On Friday the inimitable Jad Fair will open an exhibition of his paper-cut art at Cake Shop with a live performance, on a bill with fellow pseudo-outsider musicians R. Stevie Moore and Lumberob.
Over three decades Fair’s music has alternated between inspired primitivism and total insufferability, but his art has always been fascinating. You’ve seen it on record covers by not only his band Half Japanese but also Yo La Tengo, the Pastels, Teenage Fanclub, Velvet Crush, etc. (Has he ever done a Daniel Johnston cover, or has Daniel always done his own?) It’s both creepy and innocent, and often seems to have a clearer and more inspired vision than his music.
I hadn’t looked at his art in a while, but it seems better than ever, and I’m especially pleased that he’s taken to the Internet. In a weird way it looks like the perfect medium for him — easy animation, easy replication, easy dissemination. His Photobucket page has a ton of images, some of them animated GIFs, like the one at the top of this post, and the list of his top friends on MySpace seems to confirm something essential about Jad Fair: he is everywhere, and he is in his own little world:
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