First Friday Pick: The Astounding Problem Of Andrew Novick
Clowns, cats, and mannequin heads, oh my!
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Andrew Novick has collected quite a few titles over the years. He’s a musician (having played in the Denver bands Warlock Pinchers and Scramblehead), a performance artist (under the name Get Your Going), and a shop owner (co-owning the Japanophile boutique Gimme Gimme Pillow Toast). He also collects stuff. Lots of stuff. From clown paintings to Barbie dolls to Dukes of Hazzard memorabilia, Novick has filled multiple storage spaces with his useless pop-culture items. And now his obsession is seeing the light of day in an exhibit entitled The Astounding Problem Of Andrew Novick, which runs until May 12 at The Lab At Belmar. Novick spoke with Decider about the one piece out of all his offbeat collections that he can’t live without.
The item: a giant painting of a cat signed "Snow McCurry"
Decider: How did you come across the painting?
Andrew Novick: Some friends of mine lived in a trailer park in Boulder, and they saw it leaning up against a dumpster. They rescued it and they actually had it at that trailer in Boulder for a while. When they were moving out, they had a big party and they had a free room—anything they didn't want, you know, you could go in the free room and get it. But there was another guy who wanted that cat painting, but instead of trying to convince him to let me have it, I was like, "Let's just flip for it." So we flipped for it, and I won.
D: Risky.
AN: Risky, yeah! My house has some orange tones to it—it's like a redesign of the '70s. We have a Brady Bunch kitchen counter and stuff, so the painting goes really well in our house. We keep it above the fireplace. Everyone who comes in the room is immediately drawn to it. And I think because it has the paw print and it's signed "Snow McCurry," it seems to me that the cat kind of looks like what a Snow McCurry would look like. It's a self-portrait.
D: What else attracted you to it?
AN: For one, just the sheer size of it. I collect a lot of found art from thrift stores and stuff, and found art and amateur art has a quality to it that is probably more intriguing than professional art. Professional art is so calculated. There's this imposed talent to it. But when you have an amateur artist, it seems more true to heart. It's like they're just doing the best they can. They're probably not a perfectionist about it. They're just trying to get something out there. The fact that this painting is so big is bizarre, and the fact that the original owners got rid of it is also bizarre. I feel like when people get rid of original art like that, I'm kind of saving it. I'm rescuing it from its demise. One of my favorite quotes is, "One man's junk is now my junk."
The item: a giant painting of a cat signed "Snow McCurry"
Decider: How did you come across the painting?
Andrew Novick: Some friends of mine lived in a trailer park in Boulder, and they saw it leaning up against a dumpster. They rescued it and they actually had it at that trailer in Boulder for a while. When they were moving out, they had a big party and they had a free room—anything they didn't want, you know, you could go in the free room and get it. But there was another guy who wanted that cat painting, but instead of trying to convince him to let me have it, I was like, "Let's just flip for it." So we flipped for it, and I won.
D: Risky.
AN: Risky, yeah! My house has some orange tones to it—it's like a redesign of the '70s. We have a Brady Bunch kitchen counter and stuff, so the painting goes really well in our house. We keep it above the fireplace. Everyone who comes in the room is immediately drawn to it. And I think because it has the paw print and it's signed "Snow McCurry," it seems to me that the cat kind of looks like what a Snow McCurry would look like. It's a self-portrait.
D: What else attracted you to it?
AN: For one, just the sheer size of it. I collect a lot of found art from thrift stores and stuff, and found art and amateur art has a quality to it that is probably more intriguing than professional art. Professional art is so calculated. There's this imposed talent to it. But when you have an amateur artist, it seems more true to heart. It's like they're just doing the best they can. They're probably not a perfectionist about it. They're just trying to get something out there. The fact that this painting is so big is bizarre, and the fact that the original owners got rid of it is also bizarre. I feel like when people get rid of original art like that, I'm kind of saving it. I'm rescuing it from its demise. One of my favorite quotes is, "One man's junk is now my junk."
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