As a founding member of the Philadelphia art collective and gallery Space 1026, Ben Woodward and company have been getting a lot of attention recently, including a summertime installation at the Institute of Contemporary Art and media coverage across the nation. And, though you probably don't realize it, it's likely that you are already familiar with Ben's art. His unique brand of silkscreened prints can be found throughout the city in some unexpected spots -- from subway stops to bridges, and telephone poles to utility boxes -- messing with the heads of confused Philadelphians who can't quite comprehend his doodles.
Street: So you've been living off your art for two years...
Woodward: But not living well...
Street: What does that entail?
Woodward: I don't have a jobby-job. I used to work at the Camera Shop on 34th Street. I worked there in high school two days a week after school, and then Saturday and Sunday. When I got out of college I just got that job back and I was like, "Alright, going to college really paid off." I got really depressed and started coming in later and later everyday. When I got fired from that job it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I wanted to try and live as thin as humanly possible, and work really hard on living off my art and see how hard it was. I have my DJ job at the 700 Club, though.
Street: How often are you doing gallery exhibits and getting the opportunity to sell your work?
Woodward: This year, counting the ICA show, I've had work hanging on a wall in a show every month this year.
Street: This is all over the country?
Woodward: Yeah, places like Los Angeles. I have a show coming up in New York in October with Mark Mothersbaugh, who has been a really big inspiration to me as far as silkscreening goes -- besides being as fucking awesome as DEVO is. When I first saw his work when I was 17, I was like, "Silkscreens can just be really big doodles? It doesn't have to be Andy Warhol stuff?" No logo-biting or anything, you just blow up a doodle and silkscreen it, and it's art. I can remember thinking, "I wanna do that, that's fucking cool-looking." I didn't know that was what printmaking was.
Street: Is silkscreening your primary medium?
Woodward: I just started painting and a lot of drawing. It all comes from sketchbooks. Myself and another guy, Brian, have been doing street stuff, where we just do really big drawings on paper -- just simple two-color paintings -- and just glue them up on underpasses and weird places just for fun.
Street: So you are more doing it for fun than to get your artwork out?
Woodward: There is a bunch of reasons; the claiming-of-property thing of graffiti artists. And then there is the, "I'm 14 again and I'm being bad." If we get caught we really won't get in much trouble, but trying not to get caught is the fun part. It's like shoplifting lipstick: you are never going to use it, you don't actually care about it, but if you can get away with it, it's so much fun. I like the idea of people seeing the work on the street, too. Fifty people will walk by and not even see it. Fifty others will look at it at think it's weird. One person will think, "How the fuck did this get here?" Doing it for that one person out of a hundred is so fun.
Street: Any funny stories about being caught by the police while pasting the posters?
Woodward: Oh hell yeah. I've been caught before and gone to jail or whatever -- they take you in and they write you a ticket. The one time we went into the sixth precinct, they had just done a sweep of the area for all the prostitutes. So we couldn't fit in the men's jail, because all the men's jail was filled with transvestites. We were the only people on the women's side of the jail. It was funny. We weren't man enough to be in the same room as the transvestites. They put us in this little cell by ourselves.
Street: I take it there is a standard fine that comes with getting caught...
Woodward: Yeah, I think it's a $160 fine -- a littering fine. That's what it comes down to because they don't have a rule against it.
Street: There is no penalty for multiple offenses?
Woodward: Well, I haven't been caught multiple times under the same name. I stopped carrying my ID with me. When I was younger, seventh grade or something, this friend of mine named Keston gave his real name when we got caught doing something stupid. So we all got caught because of him. Now if I get caught I give his name to get him back. Keston Smith.
Street: With the ICA exhibition and magazine articles, why do you think so many people are taking notice of Space 1026 and your sketchbook art?
Woodward: You could take the art historian track -- which is that computers modernize everything -- and the backlash of that is hand-drawn stuff. You can't doodle on a computer. A lot of us come from the old 'zine, photocopy aesthetic. There is all that old skateboard art that is essentially just doodles. We call it "Big Sneaker Art." It's kind of graffiti-inspired, but not really -- drawings of monkeys itching their bellies... I'm not trying to shit on that. I do a lot of that stuff, too. I try to put something behind it though.
Street: What's behind the monster or animal doodles that I see in your work? Have you been drawing this type of stuff since you were a kid?
Woodward: I like to use animals, but animals with people aspects to them. If you try and use people, then someone will say, "That's a black guy, that looks middle class, and he has a tie on, so obviously he is an educated black guy." They read all this shit into a person's skin, or sex, so if you use an animal, you remove that whole aspect of how people see your art. It's more about what is happening in the image and what can you infer from what is going on in the story. I'll use a bunch of monkeys, and, to me, one of them will be a girl and two will be guys. But to someone else, they'll say, "Those three monkey dudes are kinda funny." I like how people are able to read into things in different ways. Then people are like, "It's racist because it's a monkey." But it's just a monkey. What the fuck is wrong with you? You're the one who is racist for thinking that drawing monkeys is racist.
