Sunday, June 03, 2007
A+E

Fearful symmetry

Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh examines the flip side of the human form

Mark Mothersbaugh CREDIT: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

BEAUTIFUL MUTANTS: THE VISUAL ART OF MARK MOTHERSBAUGH Rabbit Hole Gallery 404-550-6136 www.therabbitholegallery.com Through June By appointment only

BY KEVIN FOREST MOREAU

Long before he found fame in the late 1970s and early '80s with the idiosyncratic new wave band Devo, co-founder Mark Mothersbaugh was an art student at Kent State University. His lifelong interest in visual arts found an outlet in many of Devo's concepts, costumes, videos, film shorts, album covers and T-shirts before the band (best known for the herky-jerky anthem "Whip It" and songs like "Freedom of Choice" and "Beautiful World") dissolved in the early '90s.

These days, when he's not running Mutato Musica, which provides music for films and television ("The Life Aquatic," "Big Love") videogames ("Sims 2") and commercials, Mothersbaugh indulges his visual side with a pair of traveling gallery shows: "Postcard Diaries" and "Beautiful Mutants." The Sunday Paper recently caught up with Mothersbaugh to discuss "Mutants," which is currently on display through the end of the month at Atlanta's Rabbit Hole Gallery.

Q Tell me about the genesis of "Beautiful Mutants," and where the concept came from.
A I think it probably started a long time ago before I ever started doing "Beautiful Mutants." I didn't really start doing them until about 10 years ago. I just always had an interest in, and actually even my band was kind of about symmetry and asymmetry; we referred to humans as potatoes, being basically asymmetrical. It started off as something that, when I started taking these images and mirroring them … it became something different than when you just look at a face. You think of humans as symmetrical most of the time: a nose, two ears, two eyes, a mouth down the middle, two arms, two legs. Only when you split them in half, you see that they really aren't.

When I started manipulating these faces, [of] my grandfather or my father, for instance, when I sliced them and flipped it over, depending on which way I flipped it, it either became more beautiful or alien-looking, or they'd look younger than in the original photograph, or sometimes satanic or malevolent or darker. Sometimes you'd get an image where it was more like the beautiful side and sometimes the darker side, and I became fascinated with that and just started thinking of it like, maybe there were secrets hidden inside the face. Looking at someone, you don't really know what's going on behind the skin, behind the skull, inside the brain. When you talk to people you get an image that they project for you; they tell you things they want you to know about them. I was looking for clues, and just became fascinated with the imagery that I was getting.

Is there something you particularly look for in the photos you shoot or select?
I like when someone's body is slightly ajar, not standing erect. Or in the early 1900s, they had long exposure times on cameras, so subjects tended to sit in a really feet-forward, very symmetrical fashion. I like where they've moved one arm across the center of the picture, or tilted their head to the side, or somehow a little a-kilter to begin with; there's a chance for something much more surprising to come out of the photo.

Given your visual arts background, have you ever considered adding a visual production element to your company? Or do these shows provide plenty of gratification for that side of your creative process?
You know, usually, nine times out of 10 or more somebody's giving us visual content that needs audio tracks to it, so that's mostly what we do here. But I have both this design company [Walteria Living, in which he's a partner] and gallery shows, so I end up doing a lot of visual work anyhow. Walteria I think does a pretty good job, and also doing a gallery show gives me a chance to kind of stay in the field where I originally for all intents and purposes, I thought I was going to be a visual artist. I never really thought there was a chance that I was going to be doing what I'm doing. I never considered that as a career; it was almost accidental. I went to school and studied to be a fine artist, to be a painter and printmaker.

Tell me a little about the process of creating the images.
I have a collection of old funhouse mirrors from the 30s and 40s, back when they were still glass. I'd collected these when Devo was still making films and videos, so I started off making photos myself, putting someone behind the corner of the mirror, and it developed into a bunch of different techniques to get to the end product. At first I was taking pictures, then taking things out of my mom's scrapbook. Then I started looking for photos at junk stores, antique stores.

Computers are sort of ruining it for me. Now computers have come in and made it too simple. I don't know how much longer I'll be doing it. There's one or two things I still want to investigate, but I may have come to closure soon with "Beautiful Mutants."