Raymond Pettibon

Raymond Pettibon 1957 Tucson, Arizona - lives and works in New York Raymond Pettibon, born Raymond Ginn, was born on June 16, 1957 in Tucson, Arizona. At the age of five, he moves with his family to Hermosa Beach, a suburb of Los Angeles. His father called him "Petit bon" when he was a little boy, and Raymond later adopted this pet name as his stage name "Pettibon". However, before Raymond Pettibon became known as an artist in the 1980s, he studied business administration at UCLA - University of California in Los Angeles, graduating in 1977. He then briefly teaches high school math in Los Angeles. In his spare time, Raymond Pettibon makes music in the Southern California punk rock music scene with friends and his older brother Greg Ginn. Punk rock poetry With their punk rock band "Black Flag" they become notorious in the 1980s. The idea for the band name "Black Flag", which is charged to bursting point, on the one hand the primary symbol for anarchy and rebellion par excellence, and on the other hand the name of the oldest insecticide in the USA, comes from Raymond Pettibon. He is only a guitarist in the band for a short time, then takes care of the designs for record covers, flyers and posters. He also designs their logo with the four black bars, which as a memorable visual sign, just like the other graphic designs by Raymond Pettibon full of provocative criticism and dark humor, contributes to the band's success with fans and makes Raymond Pettibon known as a draftsman in the punk rock scene. When his brother Greg Ginn founded the record label "SST Records" in 1978, Raymond Pettibon also became artistically active for other bands and designed record covers, booklets, flyers and fan articles for over a dozen other punk rock bands, including "Firehose" or "Sonic Youth". Drawings full of dark humor and subversive irony With the success of his work in the 1980s, Raymond Pettibon devotes himself entirely to art. He draws black and white, comic-like images with integrated texts full of subversive irony and precisely placed punchlines. As a self-taught artist, Raymond Pettibon acquired artistic techniques with black ink and gouache over the years, made collages, and sought his content in politics, sports and subculture as well as in literature, art history and philosophy. Raymond Pettibon places his artistic exploration of the content and visual potential of the art of drawing in the artistic tradition of satire and social criticism of the 18th and 19th centuries, of Francisco de Goya, William Hogarth, Honoré Daumier or Gustave Doré. Raymond Pettibon's works reach a new peak around the turn of the millennium with large-format color works in which, no less disillusioned and angry than in his early works, he sharply criticizes current politics and the Iraq War or pursues his passion for sports such as baseball and surfing. In addition to his art of drawing, Raymond Pettibon is also engaged in animation and video films. He is married to the American video artist Aida Ruilova. His works are shown at numerous exhibitions in internationally renowned galleries and museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kunsthalle Bern and others. In 2002 Raymond Pettibon participates in the Documenta XI in Kassel. In 2006, a first major retrospective is held at the Centro de Arte Contemporaneo in Malaga, Spain, which travels on to the Kestnergesellschaft in Hanover. In 2007, together with the German sound artist Oliver Augst, he composes the musical "The Whole World Is Watching" for the MaerzMusik Festival of the Berliner Festspiele in Berlin. Also in 2007, Pettibon participates in the Venice Biennale. In 2016, the Deichtorhallen Hamburg - Falckenberg Collection presents the most comprehensive survey show to date, "Homo Americanus," with over 700 drawings by Raymond Pettibon, as well as hundreds of flyers, record sleeves, fanzines, and films, paintings, and wall drawings. Raymond Pettibon lives and works in New York.