Adam Lerner - Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia
organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver
November 2014 May 2015

Minneapolis Institute of Arts
June September 2015

Cincinnati Art Museum / Contemporary Arts Center
October 2015 January 2016

The Contemporary Austin
February May 2016

The Santa Monica Museum of Art
August December 2016

Grey Art Gallery, New York
January May 2017

Published by
Princeton Architectural Press
37 East Seventh Street
New York, New York 10003
Visit our website at www.papress.com

In association with
Museum of Contemporary Art Denver
1485 Delgany Street
Denver, Colorado 80202

2014 Museum of Contemporary Art Denver
All rights reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews.

Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions.

Editor: Megan Carey
Book design: Paul Wagner
Design assistance: Benjamin English
Prepress: Andrea Chlad

Special thanks to:
Meredith Baber, Sara Bader, Nicola Bednarek Brower, Janet Behning, Carina Cha, Barbara Darko, Russell Fernandez, Will Foster, Jan Haux, Mia Johnson, Diane Levinson, Jennifer Lippert, Katharine Myers, Jaime Nelson, Jay Sacher, Rob Shaeffer, Sara Stemen, Marielle Suba, Joseph Weston, and Janet Wong of Princeton Architectural Press Kevin C. Lippert, publisher

Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mark Mothersbaugh : myopia / edited by Adam Lerner ; foreword by Wes Anderson.
pages cm
Published on the occasion of the exhibition Mark Mothersbaugh: Myopia, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-61689-262-3 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-61689-408-5 (epub, mobi)
1. Mothersbaugh, MarkCriticism and interpretation. I. Lerner, Adam, 1966 editor of compilation. II. Anderson, Wes, 1969 writer of supplementary textual content. III. Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver.
N6537.M6697M37 2014
709.2dc23

2014010992

opening illustrations

Mark Mothersbaugh. Self-Portrait as Clown (detail), 1987

Mark Mothersbaugh. Untitled, February 7, 1984

Mark Mothersbaugh. 1964Monument to the Conquerors of Space, 2012

Mothersbaugh posing in signature energy dome hat.

The artists alter ego Booji (pronounced boogie) Boy.

Mark Mothersbaugh. The Petting Zoo, 2004

Mark Mothersbaugh. Untitled, November 10, 1996

I am grateful to many people for making this book and its accompanying exhibition possible. Starting with the circumstances that first brought Mark and me together, I am grateful to the organizers of the Denver County Fair, who had the good sense to bring DEVO to Denver in 2011. And thank you to my friend, the old-time punk photographer Richard Peterson, for arranging for Mark to meet with Steven Wolf and me while the band was in town so that we could interview him about his collaboration with Bruce Conner on the MONGOLOID video. Thanks to United Airlines for delaying Stevens flight from San Francisco and allowing me to meet with Mark alone. Thanks to Bruce Conner for not collaborating much with DEVO on the MONGOLOID video, which allowed Mark to talk about his own art. And, of course, thanks to Mark for being one of the most interesting figures in American culture of the last forty years and convincing me within minutes of meeting him that I needed to tell his story more broadly.

A project like this requires a great deal of research. We are grateful to the pioneers who came before us, Jade Dellinger and David Giffels, for their superbly researched book We Are DEVO! Are We Not Men? and Kevin C. Smith for his historically insightful Recombo DNA: The Story of DEVO, or How the 60s Became the 80s. Thanks to Jade Dellinger for loaning artwork from his personal collection to the exhibition. We are grateful to the staff at the archives at Kent State University and the Getty Research Institute for answering so many queries and providing so much valuable material. And thanks to the consummate DEVO fan Michael Pilmer for making the DEVO archive available to me and working with the museum as an exhibition consultant.

Because work on this project has taken so many paths, including a detour through Mexico, I am grateful to Eduardo Sarabia and Jose Noe Suro in Guadalajara for helping fabricate many of the sculptures and embracing us so kindly. And thanks to Viviana Kuri Haddad and the entire staff at the Museo de Arte de Zapopan for hosting the first exhibition of these sculptures.

At Marks studio, Mutato Muzika, Andrea Feyler and Natalie Montgomery were enormously helpful in supporting this exhibition and publication, and Dane Jensen was a valuable research assistant. Marks studio assistant, Marc Neil Baker, an enthusiastic and tireless worker, has done so much from the very beginning to make this exhibition possible, and we are grateful to him for always being available to us.

I am indebted to the incredible staff at MCA Denver for trying so hard not only to make our exhibitions and projects successful, but to make our artists feel loved and appreciated. Thanks especially to the original curatorial assistant on the project, Tricia Robson, as well as Nora Burnett Abrams, Scott Anderson, Sarah Kate Baie, Carina Buchwald, Laura Huff, Kelly Fitzpatrick McKee, Lauren Patterson, Nick Silici, and Alex Stephens. We would like to acknowledge the museum interns who worked overtime on this project, including Rose Kalasz, Rebecca Macey, and Thomas Rowell. We are also grateful to Ben Griswold and Kat Perez, who have been helpful beyond their assigned task of exhibition design. I am grateful to the very special MCA Denver Board of Trustees for supporting me in all of my ventures, especially this one, which is admittedly out of the norm for a contemporary art exhibition.

I am very grateful to Princeton Architectural Press, especially our editor, Megan Carey, and designer, Paul Wagner, who fought fiercely for this book and have always shown incredible devotion to the project. Thanks to the directors of the host venues for believing in this project and helping disseminate the message. Of course, I am grateful to the authors, who took their assignments so seriously.

Thank you to all the funders of this project, especially David Caulkins, John Caulkins, Bruce Etkin, Heidi and Scott Mellin, and Corporate Presenting Partner Liberty Global. Thanks especially to Martha and Rich Rainaldi for their generous support of this exhibition, even though Club DEVO still has not sent Rich the energy dome hat he ordered thirty years ago.

I am enormously grateful to MCA Denver curatorial assistant Sonya Falcone, who has been my loyal partner and benevolent taskmaster on everything related to this endeavor. She has provided many small insights along the way that have amounted to a very large impact on the finished product. If I ever met a single deadline, it was due to her vigilance; the fact that any work got done at all is thanks to her caring oversight.