Will Boone
in conversation with
Randy Kennedy, moderated by Nate Freeman
Friday, October 9, 3:30 pm
Crowley Theater
98 S. Austin St
Marfa, Texas
Will Boone developed his multidisciplinary art practice in Texas under the influence of underground music, drawing on the material manifestations of various American obsessions; Elvis, conspiracy theories, roadside attractions, the open road, the country’s native flora and fauna, and monster movies all feature in Boone’s cosmological vernacular. For his early text-based “sigil” paintings, the artist took inspiration from marks left by twentieth-century vagabonds as they traversed the United States. Subsequent work made in New York and later Los Angeles includes zines and books, sprawling installations, hand-painted bronze statues of blown-up vintage hobby models, a sculpture sited on the backlot of Paramount Picture studios, another in an underground bunker in the Coachella Valley for DesertX 2017, and Sweet Perfume (2019), a film featuring a misunderstood Leatherface character who moves to California to find himself. Boone shares a fascination with the dark underbelly of the American psyche with sculptor Cady Noland and an obsession with the mythological Western landscape of extremes with artist Robert Smithson. The artist lives in Houston.
Randy Kennedy is a writer, editor and curator. He worked for 25 years for The New York Times, much of that time writing about the art world, and he has also written for Aperture, The Paris Review, The Art Newspaper and numerous other publications. His first novel, Presidio, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2018. He is currently the editor of Ursula magazine, published by Hauser & Wirth.
Nate Freeman is an art correspondent at Vanity Fair, and his True Colors dispatch is a must-read investigation into the contemporary art world and the way in which it infiltrates the luxury sphere, high finance, global politics, and pop culture. He’s based in Manhattan.
