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xxisxxisxxis · 5 years ago

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Gateway Drug | Part Fifty-One

Table of Content or Part Fifty

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Word count: 4.6K

Warning(s): explicit language, drug abuse, minor sexual situations, violence

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My stomach aches with laughter as Duff delivers his punchline of his joke, my hands coming up to cover my mouth as I try to chew my fried mozzarella stick and he takes a sip of his beer, laughing as I snort, which only causes me to laugh even harder, until the both of us are laughing possibly the ugliest anyone has ever laughed, and I'm discarding my food into a napkin because I'm laughing too hard to try to chew it.

My eyes are watering, and thin tears roll down my cheeks.

We finally calm down, seeing people glaring at us for being so loud, but we ignore them.

"That was pretty good." I give him credit where credit is due, shifting in my seat a little and taking in a sharp breath as my sore thigh takes notice of the movement.

"Are you okay?" He asks me and I nod.

"It's still sore." I tell him, trying not to take notice of the expression on his face that flashes for a split second.

Nobody could understand why the hell I went right back home when I got out of the hospital like Nikki hadn't put my life in serious danger.

It wasn't like Nikki had intentionally shot at me. He didnt know what the hell I was and just kicked into to survival mode.

I didn't see the big deal in staying with him.

Tommy, Vince and Mick didn't even know what really happened. Doc had told them the same thing he told me to tell the press: I dropped Nikki's gun on accident, while trying to move it, and it went off and caught me.

He didn't want them to know the truth because they were working on the new album, and he didn't want to "create conflict" within the group.

So the only people that knew the truth aside from Fred, Doc and Nikki, was Duff, Slash, Steven, Izzy and Axl.

It wasn't long after that, that Axl informed me he wrote "You're Crazy" about me as a joke, but realized he was pretty right to write it because, in his words, "you staying with the crackhead heroin junkie that already treats you like shit, then fucking shot you, just solidifies my theory that you're actually, medically, out of your mind, and your insanity isn't just 'to be determined' anymore" and I asked him if he "wanted to be the pot or the kettle?"

The irony of him--out of all people--calling anybody else "crazy" was beyond me.

Thirty-two years later and he still dedicates the song to me every time they play it live.

After we're done eating our Sunday lunch, we pay and head to my car, slowly, because I'm limping and Duff's walking slow so he doesn't leave me.

"So, I kinda did something for your late birthday present." He informs me out of nowhere and I raise my brows.

"What do you mean?" I ask, fumbling to get my keys from my purse, shielding my eyes from the harsh sun in my face as we head to the parking lot.

"Mandy and I broke up." He states and I raise my brows.

"...You broke up with your girlfriend as my birthday present?" I'm confused and he chuckles it off.

"No!" He nervously rubs at the back of his neck. "She broke up with me, actually, but that's not what your present is."

"She broke up with you? Are you okay?" I ask.

"It's a girl, Viv. There's plenty more decent girls to choose from when I'm ready to be in a relationship again." He shrugs.

"Did she tell you why she was breaking things off?" I question.

"Just needed space or time or something like that, I don't know. I was kinda drunk when she called to tell me."

"She broke up with you over a phone call?" I raise my voice, my nostrils flaring.

"Viv, chill out." He let's out with a laugh, nudging me with his arm. "You haven't let me explain the good part of this."

"Well then explain." I clear my throat and he rubs his lips together.

"I talked to Nikki last night 'cause he and Tommy came around to hangout with us for a little while." He explains.

"Mhm?"

"I mentioned the fact that you were kinda getting back into dancing and he said he'd been meaning to ask me about it because you'd told him about Mandy letting you use their rehearsal space to dance."

"She didn't even know I was using it, you just sneak me in whenever she's not there. Well, at least, you did. I'm assuming she got the key back from you."

"You're not letting me finish." He points out and I roll my eyes and sigh.

"Okay. I'm listening."

"Nikki and I conspired together, and I'm buying the place from Mandy, and Nikki is going to pay for any renovations and cleaning up it probably definitely needs."

I stop walking, my face falling, unable to say anything.

"So...happy birthday?" He cautiously finishes, not able to gauge how I'm gonna react.

I just start crying.

"I-I'm sorry, if you didn't want that we can--"

"--I'm not crying because I'm upset, I'm crying because I'm happy." I tell him, wiping my running mascara.

"Viv." He smiles a little, and I hug him to me, my arms around him tightly as I squeeze my eyes closed.

"Thank you." I mumble to him and he kisses at my hair for a second.

"Happy birthday."

I knew on Nikki's part it was an attempt to apologize without actually saying "I'm sorry for shooting you" because if he said "I'm sorry" it would mean admitting he was wrong and I was right about his drug use.

And Vivian could never be right about anyone over-doing it with their bad habits.

I shut the front door, slipping my kitten heels off by the door before I calmly step through the house to get to our bedroom so I can change from my church dress.

Nikki's passed out in our bed. I've gotten to where I have to wake him up and get him to bed or just sleep next to him in the closet.

I accidentally rolled over and stabbed myself with one of his used needles a few nights ago so I've been praying he's been using clean needles and isn't going to transfer anything weird to me.

I change clothes and get into our bed, watching him sleep, at least I think he's asleep.

"How was church?" He asks me, keeping his liner smudged eyes shut and I run the tip of my finger over his bare chest.

"It was good." I reply. "It ran late again today." I lie, not wanting him to find out about Duff and I eating lunch again.

"Oh." He yawns, turning over to face me and I get a little closer to him, hooking my leg around his hip and he grins softly, resting his hand on the curve of my back.

"So, Zutaut called again." I tell him and he sighs out.

"Nope." He sits up and I untangle from him, rolling my eyes as I follow him into the bathroom.

"You didn't even let me finish." I argue, crossing my arms and leaning against the doorway as he puts the toilet seat up to pee.

"I don't need to let you finish. This is the second time he's called in the three days and you told me the first time he called he was wondering if I'd be up to produce your friends' album."

"I love how they're strictly just my friends as soon they inconvenience you. Which I don't even consider this an inconvenience."

"Then what is it, Viv?" He flushes the toilet and steps to the shower to turn it on.

"An opportunity to actually listen to our--'our' meaning 'your's, too'--friends' music. And help them get it put down on an album that actually stays true to their sound instead of trying to add all the extra bull crap that everyone else that's wanted to produce them, has done." I state as he gets his clothes off and gets into the shower.

"What's in it for me?" He asks over the sound of the water.

"Um, the satisfaction of helping a hungry band reach their dreams and share their music? Also helping them get money because once the kids see the album is produced by Nikki Sixx they're gonna buy it because they trust your opinion on good rock music?" I suggest hopefully.

"I want blowjobs." He cuts through the sentimental atmosphere I created in my mind surrounding friendship and dedication, and I glare at the shower as my face drops from it's smile into an unamused expression. "Like, on-command blowjobs. Anytime, anywhere."

"You want me to drop to my knees the second you snap your fingers? Ha!" I scoff.

"Then I'm not even gonna consider producing them."

"Oh my goodness gracious, fine!" I give up, letting out a heavy sigh. "For how long?"

"Um, until I come?"

"No, I mean over what duration of time do I have to sacrifice the wellbeing of my jaw for your disgusting and degrading satisfaction?"

"Until you get arthritic to the point of not being able to get down that low without throwing a joint out of place." He says and I raise a brow, yanking the shower open.

"I am not gonna be in my fifties getting on my knees every time you want some head." I state and he laughs.

"If I have to give you on-command BJs, you have to go down on me on-command."

"You don't even have to tell me to eat you out, I'll gladly do it without the say-so." He says as he shapes his lathered hair straight up with his hands and I have to keep myself from laughing at his childishness. "And can you close that, It's kinda nippley out there." He motions outside of the shower and I shake my head a little before pinning my hair off of my shoulders with a hair clip on our counter and start pulling my clothes off.

I get in with him and he smirks.

"Am I in trouble?" He asks and I raise my brows before reaching my hands up to squish down on his hair that he's got perfectly sculpted upward with shampoo. "No, Viv!" He tries to protect it, laughing loudly.

Tom Zutaut had pressed at me to convince Nikki to at least consider producing "Appetite for Destruction."

Everyone that was interested in Guns N' Roses wanted to alter their music or add unnecessary elements to their signature raw sound. He knew Nikki advocated for people not compromising on what they want, especially with their music, and knew he would never try to produce the album the way he wanted it, but the way the band wanted it.

The only problem there was in the plan...

I roll my eyes as Nikki takes a bump of coke to try to pull himself out of his heroin induced stupor as I fall back in the seat across from him in the limousine, wiping my smudged lipstick from around my mouth, panting, hot and bothered because he started something and couldn't get his prick up to finish it.

Oh, the joys of body function inhibiting drugs.

"Okay, c'mon." He says as he takes a deep breath.

I get back on him to straddle his lap, my hands pulling my dress up my hips and pushing my panties aside while he rubs at himself.

It doesn't seem like he's getting any harder, and the mood is ruined.

"Babe, it's okay." I sigh out, calmly, although I'm frustrated.

"Fuck." He curses, just as irritated, his boot harshly kicking the edge of the seats across from us, his fingers grasping at his hair.

I fix my panties back and move off of him, smoothing my dress back down as he tucks himself back into his pants and laces them back up.

"I'm sorry, Viv." He turns his head to the side to look at me while he's leaning his head back.

"It's fine." I assure him. "Not like I need to be putting that much pressure on my thigh anyway." I add and the atmosphere in the car immediately tenses up.

He doesn't reply, putting his shades on to prepare for the flashing cameras bound to find us.

He despises the press.

I don't blame him.

Once we get stopped, Nikki's opening the door, tightly grasping at my hand.

"Nikki! Nikki!" They all seem to be shouting, followed by questions such as, "you guys working on the album?", "what are some songs we can expect on the new album?", "when are you releasing a new record?", "is it true you went to rehab for heroin?", "are you still on drugs?"

"Vivian, there's pregnancy rumors, do you know who, in the band, is the father?" Someone shouts and I ignore them, keeping my head down and my eyes closed, letting Nikki cut through the reporters and get us into the venue to meet Tom and let Nikki experience his first official Guns N' Roses show.

...Nikki hated it.

He was ready to leave only two songs in and showed absolutely no interest in spending his time producing them.

He wouldn't even really pin point what exactly he didn't like about their music or their playing, he just didn't like it.

He admits now that he was so fucked up that night, in particular, that he wouldn't have known what was good music if it hit him in the face.

I figured that might have been the case since he was the first one to put in for Guns N' Roses to join Mötley Crüe on the "Girls, Girls, Girls" tour and advocate for their music.

His mood swings gave me whiplash.

"What do you think so far?" Tom asks Nikki as Nikki takes a sip of his drink.

"I don't see the fuss." He states, and Tom and I exchange looks, confused.

"W-What?" I ask, furrowing my brows. "Are you kidding me?"

"Did I stutter?"

"W--C'mon, Nikki, you haven't even heard some of their other stuff. These kids have the potential to be extraordinary, they're almost there. You can't just write them off like this."

"I'm not writing anybody off. They're my friends and I dig their enthusiasm but I can barely find the time to work on our own album, let alone produce someone else's and they're not striking me enough to make me want to sacrifice more of my time to produce them."

"Baby, if you would just give them a chan--"

"--Viv, I said 'no'." He sternly scolds me and tears swell up in my eyes because I could have sworn Nikki would have really liked their music.

"I'll be right back." I tell them, stepping to the bathroom to dry my tears.

At the time I thought Nikki was just being an asshole.

He didn't tell me he didn't want to produce them because he wouldn't have done the kind of job they deserved for their talent on their debut album.

He wanted to do right by them, and that meant staying as far away from their music as possible.

He didn't tell anyone that because that would have been him admitting he had a problem.

"Lose the nasty attitude, Vivian." Nikki orders as I stomp into our house while he shuts the front door behind him, locking it.

"Why? You gonna toss me aside, too?" I hiss, taking my jacket off and throwing my purse onto the coffee table, crossing my arms.

"Will you just drop it? It's not like there aren't thousands of producers that would love to help them out." He takes his jacket off, tossing it to the couch.

"What is wrong with their music? Is it their sound, their personality, their--"

"--Vivian, I said 'drop it'!" He barks.

"I have every right to be angry, Nikki! You clearly might not give a fuck about them but they are my friends--who I know good and damn well have immense talent and there's even some of it that's yet to be untapped--and I just wanted you to give them an actual shot at achieving the thing all of them have worked their asses off for and dreamed about since they were kids!" I throw my hands up.

"I'm done talking about this." He states, stepping to our bedroom.

"I'm not!" I take my heel off and throw it as hard as I can at his head.

It hits the back of his hair and he stops in his tracks.

"Tom said it himself, and you heard him: Guns N' Roses will be the biggest rock n roll band in the world if they just get someone behind them that can guide them to where they need to be!" I ball my fists up at my sides, digging my nails into my palms.

Nikki just slowly turns to face me, his eyes wild, his breathing labored, and a out of line theory sprouts in my mind, but the way he's been acting lately it won't surprise me if it's true.

"Is that why you won't help them?" I ask him, cutting my eyes. "Because they're possibly going to dethrone Mötley Crüe?"

The fact that I'm insinuating he gives a fuck about bullshit "competition", especially in regards to his friends, just infuriates him more. I see it in his eyes.

He just turns back around and goes to our bedroom, slamming the door shut.

I roll my jaw, my eyes drifting to the beautiful display of his gold and platinum records on the wall beside the hallway that leads to guest bedrooms.

My skin of my knuckles is splitting open when my fist collides with the glass of the "Shout at the Devil" Gold award.

Platinum's next.

Just before I'm going for "Too Fast for Love", Nikki's screaming from our bedroom doorway, Jack Daniel's in hand.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" He shouts and I just shoot him a glare before taking the "Too Fast for Love" plaque off the wall. "Put the fucking plaque down Vivian." Nikki orders, stepping closer to me.

"Produce their album." I demand, acting as if I'm going to drop it.

"Put. It. Down. Vivian."

"Or what? You'll shoot me again?" I taunt him and he grinds his teeth. "Produce their album." I repeat.

"Go to hell, crazy bitch." He snaps.

"You go first!" I holler back, hurling the award at the wall and it crashes into another plaque and they both shatter to pieces.

I turn around just in time to see Nikki pouring Jack all over my Bible that he'd plucked from the coffee table, just before pulling his lighter out.

"Stop!" I shriek, rushing to him.

I'm too late, though, and he's lighting it up and throwing it into the empty fire place just as I make it to him.

A God-awful feeling of dread fills me as Sikki looks very proud of himself.

I can't even look at him right now.

Walking to the kitchen to wash my bleeding hand off and get it wrapped up, I start to think a mile a minute.

My heart clenches in my chest as tears line my lashes.

How predictable of Nikki Sixx to burn a fucking Bible just to piss off a christian who's had said Bible since childhood...but it somehow shocks me that he'd do it to me, I guess.

I glance down at my wedding ring.

I've noticed it feels more and more like a weight with every argument he and I have.

Our entire relationship was just an open body of water that, that freaking ring was dragging me deeper and deeper in to.

The pressure was starting to get painful and I needed air.

My finger tips tug at my wedding ring and I leave it on the kitchen counter before I'm walking to our bedroom-- while he's still in the living room-- locking the door and heading to the closet, quickly gathering every lick of heroin, coke, and pills before going to our bathroom and flushing all of it, all the while Nikki's banging his fist against our bedroom door.

I hear a loud crash, and realize he kicked the door in.

"Vivian!" He screams as I'm giving the final flush to the last bindle, opening the bathroom door.

He's pushing me aside rather roughly and stomping to the toilet as the sound of the tank refilling with water let's him know what I've been doing.

"What did you do?!" He seethes at me, finger in my face, eyes shot, five o'clock shadow framing his gritted teeth.

And I just turn around with the intention of getting my shoes back on and leaving.

His hand is catching in my hair and yanking me back to him.

"Nikki, fuck off!"

"Don't fucking walk away from me!" He yells.

"I should have walked away from you six years ago!" I exclaim, tears of anger rolling down my cheeks.

This gets his attention because he's letting me go, an obvious expression of hurt on his face.

"I should have never slept with you. I should have never dated you. I should have never told you I'd marry you and I never should have taken vows to love and honor and protect someone who can't even get off of drugs long enough to love and honor and protect me." I sniffle and he blinks at me slowly as if holding back on his emotions.

"Then walk the fuck away." He hisses at me, rolling his jaw.

I left.

Nikki called Vanity.

And I went to find Duff.

I shut my car door before making my way into the Seventh Veil, running a hand through my hair as music blares through the speakers.

I glance around, hoping they're here because I've been up and down the strip and they've been nowhere to be found.

My prayers are answered when I look to see the massive fluff of blonde hair and I walk over to the table where Duff, Izzy, Steven, and Slash are, yanking a chair from a neighboring table and sitting with them.

They give me weird looks, Steven glancing around to check for Nikki or any of the other guys, before exchanging looks with Duff and Slash while Izzy seems unphased, his eyes on the same thing mine are on: the dancer on stage.

"Um...Viv?" Steven asks me cautiously and I side eye him.

"Yeah." I mumble.

"Uh, a-are you here alone?" He asks.

"Yep."

"Do you like strippers or something?" Slash asks me next.

"Nope."

"Did Nikki piss you off?" Duff's next.

"Yep."

"Is your hand alright?" Steven motion's to my hand that's got a scabbed over, bloody cut over the top of it.

"Shh, guys, she has to keep a clear mind so she can properly construct her plan to ask the dancers if they've accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior." Izzy sarcastically puts in and I cut my eyes at him as he takes another drag of his cigarette.

"Talk all your shit, Stradlin. Just gives me more motivation to curate ideas to make your life harder."

"Your existence in itself makes my life harder." He scoffs.

"Good that means I'm fulfilling one of the purposes God gave me for my life."

"Is your other purpose getting your husband so heated he throws you out of the house?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." I pretend to feel sorry, poking my lip out a little. "I forget I can't be upset with Nikki around you because you get bothered at the thought of anyone being upset with your gothic, heroin hounding, drug buddy because you're kindred spirits that have bonded over being tortured artists."

"Oh, go read your Bible." He tells me.

"Can't. Nikki set it on fire." I shoot back and Duff chokes on his drink.

"He what?" Duff asks me, like he's trying to contain a little anger over it.

"So we can expect the Sixxes to get a divorce?" Izzy asks me, clearly joking, and I shake my head.

"No, he's just being a junked-out prick." I mumble, crossing my arms.

"Do you wanna get your anger out by aggressively throwing our money?" Steven asks and I blink.

"I'll go politely put the money on the edge of the stage." I say and Duff finishes his drink, setting the glass face down.

"Alright, let's get outta here." He tells me with a sigh, standing up. "We'll see you guys later."

"Alright, man." Izzy nods. "Viv." He adds.

"Izzy." I reply.

"Bye, Viv." Steven and Slash both say and I smile a little.

"Bye, guys."

I follow Duff out of the club, and he nearly trips coming out, causing me to grab at his hand and arm to try to help him keep balanced, and a few flashes go off, signaling paparazzi and I audibly groan as they move in.

My hand shields my eyes as my other hand holds tightly to Duff's arm as asinine questions are thrown at me but I ignore them.

The bastards got a good enough shot at just the right second--with me holding onto Duff with both of my hands, the two of us sharing wide smiles because we were laughing over him nearly tripping to the ground--that it definitely came across as "a picture's worth a thousand words" but the only words told by that picture was that we were a little more than friends...and that's what the headline spun it up as by the time it landed in Nikki's hands.

The argument it led to sparked the birth of "You're All I Need", delivered by the vocals of Vince, from the demented mind of Sikki Nixx himself.

"Where'd you park?" Duff asks me in my ear over the sound of photography and strangers talking at us, and I tug him into direction of my car that's parked down the street against the curb.

"Welp that's something I'm gonna get to explain to Nikki." I state as soon as we get into my car.

"He knows nothing's happening." He replies, laughing it off.

"Yeah, right." I say under my breath, as I start heading down the road. "Where to?" I ask, stopping at a stop light.

"Oh, I don't know I was just trying to keep you from swinging on Izzy." He admits with a chuckle and I shake my head a little.

"I'd never hit Izzy. Axl, definitely, Izzy, no. He's my favorite."

"Izzy's your favorite? How'd that happen? You two are, like, polar opposites." He asks me with an amused smile.

"He agrees that Sid probably killed Nancy." I inform him and he throws his head back and let's out a frustrated, but humorous, groan.

After finally deciding to just get milk-shakes, we sit in a corner booth of Denny's and once we get out orders, Duff's clearing his throat.

"So, I saw you guys at the show earlier."

He tells me and I raise my brows, sipping at my strawberry milkshake. "You didn't tell us you were coming, we could've told them to take you guys backstage."

"We weren't able to stay very long afterwards...Nikki just wanted to see you guys play together live." I explain.

"Oh." He nods, before asking the dreaded question: "what did he think?"

"He digs you guys." I lie, giving a little smile.

The guys never knew Nikki was approached to produce the album, each of them found out later.

I think they're secretly glad he never touched "Appetite for Destruction."

That album would have been an absolute train wreck under his junkie guidance, just like everything else that Nikki seemed to be apart of in 1987.

#nikki sixx #mötley crüe #nikki sixx x oc #nikki sixx fanfiction #gateway drug

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f1 · 2 years ago

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Jos Verstappen critical of Red Bull's Monaco strategy

Christian Horner could be in for a 'Verstappen-slappen' as world champion's father, Jos criticises Red Bull for failing his son with its strategy in Monaco. In all honesty, Max never looked entirely comfortable at any stage over the Monaco weekend, while teammate, Sergio Perez did. Then, come qualifying, the Mexican out-paced his teammate to line-up third on the grid. In the opening stages of the race - when it actually got underway - continued in third, before dropping to fifth when he pitted on lap 16. Within a couple of laps he was up in second, courtesy of Lando Norris, race leader Charles Leclerc and Verstappen all pitting. When Carlos Sainz pitted a lap later, on lap 21, Perez inherited the lead, and courtesy of his pace over the course of the lap, combined with Ferrari's strategic faux-pas, maintained the lead which he was to hold to the end of the afternoon. However, according to Jos Verstappen, the Austrian team should have been more aggressive with its strategy. "As a father I was disappointed with the race," he writes on the official Verstappen website. "Max's third place was very disappointing. "We all saw that it was a difficult weekend for him," he continues. "It starts with the car, which simply doesn't have the characteristics for his driving style yet. Max has far too little grip at the front axle. And especially in Monaco, with all those short corners, you need a car that turns very quickly. That was just hard. "Red Bull achieved a good result," he admits, "but at the same time exerted little influence to help Max to the front. That he finished third, he owes to Ferrari's mistake at that second stop of Charles. "The championship leader, Max, was not helped in that sense by the chosen strategy. It turned completely to Checo's favour. That was disappointing to me, and I would have liked it to be different for the championship leader. "Perez actually won the race because of the earlier pit stop," he insists. "The team can perhaps explain that as a gamble, but they had already seen, with for example Gasly, that the intermediates were the best option at that time. "I would have liked them to go for Max, but of course I am not entirely objective. I think 10 points from Max have been thrown away here. Especially with the two retirements we've had, we need every point. Don't forget that Ferrari currently has a better car, especially in qualifying. "Max also had bad luck in qualifying, because in his last run he was significantly faster and on his way to second place, until the crash of Perez. Then everything would have been different." However, not wishing to sound too bitter, the veteran former Benetton, Arrows and Minardi driver finally pays tribute to the race winner. "Apart from all this, I am happy for Checo," he writes. "Winning in Monaco is of course something special and I hope he enjoys it. From now on, it's full focus on the next races in Baku and Canada. via Pitpass - the latest hottest F1 news http://www.pitpass.com/

#F1 #Jos Verstappen critical of Red Bull's Monaco strategy #Formula 1

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fromchunktokrunk · 8 years ago

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Mama Let Me....

Get hurt

My mama would let me try anything my mind dreamed up. From making my own go cart from scrap wood and lawn mower wheels to setting up my room as a radio studio and interviewing my friends when they came over and roller blading on homemade ramps. I lived with bruises and scrapes. Without an engine and hardly any hills, I didn’t go far on my homemade go cart. I learned something about that too, axles and ball bearings are important. Wheels don’t turn like they should when you just hammer them into wood. Also, brakes. :)

Observe selflessness

Mama selflessly cared for my brother for 7 years as he suffered from Acute Lymphatic Leukemia in childhood, all the while taking care of my Type 1 Diabetic disabled father. I never heard her say the words “why me?” I am sure there were times she thought it. My brother pulled through and beat cancer. So grateful. My dad succumbed to his illness when I was 11. Then I saw another side of my mother. A strong, independent woman.

Believe

Mama would let me believe that the brightest star in the sky was my dad looking down on me from heaven. It’s true. I would look up at the bright star and feel instant comfort. If my mom agreed that this star in the sky was in fact my dad, then it really had to be him catching a glimpse of me.

Eat cake for dinner

After dad died, mom wanted a career in something she was passionate about. She decided to go back to school full time and pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. I often would go to her second job at Books a million and sit in the cafe with her on her dinner break and eat red velvet cake with her. She worked 2 jobs to pay her way through school and still managed to raise me, spend time with me and graduate college.

See her persevere

I could not be more proud of my dear Mama. She worked so hard to go back to college after my dad died, in her forties and finish with a degree in education. She wanted it and by all accounts she pulled up her boot straps and took the bull by the horns. This is an example of the strength she exudes. I am in school now, I have a husband by my side who helps me tremendously. I seriously don’t know how she did it, but she DID IT!

Know that I am not alone

It was my freshmen year of high school. We all know that at that age, friendships are tested. My friendship was tested with my friends, and I was outcast from my normal group. Anyone can tell you that is the single worst thing to happen to a teenager. To lose your group of friends. You know what my Mama did? She let me cry and complain and be dramatic and when I was done with that. We would go rent a movie and watch it together and I would forget about my bleeding wounds for a little while. When my wounds would re-open, Mama was there to tell me that I was wonderful and that this would not be a big deal in 5 years. Her recipe to keeping me happy was the best one I can think of, laughing and lots of it. Even if that meant prank calling people. She of course would just observe and laugh and say “if anyone asks, I will deny that I did this with you.” (So, if she denies this, she is just sticking to her promise) ;) Often times we would go out front and throw the softball. She would watch wrestling with me, even though it wasn’t her thing. Mostly she would just BE THERE.

See that being humiliated for the sake of a joke is totally worth it

On one of my bad days, Mom decided to take me to a movie. I still don’t remember what we watched, but it was one of the times I have laughed the hardest. The movie is over and there is a huge crowd shuffling out and heading to the restrooms. Mom of course had to go and me and my teenage bladder eye rolled. I was mostly annoyed that after the movie, I remembered reality as I saw a father and daughter walking in front of us heading to the restroom as well. As she waited on him outside the bathroom, I felt this overwhelming jealousy. How dare she have a father to do things with? How dare she stand there with a smile on her face when she sees her dad emerge from the bathroom? How dare she be so happy? I wanted to scoot down the wall and melt into a self pitying blob on the floor. Right on time, as if she knew what was going on in my mind, here comes Mama out of the restroom. She has the biggest grin on her face and is dragging a 10 foot ( I kid you not) trail of toilet paper from the back of her britches. By the look on her face, I knew she did this just to make me laugh. I was dying laughing on the inside, holding strong for the joke that everyone is watching this woman drag this toilet paper. We hit the parking lot doors and laughed so hard. I almost wet my pants. She would’ve peed her pants if she hadn’t already just relieved herself. To this day, I will never forget that. That silliness saved my evening and I thought on the way home not how unlucky I was to be a fatherless girl, but how lucky I was to have a Mom who would choose humility for the sake of a well played joke.

Listen

Mama let me listen to her music. All the greats that she loved Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, Steppenwolfe, Blood Sweat and Tears, The Judds, Elvis, Johnny Cash to Abba... just to name a few. I have a pretty eclectic taste in music thanks to her. I have a great love for comedy. Largely in part to road trips with Mama.. Gosh, I loved taking a road trip with mom and listening to a comedy album with her. Laughing together and eating our favorite road trip snacks, that was the best.

See empathy and her kindness to others

The greatest lesson I think Mama taught me was to have empathy and to be kind always. She would tell me that you never know what someone else is going through. That is so true and I try to be kind and empathetic.

My Mom is a beautiful soul. I am grateful to have her as my mother. I wrote this so she could see just a small piece of her imprint she has on my heart.

__________________________________________________________________

Mama, I love you. Thank you for letting me…

Jennifer Michelle, “your Southern Belle”

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caveartfair · 7 years ago

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Decades after ’80s Art Stardom, Painter Mark Kostabi Is Still Hustling

Mark Kostabi in New York City, 1994. Photo by Michael Brennan/Getty Images

The 1980s art stars of New York City are chiseled in the historical canon like lines on a tombstone, from Jean-Michel Basquiat (heroin overdose) to Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, Nicolas Moufarrege, Luis Frangella, and Martin Wong (AIDS).

Not everyone died. Some East Village artists survived all the Club 57 bacchanals and Avenue B smack dealers. Most notably Jeff Koons, whose 12-foot balloon dog sculptures are priced like Lake Como real estate. Eric Fischl, David Salle, and Kenny Scharf, the elder statesman trinity, are still mounting exhibitions. Even more impressive, the careers of some women from this fertile post-abstraction period—Kiki Smith, Judy Glantzman, Marilyn Minter—have actually flourished.

Then there’s Mark Kostabi, the former New York gossip column fixture and self-professed “con artist” who everybody remembers but nobody talks about. Christie’s and Sotheby’s have no comment. Neither does the MoMA, the Guggenheim, or the Met, despite the curious fact that they all have Kostabis in their permanent collections. As for quotes from some highfalutin critics expounding on the semiotics of cone hats, cash registers, and the Sony Walkman in Kostabi’s work? Not a chance.

That’s disconcerting, considering Kostabi’s place in the annals of contemporary art. Here was the brash kid who took Andy Warhol’s collaborative Factory business model and turned it into the kind of acrylic-on-canvas assembly line that made a mockery of the tortured artist trope. In the late ’80s, spurred by a Wall Street bull market, an original Kostabi sold for as much as $30,000. Not Warhol money, but enough to rise far above the paint-splattered rabble.

Hour Dimension, 1989. Mark Kostabi RoGallery

Lime and Lemon, 1991. Mark Kostabi RoGallery

This generated the cash flow to buy $3,000 Gaultier suits and Steinway pianos. It paid the tabs in fashionable restaurants like Indochine and covered the mortgage on a $1 million condo. Art is good, he thought, but money is better. Realizing that selling his paintings was both a legit business and a sucker’s game, he portrayed himself as a cross between a venture capitalist and a three-card Monte dealer. He posed for the paparazzi, courted reporters, and dropped catnip in their laps like “Branding will keep you standing.” and “Buy now, before prices go down!”

The nexus for all this unfettered commerce was Kostabi World: a three-floor, 15,000-square-foot mega-studio on West 38th Street, right in the heart of Manhattan’s garment district. Instead of producing suits and frocks, though, Kostabi was manufacturing paintings and prints. The thematic template was simple: faceless mannequins, trapped in a world defined by greed, ennui, and isolation. The painting style was simple, too: a mashup of signature elements—borrowed from Giorgio de Chirico, Fernand Léger, and René Magritte—that looked airbrush flat, but were executed using the classic paint-blending method known as sfumato, a technique favored by Italian masters like Correggio and Leonardo da Vinci, who described it in the 15th century as “without lines or borders.”

The technique may have been old school, but the execution was driven by modern efficiency models. The division of labor at Kostabi World was strictly regimented. The first floor, known as the “think tank,” was where the “idea people” conceived and sketched the high-concept tableaux that celebrity clients like Sylvester Stallone, Axl Rose, Domenico Dolce, and Stefano Gabbana clamored for. The best sketches were bumped up to the second floor, where “drawers” refined the images and traced them on canvas. On the top floor, product rolled off the line. This was the painter’s domain, the place where art academy grads, many from Russia and Eastern Europe, were paid around $5 an hour to copy these urban fables with acrylics in different colors and various formats. Along the way, the iconography was tweaked: remove this hat, fix that hand, add more dollar signs. After a painting had passed through all the inspections and filters, Kostabi would add his signature. The titles (also paid for, at $20 or $50 apiece) came later. The one that sums up the ’80s best still resonates today: Sadness Because the Video Rental Store Was Closed.

Three decades later, the timing for a Kostabi revival seems ideal. Several ’80s art retrospectives have recently launched: New York’s Morgan Library is showing the work of East Village photographer Peter Hujar. There’s also a Leon Golub exhibition at the Met and a Club 57 exhibition at MoMA. For those who crave more content, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., has shoehorned over 70 artists into a show titled “Brand New: Art and Commodity In the 1980s”; it features about 150 works by the likes of Koons, Richard Prince, and Cindy Sherman, but no Kostabis.

Gli Archeologi, 1970. Giorgio de Chirico Galerie AM PARK

Femme Fleur, ca. 1950. Fernand Léger Denis Bloch Fine Art

Why was Kostabi excluded from such a large group show that so perfectly describes his career (from the Hirshhorn press release: “artists in 1980s New York who blurred the lines between art, entertainment and commerce”)? Curator Gianni Jetzer doesn’t make excuses about tight budgets, limited space, or promoting underappreciated talent. “Kostabi isn’t interesting or relevant,” he says bluntly. “The work just isn’t good enough.”

Kostabi gets prickly when the art establishment criticizes his work. Calling from Italy, where he lives half the year, he explains why critics often respond so negatively to his paintings: “Sometimes it’s a knee jerk reaction: Anything that sells must be bad. Which is ridiculous because they probably love Picasso, who sold well. Sometimes it’s jealousy, the primal instinct of wishing ill on someone who is more successful than you are—they don’t even look at the art.”

Kostabi equates American art criticism with graft and corruption. He insists he doesn’t take pundits seriously because they are easily bribed; he says he paid the late Glenn O’Brien and the artist and Artnet.com founder Walter Robinson $5,000 to pen catalog essays. “They always write what you want them to.”

Asked if there are critics immune to such payola, Kostabi chuckles. “Even the New York Times gets bought,” he says dismissively. “The critic isn’t paid directly but the paper is paid by the gallery, which takes out ads in the Sunday Arts section every week.”

He adds that certain European intellectuals whose opinions he does respect—art historians like Achille Bonito Oliva and Laura Cherubini—have championed his work over the years, which happens to be true. Oliva, a professor of the history of contemporary art at Rome’s La Sapienza University, used Kostabi paintings in several important shows he has curated, including one at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna di Roma. And Cherubini, the vice president of the MADRE Museum in Naples and an art history professor at Milan’s Brera Academy, has devoted a book of glowing criticism to the late-’90s Kostabi oeuvre.

Assistants painting in Mark Kostabi’s studio. Photograph courtesy of Mark Kostabi.

Kostabi is phoning from home. It’s quite a place: a sprawling floor plan and 15-foot ceilings dripping with Murano chandeliers, the kind of la dolce vita digs where Fiat executives used to stash their mistresses. Overlooking Rome’s Piazza Vittorio, the apartment is tastefully decorated with a mix of antique Italian furniture and mid-modern pieces. On the walls and scattered about are—what else?—dozens of Kostabis. He may rent his Upper East Side townhouse (the latest incarnation of Kostabi World), but he owns this prime slice of shelter porn. If the dealers dropped him tomorrow, he could put it on the market and dodge the poor house.

“Measured by financial security, I’m at the height of my career now.” When Kostabi says this, he sounds more relieved than prideful. “I wasn’t making more money in the ’80s. All I was doing was getting more press; I was on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous but totally broke.” He pauses, as if stunned by his own life story. “Today I get less press, but I make more money.”

Streamlining the Kostabi World staff from 40 to 10 (nine in America, one in Italy) has bolstered the bottom line. Cutting out the expense account nonsense—the five-figure shopping sprees at Charivari, and greasing all the squeaky PR wheels—was also prudent. Art dealer and Kostabi confidant Bruce C. Loch confirms this reversal of fortune. As president of the Thurston Royce Gallery in Allentown, Pennsylvania, he does a brisk business in Kostabis that hit the secondary market. “I know Mark makes a good living because I’ve run the numbers,” he says. “Production is still 600 paintings a year, and the average price is $5,000. That’s $3 million gross. His costs are about $1 million to $1.5 million. The rest is profit. Not many artists make that kind of dough.”

Then he adds this wild card to the ledger: “Most people don’t know it, but his big sculptures go for up to $300,000.”

Art insiders are incredulous when they hear this number. An original Kostabi painting sells for as little as $2,000 on eBay today, and Loch says that he routinely snaps up Kostabi “masterpieces” in Florida for $3,000 and flips them in Europe for $12,000. Even with the increased labor and foundry costs associated with casting a life-size bronze ($20,000 to $25,000), the idea that there’s a market for $300,000 Kostabis is suspect. Martin Lawrence Galleries, which represents Kostabi exclusively in the United States (primary market), declined to provide sales figures.

Mark Kostabi, ASCENSION, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

Mark Kostabi, INTROSPECTION. Courtesy of the artist.

But it turns out that certain collectors actually might drop six figures on a large sculpture bearing Kostabi’s signature. One of them, a 1988 piece titled Climbing, was sold to a plastic surgeon through the Martin Lawrence Gallery in Las Vegas. The other, Eternal Embrace, was commissioned by the Hexbug mogul Tony Norman through the Martin Lawrence Gallery in New Orleans.

Martin Lawrence has sold smaller versions of these sculptures for modest sums, but the prices that the big bronzes have fetched, according to Kostabi, are $295,000 and $265,000 respectively. Norman, however, claims that he paid “$300,000—before taxes” for his. The wealthy Texan adds that he’s pleased with the piece, which is one in an edition of three (plus one artist’s proof).

Norman is no dilettante. He has the distinction of having amassed the largest collection of Kostabi paintings in the world (“57 or 58” at last count), most of which are hanging in his sprawling mansion, located outside Dallas. They’re in good company. His eclectic art collection also includes Warhols, Picassos, Harings, and a Rembrandt. “I get a lot of reactions from house guests,” the toy magnate says about his private hoard of Kostabis. “They scream simplicity and elegance.” The appeal, he says, is simplicity. “People enjoy art that isn’t a mystery. You look at it and know exactly what it’s about: anxiety, confusion, having a bad day.”

What about the $300,000 Eternal Embrace bronze? Norman seems bewildered by this inquiry. “I wanted a great sculpture for my backyard swimming pool,” he says with the kind of what-the-hell attitude that convinces you he actually did pay $300,000 for a giant Kostabi lawn ornament.

These big-ticket sales delight Kostabi. He monitors his art prices the way a CEO scrutinizes the trajectory of company stock. And if Kostabi World’s market value needs a boost, he will intervene. Like in June 2007, when he enlisted a friend to bid up and purchase a 1986 Kostabi painting titled Accumulation at a Phillips auction in Manhattan. The friend was successful, securing the lot for an impressive hammer price of $28,800 (on a presale estimate of $10,000 to $15,000).

“People enjoy art that isn’t a mystery. You look at it and know exactly what it’s about: anxiety, confusion, having a bad day.”

In a peculiar plot twist, that Kostabi sold at Phillips turned out to be a forgery. Rather than issue a complaint and demand a refund, the artist ate the loss. “It’s kind of poetic justice,” he says without rancor, as if getting burned buying the occasional fake Kostabi at auction is the cost of doing business. He emphasizes that the practice of artists manipulating auctions by bidding on their own work to prevent market fluctuations and maintain retail prices is “completely normal.”

That’s an exaggeration, but not an outrageous one; some artists, dealers, and collectors have gamed the auction system in order to either increase market value or stabilize declining prices.

“My auction price results are sometimes low,” he concedes. “But the fact that I have over 1,000 official auction sales results is proof that my work is liquid, unlike many artists who show in prestigious galleries but only have a handful of auction results.”

Kostabi takes comfort in this “liquid artist” status, and insists it is no small accomplishment. “It’s easier for a dealer to artificially prop up an artist’s auction prices if there are only a few pieces in the artist’s auction history,” he says. “If there are over 1,000 results from multiple international auctions, you know it’s the real deal, unlike like 80 percent of the artists currently showing in Chelsea.”

Art people don’t like this kind of loose-cannon chatter. The other thing they don’t like is social intolerance, especially homophobia. If Kostabi has a closet skeleton, this is it: In a 1989 Vanity Fair profile, he tossed off a bridge-burning invective that’s still smoldering. “These museum curators, that are for the most part homosexual, have controlled the art world in the ’80s,” he said. “Now they’re all dying of AIDS, and although I think it’s sad, I know it’s for the better.” To make sure there was no mistaking his position, he threw in the usual crime-against-nature indictment: “Because homosexual men are not actively participating in the perpetuation of human life.”

Kostabi’s elevated mood abruptly changes when this subject is raised. It’s as if the Ghost of ’80s Past has decided to come calling after three decades of slumber. His response, tinged with equal parts fear and astonishment, is delivered in a measured tone that clashes with his off-the-cuff sound bites. “I wish I had never said that,” he says, summoning his best mea culpa voice. “The quote doesn’t reflect my real soul and being, so I don’t feel guilty—I just feel stupid.” (In his further defense, Kostabi also claims that this and other media interactions in the ’80s were merely part of an ongoing performance, of sorts.)

Jennifer Tilly, Mark Kostabi and Robert Stack during a party for artist Kostabi in Beverly Hills, California, United States, 1988. Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc.

That Vanity Fair outburst may explain the New York art world’s reluctance to discuss Kostabi and his work. It also goes a long way toward explaining his conspicuous absence from the current crop of ’80s exhibitions on the 2018 calendar. Art people have long knives, and even longer memories.

“When you mention ��Kostabi’ it’s like mentioning the plague,” confirms art dealer Bruce C. Loch. “Mark was anti-everything in the ’80s—he was an angry guy. He couldn’t understand why [Warhol] and the other artists were so famous. He got angry at the art world, and people turned against him.”

According to Loch, though, it isn’t all bad: “[Mark] has done some stupid things in his lifetime, but he’s a great painter.”

Correction: The people that Mark pays to paint his paintings are great painters.

Kostabi’s longtime “idea person,” Mike Cockrill, insists that this outsourcing of labor is borne of necessity. “Mark’s too good of an artist to paint a Kostabi,” he says without a trace of irony. “His technique is too loose to render these precise forms.“

This sounds so preposterous that even Cockrill can’t help but laugh, but it’s true. In the 2010 documentary Con Artist, there’s a scene where Kostabi displays a rare canvas that he painted himself. Both amused and embarrassed by the results, he blushes and calls it “horrible.” Cockrill is quick to point out that the art-by-proxy system at Kostabi World is a non-issue: “The pictures that the staff paints and Mark signs are products that people like. Why should he paint them when somebody else can paint them even better?”

Not all of these Kostabis are created equal. Loch claims that flaws and full-blown rejects can’t be avoided when an artist starts cranking out paintings like widgets on an assembly line. In Kostabi World, that’s just collateral damage. “Mark does turn out some crap,” Loch says without hesitation. “He has quotas he has to meet, like a factory manager. When Martin Lawrence wants to do a Kostabi show, they need 50 pieces, and he blows them out the door.”

He compares Kostabi’s role to that of an art director who determines the overall look of a motion picture.

Cockrill can’t avoid using the C-word either. “A lot of crappy Kostabi paintings came out of Kostabi World in 1990,” he says with the conviction of somebody who was actually there. “Lazy assistants were just knocking pieces out with lots of weird colors and horribly drawn legs.”

The production process that Cockrill describes makes the old guard squirm: “Mark doesn’t draw anything. He will email me a photo and say, ‘I like this image of a woman on her cell phone. Can you make it into a Kostabi?’ Or he might say, ‘I want a band: a drummer, two pianos, blah, blah.’ Then I’ll say, ‘Who’s in front?’ And he’ll say, ‘You decide.’ There’s a lot of latitude.”

He compares his boss’s role to that of an art director who determines the overall look of a motion picture. “Mark may fix the perspective or add an element in the foreground if it’s too empty,” he explains. “I make the changes, but he suggests them; it always makes the paintings better.”

Provided the picture doesn’t go over budget. “The changes are minor because adding elements increases labor costs,” says Cockrill, like an economist lecturing on cost-of-production theory.

James Yood, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, agrees with Cockrill’s assessment: “Critics say Kostabi just signs his paintings. So what? I’m wearing a Calvin Klein sweater right now. Mr. Klein didn’t design or knit the sweater, but it still has his name on it. That’s a sign of authorship. If it looked terrible, he wouldn’t have put it in the collection.” Professor Yood claims that, compared to his peers, Kostabi has been treated unfairly by American art critics. “There’ve been many ’80s retrospectives, and Kostabi wasn’t included in any of them. He’s not a one-hit wonder. This guy has been viable for 30 years, which is admirable. He remains part of the conversation, and he deserves a major retrospective.”

At least one artist from the East Village days believes Kostabi is unfairly maligned. “The art world has this big fetish about novelty, and Mark’s work strikes a lot of people as commercial—they think it’s too conventional,” says the painter Walter Robinson. “Personally, I like these blank-faced androids. They represent the 21st-century Everyman character in a modern allegory play.”

Mark Kostabi, A MATTER OF TASTE, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

Bret Easton Ellis doesn’t think that Kostabi has received his critical due, either. Fans of the 1991 Ellis novel American Psycho will recall that Patrick Bateman, the book’s deranged narrator, sent out Kostabi Christmas cards to his friends. That was more than just a throwaway line in a book about brands and bloodlust in the age of Gordon Gekko and Reaganomics. Ellis was immersed in the ’80s Manhattan club scene and socialized with the East Village artists on the guest lists. Heavily. “I remember doing coke with Basquiat at Odeon,” Ellis deadpans, like a witness giving testimony in court, the words candid and stripped of emotion. He was fascinated by Kostabi, a successful artist who frequented the clubs but snapped up business cards instead of free drugs. More than that, though, he marveled at Kostabi’s ability to generate press like a tabloid star: “I put Kostabi in American Psycho because he was controversial and of-the-moment,” says Ellis.

An original Kostabi used to hang in the author’s New York apartment during the latter’s well-documented Brat Pack period. “The only furnishings in my place were patio furniture, a futon, a nice stereo, and a Kostabi,” says Ellis matter-of-factly. That particular piece, a Wall Street-themed engraving tilted Merger, is as much a talisman of the ’80s as Armani suits, tiramisu, and MTV. It’s the sort of artwork that Bateman would have charged on his Platinum AmEx at the Feldman Gallery in SoHo after butchering a fashion model in his high-rise glass condo. “I thought it was beautiful,” he says of the monochromatic engraving. “It was very subtle. It didn’t announce itself like a lot of Kostabis do, and it fit in with my minimalist bachelor decor.”

Kostabi, who has an ego as big as the Louvre, accepts this praise but refuses to be pegged as a nostalgia act. Like Muhammad Ali and Kanye West, he is convinced of his greatness. Asked to rate his artistic talent on a scale of one to ten, he doesn’t hesitate. The numbers he blurts out sound like a Richter scale reading: “9.73, going on 9.74—I’m not saying that I’m the best, but I’m getting there.”

As if to prove this point, he starts to pick apart the artist who is arguably the world’s greatest Italian Baroque painter. “I’m critiquing Caravaggio’s paintings right now,” he says casually. “I know that sounds absurd, but I’m looking at details and the guy did have a few moves that I wouldn’t accept in my studio.” For instance? “The fingers on a certain painting in Rome are all wrong, and the notes he put on sheet music are so out of whack. The perspective is terrible.”

Nobody knows this cocksure voice better than Molly Barnes. She’s the dealer who discovered Kostabi and helped launch his career. At the time, he was a 19-year-old art student at California State University, Fullerton. The Los Angeles gallerist sets the scene of their first meeting: She watched Kostabi, an awkward teenager with bad hair and a pink suit, peddle his quirky artwork door-to-door through L.A., like Tupperware. “He looked strange, but he had these great drawings,” she says with genuine excitement. “I said, ‘Leave them here,’ and sold them all that same day for $20 apiece.” The clients were Hollywood bigwigs like Aaron Spelling, Billy Wilder, and Norman Lear. Kostabi’s talent was raw, but undeniable. “He was too good for L.A., so I told him to go to New York,” recalls Barnes. “He said, ‘I can do that,’ bought a bus ticket, and became famous.”

Asked who the real Mark Kostabi is, the veteran dealer and longtime friend struggles to come up with an answer. “Mark isn’t like a regular person,” says Barnes in a way that conveys both awe and pity. “He thinks more like a computer than a human. He doesn’t show any weakness. If you said, ‘I just broke up with someone,’ he wouldn’t understand what you were talking about.”

Mark Kostabi, ASCENDING VOLUMES, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

Mark Kostabi, BEYOND TIME, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

Although Kostabi enjoys New York, it is Rome—the city of Titians, Michelangelos, and Raphaels—where the 57-year-old artist feels most welcome. This is Bizarro World for art: Up is down, bad is good, and Kostabi is king. The Italians utter his name in the same breath as Haring, Basquiat, and Warhol. Even though he has flooded the international market for several decades (an estimated 22,000 paintings, so far) and prices have declined over the years, collectors here still perceive the Kostabi brand as a great value and snap up the canvases as fast as the Kostabi World minions can churn them out.

These clients don’t fly to Art Basel in Miami Beach, and most of them have probably never heard of Larry Gagosian or Arne Glimcher. They aren’t descended from wealthy Milanese and Roman families, either, and their closets aren’t stocked with Versace. They’re just ordinary Italians who want a Kostabi to hang above their red Cassina sofa. “I often will sell 100 paintings to an Italian dealer who will then sell them to 10 different galleries in small towns throughout the country,” says Kostabi, like a middle manager bragging about his sales team. “Those small town galleries won’t show up on anybody’s radar screen, but they sell all their Kostabi inventory, and I keep resupplying them.”

The ’80s icon finds none of this second-act success improbable or surprising. He has bigger things on his mind right now—like the deal he recently struck in a restaurant with the mayor of Aversa, a small market town about five miles north of Naples. Sometime later this year, an immense Kostabi sculpture will be placed on a marble pedestal in front of the Arco dell’Annunziata, the soaring brick tower that welcomes visitors to this scenic tourist destination.

The job is pro bono, a gift to Italy. Sort of. Kostabi has waived his fee, and the mayor will pick up the foundry bill. “It’s free publicity and prestige,” writes Kostabi in an email. “Once the sculpture becomes a symbol of the city, I’ll sell miniature replicas like they do in New York at the Statue of Liberty.” It all sounds so Kostabi. “The idea is to sell large quantities, and generate millions in souvenir sales.”

It’s easy to picture: mini Kostabi sculptures sold to German tour groups at nine euros a pop. And a large sign above the souvenir kiosk: Buy now, before prices go down!

Some critics will dismiss this public art project as a vulgar money grab, something beneath the dignity of a serious artist. As Kostabi would say, that’s just a knee jerk reaction, the misguided belief that anything that sells must be bad. And he’s right. In the 2009 documentary Con Artist, critic Donald Kuspit disparages Mark Kostabi’s artwork as “Applebee’s aspiring to be Olive Garden.” What Kuspit doesn’t understand is that lots of people really like Applebee’s.

from Artsy News

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