Like a lot of Angelenos, Richard Kessler is kind of hard to pin down. He’s an artist, screenwriter, Mercedes mechanic and musician (he plays the guitar—poorly, by his own estimation and despite his uncanny resemblance to Bono). He grew up in Washington, D.C. and followed a girlfriend to Missouri (who hasn’t?) where he studied art at Washington University in St. Louis.
After graduation, he made a precarious pilgrimage on motorcycle to LA where he established himself in the ‘90’s as a colorful player in the downtown art scene, creating events at the now defunct Spanish Kitchen on Third Street, contributing a signature work that helped define the edgy sensibility of Al’s Bar and evolving into one of the most collectible artists in the city.
His paintings rely heavily on images drawn from the iconography of advertising and popular culture (metallic lettering, poster girls, Hostess cream-filled cupcakes and plastic action figures). He insists, however, that his work has less to do with that imagery than with the physical character of the metal and glass signage or the texture of whipped cream and cake. At the very least, those kinds of images are presented in his paintings as beautifully rendered, nostalgic objets and his treatment of metal signage is reminiscent of Robert Delauney’s cubist Eiffel Towers with similar dizzying shifts of perspective.
Kessler says his art is derived, at least in part, from an interest in the Dadaists and their fascination with the idea that ordinary objects divorced from their intended function can be intriguing on their own, “like Marcel Duchamp’s urinal.”
He’s managed to sell at least 87 pieces over the past several years and option a few screenplays – and even if he has not been able to get it together sufficiently to organize enough works to mount a one-man show (despite some significant offers to do so), he is making a living as an artist — an accomplishment not many other downtown artists can lay claim to.
We caught up with Kessler recently at Bedlam, the two story loft and event space on 6th Street below Alameda run by Jim Fittipaldi, who Kessler calls “the Gertrude Stein of downtown LA,” and tried, without much success, to get him to discuss his work.
Citizen LA: How did you get from Missouri to LA?
Richard Kessler: Well, I guess I got here on my ’58 triumph. I stopped on the way in Austin and I went to 6th Street, all the bars, and then I pulled into this seedy-ass motel and this place was super scary and I usually don’t have a bank account – I don’t have a bank account now – and when I hide money, there’s always a problem. Anyway, when I got up in the morning, I took the girl back that I picked up on 6th Street – she worked for Antoine Records, I remember that – and hit the highway. Then I realized that all the money I had for my new life, which was what, I don’t know, a few thousand dollars, I had left under the Bible. So I’m riding down the highway, and crap! So I turned around, go to the motel and the door to my room is open. So, I’m thinking, “So the maid’s there. Even if I call the cops, she’s not gonna admit she has this money.” So I go to the door, I look at the Bible and the Bible is moved over from where it was and I look at the maid, and she like backs up and I run to the Bible AND THE MONEY’S THERE! Later I told that story to Dennis Hopper and he threw up his arms and said “It’s a miracle!”
Citizen LA: So how did you end up downtown?
Richard Kessler: I rented this horrifically expensive space behind Al’s Bar…
Citizen LA: The Spanish Kitchen…
Richard Kessler: . . . right, the Spanish Kitchen. It cost me the last of my good credit. Somehow we got the money together with my friend Steve Olson…
Citizen LA: That was a classic event venue for the downtown art scene. . .
Richard Kessler: Yeah, primarily because of Voycek…[Voycek eventually took over the lease from Kessler and partners and after producing a number of challenging Arts District events (including a critically acclaimed exhibition of late 20th century Polish poster art), he departed the community suddenly, leaving many creditors, including the property owner, unpaid.]
Citizen LA: You’re a writer as well as an artist. Which medium has been paying the bills?
Richard Kessler: I’ve made a little money off script options. I have one now they say they’re almost ready to make. But for seven years I’ve haven’t gotten anything except what I’ve earned selling paintings. That’s pretty much it.
Citizen LA: You’ve sold your paintings pretty much on your own initiative? You don’t have much representation?
Richard Kessler: That’s the thing with me; I don’t have that many shows…
Citizen LA: But you have workspace here (at Fittipaldi’s Bedlam space) and works on display…
Richard Kessler: Yeah, Jim is like the Gertrude Stein of downtown. I’ve been down here selling a work for $350.00 that Jim valued at a couple of thousand dollars so I could pay the gas bill and Jim is standing at the top of the stairs yelling down at me not to do it. I have a studio here and it’s kinda hard and it’s like total debauchery every time I come and I fall into it – Cabaret Voltaire, you know, the madness. I work here off and on and I still have space downstairs.
Citizen LA: Is there a kind of tradeoff to work in a space where you have lots of contact with other artists even if it occasionally devolves into a kind of party scene?
Richard Kessler: Yeah, well, just take a look at me, I mean, I’m still recovering from four days ago when we talked on Tuesday night. The thing with me is I get offered a show every three or four months by a gallery here or there and I try to get something together but really, I’ve got my bills. I just paid my bills for this month off a sale and now I have to think about a sale for the end of the month and usually I’m so disorganized I don‘t even shoot pictures of them before they go out.
Citizen LA: Tell us about your work. You combine elements of popular culture – the metallic lettering, toy figures, a Hostess cupcake, the poster girl in the bikini that pops up in a couple of pieces – why do you choose those as subjects and how does that come together for you?
Richard Kessler: I have no idea (laughs). I don’t necessarily care that much about it. It’s urban images, mostly. Let’s talk about Al’s Bar.
Citizen LA: Sure. You had a wonderful piece of sculpture there…
Richard Kessler: Yeah, it was a crankshaft cast in 25 gallons of resin. I don’t know what the hell that was, but the top part was pretty cool. I never got done with the bottom part. Kreisel (Marc Kreisel, the proprietor of Al’s Bar, the legendary punk-rock venue that closed in 2001 after a 22 year run) wheeled it in there from my studio. Actually, Bloom’s (General Store at Traction and Hewitt) used to be my studio at one point, thanks to Kreisel; he gave it to me for awhile. Then it just ended up staying in there because it weighed so much no one could move it. Then Kreisel shut down Al’s quietly, I think just so he could get all that shit out of there quietly, without anybody claiming it (laughs). Kreisel was always really nice to me. Normally he’s considered the grumpiest man downtown, apart from Bloom, of course. He helped me and Eduardo and Jim and guys who were here before me.
Citizen LA: So what are you working on now?
Richard Kessler: Oh, I forget.