Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo de Devo makes public with his art at the Mutmuz gallery

Mark Mothersbaugh has many hats: he is a prolific composer for cinema and television, including the animated mastodon “Rugouts”; He scored four Wes Anderson and “Thor: Ragnarok” films from Marvel and is currently working with Pixar. The toddlers who spot the septuagenarians with gray hair and cold views at an airport point and gargouillis, “Yo Gabba Gabba!” Thank you to the Mothersbaugh painting segment entitled “Mark's Magic Pictures” in the very popular children's show.

But none of the hats worn by the prolific creator is as emblematic – in a certain public segment that likes music – as the top of the “energy dome” in tailor -made red plastic buried by Devo. Or, in terms of laity, the “pots of flowers upside down” were worn in 1980 by the Mothersbaugh range co-created at Kent State University in the early 1970s. Devot recently interpreted On “SNL50: The Homecoming Concert” and extended its farewell tour which started in 2023.

During a recent sunny day of the week, the native of Akron, Ohio, prepares his first solo exhibition of paintings and screen fingerprints – “Why are we here?” No. 01 » – To open Friday in his own Mutmuz gallery. He owned the space, on the Chung King Hipster-Meet-Dusty-Ob-School road in Chinatown, for several years, and hung works of art on the walls. But he has never opened it to the public so far.

Why not open it to others earlier? In addition to his sometimes mixed creations, the busy multitualian seems to have mixed emotions on the sale of his works. Not that he has a shortage; It has created almost one “postcard” per day for 30 years, and now has thousands of pieces carefully organized in books with archive sleeves. Most cards include cryptic, sometimes multilingual, engines of good writings with his beloved Sumi-e Brush the pens. An example: “It was a unique game … which lasted 75 years.”

The multi-instrumentalist even wrote the first words of Devo's song “Urnge's colorless” on a map, but sent him to an acquaintance with which he exchanged the art of the postcard, then discovered that he had forgotten the verse by the rehearsal of the following group.

“After that, I stopped sending the cards – I started to keep them. I thought I would not show them to anyone. ” It assumes that there must be around 70,000 pieces. He also has a warehouse to host his works on paper … and more.

The hoarding trends of self -proclaimed Nerd led to 165 visual and audio art exhibitions, including its itinerant retrospective, “myopia”.

With Mutmuz, he makes public in a new way. He looks around the high ceiling and cement leaves gallery, the upper row was hung with larger paintings on canvas, the weakest with wallpapers. “Everything here, at one point, I was very happy to have suspended in my room. And I loved it.”

Mashrsbaugh looks at his job a week before the opening of his gallery.

(CARLIN STIEHL / For Times)

Mashrsbaugh first envisaged being “very active” with the space of the gallery – “then I obtained struck by COVVIAnd that has really changed everything, “he said. Adged by his family, who urged him to” raise the gallery and go “, he finally opens its doors. Although the fallout from the virus continues – Mashrsbaugh has long coche – he continued to compose (Netflix of” The Residence “and” A Minecraft film “are two recent projects). The paintings in “Why All here? N ° 01 ”were created during the pandemic.

Every 10 oil paintings in the show and the 10 limited edition prayers are without a framework; The only frames in the room are the own distinct silver glasses of Mothersbaugh, correcting its myopia. That said, many of his paintings have hand -drawn sentences around the borders that frame and contextualize work. But not all. Again.

Mothersbaugh's art, like Devo's music, is often endearing.

(CARLIN STIEHL / For Times)

It is a week before the opening, and none of the art is yet at the price or titled. It also seems that Mashrsbaugh's hearts could break if someone left with a purchase. He was called “hobby”, and that seems to include his own amount of bulky work.

Some time ago, the New York gallery owner and the gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch wanted to show his work, explains Mashrsbaugh. “What made him freak out was that I sold them.” '

Deitch told Mothersbaugh that its customers' prices should start at $ 50,000. Mashrsbaugh, which carries artistic materials such as pens and a stock of pre-prepared cards in a Ziploc bag, liked Deitch, but he refused. The art of Mashrsbaugh, like Devo's music, is often frantic, funny, intellectual and endearing.

The self -portrait of Mashrsbaugh, with a clown nose, will be exposed to the opening of the Mutmuz gallery.

(CARLIN STIEHL / For Times)

As a collector and creator of ephemers, Mothersbaugh's tastes are dark. One of the pieces of “Why are we here?” was informed by a childhood incident. Looking at the work, the artist remembers: “I remember shouting for help while I was chased by a duck when I was 4 years old. And my family was sitting there. I entered a basement window and crashed through it. ” This visual scenario could soon hang in someone's living room.

“If someone says he wants to buy (a painting), I will say:” I want me to always finish the border? ” Some, I watched them and I saw that I also want to put more things on the front, ”he continues, specifically looking at one of the more foreign pieces near the gallery. “I could see someone to go and he is hanging on the wall, and I could add something on this downward plane, or I could write something on the front of the car.”

Mashrsbaugh has always known that he would be in a group, but he went to Kent State to study art, in particular attracted by engraving and calligraphy. Conversing on apparently all cultural and socio-political subjects under the sun, he sees himself and his work in the category of “Social Scientist. I just documented things I see. I do it in caricatures. Ear ears. Keeping the size of the postcard is a duo of Cuban stamps of 10 cents.

The co-founder Devo considers himself a specialist in the social sciences and frequently uses images of cartoons in his works.

(CARLIN STIEHL / For Times)

His inspiration appears more “childhood ducks” or notation of novelty than, let's say, René Magritte or Lucian Freud. And all his oil works come from his original works of art the size of a postcard. A more recent topical muse: Jack White. He did not tell the musician that the play features a masked man with a vintage appearance in a costume and the words “So it's all. Nashville, ”came after the two met. From the French text, Mashrsbaugh deplores the fact that it is not multilingual. Instead, “What I do is sometimes that I mean something, so I google it and if I like its appearance in another language, I will put it in another language.”

Mothersbaugh's work is created in its own work as an architectural infamy, the seat of Mutato Muzika, the emblematic Green Neon Green building on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood which houses its production studio. The name of the Chinatown gallery derives from this nickname studio, itself a portman of “mutant” and “potato”.

“Some of these things are used in things,” he said, making a gesture towards the art of the album and walking in the bright room, making incense of the consolidated Chinese consolidated insurance. through the manner of pedestrians only. “Most, however, I do it right for me. It's like things I hear, things that wake me up in the middle of the night, things like that. I just add small disparate pieces.” The end result can evoke a feeling of palimpsest.

The prolific artist studied at Kent State University, particularly attracted by engraving and calligraphy.

(CARLIN STIEHL / For Times)

Mashrsbaugh is grateful that his “day work” finances his collection – and artistic creation habits.

As such, his gallery objectives seem modest: “To be honest, the business of an art gallery is less interesting than simply put in place, then speak to people and let people see things to which they could have a reaction.”

With his many hats, Mothersbaugh is an accomplished juggler, although he does not know how everything is part of his head. “I don't know what my head is. I look at my brothers and sisters, and I think they are all smarter than me. They will make better decisions than me; And then some make worse decisions, sometimes, ”he says. “But, again, I think I have the impression that most people around me are more exceptional. It turns out that I am obsessed with the realization of things. ”