It’s been a while since we last sat down for a chat with Gio Black Peter. Since then he’s been busy traveling the world, spreading the word, and generally working his ass off. And he’s not just working, but evolving. So on the occasion of his biggest solo show to-date appropriately titled Eyes On The Prize, which includes his latest paintings, drawings and small sculptures, we thought we’d show you what he’s been up to and catch up with him for a few questions.
Weston Bingham: What have you been up to since we first talked about a year and a half ago?
Gio Black Peter: I split from my London label, It’s Fucked Up EP got played on BBC Radio, toured Europe, played three big European festivals, (Secret Garden Party UK, Big Reunion UK, TignesFest France), got to open for Calving Harris, wrote 80 new songs for my next music release The Virgin Shuffle, which I’ll be releasing independently, showed art around the world in group shows and two solo shows, buzzed my hair and grew it back out, and worked on this current solo show which is my biggest show yet!
Weston: In this new work you’re still exploring many of the same themes and coding your work with many of the same signifiers, but stylistically it’s really shifted over the last year and a half. What’s driving the evolution?
Gio: I’m more focused now and it’s allowed me to really develop my style. Though a lot of the themes are similar because most of my work is autobiographical, this is the first time I’m addressing my personal beliefs that have nothing to do with my sexuality - from religion, to conspiracy theories, to where do we come from and where do we go.
Weston: You’ve also started doing more dimensional work. What are you addressing in those pieces.
Gio: New world order reptilian alien freemason take over.
Weston: At your upcoming show this week you’re also performing. How has your performance persona evolved?
Gio: It’s been a secret evolution that has not shown it’s face yet and won’t until my next music release. The best way I can show you what I mean is by letting you read the lyrics to a new song called ‘Box’.
I made a box it’s got no points it only serves to disappoint
It confines me to boundaries I do not like I do not need
I made a box my private joke that slowly got out of control
It constricts me within limits that threaten my creativity
I made a box made a box made a box it’s got no room
I made a box made a box made a box I made a tomb
I made a box made a box made a box I want to destroy
I made a box made a box made a box I don’t enjoy
Weston: You used to consider yourself an “outsider” artist, but but you and your boyfriend, Neil, were just featured as a “Power Couple” in Vice magazine. How does it feel being an insider?
Gio: The theme of the shoot, which was shot by the super talented East Village/New York legend Richard Kern, was to celebrate couples that were sexcessful in their trade. But you can have some success and still be an outsider. I think all fags are still outsiders. It’s hard to remember that when you live in New York City because there are so many and also because New Yorkers are open-minded, but if you want to check if your and outsider or not just go to any other state in the US, with the exception of a few others, and make out with your boyfriend at the city center. See what happens. Or better yet ask yourself if you have the right to get married?
Weston: I haven’t seen you broken and bloodied in quite a while. Have you been tamed?
Gio: When you break bones and you cant afford health insurance in the US you learn to be more careful.
Eyes on the Prize debuts at Galleri S.E, Bergen, Norway, May 25-June 27, 2010
Live performance May 25
Clothing Credits: 1,2. Trent: Shirt, Dior / Vest, Albright / Tie, Band of Outsiders / Pants, Topman / Belt, Stylists own / Socks, Punto / Boots, Marc Jacobs / Pins, Ben Amun. Patrick: Shirt, Tim Hamilton / Suit, Prada / Tie, Band of Outsiders / Pocket Square, Ralph Lauren / Belt, YMC / Socks, Punto / Shoes, Topman / Pins, Ben Amun
3, 4, 5. Trent: Cardigan and Jersey Pants, Tim Hamilton / Socks, Punto / Boots, Marc Jacobs / Top Hat, Comme des Garçons / Pin, Maria Pinto. Patrick: Suit and Tie, Band of Outsiders / Shirt, Turnbull and Asser / Pocket Square, Prada / Pins and Cufflinks, Ben Amun
6, 7. Trent: Jersey Pants, Tim Hamilton / Socks, Punto / Boots, Marc Jacobs
8. Jamil: Suit, Shirt, Tie and Pocket Square, Against Nature / Pins, Ben Amun
9, 10. Jamil: Shirt, Etro / Vest, Gucci / Tie, Dolce & Gabbana / Jersey Pants, Tim Hamilton / Socks, Punto / Boots, Vintage / Pins, Ben Amun / Flower Pin, Maria Pinto
11. Trent: Suit, Shirt, Tie and Belt, Against Nature / Pins, Ben Amun
12. Jamil: Shirt, Tim Hamilton / Tie, Ralph Lauren / Jacket, Band of Outsiders / Pins, Ben Amun / Flower Pins, Maria Punto
13. Trent: Shirt, Rag and Bone / Vest, Andrew Buckler / Coat, Bottega Veneta
This week’s East Village Boy of the Week is Juan, from Bogotá, Colombia
Photographed for EVB by Greg Reynolds
I took Juan out to Floyd Bennett Field, an abandoned airport in Brooklyn where grasses sprang through the cracks in the old tarmac and nearby hangars rusted and crumbled. The history of what used to be and/or what could have been intrigues me, and the combination of an unfamiliar setting coupled with a young man I didn’t really know allowed me to take what was immediate - the subject, the light, the location - and create a fiction drawn from reality, in the way we do whenever we meet someone to whom were attracted but of whom we have little knowledge. The act of photography is an intimate gesture and it is important to me that I like my subject rather than merely attracted to their physical attributes. Juan had a quality of openness and kindness that makes you fall in love. - Greg Reynolds
Standing at over six feet five inches Chris Kittrell is closer to the height of an adult alpaca rather than of his stage namesake Baby Alpaca. After sitting down with him for a few cups of tea you soon uncover a warm, gentle and deeply talented artist whose music allows you to escape to the places you’d much rather be, and as his great performance at the recent EVB-hosted happy hour at Pussy Faggot confirmed, you’ll soon be escaping much more with him.
Photographs and video portrait of Chris shot for EVB by Jessica Yatrofsky
Richard Welch: You played some new tracks from your debut EP True Heart at the Pussy Faggot party last month - how did that go?
Chris Kittrell: It was our first Manhattan show. The crowd had a great energy, and I think that’s one of the loveliest things a musician can hope for. I’ve also never played such a male-heavy audience.
Richard: Collaborative, peace and fun loving, living free, making music from whatever is laying around, ethereal dreamy kind of psychedelic music, and designer of feathered jewelry. It all sounds very hippie on paper, but unlike hippies, it all comes together for you in a good way. Are you a kind of ‘new’, hippie?
Chris: I would say there’s a generation of “a new kind of hippie,” but I wouldn’t say that I’m the first! I’ve come across a lot of free-spirited people that love collaboration and are really in touch with nature. But then there are so many degrees of what that might be, and I feel like when it comes to me, I’m doing it in my own way. I’m really in touch with nature but I also have a strong fashion background which in many ways could be viewed as anti-hippie. So, I feel, like, while embracing nature, I also embrace fashion and beauty and a lot of things that aren’t completely natural to the earth, but maybe are completely natural to myself.
Richard: What do you think the “new kind of hippie” should be called? No doubt someone will coin a label for them - maybe you can do that?
Chris: Baby Alpaca!
Richard: Collaboration at the center of what you do. Why is it so important to you?
Chris: I love people and love what other people do. In our super connected age, collaboration is the norm. Collaboration makes life much more full. It has more sides, more view points. When you bounce ideas off of one another the idea grows. Once a candle of an idea is passed along to more and more people they throw their wood onto it and it becomes a full-fledged fire. It’s kind of, like, if you do something by yourself then it’s just yours, but when you do it with a family of people - a family of creative artists - then its all of yours’ and you can see every little part that everyone contributed.
Richard: Baby Alpaca, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Polar Bear, Panda Bear, there’s kind of…..
Chris: Animal magic!!
Richard: Yeah! How did you join the zoo?
Chris: I bought a sweater that was made out of baby alpaca, and it inspired me to write a song called “Baby Alpaca” based on how amazingly comfortable the sweater was. I’d never actually seen a baby alpaca, then I looked them up, and saw similarities between them and my look at the time. I had been traveling and my hair was grown out - it’s naturally curly so it was big and pompadourish, much like an alpaca. Kind of like helmet hair you could say. I hadn’t named my music project so it was just a natural thing, like, “Oh, I should just call it Baby Alpaca!”
Richard: Speaking of comfort, there’s been a resurgence of restaurants serving classic comfort food. Are you making comfort music?
Chris: The music is definitely very comforting.
Richard: It also has an escapist quality to it. Where do you like to escape to when you’re making it?
Chris: Ever since I was a child the place I escaped to is my Grandmother’s farm in Ohio. I used to go there and walk around in the woods and sing to myself. It’s one of the most comforting places that I like to think of. I feel like I’ve gotten so good at being comfortable I can kind of be comfortable anywhere now. It’s not really something that I have to turn on and off. I would like people to feel and hear comfort in my music.
Richard: You play an autoharp. How did you come to learn that instrument?
Chris: Well, I had been traveling with a lot of musician friends, and was in this second-hand music store and happened across one, I had never seen an autoharp before and just started playing it in the store. It was out of tune and really old and there wasn’t a tuner with it but it was really cheap so I bought it and I started playing it - out of tune. Eventually I ordered a tuner and was sort of teaching myself how to play it, watching a lot of videos of people that used to play it and I discovered I used it in a much different way.
Richard: It kind of links back to the farm and the country, doesn’t it?
Chris: Yeah, it definitely does, it’s fitting for me to play and also the sound it really fitting. I was looking into playing a harp, but it’s their size…
Richard: It’s quite a lot to hold between your legs!
Chris: Yeah, they’re huge.
Richard: How do you escape when you’re in Bushwick. Brooklyn is about as far away from a rural idyl as you can possibly get.
Chris: Yeah. I feel like my best escape is through music. When I’m not somewhere where I’m physically escaping, I think that that’s what I do - I make music. And like you said, my music has an escapist quality. Music, and also fashion, is the way that I do it. It allows me to be who I want and defy gravity, or just not think about what’s around me and just make songs. That’s the most creative I feel I can get. I mean, you can do drugs or something else, but those all seem to end up badly for most people, so it seems like music is my best escape.
Richard: Your escapism to me doesn’t seem to be about totally disconnecting yourself from a reality. It’s seems to be more about enhancing your reality.
Chris: Yeah, it’s about finding a reality worth being in, trying to surround yourself with people and friends, and hanging in the places that have a certain type of people, but you do have to sort of escape from where you are if you’re going to eventually find that.
Richard: Your music feels very free form and organic. Do you have a song writing and recording process? How does it work?
Chris: I like to to have a fully developed song and idea before I start recording. I like to play it on my aut harp or accordion, making up chord progressions, or I’ll make beats with my feet while playing the autoharp and sing, and I’ll record it on my iPhone. However, I rarely ever listen to those recordings. I think I use them as a crutch. It’s one of those things where I know, “Oh, I can go back to them, and hear all the words I sang last night on the roof.” But I tend to actually remember the whole experience, and it has almost becomes like a check that I do with myself, like if I don’t remember the words and I don’t remember the chords, maybe they’re not worth remembering.
When other people come in to play with Baby Alpaca I don’t give any direction. I only like to play with people that get it. I like people that fit in, and I don’t have to worry about. I feel doing it any other way would just hinder the whole creative process.
Richard: And is it difficult to find musicians who “get it”, ?
Chris: It’s been extremely difficult. My biggest struggle is finding people that are free and know how to let go, but are also grounded. I’ve gone from meeting musicians that are so free, though really all they are is ‘fucked up’, through to classically trained musicians that just don’t get the sound that I’m going for. But since I’ve been living in Bushwick I’ve made some really close friends thatI know will become solid, long-term musical collaborators. There are some people, like my brother, who started out as a classically trained musician that I would play with, who through playing with me a lot, and me dealing with him and him dealing with me, we ended up developing a great musical understanding of each other. I feel like he’s changed a lot since he’s been playing with Baby Alpaca, which is a cool thing to see, because he’s someone that I really love and care about in so many ways other than just musically. I think it’s the freedom that Baby Alpaca has that gave him freedom to let go and find himself. He’s in Japan now, so he’s become so free he’s gone!
Richard: Tell us about your jewelry and fashion collaborations
Chris: I was shopping in Clifton, a college town in Cincinnati, and came across some really interesting pieces of jewelry by Vein. It turned out that the designer Linda and I have a lot of friends in common, but we only found out when I was wearing her jewelry and she recognized it and now we’ve become really close friends. She started making pieces for me that I would wear to shows, and I had been working for a home accessories label called Middleton, which uses lots of natural materials… so, we started doing a collaborative jewelry line, which we call Vein & Baby Alpaca.
Richard: And what future collaborations do you have planned?
Chris: Future? We’ll definitely continue to do the jewelry, it’s been selling very well, and lately I’ve been planning with a few friends who work at The Row [The Olsen’s label]. I worked there last spring, so it’s kind of how I know everyone there. We’ve been working on ideas for performance-wear for Baby Alpaca. We want to develop a really strong visual aesthetic that embodies everything we’re inspired by: nature, found materials and of course comfort. It’s also definitely got a strong unisex feel - being able to lose gender and lose your mind and lose what you are.
Richard: Back to the music, tell us about your new single, “Beware the Woods”.
Beware the Woods - Baby Alpaca
Chris: I wrote “Beware of the Woods” a couple of months ago on my roof in Bushwick. It’s about the masculine being lost in lust over the feminine. “She’ll take you to the garden with the flowers/you’ll take off all your clothes and lay for hours”. In love, time can disappear. When blind in the arms of another, you become lost.
Richard: When do you plan on releasing your debut album?
Chris: Summertime! Can’t give the exact date, but it’s on its way. There’s going to be a song called “Dark Vodka” which is a mix of the song “Vodka Lemonade.” An alternate video is in the works too, to come out at the end of the summer.
Richard: And finally, you said that Baby Alpaca was a little like John Coltrane’s “A Few of My Favorite Things”. What are a few of your favorite things?
Chris: I love champagne. My dog Apple. I love her, she’s the most comfortable pet. And I love beautiful boys and girls who like to have fun… just like the von Trapp children. I like dressing up in curtains. And I like finding people. My most favorite thing is finding someone on the same page I’m on. Baby Alpaca will be performing with PAPS, Thursday May 13, at Pete’s Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St, Brooklyn, 8PM
and opening for Brahms, Tuesday June 1 at Pianos, 158 Ludlow St, New York, 8pm
One of the newest members of the EVB family, Austin Green, is having his first solo exhibition! The show is entitled Brutal/Beautiful: A New Freedom, and captures the complexity of the crossroads of youth, and the process of self-discovery. He draws inspiration from the romanticism of New York City subculture, where beauty shuns conformity and convention, melding fashion editorial, glam-art, and portraiture, challenging conventional perceptions of beauty, and the concept of masculine and feminine.
The show is in the Fred Perry Room, SPiN New York, 48 East 23rd, New York.
Opening reception with artist Thursday May 13, 7-11 PM (industry preview 7-8)
Free Absolut cocktails until 9 (or until they run out, whichever comes first)
RSVP to rsvp@brutal-beautiful.com
Exhibit runs through May 15, which isn’t very long, so just come to the opening!
Collaborations often bring out the best in everyone and paint them in a different light. This video is definitely a good argument for that. Muy muy guapo Ignacio Lozano, one of our frequent contributors, and past East Village Boy of the Week (see if you can find him), this time working on the other side of the camera, co-mingled with Domingo Fernández, Luca Guarini, and Antonio Mingot, to produce this kaleidoscopic video entitled L.
And keep an eye open for a special EVB collaboration with Luca, and a catch-up with what he’s been doing on his own, apart from the infamous Luigi y Luca collaborations.
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