Surviving deep West Texas: interview with Texas artist George Zupp

All photos courtesy of George Zupp

 After a short stint of running wild through the streets of central Japan with fellow artist Jimmy Kuehnle, George Zupp’s return to the U.S. finds him in a self-imposed exile in western most Texas. This is Zupp’s, a self proclaimed folk artist of sorts, second existential voyage into the vast mind-numbing expanse of the arid desert. With the Marfa lights above and fire ants below fellow Central Texas artist, Justin Graham, agreed to join Zupp for an extreme time-based challenge of living in non-air-conditioned cabins through the summer’s 120-degree heat and monsoon like squalls. The main focus of this seemingly insane adventure is creative prolificacy and to find out who will “lose it” first, or that’s what George says is part of it. Both artists arrived armed with video cameras and youtube channels to post their triumphs and tragedies.

Cell phone coverage in west Texas is sporadic so Skype’s video chatting ability was used for a face-to-face interview with George Zupp on Wednesday July 29, 2009 at 11:00 am.

Richie Budd:

What are you doing George?

George Zupp:

Oh, god. I just woke up, I’m tired this morning. A storm came through about 4 am and they bring in these weird smells.

Like what?

Put it this way, because of the environment I have to have a fan next to my window and have it turned on, obviously. And I can smell a little skunk and I go and turn that fan off and wait till he goes or it will flood the entire house with skunk smell. I couldn’t figure it out. It smelt like burnt plastic.

What are you doing out there now?

What I’m up to now is that I am going to make a wall of tin cans. I mean there are @#$* loads of cans over here. I am kinda next to a junkyard. So, I am going to take all these old cans and build a big wall about five feet tall . . . I think five by six. What are those things that run up . . . like a siege machine . . . like a, you know, run up to a castle wall . . . high as the top of the wall and have a battering ram underneath it and got that little ramp.

I’m not sure what those are called.

I’m going to make one of those. I got this space to start making it at and then propose it to the Blue Star Contemporary Art Center (in San Antonio). Make it about the uh . . . you know they are trying to build a wall here . . . uh . . . it’s been %#@ing insane because River Road, River Road straddles Mexico. You can see the river, it’s real scenic, they’d put a *%$#ing forty foot wall and you be driving and it’s just this cinderblock thing you couldn’t see over. It’s the most insulting-est thing you could ever imagine seeing going through the park. For most of the people scenery is . . . it’d be . . . it’s just on certain parts . . . that’s . . . there’s no point to it!

So, uh, what have you been doing? I saw some of the old canned ham things in your youtube videos.

Let me get another cup of coffee, I just woke up.

You can interview Chicken George or you can interview me. Cause if I’m Chicken George I can act like a buffoon.

How about if I do George Zupp right now and Chicken George a little later and make that the cornball interview.

So, what else is going on? What are you guys really up to?

Well, actually you wanna know the real . . . I’ve been trying to figure out bout Justin because I know him but I don’t know him know him, you know? Luckily he’s real laid back person. He’s not a “real” art person in regards to like when I was here with Sergio. Like they’re really sensitive about battling and supremacy issues and stuff like that. So, he’s . . . I can tell him things and he’s not going to get pissed off. We’re both setting up in these weird conservative areas like weird showing spaces . . . and I tell him Look you can’t . . . I don’t want no @%#ing hippy abstractions I want some #$% *&!# western painting or whatever your version of it is. The main thing is the relationship has been me constantly coaching him about this . . . I didn’t realize how much of a Fundamentalist Christian he was . . . and he is dead serious.

So what about the purpose for being in west Texas? Was it right in saying it was a challenge match of sorts?

Well, this youtube thing is a new scenario Richie. Because of the capability to upload and edit movies we’re really acting as amateur filmmakers . . . making our own %#!*. And so, we sit there and argue about films or how to shoot stuff all the time. He has his software and I have my software. We’re try to . . . I try to create . . . you know I look at all the footage and I basically take out things I think would fit this thing together . . . putting together a presentation. It’s reality based: someone holding a camera and moving around versus fiction. So, what I am trying to do is create a merger of that based on what I’d say . . . we need a writer, a writer, I mean I have three videos of me and we finally figured out what to do here. It’s going to be an Atheist clash . . . it’s going to be Atheist versus Christian. I am the devil and I am here to provoke him and to . . . and he likes that because he is a Christian. He is a Christian but not really a Christian . . . to him it’s just sentimental issues.

O.K. . . . huh . . . so, how long are you guys going to be there?

Till 165.

Till you get to day 165?

By the rate I’m going it’s going to take one pound per week.

HA! HA! Oh, I see!

I think it’s going to take at least a year. I like it here, I live more healthy here than I do over there but also . . . to live here it costs about $200 for everything cable, internet, rent, food and I did it just selling my work on eBay . . . it really takes the edge off of things.

Alright George, I need to get started on my day, talk to you again soon.

Alright, thanks a lot. I’ll catch you later.

Catch George Zupp on the interweb through the below links.

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