Joey Skaggs Quotations

So I began doing confrontational, iconoclastic performances, bringing my artwork into the public arena, like the Easter Sunday Crucifixion in 1966, which started when I dragged a 200-pound ten-foot-tall sculpture depicting a decayed figure on a cross into Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side.

My hope is that my work provokes people to look at things in a new way.

Revelation is the most important aspect of the process. That's the point where consciousness can change.

Celebrations of anniversaries of disasters, such as nuclear power plant meltdowns or political assassinations, provide opportunities, as do holidays.

King of the world wouldn't be enough. I'd have to be god of the universe (the Wizard of Oz would suffice).

I was young and audacious. So I created a way to express my concerns outside of the establishment.

Other times you can use a calendar to predict the kinds of stories the media is looking for.

I was primarily a painter, although I was classically trained in a wide spectrum of mediums.

When something seemingly adverse happens, I use it as an opportunity. Controversies help to distract reporters from questioning the original premise.

We're pulling something together that you definitely don't want to miss. Be there.

To be successful, this project had to appear completely real.

You go to school. You stay out of trouble. You get a job. You get married. You have a family. You pay taxes. You pray to the right god. You get old (if you're lucky). And you die.

Technology and consciousness are evolutionary and co-dependant. Change is inevitable. Where it leads will always be a great curiosity.

Satire and believability are irresistible to the news media.

After years of people sitting on their butts in front one screen or another, looking at or reading about other people's lives and events, a multi-national corporation connected to a global political party manipulates everyone into believing that information derived this way is unhealthy.

So the fact that the media all jump on a story in a similar fashion is not surprising. The opposite, when a voice cuts through to say something different or original, is surprising.

As a news story, I'm just a subject, not a person. My early performances were provocative, so I was stereotypically portrayed as a counter-cultural figure by the mainstream media.

They, the government/church/corporation, give out a daily news pill. Everything you want or need to know, you ingest and digest. As a result, you buy the products, share the beliefs, and vote the right way.

They don't want the public to question their credibility as an investigative news source.

I wanted to use the Internet because while fact and fiction are so easily manipulated and blurred, it has also become an ubiquitous and supposedly reliable source for information.

I want people to be amused or amazed but fooled.

The issues of my performances vary, but most of the questions buried in the work remain the same.

I mean, who did they think they were dealing with?

I loved painting and sculpting, but realized how difficult it was for a young artist to be taken seriously by the art establishment.

In 1969 I hung a Fifty Foot Brassiere on the US Treasury Building to poke fun at leering Wall Street workers and placed grotesque Statues of Liberty in Astor Place in the East Village as a war protest.

In 1968 I organized the Hippie Bus Tour to Queens as a satirical cultural exchange tour and I attempted to burn down a Vietnamese Village Nativity I erected in Central Park to protest the war in Vietnam.

In 1966, I built a crucifix and dragged it down the street on four consecutive Easters to protest man's inhumanity to man and to comment on the hypocrisy of the church.

I look at past work as completed, although I'm pleased that each of the pieces seems to have a life of its own and that the issues are still relevant.

I realized early on that the business of art was the antithesis to the creative process and I decided to circumvent the traditional art market.

But I'm as susceptible as anyone else. At the same time, I'm highly skeptical.

If government and big business could access the media to get their messages out, I figured I could too.

How the media interpreted (they got it wrong), editorialized (they condescended) and criticized (they attacked) these performances inspired me to actually use the media more directly, to make my point.

The media became not just a vehicle to get attention about an event, but a medium in itself, to be shaped and molded and instilled with my social-political agenda.

My art became very public.

When I create a false reality, I always try to create a plausible structure to help convince people.

Any deviation is looked upon as a perversion, is feared, and is usually a target of hatred and prejudice.

But my favorite work is always my next piece.

But I learned first-hand how the news media operates by watching how they interpreted, changed, and misrepresented my intentions.

I learned more complex ways to manipulate the manipulators, to bring attention to issues about which I felt passionate.

If I'm successful in fooling a wire service, I don't really have to do anything else to promote the story.

It would make life much easier if I could have total faith and not question everything all the time, but I can't do it and I won't do it.

Most reporters who come to me get their stories directly from press releases. Very few do what one would consider to be their professional duty.

The media is not just the message. The media is a massage. We're constantly being stroked, manipulated, adjusted, realigned, and manoeuvered.

I've always been a fine artist.

Any journalist worth his or her salt wouldn't trust me.

We function in a pack mentality. This is our tribe. And this is how we are exploited - sold a bill of goods and a household of products.

I created hoaxes. I confronted and challenged the majority opinion. I attacked, humiliated, and criticized the voice of the corporate mainstream media.

My challenge as a satirical artist is how to present ideas to people to enable them to question and reexamine their beliefs. My hope is, that my work provokes people to look at things in a new way.

What do we believe? Why do we believe it?

The media's job is to question a premise.

Most important to any fake story is a plausible, realistic edge with a satirical twist that is topical.

It is the fool who thinks he cannot be fooled.