Grisha Morgenstern

Grisha Morgenstern's mother is a painter and his father is a wrought iron worker.

This doesn't quite explain his bloody deer iconagrahpy, but it does hint at why he works in every single fucking medium.




Chief Magazine: You do clothing design, web design, illustration, and painting animation? do you have one single passion?

Grisha Morgenstern: I`m really passionate about all of them. But if I have to work too much in one
category it sucks! I think it is the same with relationships. So I think my one real passion is painting. But nobody wants to buy my sick artwork, so I don`t have to paint that much.

How did it all get started? Were you one of those kids in school always drawing?

I think it started in kindergarten. I realized that I can impress the girls with building sandcastles for their Barbies. In school there where no sandboxes anymore. I had to rethink my "sweetest boy in class" technique and started drawing and then painting. At 12-years-old, I painted on my first canvas. Then I discovered the computer and lost all my free hand painting skills.

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It seems like you`re a bit obsessed with deer, specifically dead deer?

I´m over it now. It was a really dark and evil phase in my life. I don´t wanna talk about.

A lot of your work seems to put nature and animals against cities and man-made items? Are you an animal-lover?

Is that a joke? Meat kills man. That´s why we have to kill meat and eat it all. I grew up in the country-side. As kids, my sister and I had a lot of animals. I really enjoy nature but I also love big, dirty cities. I think the combination of both is the key. We can make war against everything, but not against nature and Jesus. If we try to fuck with them, they will fuck us twice. And not in a nice way. What do you mean, "animal lover"? If you want to talk about that - it is not forbidden to have sex with animals in Germany – so don´t ask hidden questions.

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Right now I´m sitting in my girlfriend's apartment with her dog and her cat. They are in love, but after 12 years living together they don´t have any idea what to do with each other. So I´m thinking to put some valerian on the back of the dog. I heard cats turn into super horny monsters if they smell it. Oh yes, I love animals.

You're German, not from Berlin though? What's your hometown like?

I'm from a small village in the south of Germany close to the border to France and Switzerland. We can leave our cars open and don't have to lock our bikes. I think that is the only difference with Berlin. We have eBay, drugs around the corner, and cable TV. We have big landscapes and also big industries that actually keeps the area alive. But it's small. Not like in some parts of the states where you have to drive hours to see a hut or reach the next village. In Germany, everything is very close.

Nature vs. Nurture?

I would say "Nature via Nurture". I think that every kind of art is the most unimportant thing in the world. But with the modernization of human thinking we learned to accept that harmless kind of "mind sickness." If you go back a few hundred years, painting or wrought iron working was a handiwork which was only created for practical use. People tried to make it a bit nicer, but not out of concept. If you beam Neo Rauch or Jeff Koons into that era, people would point at them and scream, "Sorcerer, Satan, Sponge bob!" and five minutes later they would find themselves at the top of a pile of wood, realizing that their ass is on fire. I think that our self-penetration to create art is a manipulation of our human mind because of inbreeding or whatever. So actually, a manipulation of genes related to nature. For me, "nature via nurture." My grandfather was a painter, my mom is a painter, and my dad makes wrought iron. People who create art in every kind of way have no shame to show that they are sick. People who are interested in art are not more then zoo visitors bored by animals.

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Your style is very flat and bright, very graffiti-based? do you watch a lot of cartoons? Do you do graffiti? Or is this something that just comes out in your designs?

I like cartoons. That´s right, but more those old, handmade productions. Not the B-Cartoon, 3D animation stuff that you find on TV today. But I can´t tell if my work is graffiti-based. I don´t think so and I don´t really
like graffiti work. There are some great artists around the world and it makes places look nicer, but I would say my work is more street art based, which means nothing. Unfortunately most graffiti artwork is not more than the fingerprint of stupid people on beautiful, architectural, historical, and modern masterpieces.

Who/what inspires you?

I use every kind of music to transfer the feeling I have inside my work. From Slipknots across Barbara Streisand, NIN, or Antony and the Johnsons. Then I really try to walk around with my eyes open. Most people don't perceive what happens around them. They are only open to get information from the TV. That is why I try not to watch TV anymore. For sure I love good movies, but no broadcasts that turn people into blockheads. I think that is also a reason why it's not possible for our generation to create new styles any more, like from the 20s to the 80s. In the 90s, TV entered into our life. Before '84, creative people had to create without that influence. All we see now are revivals of revivals of everything.

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What's up with those boob dolls you made?

I don´t know! They are still traveling around the world. I can say my boobs saw more places then me. They started in Venice, then Paris, London, Moscow, Berlin, and I have no clue were they are now. Maybe in southern California drinking with David Hasselhoff… hanging out at the seaside to get tan.

How was your time at Benetton's research center, Fabrica?

It was a great year, but hard work. Benetton wasted a lot of my time. But also gave me a lot of new friends all over the world. I had a lot of fun! I created some wall vinyls and bedding stuff you can buy in Benetton stores. I published some of my best work in

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a few magazines all over the world, I did some animations for Benetton TV, and also for the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Oh, I also puked into the Fabrica Zen pool built by Tadao Ando. My gosh, that was a great time.

Can you describe your process? Inspiration to actualization? Do these images come to you in dreams and then you pound them out using a computer? Do you begin with a sketch?

I only sketch if I am doing objects or instillations. For everything else I have the idea only in my mind. I try to work one to one from the idea to the medium. If I first start sketching it would falsify my basic idea. I think what makes my style is that I try to brake the rules or conventions. Composing styles with each other that don´t fit, themes and happenings which aren't in relation to each other.

Anything out there worth checking out? Anyone impressing you lately?

My girlfriend impresses me every day. She is the coolest chick on earth. Also people I meet in every different kind of place are really impressing. Not always in a good way. But that makes me happy - I'm as normal as I could be. Creativity is an illness of the mind nobody needs.


Website
www.nativeneon.com

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