a/v: Where were you born and raised?

Lozano: I was born in Los Angeles, spent my childhood in Juarez, Mexico and then back to southern California.

Jose Lozano
matt harbicht

Which family member was most influential to you growing up?

My mother, very Aschille Gorky.

How do you mean?

One of Gorky's early paintings depicts his mother and he as a child perhaps taken from a photo taken like at Ellis Island. He was Russian Armenian I think. The painting is very moving and sad almost tortured and full of longing.

When did you first realize that you would become an artist?

When in school in Mexico, the other kids would ask me to borrow that color I used in my artwork but was not in the box.

Where have you studied?

CSUF and Art Center.

Who is your favorite artist and what is you favorite piece of art?

Recently I found these two first editions of Lautrec biographies from the 50's that are very good, so I would say Lautrec for the moment. My favorite painting is DeKooning's Excavation.

What is it about that piece that moves you?

It's an amazing construct of intellect and emotion. It sums up what modern art was at that point and time and what it could be.

Many of your pieces feature a field of floating faces in the background. Can you explain the significance of these?

That series started with a masked wrestler floating in the air. Then I came across an image by Goya, by coincidence; swear to god that was so similar. The painting was called El Pelele, A stuffed life sized doll of a man being tossed into the air by three pastoral maidens holding a blanket. I think Pelele means dummy or someone without a will of his own -- funny how this term does not apply to women.

Explain the thought process behind your recent series of “floating figures”. (In this series, done mostly in gouache on paper, men and women seem to float or tumble surrealistically in the air).

Their significance is ambivalent. The figures are up there through no choice of their own, unwillingly or too far gone too care, high as a kite.

Do you consider yourself to be a Chicano artist? Why do you think some Latino artists would want to distance themselves from this designation?

Some art critics have already attributed distinguishable " conventions" to Chicano sensibility, which are then easily dismissed and yawned at. What a task to make images only for Chicanos that only praise and flatter, and how boring. Like in anything, there's the good and the bad and I don't think we should kill all the chickens yet. So far I can only think of one that has laid the golden egg. Yes, I consider myself a Chicano artist. Once the mainstream gets over this otherness issue it will be a little more objective about the good and the bad.

Q -- Do you think that the mainstream is being nudged towards accepting Chicano symbols, sensibilities and Chicano Art as a result of the popularity of such pop icons as George Lopez or political leaders like Antonio Villaraigosa?

Perhaps if I was a stand up comic or a savvy politician I'd care a little more about having my symbols decoded. Artists such as Jeff Koons and Warhol have always flirted with the mainstream; making work that stroke it's narcissism. It all depends on what kind of an artist you are and if you have a game plan. What makes me antsy is "on the verge' stuff, where for a while there you're coming in crystal clear, then there's a snag and you're static once more. This somehow reminds me of that movie Zelig by Woody Allen where the main character was chameleon-like and began to turn into the people he hung out with, like jazz musicians or orthodox Jews. I feel very Zelig at times.

You’ve said that you would like people to look at your work as if being let in on a joke.

I like the social irreverence of Hogarth, Grozs, Dix, Warhol, Lautrec and the early drawings of Orozco. There's varying degrees of laughter. I like images that are so funny and absurd that they border on tears.

Many of your subjects wear the masks of Mexican wrestlers.

I don't like televised wrestling. The spectacles in Juarez are amazing, almost ritualistic and filled with a mob mania. The mask speaks to me of the remoteness Octavio Paz attributes to the Mexican psyche. The 50's Mexican wrestling movies are so kitschy and strangely riveting. I'm drawn to these masked figures for their faux mythic possibilities.

What is your favorite medium?

Lately, gouache. Paper always gets me.

Why do gouache and paper make you smile so?

With gouache you can obliterate mistakes very quickly and rethink what you did. Paper is a very tactile thing-- it seduces you into doing something to it or with it… That sounds like soft porn.

What is your favorite color?

Green is very practical but can go manic very quickly. That sounds so Martha Stuart.

Let’s say you had a million dollars for an art project in Los Angeles—what would you do?

I'd buy Self-Help Graphics a nice building and push for it to become an art school. There'd be a renaissance and marble statues would be beautifully carved there to replace all the bad Metro stuff.

Why are Los Angeles’ freeway murals so bad? What can be done to change this?

They should place a donation canister from a nice viewing angle next to each mural. The public shows it's appreciation by giving a little something for it’s up keep. How do you think the Vatican got so rich? The better the mural, the fuller the canister gets and the longer it lives on. But you know what, people don't walk in L.A and the only ones who do are the homeless and they don't have no cash. Maybe they could build collection baskets with very long poles to and extend them to those caught in freeway gridlock, or put the canister at AM/PMs.

What public figure do you find interesting enough to do a portrait of?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Juliette Binoche.

What haven’t you explored or created as an artist that you would like to?

I'd love to write the perfect short story.

Who in your opinion has come the closest to doing so?

John Cheever, Rulfo and Horacio Quiroga. I think also of the short cases of Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle.

You’ve said that a lot of your work stems from literary references. Can you give some examples?

Not specific examples. Let's just say that I like to embellish and poeticize life and books and novels are good sources.

What is your favorite gallery in Los Angeles? What is your favorite local museum?

L.A Louver is great. I like walking around LACMA.

Is Fine Art relevant in today’s world?

That is none of my business. My focus is elsewhere.

Such as?

Living and making images from it.

How about some “word association football” (do you remember that Monte Python skit?) What comes to your mind when I say the following?

Tragicomic -- Fellini

Masterpiece -- Perfection

Colonial -- Cast system

Counter culture -- Fringe

Pablo Picasso -- Glutton

Critic -- Pauline Kael

Thomas Kincaid, painter of light -- JC Penny's

One last thing. Fill in the blanks: Jose Lozano bridges the gap between _____ and _____.

Food for Less and Pavilions