"Larry Clark and James Gilroy’s Advice for Young Artists" by Gem Fletcher

Penguin napping, abusive nuns, exploding cadavers and tragic games of russian roulette – these are just some of the tales in Bedtime Stories for Bad Boys and Girls, a new book and exhibition by artists Larry Clark and James Gilroy. The two met in downtown New York in the early 1970s and formed an instant and permanent bond rooted in drugs and a shared pleasure in indeterminancy. “We were living with abandon and not thinking about the consequences,” Clark tells me. Gilroy elaborates, “Back then, you walked down the block and maybe ran into somebody or into a situation. We’d just get pulled into something every day.” The collection, which sits somewhere between an unflinching memoir and a personal sketchbook, collides their bold, vulgar, hilarious oral histories with Clark’s photographs and Gilroy’s drawings. Each gesture amplifies the next omission in a chaotic and sometimes nightmarish stream of consciousness that’s impossible to put down.

The book spans many years, ranging from the 50s to the 70s and beyond. Throughout, we encounter Clark’s snapshots of artists, lovers and revellers staring down the camera – images brought into being as proof of life, rather than cynically extracting from it. Gilroy’s drawings brim with rapture, atmospheric sketches of the weird and unpalatable, spurring you to read on. In an art economy voracious for autobiographical narrative, you can’t help but feel like the friends are playing a game of cat and mouse with the reader, testing the cultural critic’s threshold for the messy truth, waiting to see who squeals first. And yet, underneath the salacious stories runs a rich vein of tenderness. The dialogue between Clark and Gilroy is intimate and painstakingly honest, offering a rare glimpse into the connective tissue of male friendship over multiple decades.

Read full article at dazeddigital.com