BM Book

G R A N D C E N T R A L P R E S S

GRAND CENTRAL PRESSCSUF Grand Central Art Center125 N. Broadway Santa Ana, California 92701714-567-7233 714-567-7234www.grandcentralartcenter.com

This book has been published in conjunction with the exhibition Beautiful Mutants for the CSUF Grand Central Art Center Project Room, Santa Ana, California, where it was presented 1 September – October 21, 2007.

Published by California State University Fullerton Grand Central Art Center and the Grand Central Press.

Printed by: Prolong Press, Hong KongFirst Printing September 2007

All Artwork © Mark MothersbaughBook © 2007 Grand Central PressAll rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher and artist.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mothersbaugh, Mark. Mark Mothersbaugh beautiful mutants / Mark Mothersbaugh, CristinaBodinger-deUriarte. p. cm. ISBN 0-9771696-6-9 (978-0-9771696-6-5) 1. Photography, Artistic. 2. Mothersbaugh, Mark. I. Bodinger-DeUriarte,Cristina. II. Title. TR655.M74 2007 779.092--dc22 2007029715

The Cryptomnesia of Mark Mothersbaugh: B E A u T i f u L M u T A N T S i N E i N f A L L A N D S h A D o w

Cristina Bodinger-deUriarte

Cryptomnesia, something creeps up into consciousness…always unconscious until the moment it appears…as though it had fallen from heaven. The Germans call this an einfall, which means a thing which falls into your head from nowhere…like a revelation.1

—Carl Jung

Mark Mothersbaugh’s art leads the viewer to see the hidden mutant in us all. The artist renders a “study of humans via symmetry using photos, both recent and vintage”2 in which each photograph is, like the “self” in Jungian analysis, transformed to “emerge from its chrysalis as something with expected and uninvestigated properties. It no longer represented anything immediately known…. Rather, it now appeared in a double guise, as both known and unknown.”3

Mothersbaugh’s images are real yet unreal, of this world yet otherworldly, mysterious yet deeply, if unconsciously, meaningful. According to Gombrich, such “images apparently occupy a curious position somewhere between the statements of language, which are intended to convey a meaning, and the things of nature, to which we can only give a meaning.”4 The mutants are taken from nature in the form of “images pulled from man’s past…then corrected into sickeningly beautiful beings”5 to become, through this “correction,” symbolic. They convey meaning, yet depend on the viewer to complete that meaning as an intuitive, internal act. The more “mutated” the image, the more intuitive the responses. Jung’s description of dreams applies equally well to Mothersbaugh’s mutants: “…you cannot see where they came from and you cannot know where they go…you get the hunch…what is called intuition, a sort of divination, a sort of miraculous faculty….whereby you see round corners…a kind of perception which does not go exactly by the senses, but goes via the unconscious.”6

In “Beautiful Mutants,” one looks around corners into images at once alien and familiar, other and self. The more open the viewer, the more visible the “self” in the mirror-image mutant. Einfall occurs precisely in this self-recognition. Reconciling this with more typical self-conceptions involves looking at processes that lead to self-feeling—vis-à-vis Mothersbaugh’s deconstruction of such processes through art.

Cooley explained “self-feeling” in terms of judgments that we believe others make; he described the way we adapt to increase our comfort and self-esteem in view of those judgments, creating a “looking-glass-self.”7 However, the “thing that moves us to pride or shame is not a mere mechanical reflection…[and] ideas that are associated with self-feeling…cannot be covered by any simple description…. That other, in whose mind we see ourselves, makes all the difference.”8 In this case, Mothersbaugh is that “other in whose mind we see ourselves,” through the alchemical looking-glass images of the beautiful mutants. His art challenges our predisposition to credit only those who think well of us and to repress or deny parts of our character in order to think well of ourselves.

Goffman believed that people who recognized this looking-glass process used it not for self-improvement, but for self-promotion through “image management” and a manipulated “presentation of self.”9 He held that most people tacitly collude to maintain such illusions.

1. C. G. Jung, Analytical Psychology: Its Theory and Practice (New York: Pantheon Press, 1968).2. Mark Mothersbaugh, The Visual Art of Mark Mothersbaugh, “Beautiful Mutants 2007” www.mutatovisual.com/gallery_bm06.html (2003-2007).3. Carl G. Jung, The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung, ed. Violet S. de Laszlo, trans. R.F.C. Hull (New York: Random House, 1959).4. Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (New York and London: Phaidon Press, 1960/2004).5. Mothersbaugh, “Beautiful Mutants 2007.”6. Jung, Analytical Psychology.7. Charles H. Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order (Edison, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 1983; original copyright 1902).8. Cooley.9. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Peter Smith Publishing, 1999).

Conversely, Cooley hoped that people who recognized this process would choose better “looking glasses,” leading to greater personal development. Mothersbaugh does not wait for people to choose, but manipulates his virtual mirror. Before realizing it, we recognize secret truths of the self in his mutant beings—cryptomnesia.

Mothersbaugh takes the metaphor of the self-reflecting mirror-image and turns it back on itself in his recognition that “humans are basically asymmetric…we have this lie of being symmetric... you can see deeper inside people when you split them in half…when you look at a mirror [image] and when you see an image that wasn’t there before.”10 His symbolic mirror-images reflect both a physical and metaphysical asymmetry. He shatters the looking-glass-self and reconstitutes it so “a closer look reveals what is truly inside the people around us...viewed without the disguise we all so expertly hide behind.”11 Jung advocated the use of the expressive arts, dreams, and other projective-associative media to help people shed their “conventional husk” and develop “a stark encounter with reality, with no false veils or adornments...[wherein] man stands forth as he really is, and shows what was hidden under the mask of conventional adaptation: the shadow.”12

Mothersbaugh, through his transformed images, provides a more universal looking-glass and the challenge to not merely see but to truly look. It is a Jungian-style appeal to consciousness, a revelation that when “man can no longer be repressed by fictions and illusions…man becomes, for himself, the difficult problem he really is. He must always remain conscious of the fact that he is such a problem if he wants to develop at all.”13

Mothersbaugh’s work has the transformative potential Jung felt art could create—where, “by means of ‘active imagination’ we…make the discovery of the archetype.”14 These archetypes are not literal, but symbolic and often

abstracted figures. Jungian archetypes discoverable through Mothersbaugh’s work include:

• persona—our public image (from the Latin for “mask”);

• self—focus and centeredness (sometimes appearing with a cruciform in a circle);

• child-god—rebirth, future, salvation; and, most significantly,

• shadow—our collective unconscious of our pre-human, animal past, and the part of ourselves we can’t quite admit to.

For both Jung and Mothersbaugh, each person makes sense of images in an individual way—the more unfamiliar the images are, the more intuitive are the understandings one projects onto them. Although such projections are shaped by individual experience, cultural sensibilities, and historicity, something more universal is also projected—the archetypes relate to what unites all persons as human—what Jung called “the collective unconscious.”15

Mothersbaugh’s “beautiful mutants” shine as archetypal figures and, as such, tap into this collective unconscious. The impact of Mothersbaugh’s images is rooted in their potential to trigger dynamic interplay among visual sensibilities, emotive states, collective unconscious, and the opportunity for self-recognition. The transformative power works, in part, like the projective-associative ink-blot techniques used in psychotherapy. Indeed, Mothersbaugh acknowledges these ties to his mirrored-image art, noting that “Rorschach and other psychiatrists developed hunches regarding symmetry and the internal workings of man.”16

Psychotherapists use visual and dream-image projective-associative techniques to countervail denial and to correct self-alienation. Their intent is to elevate one’s psychological health as one recognizes and reconciles with one’s darker impulses—faces one’s “shadow”—in order to be integrated, self-aware and complete, to understand

10. Mark Mothersbaugh, “Weird America with Mark Mothersbaugh,” Weird America http://www.weirdamerica.com/2006/11/15/weird_america_with_mark_mothersbaugh (November 15, 2006).11. Mothersbaugh, “Beautiful Mutants.”12. Carl G. Jung, The Practice of Psychotherapy: Essays on the Psychology of Transference and Other Subjects, trans. Gerhard Adler and R.F.C. Hull, 2nd edition

(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966).13. Jung, The Practice of Psychotherapy.14. Jung, The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung.15. Jung, The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung.16. Mark Mothersbaugh, “Mothersbaugh’s Happy Mutants,” Boing Boing, A Directory of Wonderful Things http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/13/mothersbaughs_happy_.html (July 13, 2004).

the potential to harm and, thus, avoid it through honesty, humility, and wholeness. In Jung’s words:

Repression leads to one-sided development, if not to stagnation, and eventually to neurotic disassociation…. Recognition of the shadow is reason enough for humility…. The man without a shadow thinks himself harmless precisely because he is ignorant of his shadow. The man who recognizes his shadow knows very well that he is not harmless…once the naked truth has been revealed…once ego and shadow are brought together in an—admittedly precarious—unity.17

For Jung, archetypal figures represent the “universally human”—their appearance is a warning that:

The individual is at variance with unconscious conditions. That somewhere he has fallen a victim to his ambition and his ridiculous designs, and, if he does not pay attention, the gap will widen and he will fall into it.18

Mothersbaugh’s inspired images compel us to “pay attention.” They are not merely objective, split-half-mirrored portraits but are filtered through a particular vision that provides a means of seeing more clearly into hidden selves of others and, through archetypal qualities common to all humans, into our own “selves.”

Jung used the recognition and interpretation of archetypes as a means of working through the primary principles of

psychological health—“entropy” and “transcendence.” Entropy is the recognition that we are a mixture of good and bad, that for each good impulse a dark impulse exists but may go unrecognized. In transcendence, we rise above these opposites by seeing and recognizing both in our own identities, thereby recognizing who we really are.

Mothersbaugh engages the principle of entropy when he shows that “humans tend to have a beautiful side and a dark side,” illustrating this by differentially mirroring the two halves of our asymmetry. This reveals archetypes among the mutants in “images that were very compelling through their grotesqueness or through their weird beauty where it was almost creepy.”19

Viewers resonate with these images at the interstice between individual subconscious and collective unconscious. Mothersbaugh is, indeed, a master of this interstice, offering the potential “miraculous” experience that art can provide. As Gombrich describes it, “the true miracle of the language of art is not that it enables the artist to create the illusion of reality. It is that under the hands of a great master, the image becomes translucent. In teaching us to see the visible world afresh, he gives us the illusion of looking into the invisible realms of the mind—if only we know…how to use our eyes.”20

Cristina Bodinger-deUriarte received a Sociology BA from Yale, with an emphasis on social psychology, and a Sociology PhD from Harvard, with an emphasis in cultural sociology. She has presented widely and published in the area of sociology of the arts, music, and popular culture.

17. Jung, The Practice of Psychotherapy.18. Jung, The Basic Writings of C.G. Jung.19. Mothersbaugh, “Weird America with Mark Mothersbaugh.”20. Gombrich, Art and Illusion.

Scholars Referenced1. Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961): Swiss psychiatrist who founded analytic psychology. For five years he was Freud’s close collaborator. (Jungian analysis was developed,

in part, as an alternative to Freud’s psychoanalysis). Jung proposed and developed the concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious. 2. Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich (1909-2001): Austrian-British scholar widely recognized as one of the world’s most influential art historians, particularly in the area

of perception and art. Gombrich held a number of endowed professorships including those at Harvard, Cornell, and the Royal College of Art. He was knighted for his accomplishments in 1972.

3. Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929): American sociologist and precursor to the symbolic interactionist school of thought in sociology. A prolific scholar, Cooley’s most famous original concept is that of the “looking-glass self,” a concept still valued in contemporary sociology and psychology.

4. Erving Goffman (1922-1982): Canadian-American scholar known as one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century. He pioneered concepts in face-to-face interaction through a dramaturgical perspective building on symbolic interaction.

5. Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922): A Swiss Freudian psychoanalyst and art teacher famous for seeing the analytic potential in Kleksography (the art of making fanciful ink-blot pictures). Rorschach studied with the same eminent psychiatrists who trained Jung. Through scientific study and experiment, Rorschach developed the ink-blot projective-associative test that was given his name.

Source: The Source of Scales and Melodic Patterns by Nicolas Slonimsky Courtesy of Electra Slonimsky Yourke

As a child, I was required to play Nicolas Slonimsky’s scales, which can be quite soothing, from a mechanical-meditative point of view. Becoming obsessed with Slonimsky’s writings, one didn’t have to search far to discover his amazing Palindromic Canon in 8 parts. Like his scales, this piece of music is haunting, both ugly and beautiful at the same time.

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It was decades later that in a small way I inserted a musical palindrome of my own into modern pop culture, by taking a piece of music I had written for the movie The Royal Tannenbaums called “Scrapping and Yelling” and using a mirrored image of the musical notation, literally reversed the actual notes and patterns in it for the movie A Life Aquatic in the musical piece titled, “Let Me Tell You About My Boat.”

I want to tell you something I’ve never told anyone before. I’m not sure exactly how to start, so I’m just going to talk about it, but it’s not already laid out in my mind. There will probably be a lot of typos and circuitous thought, because I don’t think I can show this to an editor. You know how you can have thoughts that last for days, or sometimes years, that you never tell anyone about?

(Continued...)

Around eleven years ago, while I was working on a movie, I walked into a daydream, and didn’t come out. Well, not exactly didn’t come out, I found out I could be there, and be here at the same time. I could even go to work at my studio, and write music all day, and still be in this other place. Sometimes it even helped me to be somewhere else when I wrote a piece of music for someone’s movie. No one seemed to mind, and I never talked about it. Just these images and objects kept showing up and collecting at my studio, and no one acted concerned, they worked at my company and just wanted to know where to keep this stuff, which was fine with me, because I didn’t really want to explain to them I was living in 1888. Or fifty years earlier, or fifty years later, I’ve never been too sure about the actual date. Or that I was a photographer of sorts. Not like a fashion photographer, or any kind of commercial photographer of any sort, but almost a metaphysical picture maker, who constructed photos of people they would never want to see. Which was fine with me, since I’ve only really known a few of my subjects.

(Continued...)

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In thinking back, it was extremely easy to slip from this world with its deadlines and logistical constraints and into the other place that was being constructed as time allowed. Often I would stay up all night, manufacturing and manipulating photos and adding characters who would sit on my shoulder the next day while a client was telling me about his or her musical needs. Non sequitur became a part of my daytime personae which some people viewed as charming and others as extremely obnoxious, but generally my predilections went unchallenged in the lenient work climate of my studio.

Anyhow, in this other place, it was my job to make poems out of these often-antique looking faces. And I used a parlor trick to do it. Not just any parlor trick, for even though I was modifying faces, white-out, pencil erasers and additive forms of mutation were ruled out in favor of meticulously lining newborn and weathered mugs alike up alongside mirrors, looking for clues and bits of information that had been hidden in plain view all along. There is a beauty to palindromes, they have an almost snowflake-like quality that allows you to transcend the horrors of words and look for stories that have been obscured by reality.

(Continued...)

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(Continued...)

Dear Sirs, Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain my somewhat compulsive activities over the past 8 or 9 years involving image manipulation via photography. This is not the first time that what started out as an often innocent enough activity, has at times in the past developed into a full-blown obsession. An interesting activity can become the hair of the dog that bit you as they say, without even the slightest hint of a giveaway tic, or a tip of the hat to radio ahead that your meat computer is in the process of morphing from a fully functioning thirteen wheeler hauling everyday valuable information into an overheated overloaded clown car of surplus activity.

(Continued...)

None of these photos would exist if it wasn’t for my great-grandfather Megawatti Ratzer, a watch repairman who upon reading about the French and English creations of universal pneumatic clocks, moved to the United States to strike it rich in the universal calibration of time keeping. Part of a real estate scam that promised beautiful tillable land and proximity to modern civilization, the small group of duped and financially tapped Swiss investors found themselves stuck on the side of an untraversable mountainous woodland somewhere in the middle of West Virginia, where many died or just gave up and returned to Switzerland, leaving just a few members of this group to fight for survival. Megawatti dug in with the stubborn few foolish enough to give it a whirl, selling most of his tools, but purchasing some photographic equipment from another mans widow. During this first winter, he taught himself to take pictures, and soon stumbled upon his big idea.

Dayton, OhioOctober 22, 1861

To:The Officers of the U.S. Patent Bureau, Washington D.C.

Dear Sirs,It is with great consternation that I read of your refusal to grant me an adjoining patent to that of the Photographic Camera, that would approve of my mechanism that allows for capturing images of the inner psychic phenomena of humans and beasts. I went to great lengths to describe to you the specifications of my mechanism, and revealed to you details that should have proven without a doubt of my ability to capture said images. I am afraid that without a patent, my work may not be taken seriously, or worse; there are those I have met who would happily steal a good idea rather than come up with their own. I don’t think anyone else in this country is currently capturing images of inner psychic phenomena on photographic plates, but I fear once word gets out, there will be many imitators. Many charlatans will rise to confuse and dirty the important research I am undertaking at no small expense to a man without financial backing. Let me reiterate that I love this great country that I have adopted as my own, and I place all my trust in your recognizing the true importance of my research. Please reconsider the rejection notice you have sent me and grant me a patent to protect my intellectual properties.

God Bless America,

Megawatti Ratzer

Excerpt from a letter my great-grandfather Megawatti Ratzer wrote sometime soon after leaving West Virginia to migrate north to Ohio. It was addressed to the U.S. patent office.

(Continued...)

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Needless to say, the patent office lumped my great-grandfather in with the most spurious of requests, most likely due to his lack of scholarly backup, because even snake oil has a few hundred patents.

He continued his work, mostly traveling around Ohio and western Pennsylvania, but the coal miners and farmers he convinced to allow him to psychically photograph often became enraged when they saw the results of his work, and chased him out of their counties.Nonetheless, Megawatti took numerous photos before being shot in the head during an attempt to psychically document a Civil War scuffle in Pennsylvania. Most of his original plates and equipment were lost, there was no known home to send his few remains to, and his place of burial even remains a mystery.My interest in his work followed a memory of sitting in my grandfather’s living room and hearing him talk about his dad. I never thought about taking photographs myself until part of his equipment turned up in my mother’s sister’s barn. No one wanted it, but I took the few old mirrors and a small box of letters and became obsessed with trying out his procedure based on the few writings which survived him.

Clara, Governess of Sanitario Unidos De Los GuanotosPre-Adolescent Satyr

Satan’s Lil AngelGretchen, Hall Monitor Holloway Pre-School (Class 07)

Lupi, Spelling Champ Holloway Pre-School (Class 07)Girl with Flowers and Lace Dress

Baby Boss Fabergé EggBiggest Hat In Town

Switch Wielding BoySacre Nasum; Roma, ItaliaSand Buckets of Happiness

Flowerboy for the U.S. Fleet, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii 1938 Baby Sitting

Blingo a.k.a. Pupae-Bodied LadI Beg Your Pardon

Always, LingCoatakronia

Bob Williamson, Brooklyn New YorkPrincess with Tiara, Kuala Lumpur

Bride in the VestibuleFirst Communion

Minnesota Milk Maid3rd Nostril Visionary

Conical Thumbelina Perfect Snowflake of HarmonyAunt Jo at Cedar Point

Ashtabula PerambulatorSisters with Baby Monkey

Queen Edie, circa 1933Charles Goodyear III, The Spiderboy of Akron, Ohio

Shambala Dupur, Best Damn Accountant in the VillageHalo Shrouded Hand Held Seer, Summit County Fair, circa Christmas, 1911

Well, Koo Koo Roo Koo to You; Barcelona, EspanaCar Man, Detroit, Michigan

Cheeky Debutante Cigar Headed Champion Spitter

Magic ShowBaby Curl & Baby Chauncey

The Urge to TeachSelf Portrait, 2nd Grade (1957)

Carmen Miranda Impersonator, Coney Island, New JerseyRodent Baby Portrait

Girl with PearlsGossamer Green Veiled Babilo

Sad Eyed Lady, Perfumier des Akron, OhioBest Boy, Jacob Ratzer

The Del Rubio Triplets, at Long Beach Pier Bottom Heavy Pug

Reading Brat with Four Leather ShoesMildred Bailey, The Hand-Held Machine of Love

Shinto Pabbuza, SardiniaHappy Tappin with Margolips, Vaudeville Performer, circa 1927

Masked Man, ChicagoFibi’s Second Birthday, 05

Pinched-up FaceOhio Dynamo

Carlos at His Last Communion, Costa RicaTwo Little Ladies

MorbidoBabe in the Hickory Smoke Woods

Tesla’s CoilMasked Man, New Orleans

KakaRudulDooBaby Brian Kehew and His Father

064. Peg065. Mystica, Seer From Lisboa066. I Beseech Thee Oh Lord067. Posies for Mother068. Well-Dressed Con069. The Prettiest Cyclops Boy in all Mogadore070. Lady in Waiting071. Baby Kiki, Sideshow Hotsy Totsy072. Dutch Sailor Boy073. Eggboy074. Fairy Stigmata075. Preston Smith and His Parlor Tricks, Canton, Ohio076. Amoorah Gila, Bugle Boy at Gaza Drive-Inn077. Baby Anita with the Two Judy’s078. Perfect Frozen Ice Baby a.k.a Tiny Cutie079. Zulu Necked Librarian from Dayton, Ohio080. Lil Guy a.k.a. Sled Warrior Child081. Baby Anita at Grandma’s House082. Flamenco Contraction Bouquet083. Liquor Posse084. The Happiest Angel085. Evil Elephants Never Forget086. Apollo circa 1864087. Immigrant Girl in Plaid Cape 088. Hand Some Man089. Teacher’s Pet090. Golden Palace Raja091. Keepers of the Faith092. Hula Hula Gal093. My Math Professor, Bolich Junior High094. Daddy’s Little Sideshow095. Sammy the Cyclops096. Dog Toys Boy097. Victorian Totem098. Connie Johnson, Stow, Ohio099. Yellow Bows and Green Flitters100. Noah Lost His Legs101. Tomas Cruise, Religious Zealot102. Rebecca Allen, Computer Genius103. Caged Mollusk Baby104. Little Debby, Pie Monster105. Furs106. Well-heeled Stone-hearted Son of Money, circa 1873, Akron, Ohio107. Alabama Pelt, Frizzy Dangle108. Noy Boy, Nova Scotia109. Michael Sad legs Jr.110. Corporal Brewton, Bee Keeper111. Judith Bradt, Flower Girl circa 1948112. Ghoat Girl113. Tippy-Toeing to Heaven / First Baby 4114. Flat n’ Fat Man115. Klan Baby a.k.a. Alabama Moon116. Tri-Hoofed Dancing Mammalian117. Seal Boy, State Road Shopping Center Traveling Freak Show118. Two Suitors for Honeysuckle119. Clown Maiden, Summit County Fair120. Approaching Home121. Lady in Black Rubber Mac122. Anita’s First Boyfriend123. Prestidigitator’s Assistant124. Barn Birth a.k.a. Bovine Purity Witness125. Cristina Bodinger-deUriarte’s Secret Journey126. Guitarro Mano Teatles Venezuela

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Dancing Clowns #6Reichskanzler

Scouter’s FlukeNecronomic Altar

Tiny-Boned WomanAdolphus the Wrong Hearted

Mamamolio, Parisian Night Club Performer, circa WWIIHappy Hula Gal

South African Baby BishopMardi Gras, 1937Halfway Sammy

Birdee Boy, Saturday NightCroissant Turbaned Raja of Punjab

Deviated SeptumStethoscopic Sternum

The Determined Young Seaman, Portsmouth EnglandBaby Heckle, Boston Medical Library

Andrew’s Headshot, age 3.3; Somewhere, Missouri Trap-Jawed Pug a.k.a. Fireman’s Helper

Faery Queen, LisboaBaby Hef

Stu, The BunnyEmperor of Constantinople

Perfect Child and Stone PugsMortimori, Belgrade Hungary, circa 1918

Grampa CyclopsMiniature Fantasy Creature Farm, Columbus Ohio

Hershey’s Fair-Skinned KissTwo Teddies for a Happy Rabbit, Stow, Ohio

Mamo Manop a.k.a. Joyeux Nueve JahrHorned Gent

Atomic Particles Hovering Over the PondThe Bookworm, Chicago, IL

The Richest Kid in Town with His Birthday Gift at the Akron AviaryGraduation Day

Autumn Harvest a.k.a. The Girl From Stone Street, Cuyahoga Falls, OhioYucaipa Miracle Boy

Cyclopedius ThespianoCrab Baby

Neck Bow SlendolaDoe-Nosed Girl From Owsley County

Henry Ford III, Original Bad Boy of DetroitCharles Jacotin

Baby Mannix, Stevenson’s RanchTres Amiga’s de Lilly Strada

Sprightly Sea-LadBonne AnnéeSuction Raja

Finger Point GirlPuppet Energy

Somnambulistic Chemistry MajorSad Babolino

UlyssesInterballistic Minuteman Warhead (female version)

The Other Lil’ DebbyMy Uncle Sam Don’t Look Like Your Uncle Sam

El GigoloProfessor Fester and Pupil

Head CheeseCustard Top

Seeing Eye GrandmaEyeward

Puppet Master, Bob Baker, Los Angeles

190. Static Electricity191. Family Ties192. The White Raja193. The Bound Piker194. Oral Aural Babaloo195. Mr. Tea196. Iceberg Headdress197. Twins Cradling Devil Pug198. Throned Baby199. Blue Sashed Lothario200. Halogenetic Duplicate Love Child201. Elaborate Sitting Chair202. First Girl a.k.a. Widow Peak Princess203. Ruskie Dancer204. In the Sweet Smelling Garden of Life205. Please, I’m Ling206. My Sword is Swift207. Slideshow Sister, Summit County Fair Grounds, Ohio208. Baby Boss 2209. The Hippel Girls210. Astro Girl211. Easter Parade212. The Walteria Brothers, San Jose California 213. The Brunette Crone 214. KissiK215. Finger Collector216. Navy Vet Calliope Operator217. Mother’s Passage218. The Thorn219. The Muse220. Awoi, Notton, Iowa221. Nanny Bug222. The Legless Seafarer223. Peep Show224. Sacred Creature 1 Guatemala City, circa 1941225. Sacred Creature 2 Guatemala City, circa 1941226. Dancing Wybanoba, St. Petersburg, Russia227. The Farmer’s Crazy Daughter228. Beautiful Dreaming Sea-Creature229. Happy Jarhead230. Sweet Lady of Portage Lakes, Ohio231. The Performing DeMarco Sisters of Brecksville, Ohio232. Necromance a.k.a. Necromantic Display Window Harrods, Kensington Road London, circa 1955233. Aerobics Coach, Budapest Hungary234. Willow and Her Twin Kitties, Utopia, Kansas235. Cousin Larry, My Childhood Hero236. Little Old Lady Who237. Turkish Flower Bearing Ticking Alarm Clock238. Augwog Freese239. Mary Margaret, Mother of All Saints240. Coiled Pugilist 241. Finlandian Reindeer Riding, circa 1876242. 2 Bear, 1 Wheel243. Gunman with Visage of Jesus in his Fists244. Gonzo in the Afterlife245. Another Time a.k.a. Three Heads, One Dress246. Fibi, Dedicated Family Watch Dog247. Triumvirate Des Finkus und Fibus248. Kowboy249. Egg Queen of Ancient West Virginia250. Carmen Miranda and Caesar Romero251. Mutatolio Logolistico252. Rev. Tyler Culp and his Father

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Mark MothersbaughE x h i B i T i o N S

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2004 (Continued)March Beautiful Mutants - Escapist Gallery - Austin, TXMay Beautiful Mutants - Mission Space - Baltimore, MDMay LA Fly By - LA Center for Digital Art - Los Angeles, CAMay Beautiful Mutants - Lineage Gallery - Burlington, VTJune Beautiful Mutants - M Modern Gallery - Palm Springs, CAJuly Beautiful Mutants - DC Gallery - Denver, COJuly Beautiful Mutants - FUSE Gallery - New York City, NYJuly Beautiful Mutants - Bh Gallery/Powells Books - Portland, ORAugust Art Throb- BlueSpace - Hollywood, CASeptember Beautiful Mutants - Space Gallery - Portland, MESeptember International Underground - Whitney Young - San Francisco, CASeptember Tattoo & Art Festival -Woodstock Gallery- Woodstock, NYOctober Beautiful Mutants - Luckystar Gallery - Milwaukee, WINovember Non Compos Mentis - BlueSpace - Hollywood, CANovember Beautiful Mutants - Gallery 212/Vitosha Guest Haus - Ann Arbor, MIDecember Beautiful Mutants - Perihelion Arts - Phoenix, AZDecember Beautiful Mutants - Creative Electric Studios - Minneapolis, MN

2005March Beautiful Mutants - Temple Ball Gallery - Carborro, NCMarch The Rawk Show - The Space - Austin, TXApril Man and Beast Art Show - Emily Davis Gallery - Akron, OHMay Joey Ramone Birthday Bash - CB’s 313 Gallery - NYCJune Beautiful Mutants - Aron Packer Gallery - Chicago, ILJune Postcard Diaries - KM Art Gallery - Milwaukee, WIJuly Beautiful Mutants - Flight 19 Gallery - Tampa, FLJuly New Traditionalists - Subliminal Projects Gallery - LA, CAJuly Against The Grain - LA, CAAugust Postcard Diaries - FUSE Gallery - New York City, NYAugust Beautiful Mutants - N. Water St. Gallery - Kent, OHAugust Beautiful Mutants - Roq La Rue Gallery - Seattle, WASeptember Beautiful Mutants - Parts Gallery - Toronto, ONTSeptember Beautiful Mutants - CoproNason Gallery - Los Angeles, CASeptember Against The Grain - Hurley Show - Sydney, AustraliaOctober Beautiful Mutants - Paradise Lounge - Boston, MANovember Postcard Diaries - Screen Arts Gallery - St. Augustine, FLNovember Postcard Diaries - TAG Gallery - Nashville, TNDecember Postcard Diaries - OX-OP Gallery - Minneapolis, MNDecember Postcard Diaries - Atomic Cowboy Gallery - St. Louis, MO

2006January Postcard Diaries - Buck15 Gallery - Miami Beach, FLMarch Postcard Diaries - Perihelion Arts - Phoenix, AZApril Postcard Diaries - Massachusetts College Of Art - Boston, MAMay Postcard Diaries & Beautiful Mutants - NAC - Norwich, UKMay Peace/Music/Art Fest - Club Khameleon - Kent, OHJuly Bad Art For Bad People - Mirta’s Gallery - Tampa, FLAugust Dos Mutatos - RVCA - Costa Mesa, CASeptember Postcard Diaries - N. Water St. Gallery - Kent, OHSeptember Postcard Diaries - Osheaga Festival - Montreal, CanadaSeptember Art Crawl - The Echo - Los Angeles, CAOctober Happy Beauty - Super 7 - San Francisco, CAOctober Postcard Diaries - Mystery City - Chicago, ILNovember Postcard Diaries - L’ Art Noir - New Orleans, LADecember Postcard Diaries - LUMP Gallery - Raleigh, NC

2007February Postcard Diaries - Brampton Arts Fest - Toronto, ONTMarch Postcard Diaries - Creative Electric - Minneapolis, MNApril Postcard Diaries - Bambi Gallery - Philadelphia, PAMay Postcard Diaries - JEM Gallery - Vancouver, BC CanadaMay Postcard Diaries - FL!GHT Gallery - San Antonio, TXJune Beautiful Mutants - Rabbit Hole Gallery - Atlanta, GAJuly Beautiful Mutants - Ingenuity Festival - Cleveland, OHSeptember Beautiful Mutants - CSUF Grand Central Art Center - Santa Ana, CA

Postcard Series & Hand Stamped Prints - Packard Gallery - Akron, OH

M. Mothersbaugh - Psychedelic Solution - New York, NY

M. Mothersbaugh: Serigraphs & Paintings - LaForet - Tokyo, JapanM. Mothersbaugh: Peek-A-Boo Room - La Luz De Jesus - LA, CA

Bad Influences - The World - New York, NYBad Influences - Parsons School Of Design - New York, NY

M. Mothersbaugh - Sarah Bain Gallery - Fullerton, CA

Ford Beckman’s Clown Paintings - El Punto Gallery - Rome, Italy

M. Mothersbaugh: Re-Sent Works - The Tunnel - New York, NY

Syntax Error/Peek-A-Boo Room - Cement Space - Detroit, MI

The Bingo Ball Benefit - S.Monica Museum Of Art - Santa Monica, CAForming/Punk Hall Of Fame Induction - Track 16 - Santa Monica, CA

Art In The News - USF Contemporary Art Museum - Tampa, FLEdgar Leeteg Tribute - Copro/Nason Gallery - Culver City, CA

untitled group showing - Lumpy Gravy Bistro & Gallery - Los Angeles, CA

Hi-Jaculate Yourself - LUMP gallery - Raleigh, NCBut I Wuv You - 31 Grand - Brooklyn, NY

Juxtapoz 8th Anniversary Show - Track 16 - Santa Monica, CABad Touch - Ukranian Institute Of Modern Art - Chicago, IL

Digital Purr: Computer-Aided Kunst - Beaker Gallery - Tampa, FLHomefront Invasion! - Wild Banana Artspew Gallery - Maui, HI

Homefront Invasion! - Matthews Gallery - Tampa, FLHomefront Invasion! - Recon Gallery - San Francisco, CA

Homefront Invasion! - Objex Artspace - Miami, FLHomefront Invasion! - Blah Blah Gallery - Online Show

Homefront Invasion! - FUSE Gallery - NYC, NYBad Touch - Keith Talent Gallery - London, UK

Homefront Invasion! - Forbidden Gallery - Dallas, TXHomefront Invasion! - KM art Gallery - Milwaukee, WI

Homefront Invasion! - Chindogu Gallery - Oklahoma City, OKHomefront Invasion! - Roq La Rue Gallery - Seattle, WA

Homefront Invasion! - INTOXICA! - London, UKHomefront Invasion! - Aron Packer Gallery - Chicago, IL

Homefront Invasion! - The Derby - Hollywood, CAHomefront Invasion! - Orbit Gallery - Edgewater, NJ

Bad Touch - The Rose Art Museum - Waltham, MAHomefront Invasion! - Eyedrum Gallery - Atlanta, GA

Homefront Invasion! - Bfly Atelier - Vancouver, BC - CanadaHomefront Invasion! - Th’ink Tank Gallery - Denver, CO

Beautiful Mutants - OX-OP Gallery - Minneapolis, MNBeautiful Mutants - Capobianco Gallery - San Francisco, CA

Beautiful Mutants - TAG Gallery - Nashville, TNFun House Art Show - C-Pop Gallery - Detroit, MI

Modern Love - M Modern Gallery - Palm Springs, CAThe Rawk Show - Gallery Lombardi - Austin, TX

1950 Born Akron Ohio1957 Receives first pair of spectacles and simultaneously became interested in art 1968 Enrolled at Kent State University fine arts department 1970 Protests war in Viet Nam Meets Jerry Casale at Kent State and co-conceptualizes the art band DEVO1975 First solo gallery show 1976 to Present Bob, Jim and Mark Mothersbaugh, Bob and Jerry Casale release award winning short film “In the beginning was the end – the truth about De-evolution” and European chart topping singles. During this time period, created along with Jerry Casale and Bob Mothersbaugh all of Devo’s film, graphics, music and stage shows. DEVO continues to record and perform.

1984 to Present Composes music for film, TV, radio, video games and Web

1987 to Present Has shown in hundreds of solo and group exhibitions.

Special Thanks

Anita Mothersbaugh, Michael Pilmer, Randall Michaelson, Andrea Harris-McGee, Ryan Di Donato, Eric Stoner, Alyssa Wiens, Corban Poorboy, Barret Oliver, Sandy Bodecker, Electra Yourke, Charles Amirkhanian, Nike SB, Greg Escalante, Joe Escalante, E. Nelson Lyon, Mitch Lieb, Julie Enzer, Kathleen Walsh, Johnny Brewton, John Enroth, Silas Hite, Albert Fox, Chris Kennedy,

Danping Wong, Robert Miltenberg, Michelle Peters, Van Coppock, DEVO, Mutato Muzika, Walteria Living and all the Beautiful Mutants wherever you are.

www.mutato.com

2004 (Continued)March Beautiful Mutants - Escapist Gallery - Austin, TXMay Beautiful Mutants - Mission Space - Baltimore, MDMay LA Fly By - LA Center for Digital Art - Los Angeles, CAMay Beautiful Mutants - Lineage Gallery - Burlington, VTJune Beautiful Mutants - M Modern Gallery - Palm Springs, CAJuly Beautiful Mutants - DC Gallery - Denver, COJuly Beautiful Mutants - FUSE Gallery - New York City, NYJuly Beautiful Mutants - Bh Gallery/Powells Books - Portland, ORAugust Art Throb- BlueSpace - Hollywood, CASeptember Beautiful Mutants - Space Gallery - Portland, MESeptember International Underground - Whitney Young - San Francisco, CASeptember Tattoo & Art Festival -Woodstock Gallery- Woodstock, NYOctober Beautiful Mutants - Luckystar Gallery - Milwaukee, WINovember Non Compos Mentis - BlueSpace - Hollywood, CANovember Beautiful Mutants - Gallery 212/Vitosha Guest Haus - Ann Arbor, MIDecember Beautiful Mutants - Perihelion Arts - Phoenix, AZDecember Beautiful Mutants - Creative Electric Studios - Minneapolis, MN

2005March Beautiful Mutants - Temple Ball Gallery - Carborro, NCMarch The Rawk Show - The Space - Austin, TXApril Man and Beast Art Show - Emily Davis Gallery - Akron, OHMay Joey Ramone Birthday Bash - CB’s 313 Gallery - NYCJune Beautiful Mutants - Aron Packer Gallery - Chicago, ILJune Postcard Diaries - KM Art Gallery - Milwaukee, WIJuly Beautiful Mutants - Flight 19 Gallery - Tampa, FLJuly New Traditionalists - Subliminal Projects Gallery - LA, CAJuly Against The Grain - LA, CAAugust Postcard Diaries - FUSE Gallery - New York City, NYAugust Beautiful Mutants - N. Water St. Gallery - Kent, OHAugust Beautiful Mutants - Roq La Rue Gallery - Seattle, WASeptember Beautiful Mutants - Parts Gallery - Toronto, ONTSeptember Beautiful Mutants - CoproNason Gallery - Los Angeles, CASeptember Against The Grain - Hurley Show - Sydney, AustraliaOctober Beautiful Mutants - Paradise Lounge - Boston, MANovember Postcard Diaries - Screen Arts Gallery - St. Augustine, FLNovember Postcard Diaries - TAG Gallery - Nashville, TNDecember Postcard Diaries - OX-OP Gallery - Minneapolis, MNDecember Postcard Diaries - Atomic Cowboy Gallery - St. Louis, MO

2006January Postcard Diaries - Buck15 Gallery - Miami Beach, FLMarch Postcard Diaries - Perihelion Arts - Phoenix, AZApril Postcard Diaries - Massachusetts College Of Art - Boston, MAMay Postcard Diaries & Beautiful Mutants - NAC - Norwich, UKMay Peace/Music/Art Fest - Club Khameleon - Kent, OHJuly Bad Art For Bad People - Mirta’s Gallery - Tampa, FLAugust Dos Mutatos - RVCA - Costa Mesa, CASeptember Postcard Diaries - N. Water St. Gallery - Kent, OHSeptember Postcard Diaries - Osheaga Festival - Montreal, CanadaSeptember Art Crawl - The Echo - Los Angeles, CAOctober Happy Beauty - Super 7 - San Francisco, CAOctober Postcard Diaries - Mystery City - Chicago, ILNovember Postcard Diaries - L’ Art Noir - New Orleans, LADecember Postcard Diaries - LUMP Gallery - Raleigh, NC

2007February Postcard Diaries - Brampton Arts Fest - Toronto, ONTMarch Postcard Diaries - Creative Electric - Minneapolis, MNApril Postcard Diaries - Bambi Gallery - Philadelphia, PAMay Postcard Diaries - JEM Gallery - Vancouver, BC CanadaMay Postcard Diaries - FL!GHT Gallery - San Antonio, TXJune Beautiful Mutants - Rabbit Hole Gallery - Atlanta, GAJuly Beautiful Mutants - Ingenuity Festival - Cleveland, OHSeptember Beautiful Mutants - CSUF Grand Central Art Center - Santa Ana, CA

Artist Biography

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY FULLERTON - GRAND CENTRAL ART CENTERAndrea Harris-McGee, Dennis Cubbage, Alyssa Wiens, Tracey Gayer, Eric Stoner, Savio Alphonso, Matt Miller, Hiromi Takizawa and Yevgeniya Mikhailik

GRAND CENTRAL ART FORUMGreg Escalante, Steve Jones, Mitchell De Jarnett, Marcus Bastida, Teri Brudnack, Jon Gothold, John Gunnin, James Hill, Mary Ellen Houseal, Julie Perlin-Lee, Dennis Lluy, Mike McGee, Michael McManus, Robert Redding, Jon WebbAdvisory members: Peter Alexander, Rose Apodaca Jones, Kristine Escalante, Shelley Liberto,Mike Salisbury, Anton Segerstrom, Stuart Spence Tyler Stallings and Paul Zaloom

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY FULLERTONPresident Milton Gordon, Jerry Samuelson, Marilyn Moore and Bill Dickerson

EXHIBITION DESIGN STUDENTSJacqueline Bunge, Rachel Chaney, Karen Crews, Joanna Grasso, Carlota Haider, Michel Oren, John N. Sampson, Danielle Susalla and Chih-zer Yee

This book has been published in conjunction with the exhibition Beautiful Mutants for the CSUF Grand Central Art Center Project Room, Santa Ana, California, where it was presented 1 September – October 21, 2007. Published by California State University Fullerton Grand Central Art Center and the Grand Central Press.

Editor: Sue HengerArt Direction and Book Design: Ryan Di DonatoPublication and Exhibition Coordinator: Andrea Harris-McGeeAdditional Consulting: Johnny Brewton and Michael Pilmer for Mutato MuzikaPhotography: Randall Michelson and Eric StonerStyling: Corban PoorboyModel: Alyssa Wiens Historic Photography Consultant: Barret Oliver Special thanks to Nike SB and the City of Glendora, California Printed by Prolong Press, Hong KongFirst Printing September 2007

All Artwork © Mark MothersbaughBook © 2007 Grand Central PressAll rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher and artist.

GRAND CENTRAL PRESSCSUF Grand Central Art Center125 N. Broadway Santa Ana, California 92701714.567.7233 714.567.7234www.grandcentralartcenter.com

International Standard Book Number: 0-9771696-6-9978-09771696-6-5

BM Book

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