SHOW STATEMENT

I began my career as an artist in 1977, while still a student at The San Francisco Art Institute. My piece for a student show was called Red Sea/Red Sea. It was a 25 foot long stripped path of hardwood floor in the gallery's entrance, exposing the raw wood to dirty foot traffic. Needless to say the school was none too pleased. This set the tone for my ensuing career.

During the SF years I organized artist videos in porno motels, purchased and boarded a cow, adopted a boy (through the Christian Children's fund) tattooed 12 people with 12 tattoos, and in 1982 attended Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA.

I invented the persona MO David (a critic) in order to promote my circle of artist friends without their knowledge. Later I would name my gallery in SF's mission district MO David Gallery. In 1984 I moved MO David to NY's East Village.

In NYC I showed the artists Tony Oursler, Karen Finley, Stelarc, David Ireland, Tony Labat, Les Levine, Robin Winters, and invented a fictious artist Kristan Kohl. In 1985 I had KK die, continuing to work under this name to this day. In 1986, fed up with my role as an art dealer, I closed MO David and started the rock band Purple Geezus, along with The Church of The Little Green Man.

By the early 90's the band had broken up and the church continued hit and miss in strip clubs, bars, and underground clubs. The LGM required the burning of a dollar bill upon entry and held services on the birth and death of congregants. Any member of the congregation who dies is somehow memorialized with a tattoo on my person.

Purchasing an old Methodist church in Glen Wild, NY in 1994, I would eventually move full time to the Catskills. I continued the KK work, restored the church and took up hunting and guiding as part of my art. In 1999 I purchased a one room school house and established The Old School for Social Sculpture.

Currently I am working on The White Sulfur Springs project and Disposable TV (each represented in this show). If I could sum up my approach, it is to objectify one's very existence to the extent that and "Artist" is created, not necessarily "Art". I feel it is my duty as an artist to periodically communicate this in some way, irregardless of the marketplace. That is why I have chosen to show at Marianna's Appartment.

MO 2008