Don’t Hesitate - Modern Man Exhibit at DK Framing

By Whitney Retzer
Contributing Writer

Memorable, mad, magical, marvelous, miscreant, musing are only a few adjectives in the “M”  category that have been used to describe this supreme genius. Modern Man is the local iconic artist that many of you may recognize cruising on his bicycle, smoking a rolley or entertaining with wild tales and detailed obscure information. He has an upcoming show at DK Framing that will open on Feb. 24, so if you haven’t seen his artwork this is an opportunity to meet the man and see the work of the Supreme Genius.

To write about Modern Man in structured form seems artificial. Information about him must be told in rants and abstractions as he would dazzle and relate to you. Please follow at your leisure, and if “I lost my train,” as Modern says, forgive me in the process. As friend and DK Framing owner Denise Knudson says, “He is art himself.” He will tell you about the detailed files of Edison and Tesla he keeps and rattles off dates like he is reading from an encyclopedia, but that is not all that he delights. His artistic work and body of work is simply unforgettable.

Modern Man’s pieces that will be exhibited are drawings that he typically does on a small scale intricately drawn and taken from many inspirations: Dali, Warhol, Mapplethorpe and Hendrix to name a few. When we first chatted about the upcoming show, I was curious because he said, “It’s funny. It shows potty-heads and baby squashed.” These small drawings take on a life of their own in larger form and stretched across an 11-foot canvas. He is crafty and humble in his descriptions as though the bizarre, disgusting and fascinating images come from nowhere. He says he just draws them, and when he sits in cafes musing for work sketching, “I usually come up with me smashing my skull in.” This appears in tiny sheets as the physical representations of his frustration become violent, black-lined, beautiful violence on paper.

He doesn’t like to discuss the thematics of his art, but you need to get a better idea of what those “potty-heads” represent. His upcoming work illustrates the cycle of life from old to young and Modern remarks that your heads are filled with shit from the day that you’re born. The baby squashed comes from the love of the crude and macabre, and also the artists’ age old battle with society’s efforts to decipher where the lines of art and smut are drawn. Modern talks of Florida comic artist Mike Diana who was arrested and imprisoned briefly after he left a copy of his comic “Boiled Angel” at the elementary school he was working at. A fellow employee found the sketches of hacked off genitalia and other sexual themes and turned it into the authorities. A judge deemed the comic offensive, sentencing Diana to undergo psychiatric evaluation, serve community service, stay away from underage youth and pay a significant fine. He was also required to stop drawing for personal use and to allow police access at all times to his home with or without a search warrant. Apparently the judge had never cracked open a Japanese manga or read Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal before, otherwise he may have had a bit more humor dropping the gavel.

Perhaps Modern Man’s satirical images come from a disdain of authority that finds a place on paper and in his music. As a former convict, he took art classes in prison, “A lot of artists are in prison; they have a lot of linear time” Modern quipped with a sly smile. He enjoys pushing his limits and pushing other’s views of the self. In 1990 he wanted to reinvent himself, and become a different person. Thus Modern Man was born with a few drops of ink on paper in the court house he changed his name and his feelings about his past and future. Since then he has married and lived happily with his spouse. Modern has been kind enough to share his vows with HPR as he wed his creative spirit at the train tracks in 1995. The vows are as written and signed Modern Man: “I give myself in all I am to my creative spirit.”

Modern has worked in a variety of mediums and his talent ceases to surprise, entertain and horrify, depending on who is taking it in. He worked as a court room sketch artist, so he has tales of some of the more historic court cases in North Dakota. These sketches would eventually appear in the documentary film “Death and Taxes.”

Modern Man puts everything he has into his art, and this includes his body. There is a photo on his Myspace page of a Doctor drawing blood for his “Rememberance” piece which is a painting of Hitler and the Gestapo above a glow-in-the-dark pile of corpses. He extracted two pints of blood to create this masterpiece, and it was a thematic vision he had since he was a child. The painting is haunting with the terrorizing Nazis marching the land with seemingly grief stricken faces hanging low looking below to the monstrosity they created, and then a soundscape triggers the lights revealing a pile of neon green corpses and the visage of limbs and other parts strewn across the land. In the event that you didn’t remember Modern’s ode to World War Two’s “Rememberance” by subject alone, you will likely remember the scene out of the sheer fact that it is created in Modern Man’s blood.

Another memorable body, I chide, of Modern’s work is the “Master Feces” series, a bold, hilarious and coarse look at the painted portraits of American Icons that brought you such quality food legends as Little Debbie, Cap’n Crunch, Chef Boyardee, Colonel Sanders, Orville Redenbacher and Ronald McDonald. All of these include a valid, dated receipt of food before it was ingested to prove the medium was indeed feces. The paintings all have significant likeness to their corporate captains. Modern’s art movements also include commissioned paintings of ex-girlfriends in fecal matter, Sadam Hussein and more inspired portraits.

It is abundantly clear that Modern devotes himself completely in his creations. The A-bomb Portrait he paid lip service to has never been shown in public, but his oil kisses on canvas took two years to complete. It is shown with a soundscape, and it is magnificent. The intensity and color of the full A-bomb cloud and Portrait is astonishing to remember “A Thousand Kisses Say Goodbye,” and one must admire and respect the talent of putting kisses to the canvas in such a thoughtful, methodical way.

The work he does makes a statement whether it is a self-published book such as “Homoclitoris,” “A Worldwide Decree,” or the various songs. The song “Love… Another Word for Pain” has the sounds of an innocent child repeating a dichotomy of phrases speaking of soulful reasons you don’t love someone and then the heart is broken and the phrases become empty and hurt over chords of power. Modern Man’s “Modern Melody” is a combination of rifts and new age with poetic lyrics “I hate the look of your ugly feet… spirited spiders weave beauty around your useless discarded invention.” He released an “oddball vinyl” that a select few own and others covet.

His talent knows no bounds from illustrator of children’s books to the “Dual Images” of Rock legends Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and others that are masterfully painted, and then take on another side in the dark with electric colors vividly illuminating these Icons in a way you have never seen them. For a taste, you can check out a lot of his work at http://www.myspace.com/thesupremegenius.

Modern has never been about money or fortune in his artistry. “I don’t do it to sell it. I do it to do it.” And, do it he does in all of his creations in his own time and pace. He lives on commissions for a significant amount of time and they funds more work as well. “I’m a cheap liver,” Modern said.

Pardon me for the pun, but after taking 20 shots of Stolichnaya vodka for his Communist show in Minneapolis when Stolichnaya was still made in the USSR it’s hard to believe he is a cheap liver! “I had 20 shots and still went out for martinis after the show,” Modern proclaims.

His work flows out of him naturally in a way many artists couldn’t conceive or dare to represent. In fact, his last will and testament is to burn his every last piece of his work. He is a modern character and masterful artist. The time to hesitate is through. Come to DK Framing and see the work and meet the Modern Man.

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IF YOU GO:
What: Modern Man Exhibit
When: Thurs. Feb. 24, 7 p.m., Modern will say a few words around 7:45 p.m.
Where: DK Custom Framing and Gallery, 14 Roberts St. N., Fargo, 701-239-0063