Substack Spot
Felix Morelo collaborated with 100 artists for his new exhibition at PRIV.Y Gallery. Meet some of them.
You may not be a superstitious person. But at some point, I bet you’ve walked out of your way to dodge a Bad Luck Spot or Suicide Spot. It was at the park or on the sidewalk. It may have even pissed you off.
Your detour means you’ve fallen into Felix Morelo’s trap.
Felix is the artist behind these chalk circles and the infamous Good Luck Spot, Kissing Spot, etc. Engagement is the point of his practice, where art is a social experience.
In Felix’s new exhibition, “100 Collaborations,” he takes his interactive approach to another level. He recruited 100 artists to create their own Spots.
The opening night was full of glee and boxed wine. There was a real sense of community.
100 Collaborations is now on view at PRIV.Y Gallery.
How did you coordinate this and pick the artists?
I picked them all by myself.
I mean, how did you find the people? Did you know them already?
No. I had to become very social in five different ways. I started with my peers. Then I started going to openings and festivals and I found people on Instagram. And after a while, I started emailing people. Sometimes I find people randomly. If in a conversation I go, “Hey, wait a minute, by the way, I’m having a show.”
Would you do it again?
This is called “Number One.” So, yeah, there’s gonna be more.
What does it mean to you to do a show like this? Because your work is obviously always very interactive, this is interactive on another level.
I’m an immigrant, an introvert. Many times I found myself on my birthday all by myself. For me, art openings, especially a solo show, are like a birthday, a celebration. But I told myself as a joke, “Not many people show up to my birthday, but if I die, I’m pretty sure a lot of people will show up.” So, that’s one reason why I do a show like this, because I’m already planning for my death.
I already told many of the artists that if it doesn’t sell, keep the custody of the work. And then if I die and it sells, give half to my nephew or my niece, so it goes on to other generations.
When did you decide to start doing the bad luck spots and the negative spots in general?
Well, it came to a point where, while I was doing only the Good Luck Spots, everyone was like, “Oh, that’s so nice.” It gave me this confidence–whatever. But they didn’t know that I was going through so much pain, anger, turmoil, misery, suffering–both mental and physical.
So at one point, I said, “What the fuck am I doing? This is fake. It feels fake. Inauthentic.” Pretending that I’m happy, and everyone’s laughing about it. It’s not fair. I said, “Fuck it. Fuck that shit. Fuck that shit.”
All this anger came out and I started doing the Bad Luck Spots. I started noticing that people were like, fucking going around it. I was getting DMs and people were getting upset. And I’m like, “Wait a minute, this shit works, you know?” So it gave me that. If it didn’t work, I would’ve stopped.
Ian Cinco – High Five Spot
Why the High Five Spot?
My last name is Cinco, so five. And, you know, I like high-fiving people. I like showing love and mutual appreciation. It’s kind of Felix’s whole thing, too: community and collaboration.
Jacob Frederick Hartman – Fascist Spot
Why the fascist spot?
There’s something about defining a border. Like, what is and isn’t okay, and geographical borders, political borders, yada yada.
All of his work is about defining a border. Felix makes a lot of spots that are really positive, but also makes a lot of negative spots. And puts them into public spaces. That’s part of his practice. Getting that reaction and seeing how people navigate around those things. I wanted to take the opportunity to play with that. Because I thought a lot of people would have really positive spots.
Liv Tyler – Intuition Spot
Why the Intuition Spot?
I’m an abstract intuitive painter, so my painting process is really intuitive.
Zack Federbus – Monster Spot
Why the Monster Spot?
I love monsters. I love creatures. I love characters. I asked Felix if the monster spot was available, and he said yes. Sure, I’ll take it.
Any monster in particular that inspired any of these or are they totally from your imagination?
Everything’s out of my imagination. This is a recurring character. The green one, Lloyd. But everyone else is unique.
Sachsy & Preston Blair – Gambling Spot & Pharmakon Spot
Why Gambling Spot?
S: Well, I’m from Vegas. I love to gamble. It just made sense.
Why the Pharmakon Spot? What does that mean exactly?
P: It’s an Ancient Greek word. It means both medicine and poison at the same time. I have a whole series of artworks that are called Pharmakons.
We’ve taken the word pharmacy from the Greek language. The core of that word, pharmakon, is both medicine and poison. The Ancient Greeks believed that anything in moderation is good for you, and anything in excess is bad for you. So, a glass of wine, antioxidants. A bottle of wine, a headache.
Kelvin Morel From Queens, New York. Dominican. – Listening Spot
Why the Listening Spot? Are you a DJ?
No, I’m an artist.
Adrian Bermeo – Recharge Spot
Why the recharge spot?
We charge bodies just by unplugging. Holistically, we need to do that. To me, recharging is unplugging.
Are you having a good time?
I noticed being pulled into the show, that I was happy to see that there were names that I knew and a lot of names that I didn’t know.
So I’m just commending Morelo for creating a space that brings a lot of people that don’t know each other together. It’s such a simple, easy, accessible thing, but everyone kind of took it seriously, or made it funny or playful. So you can see everybody’s hand, everybody’s style.
Wait, what were we just talking about?
Like, the curator, the artist, started just from chalk on the floor. It’s just been growing and growing and he’s met so many artists along the way. This whole thing is a perfect example. Everybody’s like coming together over one person.
I have so much to say about him as a person, but I’m just happy. I really like that there’s a lot of love and controversy in such a simpler, accessible thing.
I know that some people sometimes feel some type of way about some of the words, but for me, as an artist or as a person looking at this, it’s really about how we’re responding to those words. Because he’s not creating that stuff.
It might sound mumble jumbo, like bringing awareness to suicide or death or anything negative, but it’s something. It kind of stops you in your tracks a little bit. And even when you erase it, you’re still left thinking about it. You’re mad at the messenger at the end of the day. So, and to me, this is, this is art.
Thank you to all of the lovely artists who I spoke to and those who I didn’t. Words by Ally Reavis. Pics by Ally and Noah Berghammer.