When he's not raising hell on the pitch with the Chinatown Soccer Club or feverishly blogging over at 12oz Prophet, Brooklyn-based artist and designer Dan Funderburgh keeps busy producing beautifully crafted art and design. You may recognize the ornate wallpaper designs he's crafted for Flavorpaper and Ecko Unlimited. Or perhaps you've seen the screenprints he's done for the Truth anti-smoking campaign or Complex magazine. Or who knows, you may have even seen his extraordinary work hanging in a gallery in your neighborhood. Whatever the case, if you haven't spied a glimpse of his work until now, you'll quickly realize you've been missing out. I recently spoke with Mr. Funderburgh, here's how our conversation played out.
What first attracted you to design?
Like a lot of young artists or musicians, my first instinct after recognizing something beautiful was to try and mimic it. At first I copied Lego instructions, more recently, oriental rugs.
In mimicking what you liked at first, what was easy and what was difficult for you?
Drawing complicated and ornate patterns has never been a problem. It's not always fast, but I can submerge myself in a design for days at a time.
Coming up with something different is always a little difficult. The more you look at, the more you realize that art is a minefield of clichés and pretensions.
That’s interesting about clichés and pretension in art, because I often wonder how certain trends originate and become so popular. When you realized this, did it automatically change the way you approached making art?
I think everyone recognizes some degree of cliché and tries to go beyond it. When I was in high school in Kansas, I thought I was edgy because I drew guys with fat laces and spray paint cans, but this turned out to be false. The fact that these visual trends are so popular is proof that not everyone perceives and/or appreciates a genuine New Idea. They are vanishingly scarce, and the more I work, the more I realize their immense value.
The wallpapers you create are very ornate. What influenced you to begin making wallpaper designs?
I began making patterns for textiles when I worked in the apparel industry. In doing research I came across so many inspiring references that would look amazing on paper, but truly terrible on a sweatshirt. I decided I was in the wrong line of work and began trying to focus on getting my patterns on walls.
Has the change from designing apparel to creating wall patterns been good so far?
It's been super! I still like aspects of fashion, but on the whole, think it's better off with out me.
At the Fellow Traveler exhibition, at Riviera Gallery with Justin Fines and Kevin Devine, you gave volume to the patterns you make, creating 3D tools. How did that idea come about?
I came across an amazing tool shed in an abandoned warehouse in the Rockaways. The tools were gone but it had painted silhouettes of all the tool outlines. The shapes of the tools were familiar but vaguely threatening. This idea merged with a some thoughts I've had for a while about the nature of decoration—about how it used to come standard on everything as a measure of that item's worth. Tools that people used on a daily basis; axes, plates, plows, anchors historically were carved and with all kinds of beautiful , intricate designs and I think that speaks about the changing relationship between people and tools.
That’s an incredible discovery—the shed. It sounds like the story for your show was already there, it just needed you to translate it to a gallery?
And that still took some time, but yes. Each implement is embellished with a kind of hybrid Arabian-Moroccan-60's op art-Japanese-Renaissance-Aztec style decorative language. Which is great fun but took me a couple months.
Can you tell me a little bit about the Chinatown Soccer Club—what it is and how you got involved?
The Chinatown Soccer Club is a loosely organized pickup game that has been going down three to five mornings a week on the pitch in Chinatown NYC since about 2001. It is largely made up of creative types—designers, artists, architects, skateboarders, and photographers with a true passion for the sport. After I was introduced to the club by long time member Justin Fines, I was forced to undergo a series of physical challenges while answering rapid-fire soccer and art history trivia. It was harrowing, but I've never looked back.
In June we went to Eurocup 2008 in Vienna to promote the club and a shoe that Adidas made for the club. We assembled a clubhouse with photographs and framed classic CSC jerseys and I made a custom chinatown toile wallpaper for the exhibit space. It was an amazing trip and I thought was received quite well.
Do you have any upcoming projects or exhibitions you're working on?
I have plans to do a couple shows within the next year. One with a slew of less commercial wallpapers, and the other more sculptural. They're still in the incubator at this point, but I figure the more people I mention them to, the more motivated I'll be to follow through.
If you had it all to do over again in life, would you still pursue art?
This seems like a trick question. I've been incredibly lucky, and besides riches, I can think of nothing I've had to sacrifice to do exactly what I like every single day. Given the chance, I would pursue art earlier and more zealously.
Related links: www.danfunderburgh.com www.thoughtninjas.com www.12ozprophet.com/index.php/dan_funderburgh www.chinatownsoccerclub.com
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