THITH-There’s a real immediacy to the Otis Redding piece. That’s such a simple sentiment and you can see the intensity on his face and the sweat and blood. It’s really visceral in that way but what’s your idea of the piece and what were you thinking of?

Jason Lazarus-First, needless to say, I love Otis, and when I saw this image, I thought of it as embodying a motivational poster, but without the baggage of corporate/self-help/improve productivity staleness. One of the things I’m working on is a whole series of works having to do with motivation, especially motivation for artists.

THITH-It’s a call to arms?

JL-Yeah. When I made the 8×10 foot version I think it acts as a call to arms for a bigger audience. The big version had small 8×10 inch free take away versions, which were meant to end up in personal/work spaces for viewers. Also, even as the artist in this situation trying to, through the poster, live with and cheer on recipients of the poster, I always need be near this kind of thing too to keep going. Living as a working artist requires a lot of FAITH!



THITH-You ever hear the story that Steve Cropper tells about the first time he heard Otis Redding sing?
Apparently Otis was there at the studio with another band, a total unknown, and Steve Cropper and the rest of MG’s just thought he was a roady because he was hanging around all day. Then at the end of the session the producer asked Steve if he would play a song with Otis because he’s been nagging him. Steve obliged, not thinking much of it, sat at the piano and began to play Otis Redding went into “These. Arms. Of Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine”. And Steve Cropper says the world just came to a screeching halt. And you have to figure, at that point, Steve Cropper basically being the in-house guitarist at Stax had heard everything there was to hear but he was just totally floored, hair on end and the producer came running in and said, “We have to cut this now.” and they did, and that was his first single. He just walked in off the street like that. already thee Otis Redding.
…I don’t really have a question in that but I love that story. I guess I was thinking if you wanted to geek out on an Otis Redding story or anything about him in particular as a performer my story would be the set up for that.

JL-I have heard that story! Yeah, persistence, self-belief, a willingness to nag, whatever it takes. When you see the poster you know this guy was meant to do something. There’s a tamer story I’ll relay–Ryan McGinley started his studies in graphic design, switched to photography, shot his first project, made 100 copies of it, sent it to his friends and photographic heroes, and through that basically blew up.


-Otis Redding such a perfect choice for “Try Harder”. Did you think about other performers or did it just come like that immediately.

JL-All otis from the first second.

THITH-You studied photography? how did you start working more conceptually?

JL-Baldessari was an early influence, especially Throwing 4 Balls in the Air to Get a Square.
I tend to respond to things that use a sort of romantic conceptualism…thinking of Spencer Finch, Wolfgang Tillmans…I love using text, pushing that relationship between text and image, trying to have the presence of both create something greater that the sum of two parts.

THITH- What importance do appropriated images generally play in your work?

JL-I appropriate a lot of text as well as image. The critical question is if I appropriate text or image, can I create a scenario where I am adding meaning/content as opposed to just hiccuping it along


THITH-Are you thinking of it as being multi-layered or is it really about the singular image?

I’m interested in trying to make things that have the potential for multiple readings, for viewers to bring their own context to the reading of the work, to even actively play with that…

THITH-5 contemporary artists who try harder and we have to know about?

JL:

Greg Stimac,


Ben Foch


Carrie Schneider


Ben Fain


John Opera

See more of Jason Lazarus work here.
To get your own free motivational Otis Redding poster send a SASE with a dollar of postage on it to jason lazarus, 810 n wood, 3f Chicago, IL 60622
Ours is going to hang in our rehearsal space.

Yip, no matter how hard we try, think we would in fact try just a little harder if we had to go there to face Otis.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 9th, 2010 at 09:11. It is filed under THITH Zine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.