Friday, 20 January 2012

Chet Zar Conjoined 2 - mini interview



Some say that a sequel to a film is never as good as its first but there are cases where the 2nd film in a movie franchise far surpasses the original. Films like Terminator 2 or Aliens for instance.

Well, for the 2nd year in a row, surrealist painter of the dark, Chet Zar, has put his curator hat on, picked up the sculpting trow and organised another sculpture orientated art show at the Copro Gallery in California. Last year was Conjoined in 3D. This year: Conjoined 2 in 3D.


Dead Pope, 16" Bronze by Chet Zar
Lloyd Harvey: Chet, you’re back with your sequel show, is it bigger and better than the first? Can we expect it go the way of Terminator 2 or the way of Jaws: The Revenge? What sort of things can we expect to see?

Chet Zar: It's definitely a T2 situation, or maybe more like The Road Warrior. There is a really wide range of styles. In addition to many great artists from the Pop Surealism scene there are also quite a few people from the Hollywood FX industry. There are some amazing kinetic sculptures that will interact with the audience, as well as some very traditional work and just about everything in between. I think we have outdone last year's show.
Was curating such a show fraught with stress or was it a nice and straight forward affair having curated the show last year? Was there anything you learned from the previous experience that changed the way you went about it for this year?

It was a little less stressful. Most of the stress last year came from never having curated a show like this. Once you do something you have never done, it's not quite so scary. And it was easier in the sense that I already had a group of great artists to invite from last year. We have quite a few new people as well this year

What work are you contributing this year and how different does it feel exhibiting sculptures to paintings? Do people react differently to your sculpts in a noticeable way?

I am contributing my first bronze, so that is a bit of a milestone for me. I have wanted to do bronze for years but never could afford to do it. A friend of mine on Facebook-Grant Standard- quoted me a price to do it through his foundry, Black Hills bronze in South Dakota and it was really reasonable. So we went for it and they came out better than I could have imagined.

People really seem to like the sculpture work. They are fun to do as well, but they take a lot of time and are somewhat expensive (compared to making a painting). I hope I can sell enough to justify creating more.

Although the Mayan calendar ends this year, the Earth will most likely, not. Having said that, what does 2012 hold for you? Will you be making plans for Conjoined 3, Return of the Dead Eye in 3D or building a bunker and filling it with dehydrated food? (like what I did there with the name?)

I hope we can do another show next year. I'm not too worried about 2012. I'm an optimist so I think if there is any truth to the 2012 myth, it's more of an ego apocalypse that might happen on a mass scale- and that would be a good thing.





Check out the show's preview of works HERE 

Check out the art of Chet Zar at his website HERE

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