Episode #6 - Paul Weiner on Abstractions, the Flag & Being Very Online
Derek Horn
Welcome back to In These Uncertain Times, a podcast about creating and connecting in the midst of uncertainty, I’m your host, Derek Horn.
Today’s episode is pretty fucking weird! In the best way possible. I was able to sit down and chat with one of my first friends from art school, Paul Weiner.
Paul is an artist who makes abstract paintings imbued with political and social meaning. Many of his violently obscured and distressed artworks grapple with the contemporary identity and history of the United States. He also makes sculptures, prints, and drawings that contain a library of political and cultural symbols. Aside from abstraction, Paul’s work is best known for addressing the American flag and the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, which occurred in his hometown. His recent text drawings address the COVID-19 pandemic, American activism’s relationship to power, and social media’s role in contemporary culture.
Weiner’s recent solo exhibitions include venues such as Krupic Kersting Gallery in Cologne, Nancy Littlejohn Fine Art in Houston, Carthage College in Kenosha, Long Road Projects in Jacksonville, and TWFINEART in Brisbane. His work was included in group exhibitions at Pablo's Birthday in New York, Athens Institute for Contemporary Art in Georgia, Museo Jumex in Mexico City, se! rum in Denmark, Delphian Gallery in London, Arvada Center in Colorado, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein in Germany, Re: Art in Brooklyn, Marquee Projects in Bellport, New York, and Mana Contemporary in Chicago among many others. He recently completed a commission of multiple paintings for Kehinde Wiley at the Black Rock Senegal residency.
We chat about his process of creating abstract art and how the themes and iconography of our current moment are showing up in his work and about how online culture can fuel some of our most intense rhetoric and deepen trenches. We also do a post-mortem analysis on the 2020 election cycle and thinking forward to what will happen in 2021 and beyond.
And as a heads up, our conversation briefly touches upon the topics of sexual assault and the #MeToo movement
Grab your Trumpy Bear, get cozy, and enjoy the episode.
Derek Horn
Hey, Paul, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?
Paul Weiner
Good. Derek, how are you?
Derek Horn
I'm doing okay. to get started an you introduce yourself to listeners in your own words?
Paul Weiner
Yes. So I am an artist based out of Denver, Colorado. Well, actually, I just recently moved to Aurora, which is where I grew up. It's a suburb just south of Denver. I've been making a lot of work that's both like paintings and sort of abstract paintings, and conceptual sort of works, mostly sculptures and videos. So I kind of go back and forth between kind of abstraction, and more conceptually basic kind of work. So so a lot of what I've been working on lately, has to do with like, the American flag and patriotism. And at the same time, with like, kind of formal abstract painting, and what in what how to make paintings. I guess. So. Yeah, I've been? Yeah. That's who I am. I'm a painter.
Derek Horn
How has COVID and 2020 in general, forced you to adapt your process, if at all?
Paul Weiner
Yeah, COVID has been kind of complicated for me. I mean, I think so my girlfriend and I were living in a big apartment complex, kind of, right, when the pandemic hit. It was really like densely populated. So that was really complicated. Really, all the time, you were kind of be walking around and run into people who didn't have masks on or like, you just had to touch so many doors and like public doors and things like leave the building, or go through elevators and stuff. And so I actually found myself being totally paranoid about it in a way that I now that we actually moved to, like this house, just south of Denver here. And so it's really changed my life. I have like access to like, outdoor space, and you can get in the car without touching all kinds of weird other things, or seeing other people. And so it's been liberating. Yeah, it's been really much better out here. So it's changed my life a lot. I mean, certainly, the pandemic itself, is changing everything. I can't even imagine going back to January. But I have like, adapted to having a different kind of studio situation and just kind of learning to work with different materials and things that are more available. It's been, yeah, the logistics of the pandemic are just nuts. So it's, things have changed.
Derek Horn
Yeah, yeah. Is there anything that you've kind of discovered through this period, but you might want to adopt long term potentially? I mean, I know you're in a house now. So that's probably not going to change but any anything else? Like kind of process wise of either making your art or kind of your process of showing it or anything like that?
Paul Weiner
You know, it's kind of odd actually, I ended up in this studio that doesn't actually have any heat or anything. So it's basically like a detached garage. Um, and there are things that I really like about it. It's like liberating to be able to walk like immediately outside and I have crazy ventilation. It's actually made it a lot easier for me to clean I use a lot of charcoal and it's like a powdered charcoal, it can get all over everything and it's like yeah, it sprays everywhere, it's nuts. And so it's really been liberating to have a space that actually doesn't have like outlets or anything in it, because I was able to get like a power washer. And now when there's charcoal on the ground, I can just wash it right off. Um, so that's been actually really lovely. Um, but yeah, I think, like more generally, yeah, it's changed a lot of things about my practice that I don't think are probably going back there, I've made a lot of sort of smaller works, a lot of kind of like drawings and things that I'd maybe looked past for a long time that have been really, really useful. It's also changed a lot of how I've been like using Instagram and social media generally. So it's been, it's been a lot of change in just a few months.
And I do like, look forward to kind of having a more, a more normal, I guess, kind of situation for showing work and kind of moving work and those kinds of things, but in like painterly ways, it really hasn't been terribly, terribly cumbersome. . See, so you said that it's changed the way you're using like Instagram and social media, what was kind of deactivated myself from Instagram and a lot of ways, which was where most of my career really, like happens. So it's been kind of an interesting couple of months as I moved into this new studio. And, I mean, it's just been like cleaning out spiders. And we had like, probably 20 years worth of like rat poop that was in there that really needed to be fixed up before you could do anything. And so one of the things that I kind of found is that I started making a lot of work that maybe wasn't so Instagram-able there's like a certain way that you can kind of fiddle around with paintings and things on Instagram and make them look like they've, you've had like the photo taken from the right angle, or, like, you've like, kind of found the right, kind of like magic mix that mixes up with like the algorithm, right, and that kind of gets people engaged. And so I have moved on from that in a lot of ways. I mean, I'm sure that I'll be like back on Instagram, but it's been a really nice break, kind of finding these newer things to engage with, which like, Lately, I've been looking into, I've been making this series of basically prints that are all about what it's like to be very online, which I think over the past few months, so many of us have become. It's like, I'm digging deep into the twitterverse. And learning all about the the weird outrage that that happens on there and sort of like these cycles that that we go through.
And so one of the things that I've been digging into the like, most kind of salient niche that I feel like is kind of developed since, like, culturally and that isn't necessarily so just totally tied to the pandemic, but kind of grew out of it is this sort of Karen thing that came out? Which I think all of us have sort of heard about, like, the Karen phenomenon. Maybe I've like watched these videos that are like really sensationalist and have read a lot about it. There's been all kinds of talk about like, whether it's racist to talk about Karen's or like, I guess I should have, like, define what white Karen is, before we go out further from that which is its own trap you can walk into trying to define, but I think most people would look at it as basically like, a like a Karen would be someone who got, like, angry in a grocery store and started spitting on everybody because she didn't want to wear a mask or something like that. You almost exclusively like white women in their, like middle age, kind of years. I feel like that's pretty much what what people think of as being a Karen. So I found this like, really interesting because it's this. It is like definitely like a racialized phenomenon. And I'm, I mean, there's all kinds of questions you can ask about what whether it's racist or sexist or not, and like how it developed, I'm not really even gonna answer those questions, I just find it interesting that it's there. So I like found all these videos. And I started looking through where else online these videos were popping up after they went through the first sort of layer of like Twitter phenomenon going viral. This sort of through this like outrage cycle, and the place where they really actually kind of end up ended up was almost like this sexual like place. It's like pornography. So like, people are like taking a like these videos of Karen's, and they'll or whatever you want to call them. And they'll like, put them onto Pornhub it's like, mixed in with other videos. So like one of them that I found was a video of a woman in Starbucks who like wouldn't wear her mask and got really mad at like the workers that Starbucks. And then it's like, spliced with a video of a different woman who like is kind of a similar looking person from like a BDSM porn, and she's being spanked just repeatedly.
Derek Horn
Oh my goodness.
Paul Weiner
Oh, yeah, for like, 45 minutes. So like, it's this sort of weird filter that I feel like, and this isn't uncommon, there's like, probably upwards of like 10 or 15 of these that have like, been, like, put out into that universe, and have like millions of views. So there's like a, like a significant, like cadre of people that are looking for this, like, specific niche. So it's these kinds of like, extremely, like weird things. I think a lot of people who don't even exist in this very online, Twitter kind of universe. And they probably think that's nuts. And like it is I mean to me too, but but I think that there are so many like phenomena like this that are their own sort of cultural niche that people largely don't understand outside of, like a small subset of people who are very engaged online.
Derek Horn
Right. Right. And that's like, like you said, I think that right now , so much of everything is online, I think even pre pandemic, we were already shifting that way from news, So I think most people get their news from Facebook, for better or for worse, on Twitter, or Reddit, or whatever it is. And I think that one one phenomenon that I think it's kind of tied to the Karen thing is Qanon, which for those who don't know, is this wild community, I would call it, revolved around this anonymous persona called Q, that claims to have all this knowledge of like the deep state and how Donald Trump is like fighting against it, and all the Democratic Party leaders are, like real like, sex trafficking, pedophiles, really, really nasty, gruesome stuff, and it's, and then it's also tied to the pandemic. So there's been a lot of conspiracy theories about that as well. This is planned, its part of the the deep state takeover or New World Order or whatever you want to call. And I think that it's one of those things that like, for most people that are online or not engaged with this stuff that I just have no idea what it is.
I know, there's been some coverage on it from like, mainstream news sources as a phenomenon, but it's wild because it's like, people get sucked into this, and are completely consumed by it. And it just kind of reshapes their entire worldview. And and that, that forms, how they go out and act in the world and vote and spread misinformation or disinformation online. And it's just like a really scary phenomenon that I think that, unless we take some major steps to curb it, it's just gonna get way out of control. And it was actually I read this really interesting I think was Washington Post profile the other day of this woman, a Karen, that had this freakout in target over the summer, where she like destroyed this mask display and like got caught in video and faced a lot of like professional repercussions and certain personal repercussions. But this profile is on this woman nd how she kind of in she was very deep into Q anon community, this profile was about how she, that moment for her wasn't like her realizing that she got very far deep into this hole. And then combined with kind of her vulnerabilities with her mental health, it just kind of exploded in that moment. And I think that in now she's kind of speaking out about Qanon and kind of the dangers that it poses. And there are a lot of people that are making fun of Washington Posts for doing this profile on this rich white lady who's she's gonna be fine no matter what. But I think that that type of thing, like showing people coming out of that deep hole of the Internet, and kind of that that conspiracy theories and all that I think that like, we need to show more people doing that and kind of encourage others that have gotten really down that hole to come out as well? I don't know. It's interesting.
Paul Weiner
It's easy to get like sucked into all kinds of weird, weird, like niches on Twitter. So it's all on Instagram, too. But I think it mostly really happens on Twitter, maybe Facebook, too. But I think there's this kind of like, yeah, spiraling effect. And I think a lot of it really actually stems from, like media and the way that, but really, people don't trust media at this point. I mean, like, I think, for good reason. I mean, there's a lot of things that media has gotten wrong over the past few years, or that they like having, I mean, even just looking at this election, and like the polling and like, there's so many things that just seem like literally wrong, about like the way that the media has functioned. And when you kind of like dig a little bit deeper into that there's these like, massive corporations that own so much of our media and so much of is sort of filtered through that bubble. And so yeah, I think there are people who are like, wildly distrustful of media, and it's hard to figure out where to take that, that energy and like where to find meaningful information. And we certainly don't make it easy. So, so I think that's how you end up with these sort of, I mean, even like Qanon. I mean, I certainly don't believe in any of it. But, but I do think that, I think the writing has gotten like progressively worse. It's like, some of the things that they've been putting out lately. And so it just seems like it's kind of spiraling post election.
Derek Horn
Yeah, now that their guy has lost, they don't know what to do.
Paul Weiner
Yeah, like, it's a little bit confusing. Um, but like, regardless, I think a lot of this almost even comes out of like, the Epstein stuff, and how, I mean, people did these, like, like, really gruesome things happening, and like, people were getting away with them, and, and all of that. And so I do think there's like a real like yearning among a lot of Americans to like, hold elites accountable, kind of like on both sides of the aisle, even. In different ways, but that that people feel really screwed. And are trying to find like, a way to focus that energy. And it doesn't always necessarily come out in the best ways. And sometimes it can be like Qanon
Derek Horn
So yeah, yeah, that's really interesting, because I think that a lot of times like that. Picking the elites that we want to hold accountable, does sometimes fall along party lines, or whatever, because I don't know like with somebody like Jeffrey Epstein, obviously connected to a lot of celebrities and politicians, and including the President. And then it's like, I know that there's people that support the president that say, Oh, he's been vindicated for XYZ reasons. But I feel like they never fully own up to the fact that he was in his circle. I don't know. I'm not gonna pretend to try and hypothesize about that situation, because there's so much I think that we don't know. But it's just it is, I think what I'm trying to get at is that it's this kind of representative how people can kind of pick and choose what they want to believe, and just believe whatever one whatever suits their agenda or the narrative they have about history and their place in history in their heads.
Paul Weiner
Totally. I mean, I think we've certainly watched that kind of play out in the election. One of the things that I mean, I found interesting and that often gets me in trouble is like, I'll be critical of the Democratic Party, which I come at that from the left, but I do think that there's a some level on which its so tr ibal that people sort of can't handle even like kind of minor criticism of Joe Biden or something, it really is a little bit concerning. Yeah, I mean, I think that looking at specifically, the election, you know, in 2016, it was like, how could you possibly vote for this man who like, said, like, grabbed them by the pussy, or had these like rape allegations and things? I mean, we watched the same thing happen, kind of with Joe Biden, like with the Tara Reade allegations and the whole way that that kind of played out, was very partisan. And so like I think, in a lot of ways, it actually discredited a lot of people who were involved in the #MeToo movement. And that's a big casualty, I think, for a lot of parts of the left.
And so a very complicated situation, you know, and one that feels very hypocritical, kind of looking back at 2016. Like the way that people sort of like admonished people, like on the right, or republicans just more like, directly for voting for this man who like, had been like accused of rape. And for like, the same things almost kind of filter through democrats, not to say that Joe Biden's like, as bad as Trump, I'm not gonna traffic in that, but I do think that it. Yeah, it's concerning, like watching the way that things kind of quickly have shifted, not even just in like the past four years, but over the past, like 20, looking back from like 9/ 11 and forward, like how much society is sort of like, changed and evolved in ways that I don't think a lot of people expected? Or, like kind of expected that we would be like, in a more like, friendly or like technologically centric kind of time in 2020. Feels like maybe we're not headed in such an optimistic direction.
Derek Horn
Yeah. I mean, I think that I mean, I think a lot of this century so far, has been kind of defined by people thinking that we're going one way or we have, we're very firmly in this track, but very much not like, for example, like, when Obama was elected people are like, oh, we're in a post racial society, racism is over. We did it, everyone. And then, obviously, between the need for the Black Lives Matter movement to arise to Donald Trump, who's kind of this, obviously, dog whistling racist, and stokes racism for his own political power. That's very much not the case. And yeah, it's going to be interesting how the next few years start to play out.
Paul Weiner
Yeah, I feel like when I was little, there was like this book, that was, I think it was called The End of History or something like that. That was like, something that people thought was actually happening because the Cold War was over. And it was like, Oh, well, World War Two is already happened, and how could we possibly have history anymore, which like, living through this year, just seems like we're definitely living through history.
Derek Horn
This year that has been a century in itself.
Paul Weiner
Yeah. I do also wonder about like, the pandemic, and how much we're really going to, like, collectively remember this time when it's over. That's one of the things that I've found really interesting is that, like, I mean, even thinking about like the Spanish flu, which was like, massively devastating. It feels like people didn't really talk about that that much. Like, I didn't really even have, like much of a like, handle on what had happened kind of going into the pandemic here. And now, I think there's been a lot more kind of conversation about like parallels between those two things. But, I mean, I think so much of like, what we even hear, like, I just don't even think that that was like a terribly well covered thing and most like American history, so yeah, like, I feel like you kind of are like, just history generally. I feel like that's not Yeah, I kind of wonder what in like 15 or 20 years, how much people will really talk about what happened during the pandemic, and how much it will be overshadowed by a kind of larger like things More like, destructive and destructive things in ways that they were caused by other humans directly forced on other people, which, I mean, there's certainly aspects of that within the pandemic, but
Derek Horn
Yeah, it's it's like when you're in history class, and you're reading about something in your history book, its like, oh, the spat, the Spanish Flu kills x million people. And it's like, oh, that's sad. But it's like, you're so far removed from your plane of understanding. And pretty much nobody you knew was alive during that time. And it's just kind of a number on a page that you need to remember for your test. But I think now we're going through, I mean, you're even seeing it in real time. Whereas, like, unless people are directly impacted by the virus, see that they had it themselves or somebody they love has that, you're kind of just trusting what you're seeing on the news and around and maybe even like, in your community, but it's, I think, for a lot of people, this period is gonna be defined by how it impacted them directly. And if it didn't, then they might just be like, yeah, that was kind of sucky year or two where we had to stay inside or not stay inside and kind of flaunt the rules however, you're however individuals are handling handling it.
Paul Weiner
Yeah, do you really feel like um, I mean, not not to get like too grotesque again, but like this whole take you right back to the the porn stuff. But it really like all of this has been filtered through the internet and so many interesting ways. I mean, masks specifically, and really just the pandemic. At the beginning. I really feel like the people who were taking it the most seriously, were actually kind of these nutty right wing people who are like preppers, and people almost on like, like, Second Amendment group that are more like preppers. Really, I mean, I going into all of this, I had been following this guy, John Stokes on Twitter, who is he's actually pretty interesting. He's got some interesting views, worth the follow, but he had been sounding the alarm kind of on the pandemic for like, kind of like a month going in. And like the CDC had put out some information that was like, if you read it actually felt pretty alarming. But it wasn't really being sort of, like broadcast so much at that point. I mean, there were things like you kind of like get like occasional updates on like CNN or something about it. Right? It was pretty like people I think, at that point didn't weren't taking it very seriously. Especially actually, like, among kind of, like liberals like I feel like it was pretty dismissive and kind of like, oh, there's there's like all kinds of weird articles from like, The Washington Post and things if you go back and like read the opinion articles from January, it's deranged, but like, none of us really knew what was coming.
So I was following that guy, John Stokes, and Matt Stoller who's one of my like, actually favored, like, economic people. He's really, really good on antitrust, and has a lot to say about like, monopoly. But he had kind of been following all of this for months, like since it really hit in China. And he really kind of like woke me up in a lot of ways. And like, this was in probably late February, and my girlfriend and I went out, and we stocked up on all kinds of supplies and stuff. And so there was this little niche part of the internet that, like, was pretty fringe at that point, both on like, kind of like the left and the right, but, um, we're like, we were being told, like, okay, you need to take this seriously, we don't really know like, what you're going to need for this, but you might want like a go pack in case like, they shut down like the subways in New York City or something, and you need to get out and get to the country. Like, we don't know what this is gonna look like. And so, that was really interesting to follow. And then to follow like Matt Stoller, who like early on in this had like called before, there were any problems with like, the toilet paper or anything he had been calling for, like, the need for the US to kind of like reshore a lot of its manufacturing on so that we have like some kind of productive capacity because I mean, we like learn pretty quickly, I think in this pandemic that I mean, if you can't make things then like you can, you can quickly run out of them.
Derek Horn
What a concept...
Paul Weiner
Like March and April, it's kinda tough when you're, like, dependent on someone else to do that, yeah, I'm even like with masks, I feel like, you know, really, it could have been a lot better. If we'd have, like, factories ready to go that we're like, ready to really, like build it. Um, and that is a pretty complicated part of the pandemic that I think we might look back on later on as being an important turning point in sort of manufacturing. So we'll see what happens like over the next like five or 10 years with reshoring, and things like that. And if any of that actually does come to fruition, there's all kinds of reasons to think it won't. But yeah, we'll see.
Derek Horn
Yeah, one of my good friends knew some people in China and kind of was passing along kind of real-time updates from like, beginning in January, even. And I kind of had this like, based on how things were playing out there, it was kind of like, seeing this train hurtling at us in slow motion. But at the same time, it's like, it was this weird feeling because nobody, like you said nobody, no mainstream voices, or any of our leadership, were really kind of sounding the alarm right away. Which is kind of who you would be looking to to do that and situations this dire. But like that, it was also this weird thing was like, come February, and it's starting to look a little bit more inevitable. It was this very weird feeling. Knowing that, okay, I think we should stock up on some essentials and things. But also having this, I feel like I have this tug of war in my head, like, Am I going too far with this? Am I overreacting? Or am I am I not doing enough? Should I be doing more? And just kind of never quite knowing what to do just because nobody knew what the hell was going to happen? Yeah, that was just such a weird little few weeks span before the shit really hit the fan.
Paul Weiner
Yeah, I feel like like going into this, none of us really had any idea what was gonna happen. And even what little we did have was so sensationalized. Like I remember in December, kind of staring at videos of like, what was going on in China, and people were freaked out about, like, surveillance and about like the drones that were like following grandmas around and telling them to wear their mask and things like that . Yeah, and I think there was a study right back at the very beginning of this, and I can't remember who put it out. But there was some concern that it was like COVID was going to kill like 5% of people that actually contracted or 10%, or that it was going to be this like, just much more disruptive even thing than it is, which is not to downplay the virus. It's been I mean, horrific, but right. But that there really, we did actually kind of avoid this situation where it does kill a gigantic, like five or 10% slice of the population that that? Yeah, I think that that was like one of the sort of like alarmist things that that happened kind of in, like March and April.
And so I actually had a show back in, I think it was in May. That was about basically all the messaging that we'd been receiving in like March and April, like stay home. And there's like, really that whole movement that was filtered through. I mean, I really saw it filtered through Instagram, personally, but I think through a lot of social media. And that kind of proved the power that Silicon Valley actually has in shaping a lot of conversation, I think, because we started to get these sort of words that were always out there, and Stay Home probably was Yeah, but the biggest one, and now I don't really see that messaging anywhere anymore? I feel like that's kind of gone by the wayside. Especially with summer, I felt like summer kind of brought with it a lot of kind of forgetting about the science and things that really came home to roost once we hit fall. And so that is a quite complicated situation, especially with like, I mean, mass gatherings and we had protests and they were hugely influential and important. But you know, I mean, I can't imagine that was really actually something that you can look at from like a pandemic point of view and think that was a good thing.
There were studies that said that people stayed home more, because there were there were the protests. But I don't think you can say that mass gatherings are a positive thing for the pandemic, right. And I think that really kind of twisted people up a lot. There's a lot of kind of failure, I think of institutions and of people who like are like, ostensibly in charge. In their messaging, I just think that even going like to up to, like the World Health Organization, like right, as this kid saying things like, yeah, you know, like, need to master this. I think at one point, they even said, it doesn't spread like person to person. And so there's, like, all kinds of things that, you know, looking back are failures of institutions that, I mean, at this point, it's so fucked up that individual people actually have to deal with this. We're at the point where it's like a you need to wear the mask and like, it's like the individual people are so responsible for what's going to happen because the institutions have failed so much. And that that I don't think was ever going to work out well no matter like, what kind of thing you you end up in, like, whatever the disaster is, if all those institutions are failing then it gonna result in quite a struggle.
Derek Horn
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting, like the whole stay home movement during the spring, like that definite, like when it was still colder in it was really starting to take hold in the US. That definitely was important. But like, apparently, science does say that, like, during the warmer months, when you are outside, it is lesser of a risk. And I think that people embrace that and kind of got really comfortable with that lifestyle, and their loosening up of restrictions and things like that. And now here we are, It's getting colder again, the holidays are coming up. Yeah, people are back in that mindset and are just tired of thinking about COVID and making these sacrifices that I just think that it's just a complete recipe for disaster. I mean, right now, it's, every single day, there's a new record that's shattered. And I think in the over the next few weeks, it's gonna be even worse.
Paul Weiner
It's gonna be destructive. Like... Thanksgiving. I don't even want to think about whats gonna happen with Thanksgiving.
Derek Horn
It is it is really this weird new social situation we're in where it is, it is a lot of personal responsibility, like our institutions have, for all intents and purposes, kind of failed us in this situation. And I feel like, yes, wear a mask. And I feel like sometimes it's easy to, I don't know, I feel like screaming wear a mask, wear a mask, stay inside, whatever. It's like, if you're if you're doing that you almost feel like a nag or you're either virtue signaling or whatever. And it's almost like, if people aren't going to do it, I don't know if like, necessarily me saying, wear a mask is gonna change their minds at this point. I think once again, it's like until it's on their front door. I feel like a lot of people are just not gonna wake up to it.
Paul Weiner
Yeah. And I mean, I just don't think that should have to be like your responsibility. That's what's so interesting about all of this is that, I mean, that should have been the institution's. I mean, even here in Colorado, and this is like a heavily blue state. I know, at one point, it was really like a red or purple state, but now there's no real doubt. And and I think, you know, like our governor, eventually did put out like a mask order. Over the summer, I think. And it was like, they, for the first time sent out like a mass text message that was like a mask order is in place, and like you should be wearing a mask. And immediately after that, SO many more people were met wearing the mask, because I think so many people just like genuinely trust, sort of what's said from the government, and because they hadn't been getting any of that, that kind of messaging.
Like they maybe weren't taking it as seriously or something or they didn't feel like there was any need. And sort of as you got a week or two out from that text message, you could start to see the numbers sort of like declining with mask wearing and then they would put out like another one and he would be like, oh, So people are wearing them again. And I'm like, so I don't think it's necessarily always so hard. I really think that people maybe just need to, I mean, if those messages had gone out at the beginning, and they had, like, associated it with reopening that that people probably would have been amenable to doing it just as a way to stop being hunkered down in their house all day, every day and wanting to die.
Derek Horn
Yeah. And it's a shame that that didn't happen sooner. Because every day that hasn't, like those mandates haven't been in place is a day that these, not even conspiracies, but kind of rhetoric around it being a matter of personal liberty and the mass becoming a cultural and the culture wars, is it's really all just so dumb. And it's gonna be interesting to see if when Biden takes office, and he does push for him at a national mask mandate, how people are gonna handle that. But we'll see.
Paul Weiner
I kinda suspect he won't actually I it looks like from what I've heard that it's gonna be like, the maybe he's not actually so sure that he has the power to do that. Yeah, what I've read is that they maybe think that it could only be like, on like, federal property or something that he could mandate a mask, but I do feel like if you even put out that kind of messaging it has an impact, so we'll see. I just think it's gonna be like, a really complicated year coming up here. You can't really put it back in the box and a lot of ways, especially until like, you really get a vaccine and people are actually immunized. And then we'll see how many people are actually willing to take the vaccine and, and like, how it's going to be transported. And yeah, that's a lot easier said than done. So we'll, we'll see how that evolves.
Derek Horn
But, yeah, so I mean, back to your work, I know that politics of American sociology are like, kind of the core themes of all of your work. What inspired you to pursue exploring those ideas in the first place? And like, I know, you talked about how this year you did filter some of the pandemic messaging through it, but how do you see it being shaped going forward?
Paul Weiner
Yeah, I think kind of, over the past four years, I've been making a lot of these flag based works, which they started off being basically flags that American flags that I had painted black. And those flags basically, I saw them as a way for people to kind of think about what the flag means. And not necessarily directly the first time they see the work identify the symbol, because so they were covered in like, they were, like nylon flags that were covered in black oil paint. And so from a distance, you couldn't even actually see that this was the flag, it kind of looked like it was just a black hole like monochrome kind of painting. Which is another thing that I've been known for kind of like formally and so it's something that like, at like a physical exhibition, people really didn't even necessarily know that's what they were looking at until they got in like within like three or four feet of the painting. And so that work was actually much more explosive than I like expected it to be in that it. I mean, there were all kinds of things about like defacing the flag or like, whether you were defacing the flag by doing that. And if you was actually decorating the flag using paint, which I think most people think of as something that's decorative. And kind of looking at whether those flags were actually offensive was like a really great experience for three years. And I think I've settled on Yes, they probably are offensive given the amount of death threats that that came with them.
But I do think that what was interesting is that I like two years in, decided to shift to making these prints where I was rolling down black latex paint onto the flag and then basically pulling up mono prints of the flag onto canvas and I would print like 15 or 20 of these flags overlapped onto one canvas. In a way where like it totally dissolved, like you wouldn't probably know that the flag was there unless I mean I told you or you knew going into the show. And then it kind of maybe would grow on you, if you looked on it for like 20 minutes or something you could see like the stars and stripes and like kind of slowly kind of grapple with it, or there would be like other words in the show that would kind of be hinting at it. But those works, I think, have been really interesting because they almost were sucked into this, like anti-Trump moment, which was never really the intention of the work. It was really always about like, Americana and like, what it what it meant to be American and what like, like actually itself meant. There's never actually been like any, like Trump's specific work there. But it got like, kind of like, oddly sucked up into that that moment, I think. And so it'll be interesting over the next four years, what kind of resistance that same work receives. Because I think so many people at this point, will not be as receptive to it as they were, like, three weeks ago, which will be very interesting for me to navigate.
And we'll just see how it kind of evolves, but I don't really intend on stopping making that work. Yeah, so I think I'll be like working on a lot of that I'm working right now on still a lot of that work about kind of like niche and subculture, specifically with the very online stuff and kind of memes and things like that, that I'm trying to kind of put together into books, so that I can kind of have in prints. And then out of that, there's also a lot of abstraction happening. One thing with my work is that it kind of has, basically a root in symbolism. And so I'll be dealing with things like the American flag, which are like these highly symbolic like things. And then kind of filtering that into abstraction, and kind of finding ways that I can take my day to day experience and turn it into this more kind of spiritual experience, which is what I think happens with the abstraction that it can like, really bring you somewhere else. that's like, where I think abstraction is the most effective. And so a lot of the work really since about, like, 2013, or so has been this abstraction that's almost violent, or somewhat minimal. Also, it has this sort of, yeah, violent affect to it in that there'll be quite chaotic often, or it'll actually be almost totally still, but a little bit eerie. And so, a lot of what I'm going to be working on is probably continuing down that, that cycle. And a lot of that is really intuitive.
You know, I mean, I think a lot of what goes on with painting is complicated right now, because a lot of a lot of the arts are really these, like, intuitive, like borderline spiritual, transformative kind of experiences. And so much of what, especially over the last four years, has become, like, important in art is not those experiences, it's like theoretical, or it's illustrative of someone else's theory or it's like, somehow deeply conceptual in a way that isn't identifiable for anyone who hasn't spent just like years, like engaged with like art history or with even with like, actually, like social movements and things. So it is a really complicated terrain to kind of navigate right now. Because if, like me, you're interested at all in connecting with the broader kind of population, which is what Instagram is so good for. It's really quite complicated to also try to manage any kind of career in the arts, because it's so elite and the institutions within it are so like enmeshed with like elite culture and with just money and so it is quite complicated to make something that both receives any kind of critical respect and also is appealing to people who are not deeply engaged in this really weird niche world, which I mean, I would say that the art world is as niche as like being very online. So it probably has even much more gruesome things happening in it.
Derek Horn
But yeah, it's interesting that you say that about the art world. It was I had this weird moment, a couple weeks ago, I went to them MoMA on a Tuesday afternoon. And it was just an interesting mix of people there.There weren't a ton of people. But pretty much everyone that was there could fall into two categories. One was clearly art students like young, early 20s. And then the other was what I presumed to be the Upper East Side housewives kind of like meeting up with their friends there. And obviously, there's a bunch of privilege and elitism that comes with that world. I was not to say that I'm trying to draw any meaning out of it. But it was just an interesting observation that one day. But back to what you're saying about the flag. I do think that that, like the American flag is something a lot of people project what they want to onto it I don't know, like speaking about the political moment and how that shifted over the past few years. I know that like Trump, when he rose and had this brand of nationalistic conservatism. So many people are waving the flag everywhere and I think a lot of people started to equate the flag to Trumpism in this nationalistic spirit, which is I mean, it's ironic because a lot of these people are the first to wants to prosecute people that desecrate the flag, but at the same time, they have the thin blue line flag, they have their flags with Trump's face printed on them they have, I think one of the most insane things coming out of the Trump era was Do you ever see the Trumpy bear? Where it was like this teddy bear has like an American flag shoved up it's ass that you can like pull out. It's very, very bizarre. There's these wild TV infomercials about it. I was like, there's no way this real?
Paul Weiner
Oh my god, is it supposed to be pro-Trump?
Derek Horn
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'll send you a link after I had to see that. But one of the most striking things to me about watching Biden's acceptance speech last week is how many flags there were. And I think I do think that, like I said, I think it's always going to be this object that people see what they want to see with that. But I do think that there is opportunity for the more populist left wing of the party to potentially even reclaim it and totally create new meaning for it. But I don't know, unfortunately, I think it's always going to just end up being this tug of war of whoever's in power and whatever, is kind of associated with it in a way.
Paul Weiner
Yeah, I think it's complicated with the flag. I think that anything that's kind of drenched in kind of patriotism, I guess is the word, is often highly politically effective. I think that one of the problems that I think actually the Bernie Sanders campaign had in the primary season was that it really didn't appeal to a lot of the people who actually supported him in 2016, especially in like rural places, and a lot of that, I think, was cultural and even aesthetic, about how they perceived Bernie Sanders to be, and like, what the campaign could have done, there's a lot that campaign you probably could have done to reassure those voters. I mean, you really saw a total realignment in who voted for him in 2020 versus 2016. Right, despite a lot of the issues being similar. He ran up margins in like big cities and things this time around, which is like the exact opposite of what the Sanders/Clinton dynamic in 2016 was.
And so there's really this interesting thing about drenching yourself in the flag and becoming like the patriotic candidate, even which I felt like, if anyone did that, maybe it was like Pete Buttigieg in this campaign cycle. And he actually did end up carrying a lot of those like, rural kind of districts and things that Bernie probably won in 2016. And so that's kind of interesting to me, too. But one thing that I think has been happening with like patriotism, not necessarily on the left, but specifically within like democratic party politics, is this trust for, like military institutions, and for like, the intelligence community that probably didn't exist in any like significant way before 2016. And I think a lot of people in the Democratic Party were even quite skeptical of what the intelligence community had to say, going in kind of, especially coming out of like the Iraq war. And you know, like, watching people who maybe were responsible for the Iraq War become like, these resistance heroes, who got like incredible amounts of attention on like, MSNBC, and CNN is really wild. I mean, you have an I think that's actually a major storyline within the election itself. How like, Biden ends up winning a lot of like college educated white people who live in the suburbs. And that's really like, in a lot of ways, what swung the election. I mean, he actually performed worse among most, like most non white voters than he did in Tony, then Hillary didn't 2016. But he made gains among like, white men, I think it was up like 5% among white men. And that was like the only group that he made gains with.
And you can see that in the suburbs. It's like the same people who maybe were like George Bush republicans at one point, right, not not all of them, but or maybe they weren't George Bush Republicans, but they were independents who voted for George Bush, or like maybe Romney, or they're kind of a, like a pro military or like pro security state group that maybe was swung by some of this Russia kind of conversation over the past four years. And largely by just like cultural shifts that I think have happened over the last four years, you've ended up with like a democratic party that's largely just college educated. I think that's actually the biggest dividing line that we're starting to see now. And that became actually much more clear with the exit polls that we saw from this election, is that like, almost even regardless of ethnicity and race, it's it's becoming much more divided along like college educated lines, and like the culture that people who are college educated have, which is largely white, I mean, there is like a more, yeah, a white bias towards who is college educated. And what that culture supports or, or like, who has actually created that kind of college educated culture. So I think that'll be interesting to watch over the next four years. I'm not sure if that ends up filtering into my work or not but we'll see.
Derek Horn
I think it's interesting, because I think that there's something about Bernie that definitely struck a nerve in 2016. And I think that,, hindsight is 20/20, whatever. But I think I do think Bernie may have been able to want to win in 2016. Yeah. And I know there's a lot of people on the left, and I believe me, I was a Bernie supporter this this primary season, I wanted him to get the nomination. But to be honest, I really don't know if he could have won the general election
Paul Weiner
Yeah, did a lot of failures within the campaign, even just within the primary season, it's hard to even like think about the way that this like general election would have shaken out. I mean, one of the interesting exit polls I saw was that like 35% of voters I think, said that the economy was the most important thing for them in voting. And I think the number it was like either 80 or 85% of that group went to Trump. Um, and so I do kind of wonder if those numbers might have been different. I'm not sure if like with Bernie specifically, but with a candidate who had been maybe more forceful about, like, economic issues, which has never really been like Biden's forte. It's never really the Democratic Party's forte, in the past, like 20 or 30 years. I mean, we had a candidate, I mean, a campaign that like, for better or worse was basically a referendum on Trump, I think. And so I do kind of wonder if, I mean, I don't think that the reason that like Latinos and Starr County, Texas, like voted for Trump in ways that like they never had voted before for a Republican, I don't think that had much more to do with them than really the economy. You're talking about, like a pretty working class area that like, was relatively shattered by like the lockdown, actually, and a lot of ways. And I think that like a candidate who maybe had, like talked more about that, maybe not necessarily Bernie Sanders, but run, probably any candidate who like could have maybe more forcefully made the case for like, like, $15 minimum wage or something, right, would have been able to hold some of those places. Especially one of the interesting ones was actually Florida, where like, I mean, Trump won, and you can talk about like, the Cuban community and how this sort of running against the specter of socialism and things like that. But at the same time, it's like the $15 minimum wage won there with 60%. So there's like this whole, like, conservative conservative group that like maybe, like socially conservative group that also like maybe agrees with us about a lot of things on on, like, the economy that Yeah, to be tapped into.
Derek Horn
Yeah and I think that socialism is this word that freaks people out. And I think that a lot of the policies that people like Bernie advocate for, like AOC, and the squad for as much as they're painted to be these boogeymen. They're popular policies. But I think people see that word socialism or democratic socialism, they automatically go to the scary parts of that. And they don't necessarily equate it to these, like European nations that are very sick, like, prosperous, and like have this really high quality of life. And I think that that comes down to us. Not us, but like the Democratic Party, and even people to the left kind of finding a new vocabulary to talk about those things. And kind of meeting people where they're at and level-setting with them. Because I think that like, I don't know, it, no matter what the right is gonna bang their fist and say socialism this socialism, that but I think if there's, there's, I think there's an opportunity for some different messages to break through.
Paul Weiner
Oh, totally. Like, I don't think it has to be about socialism, I really feel like it's like about good governance. It's like, one of the big failures, not only with institutions being like about the pandemic is just the failure to like, actually take care of our people and solve problems in this country. I think that was like really on display with the stimulus conversation kind of going into the election, you had, like, maybe the willingness with the Trump White House to do something on stimulus, and maybe not so much with McConnell, but also not with Pelosi. And so that was interesting that for like, political reasons, it seems like she was trying to hold off on doing that. Maybe to hurt Trump in the election, which I think maybe backfired, actually looking at those gigantic numbers that people like really are hurting. Yeah. And yeah, they need like relief.
And it's not that complicated. You know, it's not socialism. It's just good governance. It's like making things work. Like it's, it's like the trains need to move on time, kind of stuff. Like not, it's not that deep. I think, a lot of ways and I think that's one of the reasons that the 2016 Bernie movement was actually maybe better prepared for like, even though I don't think there was actually that much preparation involves, but I think it it was actually less over thought, it felt much more populit and much more able to like galvanize support around Basic, like pocketbook kind of issues. Which I think, within democratic politics just generally feels like, I mean, Republican politics too, it just feels like so much of this has kind of been, like, subsumed by the culture war. And that even like, exactly anomic issues are now like seen within that lens. And so there's like things like the $15 minimum wage that maybe most people agree about, like regardless of party, but that we just can't get done.
Derek Horn
Because like, all these other things attached to it, connotations. So I know, I know, Biden ran on this core principle or idea of restoring the soul of the nation. And I just wondering what what like, what do you think that that means? And do you think that he has a shot of being a successful president?
Paul Weiner
I think restoring the soul of the nation. I mean, that sounds like something that was like poll tested and like was his nicely branded thing? Sounds very Pete Buttigieg to me. Which like, is like fine, whatever. There's like a definite like, group of people who are like, excited about, like, that kind of stuff. But I do think that and I actually mean, I guess it proved to be, I don't know of successful is the word for this election, but it certainly they, they did win technically. So it's like,
Derek Horn
I don't know if we can point to that's what won in the election vs being against Trump.
Paul Weiner
Yeah, I don't think. I don't think so. But I think that there's also like, I'm just the idea that, like, Democrats are gonna come in and be like the Unity Party after four years of really partisan bickering on both sides is just pretty funny to me. But I don't think that's likely to happen. And I also think that I think the only way that I see Biden being successful as a president is like through executive order and executive action at this point. Yeah. I mean, what doesn't look like the senate? I guess it's still possible in Georgia, I think it's pretty unlikely that he comes out with the senate majority. And even if he does, there's plenty of blue dog dems out there who are going to stop like any kind of really interesting kind of policy. Right? I think that like, I suspect, we'll get back like into the Iran deal. That seems like it's likely going to happen and that there's like, maybe the Paris Climate Agreement and stuff like that, I suspect that we'll take kind of these baby steps that are far too small.
The one thing that's been interesting, like we don't really have that much like literal decision making done so far, we have like a bunch of like election, kind of campaign promises and things that I don't think are mostly going to come to fruition, but there's like, especially without the Senate, but probably either way. But looking at, like executive orders. I mean, Schumer before the election was talking about how he thought that there could be something on even like student debt, with just through executive order that you could cancel like some some amount of student debt. Which Trump actually oddly set the precedent for that he like cancelled student debt for I think it was like disabled veterans. Um, I can't remember exactly the specifics of that policy. But it was one of like, the few, like, really bright spots of that presidency. But I think that Yeah, we'll just have to wait and see, I don't think that probably on policy, it's going to go too terribly well with like legislation, but there is like, definitely, like some chance that there could be like positive executive orders. I'm a bit concerned about the transition team that I've seen, specifically on like, the Office of Management budget, that's pretty concerning. OIRA is contained within that group. And that group has like Amazon, like, they had. I think the team is like 10 people or something. And most of them are from Silicon Valley. Like, like, it's literally like Amazon and Lyft. And there's a person who is basically writes for like a Koch- funded think tank that supports fossil fuels. And so that specific agency, OIRA, is actually extremely powerful for regulatory functions because it can review and block like all executive regulations. And so that's concerning when you put it together with his chief of staff pick who I mean, Ron Klain definitely is like a much more competent Chief of Staff, which will be an exciting thing. And I mean, he was the Ebola czar, I imagine that it'll be relatively good for the pandemic. But he also is an ex lobbyist for I think it was tech net, which is a major kind of Silicon Valley lobbying firm. And so for like antitrust, and for all kinds of other issues related to executive action that could maybe be done through regulation. This might be complicated. I mean, we don't actually know who's going to be totally in charge of that yet. We just know the transition team and the Chief of Staff. But yeah, it is concerning. So I mean, we'll we'll see what what happens going forward.
Derek Horn
Yeah, no, no, I know. I'm one of the things that I think has been kind of concerning to me even in the past week or so that we know that Biden won, an is this kind of even more, this is more of like the on the ground level, interpersonal, relationship wise, is a lot of kind of calls for unity. And kind of, they really just ring as calls for unity for unity sake. With that, without necessarily this accountability, or true unpacking of what got us down this path in the first place. And I'm just kind of concerned about that being a prevailing theme just because I think that unless we unpack how one of the two major parties of this country is very openly flirting with fascism, to put it bluntly, It makes the environment more palatable for a smoother and more competent Donald Trump to come along in 2024 or 2028, whenever and actually be able to really do some damage. I know Trump has done a lot of damage, but like irreversible damage.
Paul Weiner
I suspect that Trump will run again in 2024. That's kind of the vibe I'm getting right now. And that this hell is not over. But I also think that there's this this same kind of thing going on in the Democratic Party, not to the same extent on cultural issues, I think, but I mean, you can look at like the Mike Bloomberg candidacy, which like at one point, which pretty formidable, yeah, like, um, and really was, like, wildly like oligarchic. And I mean, if we're gonna take, like, Mussolini's definition of fascism, that's like, probably closer than Trump. Um, I mean, the connection of like, the corporations a the state, I mean, that's really like, I feel like kind of, regardless of which party is in charge here, it's like, we're kind of headed down that that path towards, like, corporate control of our government, which like, I think is maybe less so under, like a Biden, like, you're gonna see, like, some regulatory advances, probably. And you might like, do some stuff about like, coal, we'll see. And like, like fracking, I kind of doubt it, but we'll see. I mean, I don't think Biden is like Trump, but I do think that there's going to be like, a lot of issues that are just going to be kind of swept under the rug for the next four years. And then it's not unlikely that Yeah, Trump could win or that you could have like, even like a primary from the right within the Democratic Party. As it seemed like was, there was quite an appetite for in the in the primary season this this time around. I mean, with Bloomberg specifically having like 20% of the vote, one bird 20% of like, in a lot of polling kind of going into like not quite Super Tuesday, but like, even like South Carolina was like that could get really dangerous really quick. So there's like a whole like almost oligarchic system there.
Derek Horn
It's like it's thinking of Bloomberg running for president. It's just like, all the money that was spent on that campaign for him. It's like, what if you put that towards any number of other things? Even just putting it in a fund for whoever the eventual nominee was like, I know. He eventually did spend money on bombarding Florida with ads, but it's like, what about all the millions that he wasted on this what ended up being like a vanity campaign?
Paul Weiner
It's just wild to think about disturbing and and confusing, I think to like for like what what could happen in like future elections with Yeah, someone who could just run this like mass airwaves kind of campaign and and really convince people to vote. It's really it's it's complicated.
Derek Horn
Yeah, yeah. And it's like he came in late in the game. It's like what if he started this earlier? Yeah, was actually able to build up the ground game to kind of be this unstoppable force, that is certainly scary.
Paul Weiner
That was that was disturbing for me.
Derek Horn
So what is amisconception that people have about you or your work or people like you and what are they getting wrong?
Paul Weiner
Yeah. I think like one of the things was here with my paintings, it's like that they're like, I think a lot of people think of abstract painting as being this weird, hard to, like digest thing. Like that, like maybe is very cold. And for me, it's actually this like, warm spiritual experience. And so I think that that's one big thing. A lot of my career has been, like, filtered through Instagram. And so I think there's also the assumption that my work is like, in some way connected to like being an influencer or something like that, which I mean, I don't certainly think of my work that way. But I do understand why people get there because of Instagram. That's what happens on Instagram. But one of the things that's been really interesting for me about being an artist who uses Instagram so directly for my career, is that it has like allowed me to really connect with a lot of people who are either like shunned from the art world or who have who just like, live far away.
I mean, it's like I can be like talking to artists who were living in Berlin and like bouncing ideas off of them anytime or like an artist who lives in like Senegal even like I can, like kind of find all these different, like places and, and people and have these conversations that I don't think were even, like, really possible without that. And so a lot of what I'm doing I think is sort of like cosmopolitan in that way and interested in connecting people and so that connecting people in a way that's maybe beyond that, like kind of superficial Instagram person who's like, posting like, pictures of themselves half naked and whatever like that. I've never really liked I should kind of experiment with that. Maybe I gotta, like, go for the shirtless pic. I'll try that next summer. We'll see what goes on. But I feel like there's like, yeah, I think a lot of what the misconception is that like, I'm some kind of like influencer, and I don't know if it could really be farther from the truth. I'm like, lucky that I like found the following. That's really what it is. I'm like somebody who got lucky with a following. So yeah,
Derek Horn
I mean, you have the great work to back it up. So don't talk yourself down too much.
Paul Weiner
There were algorithms involved like I don't know. I'm not a marketing genius.
Derek Horn
But no, it's interesting. I actually interviewed my my previous episode was my friend who's a TikTok creator. It's interesting how on TikTok, there's been this type of creator that's a little bit more arts and craftsy I would say than what you do, and kind of how that has taken hold on there. And I could kind of see how somebody who's not really well-versed in art might conflate the two. And I don't know. It's, I'm glad that people like things like TikTok do give people the platform to get creative if they aren't necessarily creative before. But it's definitely like a different different type of creativity.
Paul Weiner
Yeah, it's a totally different world. But, but the way that that works is so funny, like, I mean, a lot of that work. I mean, I can get myself in a lot of trouble here, but like, there's like things that do appeal to people and that maybe should be taken more seriously.
Derek Horn
Yeah.
Paul Weiner
In that the art world has a lot of like ingrained, elitist kind of things that that keep a lot of stuff from being taken seriously. Especially within like the museum world, I think there's a lot of I put this like snobbery or like unwillingness to engage with people and the like, implication that it's like on the viewer to enjoy the museum or something or that right, that and that that oftentimes a galleries too, but there's not like an interest in kind of engaging new people in an art. It's more so about making it exclusive in a lot of ways. Because in a lot of ways it like functions like a luxury goods market, which is disturbing. But it reinforces a lot of the kind of dynamics that we see in like the larger society. Yeah, yeah. I don't have anything against TikTok guys making things, I think it's good.
Derek Horn
But it's interesting, because it's like, I mean, my my all time favorite artist is Keith Haring. I have, yeah, tattoo of his work on my wrist. And then one of the things I love about him is how he democratized art in a way and brought it to the masses. I think right now, I don't know, now I see a lot of all these brand collaborations and stuff and kind of, yeah, luxury goods with his artwork on it. And that, in a way makes me feel a little icky. Um, but the the core essence of his work, I think, is not dissimilar to some of the ways that art and creativity have been democratized with technology. So totally, it's interesting.
Paul Weiner
Yeah, a lot of that East Village scene was like a rebellion against the way that the art world was functioning. So I mean, yeah, it's wild how that actually has become the art market in a lot of ways, too. It's like and like as gone from this kind of punk rock kind of thing to being like corporatized punk rock, or like, pop punk or something, even though at the time, it really wasn't. I think that's, that's quite interesting to me how it gets, like sucked up into this, this kind of void of corporate accepted art,
Derek Horn
Right Yesterday, I saw what I think was a Lacoste collaboration with Keith Haring. And I'm like, this feels very strange to me.
Paul Weiner
Oh, yeah.
Derek Horn
But, but no, I think in New York, too, it's like, one of the things that has been really cool is over the summer is all these stores boarding up for the protests and stuff. And a lot of artists, particularly down in like Soho really kind of treated those as canvases. And it was really cool seeing a lot of this stuff that people were doing. And it was like almost New York returning to the artists in a way, which was pretty cool.
Paul Weiner
I kind of wonder about that, like with New York, specifically too, if like in the next couple of years, with, like, so many rich people moving out of town kind of playing from the pandemic. I mean, I know that rents getting better. And I can't imagine that the art scene doesn't get better with the rent gettin better. So we'll see how long that lasts.
Derek Horn
But yeah, it's gonna be interesting. Um, I think that the culture is definitely shifting. And I think it's shifting in a way that's a little bit more out of the hands of the rich people. So it'll be interesting to see play out. So what is something that's important to you that you think society should be paying more attention to?
Paul Weiner
Um, wow. So I feel like the media specifically like I think people, like, I mean, I hate to say, but I feel like it's like, over the past two decades, it's become so like, cable news oriented in the media. And yeah. I really feel like that's the source of so many of our problems, whether it's like, actually, about the literal stories that they're running, and like the stories that are NOT running, or if it's about inflaming divides that already exists in this country, and not necessarily on grounds that have any any real basis. I think it's useful for a lot of people right now to maybe find new media apparatuses to listen to. And to challenge their worldview, you know, not necessarily not necessarily to just accept everything that that said on CNN or MSNBC or Fox News or whatever it is that that people are listening to, to so maybe, like, seek out different opinions that are from other people who were coming at it in good faith, because I do think there's a lot of disagreement, and a lot of things that can be hammered out, but like really aren't even that complicated, right.
And like meeting people who are different than you, you know, I mean, total. There's a lot of bubbles that are going on right now. Even more so now with the pandemic, I think and the way that people interact with only their friends and only online. I think it's it's a lot more complicated now. I think that's, that's the biggest thing that I wish people would do now is maybe talk to other people who are much different from them. And maybe stop treating like, groups like they're like one, one big monolith or whatever you want to want to call it. I mean, I think if anything, that's like, one thing we should take away from this election is that like, the kind of like, college educated version of what a lot of like communities are, has nothing to do with the reality in a lot of places. Like I don't think people who went to Harvard have any idea what's going on in Star County Texas and like, maybe they should know more. Like that might be useful.
Derek Horn
And find new ways of learning more versus the standard polls that have continued to fail us and stuff like that.
Paul Weiner
I'm not sure I can ever believe, again after this. Yeah.
Derek Horn
But yeah, the cable news thing. Last week, I was there waiting for results. It was like, I was watching a bit of CNN and I haven't watched CNN in years. But it was like I was streaming it just keeping up to date with what was going on. And as we got through the week, and it was becoming even more clear that Biden was gonna win. And it almost felt like the networks were playing this game of chicken to see who's gonna call it first. And I may be feeling a little tinfoil hat conspiracy, but it was almost getting to the point where like, are they really just like stretching this out for ratings? And the sake of this th horse race? And then was like, I saw this quote, it was somebody high up at CNN, like gloating about how they shattered all their viewership records. And I'm like, interesting.
Paul Weiner
I think it's gonna be hard for years for like, cable news, becauseyou're gonna have so many people like deeply in it and now they're gonna check out.
Derek Horn
But is it has been kind of interesting as well seeing this exodus from Fox News from the right. And it was I think it was that that that that magga marched yesterday there were crowds chanting like, screw Fox News, or whatever. And it's like, Yes I agree with you, but for different reasons. And now that like, now, those people are going to even more far right sources like OAN and Newsmax, which are scary. And I know there's rumors of Trump even launching his own media company, which will be a dumpster fire I'm sure. And then it is also funny seeing all these conservatives fleeing Facebook and Twitter, for their quote, unquote, censorship, not to say that Facebook and Twitter have done everything right. But then going to this this new Parler app. Yeah. Which is funny to me because they talk so much about their safe spaces and complain about how millennials are coddled and this and that and here they are going to their own little safe space bubble where nobody can call them out or anything.
Paul Weiner
Yeah, the Parler stuff is pretty funny. I just think it's like, there's just so much that's happening right now that I feel like it's so bubbly. It gets like you're just like in your bubble. I think it's gonna be funny over the next few years to see if that just goes farther and farther into that direction. We're just going to build more and more weird niches and subcultures that don't really make any like actual practical sense. It's also like I wonder how many people outside of like Twitter's weird little world are like even conscious of Parler's existence?
I just feel like so many things are born on Twitter that don't don't exist in any like real practical way in the world or right. Same thing with like, like cable news too though, but it's like, I feel like so few people in this country have any idea what happened in Star County, Texas, ike, why did this like place that like, has been so reliably blue go red for like, the first time? People, I think are so deep in their bubbles that I just don't think that there's even the capacity to understand why that was. Because we're also deep into these things that like reify our incoming, like ideas, like things that we already, like, believed, like, before we saw that result or something like that. It's been funny watching, like, just specifically with the election, like the way that people analyze the results, because it's always reinforces whatever they already thought.
Derek Horn
I mean, that there. Yes, they are bubbles, but I feel like they're also separate planes of reality people are operating on it's just funny seeing some of these wackadoo far right news sources with their, their current electoral maps, where it's like Trump 232 and then Biden whatever, like below him, like still thinking that Trump still has the shot with their recounts and stupid lawsuits.
Paul Weiner
The lawsuits are kind of funny. Like, I do think that a lot of this is like, overblown about it being like a coup and stuff like that. I don't I mean, I think like, you're gonna have Biden, he's gonna come into office in January, it's pretty much gonna be fine. But the lawsuits are actually oddly like, a kind of normal part of like like, just standard American to me. Yeah, we'd have that kind of like sore loser kind of bullshit. But 2016 we have like a similar thing. Like, there's like a poll from 2018. Where I can't remember I think it was a Pew poll, but maybe it was Gallup, they like said that, I think it was 70% of Democrats thought that Russians had literally hacked into the voting and like changed the actual votes.
And don't get me wrong, like, there's more evidence around Russia than there is around like, this shit that's happening now. But I kind of feel like the thing that's gonna happen next. Or that like actually already is happening is just like every election, it's gonna be like this, like, whoever loses is not gonna be like, willing to accept the other side won the election.
Derek Horn
Yeah. It's just like so funny how they say we have we have explosive evidence and like, all this groundbreaking news about fraud and then it's like a van, someone saw a van, or like, a big man gave them a dirty look.
Paul Weiner
And like at the landscaping place and Rudy Giuliani is like in charge of this. I'm like, this is so Trumpian in the way that like, I mean, like, even if you like, like, what Trump's Sam stands for, or whatever, like, I don't think anyone in there like even remotely like right mind sane, could like look at this and say that, like he was effective and doing like what he wanted to, and he had all kinds of opportunity. But like this man especially through like the legal system, just like the way that they wrote some of these laws and things just like made it so untenable, legally. And that Rudy Giuliani is the dude that's like gonna be in charge of this is the perfect cap on all this shit that never was gonna work.
Derek Horn
Oh boy. So wrapping things up. I know COVID there's so much that's uncertain with how that's gonna play out over the next year or so. And it may not be over so much as it just kind of evolves into a new normal or different different world we're living on, as we continue to move forward, what are you most hopeful for?
Paul Weiner
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not really so sure it's coming to an end. Like it's sort of like I Yeah, I guess I'm like, still in this place where I don't really know what to expect is coming next tomorrow, so it's hard to even feel hopeful. There are things though. Yeah, like, I mean, I can't wait to see my friends like physically and like, not be worried about wearing a mask like while doing it or like not feel like oh man because I saw my friend I better not see like my parents or something for like months or Hey. Yeah, I'm like very excited for that part of this to be to be over and to just be able to, if it ever does and like to be able to like, I don't know, go to like some big party or something or like have an opening for my art show or like, yeah, just, like get together with friends and not feel like I'm being like wildly irresponsible. Like, and do it like more than once every like four months or something like that would be nice. Like it that's that's probably the biggest thing for me.
Derek Horn
Yeah, I totally agree with that stuff as well. So thank you for joining us. very lengthy and in depth conversation
Paul Weiner
Probably the weirdest
Derek Horn
No, I love it. Is there anything that you particular want to plug for listeners and where can they find you online??
Paul Weiner
Yeah, you can find me @poweiner on Instagram. And that's really the only place you should probably find me. You can find me other places but you shouldn't um, I'm going to plug for media stuff I want to plug real quick Rising from The Hill which you can find on YouTube I find that like really useful and informative and gives you like a not so sensationalist look at things and often like it's like you get like a kind of leftist person in Krystal Ball and kind of more right leaning populist kind of person in Saagar Enjeti. And they're very, like, functionally useful to like understand what's going on in the country and get like, like different opinions.Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Derek Horn
Well, thank you again and talk to you soon!