Mayerson, Keith 1966-

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MAYERSON, Keith 1966-

PERSONAL:

Born 1966, in Cincinnati, OH. Education: Brown University, B.A. (semiotics and studio art) 1988; University of California, Irvine, M.F.A., 1993.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY Office—School of Visual Arts, 209 East 23rd St., New York, NY 10010-3994. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Richard Telles Fine Art, 7380 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Illustrator, author, and artist. School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, faculty member. Exhibitions: Solo exhibitions: Kiki Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1993; Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA, 1994, 1996; Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York, NY, 1997; Fifth International, New York, NY, 2000; and Derek Eller Gallery, New York, NY, 2003. Group exhibitions: The Lab, San Francisco, CA; University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Drawing Center, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum; Edinburgh College, Edinburgh, Scotland; XL Gallery, Moscow, Russia; Musée d'art Contemporain de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France; and Entwistle Gallery, London, England.

WRITINGS:

(With Dennis Cooper) Horror Hospital Unplugged, Juno Books (New York, NY), 1996.

Melonboy (play), produced at Brown University, 1988.

A Child Is Being Beaten (play), produced at BACA Downtown, New York, NY, 1989.

The Box (play), produced at Trinity Repertory Company, Providence, RI, 1989.

Author of artist's books: Pinocchio the Big Fag, Trying Not to Be a Dick, K, and A Patriarchy's Nightmare. Contributor to publications, including Artforum, New York Times, San Francisco Examiner, Art in America, and Time Out New York.

Creator of videos, including Why Do You Keep Doing This to Yourself, 1992; Get the Knife, 1993; Trees in the Forest, 1994; The Best of Keanu, 1995; A Portrait of Two Artists as Young Men, 1996; and Limp Biscuit, 1999. Also author of plays and screenplays, Fags, 1991; Pinocchio the Big Fag, 1993; and Nowhere Fast, 1995.

SIDELIGHTS:

Artist Keith Mayerson is accomplished in several forms of media, including pencil drawings and oil paintings, and as of 2003 had staged six solo exhibitions and forty-four group exhibitions. Mayerson's first book, written with coauthor Dennis Cooper, is a novel about teenage angst titled Horror Hospital Unplugged. Illustrated entirely by Mayerson, the book tells the story of sexually ambivalent rock band singer Trevor, who heads a band named Horror Hospital. Mayerson's illustrations create a subtext for Cooper's plot, which revolves around Trevor's sexual liaisons and ends with a lesson in love from River Phoenix's ghost. The text of this comic-strip novel is based on a short story first published in Cooper's 1992 collection Wrong. Jose Villarrubia, critiquing the novel for Lambda Book Report, called it "a sorry excuse for a graphic novel." Though Villarrubia felt that Mayerson's extensive knowledge of varying comic-strip styles was evident and "commendable," he noted that the "execution is so puerile, sloppy and self-indulgent, that, visually, Horror Hospital Unplugged is just one big incoherent mess." On the other hand, Stephen Weiner stated in Library Journal that Mayerson's black-and-white illustrations are "stunning." More than that, according to a Publishers Weekly critic, they are "hallucinatory … at once expressive, whimsical and representational."