raymond Pettibon. From baseball cards to nuclear explosions to CIA black sites to encircled posses of stoners, the following selection of pieces focus Pettibon’s mastery at depicting an America hell-bent on swallowing its own tail. Now, more than ever, the country’s jubilant penchant for self-destruction has taken on a heightened sense of meaning, which the writer Nathan Taylor Pemberton explored with the artist via a Zoom call from his studio in Lower Manhattan.
This special online retrospective for “Not In Paris” launches alongside Studio: Raymond Pettibon, an online viewing room displaying some of the artist’s most recent works.
The hippie appears to be in free-fall. Arms splayed, legs splayed, each long hair straightened by gravity. His naked body floats in an equally naked white space. His face is printed with shock, yet his eyes locked outwards towards us as he clings to the handle of a small sign like it’s the only possession he owns. It reads: “LIFE ISN’T ALWAYS A GROOVE!”
Anyone who just happens to be living today, or who at least goes on the Internet, should be sympatico with the message. But setting aside this spiritual bummer, there’s just enough room in the composition to look at things in a more ironic light. After all, who is to say our dear hippie isn’t on his way down to the forgiving web of a trampoline? Or jumping from the shallow ledge of a hotel suite into a pool the color of pacific blue? Life isn’t always a groove, but sometimes…