Interview: Guy Richards Smit — The Grossmalerman! Show

Guy Richards Smit and Joshua White
The Grossmalerman! Show
Spring/Break Art Show 2016
Curated by Catherine Mahoney of Art + Accomplice
Photo by Arcade Project

Spring/Break Art Show 2016:

In a corner of the fourth floor of Moynihan Station, Catherine Mahoney of Art + Accomplice curated two rooms, transforming the spaces into immersive environments that almost made one forget that they were at an art fair.

One room, The Grossmalerman! Show  by Guy Richards Smit and Joshua White, a mock up of the studio of his alter ego, invited the viewer to come in, sit down, get comfortable and live in his surreal world. Smits’ studio, the setting of the sitcom that played on a television screen in the studio places the viewer within the world of Johnathan Grossmalerman while watching it in five twenty-two-minute sitcom episodes — creating a loop of time and space where the visitor can sit on the couch among the detritus of the studio, surrounded by Grossmalerman’s paintings.

It was like being in an episode of Friends if my friends were the worst art world types in Brooklyn. I sat down with Smit to discuss the concept and the process behind The Grossmalerman! Show.

Guy Richards Smit with installation of The Grossmalerman! Show
Spring/Break Art Show 2016
Curated by Catherine Mahoney of Art + Accomplice
Photo by Arcade Project

Arcade Project: There are many layers to your brilliant installation, or what would you call it, an environment?

Guy Richards Smit: Environment, it is more of an environment. I liked the idea of having the viewer sitting ‘in’ the set and also ‘watching’ the set as it functions on the TV. Watching a character drink from a bottle and have that actual bottle be right in front of you.

Sets have such magic to them and I love seeing even partially recreated sets like at the Smithsonian of, like, you know, All in the Family. Everything becomes this strange fetish object imbued with some weird power. Walking onto a stage is always oddly disruptive and special. Just being under the lights, having your vantage point be changed and knowing that this is where the shit goes down. I enjoyed the idea of putting people in that situation.

AP: Unlike in a sitcom with an invisible fourth wall, the audience, your environment actually has four walls. The viewer/audience becomes a part of the scene; it’s more like immersive theater.

GRS: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

AP: Did you begin as a painter, sculptor or what led to this multimedia experience?

How did your career lead up to this environment?

GRS: I’m primarily a painter. That’s where everything starts for me. All of my other pursuits come out of a really unfair frustration with painting. I want painting to be more than it really can be. I want it to be thrilling like a pop song and sublime like an episode of The Young Ones. Each episode is really just an excuse to paint a whole new set of paintings which are at the core of the narrative. And despite all the absurdity each episode contains a scene where the loving and fraught act of painting is discussed. And like the rules of painting, the sitcom has rules which we tried as best possible to follow. For instance, each episode is twenty-two-minutes, which was always the classic length of sitcoms. You can watch all five episodes online at grossmalerman.com.

AP: I guess your character is supposed to be the worst stereotype of the male artist in the New York art world.

GRS: Yeah, yeah.

AP: Like the Brooklyn nightmare?

GRS: Yeah, he’s completely a self-involved narcissist who has a total inability to empathize, entitled, acts on each passing impulse. When I first created him, 20 years ago he was very hateful character, one I had zero sympathy for, but as I’ve grown older I’ve developed a more complicated relationship with him. He’s become slightly more pitiful and perhaps even a little bit likable.

AP: Are you saying that he’s closer to yourself now?

GRS: I just realized as I got older how imperfect everyone is and its was very easy to despise him but it got more interesting the more I tried to understand him. It’s still a learning curve.

AP: You’ve been working with some amazing people on this.

GRS: Yes, I worked many years ago on a project with Joshua White, a legendary guy who did the psychedelic Light Shows at the Fillmore East and Woodstock and eventually found himself directing television in the 70’s and Max Headroom in the 80’s and you might remember a show called Delta House. An attempt to turn Animal House into a sitcom.

AP: Yes! I can still sing the theme song!

GRS: Well, he eventually shot a few episodes of Seinfeld which is when I met him. Everyone on set was like “That guys just directed an episode of Seinfeld!”  We got along really well and stayed in contact. I had recently had this idea of turning Seinfeld into a classic sitcom and ran into him and just thought “Hey, if there is anyone to talk to about doing a classic sitcom it’s this guy!” He loved the idea and we got right to it. We had a really great rapport and honestly, I’ve never learned as much from anybody. He’s just this incredible fountain of knowledge and his taste is impeccable. Despite raising a lot of money on Kickstarter, we knew it would have a certain do-it-yourself ridiculousness.  But we followed all the rules and were able to gather the absolute cream of the crop in terms of talent. People like Neal Medlyn and Jibz Cameron, not to mention Jenn Harris, Ana Matronic and Carmine Covelli. I don’t know how we managed to get all these amazing performers together five Fridays in a row. Each Friday we would shoot the next episode in front of a live studio audience.