The New York Review of Ideas » Q&A | June 2009
Man in the Mirror
Brian Kelly wants to tattoo his face on your body.
By Frances Pollitzer
Tattoo artist, narcissist, and leader of the world’s “last all-inclusive organization”. NYRI gets under Brian Kelly’s skin.
I wanted to talk to you about the Brian Kelly Army, and where the idea came from. But first of all, how did you become a tattoo artist?
Tattooing was a long, complicated journey for me. A guy who was a year ahead of me during my undergrad studies opened a shop and took me on as an apprentice after I graduated. I had always thought about tattooing and had several tattoos, and this was right before everyone was a tattoo artist in 2002.
Ha ha! Did it come naturally?
I started tattooing but it wasn’t much of an apprenticeship and I wasn’t much of an apprentice. I was given some machines that didn’t work very well and left to figure it out on my own. Then another guy started tattooing in the studio, but he hated the owner. He showed me quite a bit, in between being very insulting to me. But then I had to spend years unlearning most of what the other guy taught me anyhow.
So how long have you been tattooing your face on other people?
I started tattooing my face on people almost as soon as I started tattooing. I think the face tattooing began in the early spring of 2003.
What made you decide on this particular image?
The image is based on of a photo of me wearing Elvis glasses in the Graceland gift shop. I didn’t like this photo at first, but I then used it for an image of a poster after tweaking out the contrast in Photoshop, and I later used the same image for a painting.
Is it symbolic?
The image struck me as being very iconic. When I decided to make a tattoo of my face, I had really grown to like it. And while the choice of the image was based on aesthetic decisions, it is also symbolic.
How so?
Elvis was the king of rock & roll—the first true super star—a lesson of how getting everything you want will kill you on your toilet if you are not careful. And the photo is taken in the gift shop at his house which has been turned into a monument celebrating excess.
Perhaps Elvis’s mistake was not to die at 27. Or failing to reinvent himself once he had become the king of rock & roll.
Elvis was just a poor country boy. I blame it all on the Colonel. And he was reinvented after the he left the army, as a non-threatening entertainer.
Can you tell me about your most recent recruit to the Brian Kelly Army?
The last person to join the army is Niels, a Dutchman. Though I made a bet with a drunken German not too long ago, and the winner of the bet got to tattoo the other person. Even though this drunken German didn’t know how to tattoo, I said ok, because I was certain I would win, which I did. He said he would get my face tattooed on him then. But he hasn’t yet. My mother always said, “Never trust drunken Germans,” and I guess she was right.
Is there a typical army member?
I tattooed Niels when I did a guest-spot in Rotterdam before I went to New York last fall. One of the girls who worked at the studio brought him in. I guess she convinced him to do it, because I hardly spoke to him, I don’t think he really spoke English, and I don’t speak Dutch.
And…?
And no, I don’t think there is really a typical member of the army. They vary widely in background and social class. Some of them I’ve only met the one time.
Do you have a goal in mind with this project?
The goal of the project has changed many times. When it began, I just wanted to see if I could convince people to do this. Then when people did start getting the tattoo, I began to think of a purpose for it. I thought maybe I should take over the world, but I don’t really want to be responsible for that. I have enough trouble keeping my apartment clean. And then I thought maybe I should save the world, but then I thought, “What a fucking headache.” In the end, there is no purpose, which I think is brilliant.
Like Elvis, you’re just a “non-threatening entertainer”?
The only thing resembling a purpose for this project is that I’ve turned myself into some sort of icon—celebrating nothing, for no financial gain, for no reason besides that I have decided to do so. Which I think is pretty meaningful, or maybe more of a world view. But artists do not create meaning. The viewer supplies meaning.
That’s a very postmodern statement.
If that statement seems postmodern, I guess it reflects that I have sat through too much art school. The idea of artists not supplying meaning is actually a Tom Molloy-ism. He was one of my tutors at grad school.
You have also written that you enjoy the “space between things.” What do you mean by this?
My enjoyment of the space between things is a reference to the paintings I made during the last stint of school. I wrote a thesis about my work; I extended the idea of Pop Artists using comic imagery in their paintings. The art of comics is an art of telling stories. The appearance of the image is one of the least important aspects of telling stories, but is the part the Pop Artists appropriated. I think the magic of comics happens in the blank empty space between the panels, in the “gutter” as it is called, where the viewer is left to connect the juxtaposed images on his or her own. So I created paintings that appropriated the gutter of comics into painting. Which if you follow Marshall McLuhan and I’m not sure he has it right, is a mixture of hot and cold media. The medium is the message. The subject of those paintings is really the empty gap between the panels of the images. It gets very complicated. And to make the answer shorter, I’ll say that I like the space between everything, especially girl’s legs.
How do you feel every time you sign up a new member?
How I feel when I get a new member has changed as much as everything else does.
Does it surprise you?
At first I was really surprised and excited and would run around and tell everyone I knew at least five times. But before I left Minneapolis I was doing so many of them, it had begun to lose its novelty. It’s sort of a lot of work for twenty dollars. But I do still enjoy doing the tattoo, especially when I am somewhere that I haven’t done one before. I’ve made a commitment to myself to do this tattoo for the rest of my life for the same price. Depending on what country I’m in, the price shifts when the currency changes.