ALEX ISRAEL

I knew Alex from his interviews so when I got the opportunity to take his role I jumped on it. The fact that it was at the great Almine Rech gallery was just a big plus.

Magali Alcaide: Happy birthday!

Alex Israel: Thank you, my birthday was on sunday.

And this is why the exhibition is called "Thirty".

Exactly.

You basically brought L.A. to Paris.

This was one of the ideas, yeah, to bring the sunset of Los Angeles, of Hollywood, into the gallery.

And you made a "casting" of pieces.

Yes. When I go to make selections of objects that are going to be my sculptures, I see thousands and thousands of things in the prop houses, the prop studios in the city where I'm working, and finding the right things to perform this role of sculpture can be a lot like casting, like finding the right actor for a part.

Well it works! And then the objects go back to where they came from?

Exactly, they are "loués", they are rented, and then they go back and, they take on other roles, whatever those roles might be, wether it's in a movie or a television commercial, or a fashion editorial. In this specific show they have the role of sculpture.

L.A. seems to be the main subject of your work.

It's certainly one of the main subjects of my work, yes.

You were born and raised in L.A

Yes.

Being the main subject of your work, does it mean that somehow your work talks about yourself, is it introspective?

Well, I hope so. I think that living in Los Angeles my whole life has certainly formed who I am as a person, and the things that I've chosen to reproduce, to emphasize, that inspire me, that come out of my city are things that are meaningful for me and they have formed my life. So yes, of course I think that there is definitely a connection between the city and who I am.

Popular culture, television for example, seems to inspire you.

That's where the main creative energy and focus is in Los Angeles, it's on creating things that are meant to entertain people. It's our biggest export and, I guess it makes sense that if I'm gonna be looking at Los Angeles I'm going to be looking at the things that it produces and disseminates around the world. Of course I'm also a fan, I watch television, I listen to pop music, I love going to the movies. These are things I've done my whole life, things that I love doing.

Do you think TV is a reflection of our society?

Yeah, sure, of course.

And how do you find television today? For example, what's your favorite show?

I really love watching singing competitions.

You do? Like "The Voice"?

Like "The Voice", "American Idol", "The X Factor". And, in fact, since I've been in Paris I've been missing all these shows in America so I watch them on the internet. The other night I was watching "The X Factor US" and I ran out of episodes so I started watching "The X Factor UK" and I have to say that I think that the X Factor contestants in America are much more talented. There was one guy in the X Factor UK, he was so good, but there are a lot of people in this season's X Factor US that are so great. I like watching those shows, I like watching people having the opportunity to change their life right before our eyes.

So you like watching the process of them becoming famous?

I think there's a lot of hope in popular music. I think that yes, there are these kinds of shows that offer people opportunities to have their voice heard, but I also think that it's really interesting how, every time I love a pop song so much that I think to myself oh my gosh, there can never be another pop song that's as good as this song and like six months later there's another one that's just as good or better than the last one. I feel like It gives me some kind of hope that there's always gonna be something else that's gonna come around and you're gonna love, that's gonna be better and is gonna move you in some way.

You are talking about things that move you, but many shows in America are reality tv shows, where people become super famous out of nothing, they're not singers, they don't have a special talent…

I don't think that's true, I think that if you're on TV and if you happen to become super famous, you must be doing something right.

You do?

Yeah, it's not easy to be a reality tv star.

Have you seen this italian movie that just came out called "Reality"?

No, is it good?

I haven't seen it but it seems to be very good, it's about that, about an average person becoming very famous..

Isn't there a plot line in the new Woody Allen movie that's very similar to that?

Yes, absolutely, "From Rome with love", I haven't seen it yet but I will very soon, I love Woody Allen.

You're exhibiting in Paris, how do europeans see your work, do they understand it like americans?

I don't know, this show is a painting and sculpture show, and as an experience it's meant to evoke some kind of reaction in the viewer that could be physical, that could be tight to understandings of popular culture or that could be something totally personal for someone. For a french person to see a theater by "guignols" something that they grew up with, this can remind him of when he was a child.. or not, or it could just be someone who's taken by the warm glow of the sunshine painted on all the walls… There's not one way to view this exhibition, but I do take care in organizing the show, in placing the objects so that there is a sort of curated path, or choreographed path for the viewer to take. As they walk in, not everything is visible right away, little by little the objects reveal, almost like a narrative or like a film.

You have a sunglasses brand, right?

Yes.

Does it have a link to your art?

My sunglasses are not my art, it's just a sunglasses brand, and it's important for me to be clear about that, that not everything that I do has to be art. I like working in different platforms, I'm interested in various media, sometimes it's art and sometimes it's not. But when it came down to making my sunglasses it was really important to me that they drove the same vocabulary of references that was inspiring my work. A lot of those things relate to the aesthetics that are very regional in southern California.

But I do see a link between your work and advertising, branding…

I certainly learned a lot from building a brand, and I think some of the things that I've learned from creating my sunglasses brand have carried over into the way what I've been working as an artist, and vice versa. Even though the two things are different they do have a relationship to each other.

You say TV reflects society, do you think there's a decline of the american or the occidental society model?

No, I think society changes but to say that it declines is some pessimistic. I think that there's amazing things that are happening in all forms, in all platforms. I'm a little bit young to say but I do believe that history repeats itself, that things continue, and change, and leave and come back, that's just part of life, the passage of time. I find myself being inspired by things all the time.

I've seen some images of your exhibition in Italy, in this amazing place, the images are so full of contrast, they're incredible, how did you end up there?

I was invited by a Foundation, Giardino dei Lauri, run by a wonderful couple, Massimo and Angela Lauri, who live part time in Umbria and they do exhibitions there which they sponsor in a decontegrated baroque church called Museo Civico and it's in a small town called Citta' della Pieve. They invited me to come and see the church and asked me if I would do an exhibition and I said immediately after seeing the church that I had too many ideas for this project, that I wanted to do it but I needed some time to really figure out how I was going to construct this exhibition. What happened ultimately was that I was able to go to Cinecitta, the historic italian cinema studio, and I was completely blown away by the kinds of props that they had, they were so different from the props that we have in Los Angeles, the props that I found in Berlin, Paris or New York.. they were really special. From this very special collection there were a lot of things that I was able to find that felt very much at home in the church to the point where you would wonder if the things had always been there or if they were new and they were brought in by me.

Did you take it like a very inspiring location or did you take into consideration the fact that it was a church? Was the religious aspect important?

A church is a church, I'm not going to try to turn it into something else, yes, absolutely, I was considering the church as a holly sight. It was interesting though because this specific church was at one point a medieval church, then it was baroque, then it became a storage during world war II, and then it became a museum because it has a beautiful perugino fresco. It has had a lot of different roles, so I didn't just think about it as a church, I also thought about it as a storage and a museum.

The exhibition was fantastic, I loved it.

Thank you! Each exhibition that I've done where I use props has been site specific to that city. In this show here at Galerie Almine Reich in Paris I was really looking at things that felt very parisian for me. At least three of the four things have a very strong connection to the city and all four things are definitely older than thirty years old because I didn't wanna feel too old on my birthday.