Rob Pruitt

‘Rob Pruitt makes art easy‘ Cris Moor, fashion photographer

In 1992, Rob Pruitt had a show at Leo Castelli Gallery in New York called Red, Black, Green, Red, White and Blue. At the time he was the toast of the NY art scene and he was working with fellow artist Jack Early. The show – which doesn’t seem to appear on the exhibition history section on the gallery website – was heavily lambasted. It featured golden sheets on the walls, with sprayed painting, totems with pictures of famous American black people such as Michael Jackson or Martin Luther King and criticized racial issues in the US.

Jack Early left the profession afterwards and Rob Pruitt did not have a solo exhibition in the USA for several years.

In 1998, he did what looked like a Minimalist sculpture with cocaine : Cocaine Buffet had a 16-foot mirror displayed on the floor with a line of coke stretching down on it. The piece, like its title said, was also a feast for anyone who happened to be there and agreed to get down on their knees to snort cocaine and be photographed while doing it.

Rob Pruitt promoting my blog, picture by the author

In 1999 he did 101 Art Ideas You Can Do Yourself which invites the audience to be part of easy art making in a funny way.

Idea No. 1 Tell the truth
Idea No. 2 Tell a lie
Idea No. 3 Change your name
Idea No. 4 Make someone happy!
Idea No. 5 Make someone cry
Idea No. 6 Fake laugh
Idea No. 7 Fake an orgasm
Idea No. 8 Fake your death
Idea No. 9 Get plastic surgery
Idea No. 10 Put make-up on body parts. Ear shadow, belly blush
Idea No. 11 Put make-up on your face
Idea No. 12 Make a painting with make-up
Idea No. 13 Stay in bed
Idea No. 14 Draw on your bedsheets
Idea No. 15 Make a baby
Idea No. 16 Kill yourself
Idea No. 17 Sell a collector the key to your house
Idea No. 18 Customize your refrigerator with paint, decals and locate in a place other than your kitchen
Idea No. 19 Customize storage boxes and display as sculpture
Idea No. 20 Make a painting on a lampshade
Idea No. 21 Vandalize your home with spray paint
Idea No. 22 Graffiti your bathroom
Idea No. 23 Use a magazine as a sketch book
Idea No. 24 Spread rumors
Idea No. 25 Draw something small, scan it, print it out big
Idea No. 26 Turn your TV upside down
Idea No. 27 Turn your TV on its side to watch while lying on your side
Idea No. 28 Watch TV without sound or listen to TV with the screen covered
Idea No. 29 Watch a DVD in fast forward, slow motion or reverse
Idea No. 30 Make a drawing by pressing pause and tracing the image off the TV screen
Idea No. 31 Spend the day in a costume
Idea No. 32 Sit on the toilets backwards
Idea No. 33 Make a sound composition when you pee by alternating the flow between the porcelain and the water
Idea No. 34 Do an interpretative dance to environmental sound. Baby crying, vaporetti, pigeon cooing
Idea No. 35 Wear diapers
Idea No. 36 Sprinkle glitter
Idea No. 37 Take drugs
Idea No. 38 Shoplift
Idea No. 39 Sneak your own merchandise into stores
Idea No. 40 Collect stuff
Idea No. 41 Curate a Youtube or Netflix festival
Idea No. 42 Make a mix tape
Idea No. 43 Take audio snapshots with a digital recorder
Idea No. 44 Arrange flowers in unexpected combinations. Baby’s breath & spring onions; buds, blooms & withered blossoms
Idea No. 45 Make a monochrome meal
Idea No. 46 Dress in monochrome
Idea No. 47 Live in a monochrome house
Idea No. 48 Be a photographer without a camera. Download images from the Internet
Idea No. 49 Buy something expensive and put it on a pedestal. Return it for your money back. Repeat
Idea No. 50. Make mud. 2 parts dirt, 1 part water. Use as paint or clay
Idea No. 51 Make a leaf out of paper and tape it to a tree
Idea No. 52 Make a tree and add it to a forest
Idea No. 53 Pour a glass of water to look at
Idea No. 54 Draw yourself into your favorite comic strip
Idea No. 55 Put everything inside outside
Idea No. 56 Bring everything outside inside
Idea No. 57 Fill a desk drawer with gravel and make a secret zen garden
Idea No. 58 Make a drawing by holding a marker in a place other than your hand, wherever you can. Toes, mouth, underarm, butt cheeks.
Idea No. 59 Make a drawing by highlighting as you read
Idea No. 60 Translate from one language to another
Idea No. 61 Frame a painting with a feather boa
Idea No. 62 Hang a painting crooked, sideways, upside down, or face to the wall
Idea No. 63 Go on an urban animal photo safari. Pigeons, rats, squirrels, cockroaches
Idea No. 64 Paparazzi your pet
Idea No. 65 Interior decorate your pet’s habitat
Idea No. 66 Make a valuable sculpture by adding a diamond
Idea No. 67 Put things on pedestals
Idea No. 68 Take things off pedestals
Idea No. 69 2 identical things side by side
Idea No. 70 10 identical things in a row
Idea No. 71 Something cut in half
Idea No. 72 Put googly eyes on things
Idea No. 73 Draw faces on Styrofoam wig heads, light bulbs and eggs
Idea No. 74 Point a treadmill at a painting
Idea No. 75 Name all the bricks that make up a wall
Idea No. 76 Make up drag queen names. Amber alert, Whitney Biennal
Idea No. 77 Make up band names
Idea No. 78 Name your plants
Idea No. 79 Name household pests. Bugs, mice
Idea No. 80 Invent a new color and name it François Pinot
Idea No. 81 Take things apart
Idea No. 82 Put things back together
Idea No. 83 Toss loose change into a pile on the floor
Idea No. 84 Make an aluminium foil death mask
Idea No. 85 An electric fan wearing a t-shirt becomes an easy figurative sculpture
Idea no. 86 Make a portrait of someone by printing their phone number poster-size
Idea No. 87 Make a portrait/self-portrait by captioning a mirror
Idea No. 88 Frame your credit card statement. I.E., the month of your trip to Paris
Idea No. 89 Stalk someone
Idea No. 90 Collect autographs, one per canvas or page. Think of as portraits
Idea No. 91 Make a photo album of all your worldly possessions
Idea No. 92 Record yourself talking for fifteen minutes, let your consciousness stream
Idea No. 93 Save and transcribe your voice mail. Publish your emails
Idea No. 94 Make a collage on an unopened wine bottle for the year of its vintage
Idea No. 95 Don’t clean your house and call it scatter art
Idea No. 96 Make a scent installation. A pine branch in a microwave, pour a glass of Cologne, fart
Idea No. 97 Write captions on the glass for the view outside your window
Idea No. 98 Write lyrics to a classical music composition
Idea No. 99 Title untitled paintings
Idea No. 100 Make a list
Idea No. 101 Title your life

He is currently exhibiting in FRESH HELL, show curated by artist Adam McEwen at the Palais de Tokyo. Esprit de Corps is a series he has been doing since 2006, which consists of several pairs of jeans filled with cement and laid out as a ballet choreography.

Esprit de Corps, 2006, installation view, Courtesy of Gavin Brown’s enterprise, NY

Rob Pruitt is represented by Gavin Brown’s enterprise and Air de Paris.
http://www.gavinbrown.biz/
http://www.airdeparis.com/

FRESH HELL, carte blanche à Adam McEwen, Palais de Tokyo, on view until Jan 16 2011.
http://www.palaisdetokyo.com/