On Wednesday, June 21, artist ClownVamp (CV) will share his first solo exhibition with the world, through a physical showing taking place at The Oculus at the World Trade Center in New York City -- curated by SuperRare and powered by TransientLabs.
CV shared that Chester Charles: The Lost Grand Master is an immersive artificial intelligence (AI) driven, alternate history, storytelling experience, that explores the story of self-censorship in historical queer art through the lens of his protagonist, Chester Charles.
To learn more about the artist's inspirations and process, as well as the history and future of queer art, Hypemoon spoke with CV, who expressed that most of our reality is just a curated version of the truth but that AI could help expand or challenge perception.
CHESTER CHARLES: The Lost Grand Master.
Announcing my first-ever solo show. ?♂️
An immersive AI-driven story.
June 21st at The Oculus - World Trade Center
Produced by @SuperRare and Powered by @TransientLabs.
10 months of work, culminating. ?
A thread... pic.twitter.com/u3oUEcbYRT
— ClownVamp (@ClownVamp) June 7, 2023
Conversation with ClownVamp
"We are living in a curated version of the truth every time we walk through a museum," - ClownVamp
Sharing the goal of the exhibition, CV said he wanted a show that would challenge people's perceptions of history and the accuracy of what they've been taught. He explained that "Instead, we are living in a curated version of the truth every time we walk through a museum."
To achieve this effect, CV shared that he "wanted to reflect back a fiction that rhymed with the truth. As a result, there are a lot of details intended to be strong facsimiles of what an actual retrospective would look like. The art is incredibly high resolution with brush and canvas details, each piece comes with the text of what would be on a museum label, and there was an inscription 'found' on the back of each piece."
The works in question are created by CV's alt-history protagonist, Chester Charles, who is described as "a lost impressionist painter, a man who wandered life with insatiable curiosity, a man whose work was self-censored and hidden from history -- a gay man.
Inspirations, Motivations, Process
"I often work on random AI experiments. Sometimes because I want to explore a feeling. Sometimes to try a new tool. Sometimes just because," CV shared.
Explaining how he landed on the concept of an alt-history retrospective, CV said that "Last year, I was creating some AI explorations around the concepts of fatherhood, trying to prompt a father-son walking in the woods, in a historical art style. The AI models at the time were very prone to twinning where they would replicate the subjects in your prompt," adding that "As a result, the AI model created a scene of two dads and a son. Seeing this result on the screen created this instant stir in me."
The generated scene ushered in a sort of revelation for CV who said "I wasn’t used to seeing gay scenes, let alone scenes of gay parenting, in historical art. As a gay man, I didn’t realize just how much I missed that when walking through museum galleries until that moment."
CV shared that he was lucky to have a long time to work on the project, allowing him to create a "mental glitch effect" that would have the audience questioning the existence of the work in legitimate history.
"Over time, I iterated on the idea and got lots of feedback from smart friends including Chris from Transient and Mika from SuperRare, eventually what became clear was that the best way to tell the story was to tell it from the perspective of a fictional artist, Chester Charles," said CV.
He further explained that "Much of the art canon is told through an academic lens of analysis, evaluating careers and the underlying aesthetic and biographical changes. The idea here is to use that familiar paradigm as a jumping-off point for a story."
Alt-History & Self-Censorship
For ClownVamp, AI represents the "ultimate remix machine," he shared that "It allows you to mix and mash styles in a way that is perfect for this sort of experiment. While the training data for these AI models doesn’t have historical queer art, it does have queer art and it does have historical art. As a result, these models can allow you to reconfigure the past by bringing these concepts together."
While much of the performative art show is created as an alt-history, some aspects are historically accurate or at the very least nod to early queer art.
Examples of this are found in Jim Van Buskirk's article that observes the "Queer Impressions of Gustave Caillebotte," an 18th Century French Impressionist painter whose works often focused on the male form, depicting them in submissive forms and in the case of 'Man at his Bath,' completely nude from the perspective of the male gaze.
Other works like Boating Party [Oarsman in a Top Hat] see what might be considered to be "coded" queer art -- where the overall composition is nothing out of the ordinary but the focal point brings viewers' eyes to the crotch of the oarsman.
Buskirk shared that "My aim here is not one of reductivism. It is not for me to determine whether or not Gustave Caillebotte might have been homosexual -- whatever that means -- but I do wonder why art historians are failing to ask questions in an effort to illuminate aspects which obviously distinguish his work from that of his contemporaries."
He added, "I would hope that future examinations of Caillebotte’s oeuvre include an exploration of the 'queer' gaze so abundantly evident in his work."
Back to the conversation with CV, he explained that "When we think about art that doesn’t exist, or at least that we don’t have a record of. It goes deeper than just what wasn’t celebrated, or what wasn’t collected. It also goes to what wasn’t even made. Self-censorship is the way that queer people have often had to navigate their environments."
"Say the wrong thing and suffer consequences ranging from shame to literal death. The result is that there is a massive amount of human potential that was never even expressed. What could have been? What would have been? What should have been?" the artist put forward, explaining the significance of AI as a tool to further explore these questions.
Question Reality
"My goal is for the viewer to realize that what we think of as deeply factual or even academic, is really a flawed reality," shared CV adding that "It represents just what was allowed to be said, let alone recorded for posterity."
He further explained that "By showing an altered version of reality, my aim is for people to confront this. The show is meant to both transport you to a different time, but also feel unsettling at the same time. I want you to start to question the realities you face every day, and to think about how are some of these constraints still around today."
As CV looked to make the alt-history work as believable as possible, he mentioned that paint textures were a crucial aspect and explained that "One of the biggest breakthroughs was figuring out how to nail the painting textures I was looking for, [which he did] thanks to some great tips from friend and fellow artist Henry Daubrez and way too much time experimenting."
"The goal of the show is to make you question reality and so making it feel as close to real as possible was essential. I want you to smell the canvas when you look at the painting, especially when they’re blown up on the large screens of the physical show," he said.
Speaking on his partners, TransientLabs and SuperRare, CV said that "Chris Ostoich [COO] has been a lover and collector of AI work since before he joined Transient and has been a phenomenal brainstorming partner for how we can best leverage technology, narrative, and aesthetics to all work together."
As for the curation team from SuperRare, CV said that "Mika, Linda, and the SuperRare team have been phenomenal. I had thousands of pieces to pick from and they helped me craft the ideal aesthetic narrative that would also work on a storytelling level."
Those interested in viewing the solo exhibition, powered by TransientLabs and Curated by SuperRare will be able to attend both on-chain and in-person viewings starting June 21. A total of 23 pieces will be shown, with three to be auctioned on SuperRare starting at a 1 ETH reserve price -- additionally, the show will include an ETH and Tezos-based open edition.
Three pieces will be available via SuperRare auctions.
The reserve will be set to 1 ETH on Wednesday at 10AM.
Three pieces available:- Doves by the Sea II, 1882- The Crowded Stage, 1905- Self Portrait, 1938
(Remaining pieces will be minted upon request after the show) pic.twitter.com/oUT5Kdj3oJ
— ClownVamp (@ClownVamp) June 19, 2023
"Between 'Chester Charles' and his guest curation, ClownVamp is marrying the queer medium of AI with the legacies of queer artists, past, present, or fictional, unsung or in hiding, erased or hypervisible," said SuperRare.
Elsewhere in art, see how ‘Human Unreadable’ showcases art longevity through an emotionally-driven experience.
Click here to view full gallery at Hypemoon
