"Playground Tactics by Skewville"

Skewville set up Playground Tactics at White Walls Gallery, SF.

With everything around him succumbing to the particular brand of "blah" that characterizes newly developed New York neighborhoods, Ad Deville knows it would be easy to sell out. After several years in advertising selling his street smarts to big companies eager to shell out for an edge, nowadays he reserves that knowledge for Skewville, the artistic alliance he's operated on and off with his twin brother for over a decade. Their latest show Playground Tactics by Skewville at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco will feature the best found-object playthings of their childhoods, as well as a bringing-together of all the different Skewville styles. We spoke to Ad Deville about selling out, growing up on one of the last farms in New York and how street art has shot itself in the foot.

Frank151: So where am I chatting to you right now?
Ad Deville: The basement where my studio's at. My ex-girlfriend still runs the gallery that I live and work out of.

F151: So you're preparing for your upcoming show, Playground Tactics. What is that about?
AD: When they asked us to do this show, they approached us with a playground idea. And we were like, "Hells yeah." Swings and tyres and clubhouse-type stuff.

In this last year, I've had three other solo shows where I was trying to focus on different aspects of Skewville's style. One was just signage, the Skewville "font." One was just more imagery of faces and stuff. But this show, we're trying to bring everything back as a combination of all the different kinds of stuff that we do.

F151: That must be really satisfying for you.
AD: Uh, it's kinda psychotic in a way. [Laughs] Growing up in this culture in New York, kinda being underground all the time, and not really trying to go mainstream, and then all of a sudden street art becomes popular. We're known for our wooden sneakers that we've been throwing all over, so that became popular [but] we'd had art shows before ... and then no one cared about it. All of a sudden people wanted to buy that stuff. And we're like, "Well, wait a minute. Where were you like, five years ago?"

F151: Your press releases do mention the weakening of the counter culture. Can a counter culture still exist nowadays?
AD: You know what, I've just ignored it the last couple of years. [Laughs] And my brother's completely out of it. Our whole sneaker project from the beginning was never about making money and getting fame—actually it was about getting fame, [but] it wasn't about getting money. It was that graffiti sentiment where you just did it because you loved it. Now when everyone's trying to cash out on it, it's like, "Wait a minute, well what the fuck? This isn't really what it was about." But that's why we're also broke and nobody really knows about us. So it's kinda that Catch-22 thing which we're sort of happy with and [we're] always riding that edge of it.

F151: There'll always be that edge, people at the forefront that people are following and copying, right?
AD: Yeah. So even if I knew what was next, I wouldn't tell you. [Laughs]

F151: It's almost like the most counter-culture thing you can do right now is actually have a 9-5.
AD: I've done so many interviews and told so many people that I'm not selling out, but maybe if I did [get a 9-5] it would be worth it someday. But it just feels like someone's got to keep it real. Especially 'cause I'm from New York, and I'm going to stay in New York.

F151: Did you guys grow up in Bushwick?
AD: No, we grew up in Queens. Queens gets no respect whatsoever. And I've said that all the time. It's funny because some of the artwork now I write "BK" in it and hype up Bushwick and all this stuff, and it's just such a sell-out move. [Laughs]

I was in London in March and people are like, "Where are you from?" I'm like, "Queens." They're like, "Huh?" "Oh, I live in Brooklyn now." And from then on I learned, I'm just gonna tell people—I mean, I am from Brooklyn, I own property, I have a 30-year mortgage [here]. But it still feels icky in a way 'cause I feel like Queens doesn't get that respect.

F151: I feel like I'm seeing a lot of references to London lately. Almost like it's the new "It" city, even among American kids.
AD: Oh man. This is going to sound like I'm old and bitter, but I've probably been saying this for the past two years: I think every place in the world is pretty much played out. I came to Bushwick like four years ago because Williamsburg was so saturated. You come to this new art front where you think it's going to be cool and you think things are gonna lay low or a while, and then all of a sudden there's two sushi places, every bar that comes in serves $10 martini drinks and everything is super swanky. The whole Shoreditch area where I was years ago is all like Williamsburg. It's like everything automatically goes from ghetto to posh. There's no more ten-year transitional period. Everything is quick, quick, expensive, $4 coffee spots, $12 dollar martini bars, like what the fuck.

F151: So what was it like growing up in Queens?
AD: For us it was kinda really unique because even though Queens is closer to Long Island, it's not like Brooklyn "ghetto urban," but it's still very urban. But we grew up on one of the last farms in Queens on a dead-end block. We built clubhouses and played in big—not open—fields, but a lot of trees and burnt-down barns with tools in it and all that stuff. And then you'd walk down the block where all the kids would be playing stickball and ... real normal city stuff. We kinda had this interesting balance where as kids we grew up like we lived in the country sort of.

F151: This whole obsession with the past, do you think that's why people buy your stuff when it is a bit older, 'cause they think it's more authentic?
AD: I think people need to be brainwashed with artwork and that's kinda what's fun about it. If you're not going to pay for shit now, you're definitely going to pay more in the future. I run a gallery in Bushwick also--or my ex-girlfriend does--and every couple of months she'll raise the price of something. And then stuff will still sell at a much higher price. People need to see something for years and years, people need to know that's what you're known for, and all of a sudden, people want to buy it. Like a fashion trend. Then it makes me not want to make it anymore. So I guess it's good for us, that people weren't really interested in the stuff we were making in the beginning, because then I would be stuck still making that stuff.

I just try to keep away from this whole "street art" thing. I can't avoid it, because we grew up doing it, but I try to detach myself from it as much as possible.

F151: Why don't you like street art anymore?
AD: Well the whole revolution shot itself in the foot. I mean, the whole reason for putting up street art was to go against advertising, because advertising clutters the streets of New York. And all of a sudden street art becomes shamelessly promoting your own artwork, because you're selling the same, exact pieces in a gallery. So it just defeats the whole point of being underground. All of a sudden, you're available at Urban Outfitters; it kinda kills the whole vibe of it. Any artist that follows that path about using street art to shamelessly promote [their] artwork and then sell it somewhere, it just seems already done already. You can't hate Shepard Fairey for doing it, because he invented it. But I kinda am pissed off that that just became the formula for street art. Now I know kids coming out of school and they're like, "Oh, I'm a street artist." I'm like, "Shut up. You're not a street artist. Don't ever tell anyone you're a street artist. You might be an artist that does artwork on the street, but you can't call yourself a street artist. That just sounds stupid." You know the revolution is dead when your mom introduces you as a street artist. [Laughs]

F151: [Laughs] Is that a saying?
AD: No, someone asked my mom, "Oh, what does your son do?" My mom's like, "Oh, street art!" [Laughs] I was like, "I cannot believe you said that. You just killed a movement."

Playground Tactics by Skewville runs from January 14 to February 4 at White Walls in San Francisco.
Opening Reception January 14, 7-11pm
835 Lark St San Francisco CA

Setting up Playground Tactics by Skewville at White Walls Gallery, SF.

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