Interview

One defined a generation in music, the other in literature, but the R.E.M. front man and the Vancouver-based novelist both have serious sidelines in visual art. The future of art may be in the download, but hey, a renaissance has to start somewhere.

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Michael Stipe and Douglas Coupland met at the presidential inauguration for Bill Clinton in 1993, and they’ve been discussing culture and ideas with each other ever since. While the public is already quite familiar with these two gentlemen (Stipe for his music and Coupland for his writing), their involvement in the visual arts is still a little more underground. Both attended art school in the early ’80s—one admittedly for a more protracted period than the other—and while Coupland resumed making visual art in 2000 after a decade-long hiatus, Stipe began to show just recently (his first exhibition, which involved bronze casts of cameras and cardboard boxes meant to look like electronics, was staged last summer at the Rogan store on New York City’s Bowery). Their artistic practices can best be described as post-medium, which is another way of saying that they use whatever means it takes to get their ideas across, and they both draw heavily on their own experiences as seen through a Pop and post-Pop lens. Here Stipe and Coupland take some time out to discuss art in the age of the Internet download. 

DOUGLAS COUPLAND: I think we both started art school in 1980, although at different places and for different lengths of time. I was at Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver for four years, and I loved it. I think you were at the University of Georgia for only 11 hours. Was it a good 11 hours? Seriously. I don’t think I’ve ever asked you that.

MICHAEL STIPE: The art building was closer to downtown Athens than the English lit building. I wanted to be near the cafés and places to meet people. That’s all I wanted—to meet people, hook up, get laid, talk a lot, and start a band. I never imagined I’d actually learn something there, much less apply what I learned in a productive way. There are apparently some paintings I did as assignments that a few professors hung onto.