One of the most prolific and recognizable artists alive today, New York-based painter, designer and street artist Ron English has bombed the global landscape with unforgettable images, on the street, in museums, in movies, books, television, and album covers. English coined the term POPaganda to describe his signature mash-up of high and low cultural touchstones, from superhero mythology to totems of art history, to create a hilarious visual language that turns advertising into “subvertizing” and parody into illumination.
DA
What are some of your most important aesthetic influences?
RE
Vodka and tonic.
DA
What’s your view on fracking, if done by elbow?
RE
Could break the earth in two, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on where it split.
DA
Would you like this interviewtf more if it had another title, like “No, Sir-iously,” or “’Have you explained your pupils to the cloud?’ I asked my ex-mom. But she was without vigor, she just stayed very calm and revised myhermy strangeness over and over again”?
RE
I would like it better if it had no title, I mean who titles an interview?
DA
You don’t have to be gay to find penises fascinating. The comedy „Superbad,“ for instance, features some funky dickophilia moments. What do you think about enhancing (or encocking) classic films the way you enhance (or encock) newsies? Oskar Schindler smoking a dickarette, for fuck’s sake?
RE
I think it would be funny if a dick sucked the egg out of a woman rather than injecting sperm. Then the fetus would mature in the man’s ball sack.
DA
What is the most (experimental) piece of art you’ve ever enjoyed?
RE
Infecting this email attachment with a computer virus.
DA
Who/what is the biggest dick in the universe? Whose asshole would it fit perfectly?
RE
Dark matter and a black hole.
DA
One TED talk a day keeps the _____________ away?
RE
Larry.
DA
Which role will (or should) male genitalia play in the far future – dick-hacking, ass-splicing, bio-junk, interstellar engineering?
RE
Plugging holes in the theory.
DA
At which point does Bizarro become an unacceptable transgreßion?
RE
The point of no return.
DA
Is it possible that music is totally overrated? Could one say the same about athlete’s dick?
RE
No.
DA
What would you rather have invented – the Ö or the 1?
RE
0.
DA
Why doesn’t the Canadian tech-metal band Martyr get the attention they deserve so much?
RE
It would go to their heads.
DA
How many spiders are needed to creep out one level-4 arachnophobe?
RE
Zero. A photo will suffice.
DA
What is your favorite ____________?
RE
Easy answers.
DA
Bonus question: What’s your take on the following 8 Nonsemes?
In quantum field-zag hypertime
a laser kyte emerges.
Let it rise high, high,
but don’t forget to include a pair of gallows.
Always close your wishes.
Whoever opens one,
should resort to distortion immediately.
Requests, however, are fine.
Glamorous Wha_ever
staring at me from around the clock.
As I take a closer look,
it’s just a silly old compiler of drag.
Stepped in ointments and pies.
We know how to distinguish
a coma hole
from grandma’s °.
You like something? –
Praise it!
Don’t like something? –
Bite it!
RE
It’s impossible to remember what you never knew to begin with. Impossible but not improbable. If somebody fucks with your mind I would hope they would use a condom or else you might give birth to an idea.
Image source: (c) Ron English