Bill Barminski
dob 10/26/62
Artist Bill Barminski creates artwork in many media including painting, music videos, video installation, digital music composition and interactive formats. For over ten years he has mounted at least one solo painting exhibition every year at galleries in Los Angeles and New York. Visitors to Los Angeles can see his handiwork at the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Crescent Heights on the Absolut Barminski billboard. Recently he has begun directing music videos and has received a gold record for his work on "Everybody's Free" (the Sunscreen Song). Barminski shares his knowledge with students in the Lab for New Media at UCLA where he has been teaching as a visiting professor since 1997.
Barminski first came to public attention in the early eighties with his underground comicbook, Tex Hitler: Fascist Gun in the West, a scathing satire of American and international politics. Noted cultural author Greil Marcus, who has written about Tex Hitler in the pages of Art Forum International, says "What's most remarkable about Bill Barminski's Fascist Gun in the West is how quickly and completely it pulls you into it's twisted, yet utterly familiar little world." The underground nature of the Fascist Gun in the West and it's limited publication have made it a much sought after collectors item among comic book aficionados.
Barminski parlayed his initial success into a job as an editorial cartoonist for the Daily Texan, the student paper of the University of Texas at Austin. The strip, entitled King of the Pre-Fab, featured the adventures of Dick Nixon, a used car salesman and campus gadfly. Scott Scarborough, President of the U.T. Students Association was so pleased with Barminski's cartoons he repeatedly tried to have him fired from the paper. Much to their credit, the Daily Texan refused to be intimidated and continued to publish Barminski's work until his departure in 1985.
Painting
In 1985 Barminski moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a cartoonist. As things go however, he picked up a brush and started painting instead. Over the course of the next five years he taught himself how to paint and gained professional representation in 1991 at the Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica and at the Ricco/ Maresca Gallery in NYC.
"The advertising-derived images that Barminski incorporates into his paintings are meant to evoke postwar America. Like filmmaker David Lynch and others, Barminski is interested in the ominously surreal side of the good life." Tobey Crockett, Art in America
The themes and style of his work critique mass media and consumer culture. His exhibitions usually contain installation elements showcasing a video work produced for each show. His richly textured paintings have been reviewed in numerous publications such as FlashArt, Art in America, Art News, Visions Art Quarterly, New American Painters and the Los Angeles Weekly to name but a few. His work has also appeared on album covers such Toad the Wet Sprocket and in many movies and television shows; The Rock, The Trouble with Cats and Dogs, Sliver and Friends.
New Media
Recently Barminski has entered the world of non-liner narrative and interactive artwork. Starting 1992 Barminski teamed up with Jerry Hesketh and Webster Lewin to create two award winning CD-ROMs entitled Bar-Min-Ski: Consumer Product and The Encyclopedia of Clamps. Again, like his earlier underground work both CD-ROMs are self-published and both have become cult classics in a very short time.
The first title, Bar-Min-Ski; Consumer Product published in 1995, is a far reaching documentary of ten years worth of the life and artwork of Bill Barminski. The title received great critical acclaim and has been featured in the pages of many magazines such as Wired, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Magazine and the Utne Reader.
The Encyclopedia of Clamps is the second CD-ROM that Bill Barminski has co-created. Wired magazine calls it "The last bastion of sophisticated CD-ROMs" and that it "..is like a carnival operated by Bill Gaines and B.F. Skinner." (Nov. 97) The CD-ROM features 38 exhibition rooms that run the gamut from interactive artworks to cartoon adventures. In the disc Barminski explores the possibilities of using this medium as a tool for artistic expression.
Barminski has also taken his creations to the internet. Starting with his original character Cyclops Boy , Bill Barminski co-created the internet series Cyclops Boy: The One-Eyed Detective in Satellite Sky. The distinctive graphic quality of the richly textured noir-esque Los Angeles found in Satellite Sky speaks to Bill Barminski's unique visual style. In addition to creating all of the artwork found in Satellite Sky he also co-wrote, co-directed and co-designed the series. The series itself has won several awards, most notably the Best Multimedia Award at the FilmWinter Fest, Stuttgart Germany
Other internet credits include web design for many websites including:
Rockweb.com
and of course, all design and content for Barminski.com.
Mucis Video.
in 1999 Barminski began directing music videos and commercials. His first music video for Baz Lurhmans' song ' Everbody is Free ' (aka. The Sunscreen Song) has earned him a gold record and a Music Video Producers nomination for best music video director 1999 in the 'under 50 thousand' catagory. He also created a short film for the GooGoo Dolls 1999 Summer Tour entitled "Greed in Action", a parody of a 1950's training film extolling the "virtues" of greed.
Teaching
Bill Barminski is currently a visiting professor in The Lab For New Media at UCLA. His classes focus on bringing creativity, design and art to the digital medium.
He has also given many lectures and presentations at Art Center, Pasadena, American Film Institute, Rotterdam International Film Festival, South x Southwest Film Festival and Sigraph 95.
Other
Barminski's other credits include a long-running billboard for Absolut Vodka located on the Sunset strip in Los Angeles.
