Frank Kosik: Artist for the angst age

Dan Hoffman Arizona Daily Wildcat Rock poster art by Frank Kozik is being shown at the Elizabeth Cherry Gallery through Nov. 8. Kozik was in town last weekend for the opening of the exhibit.

GZ: Have you always just done band posters?

FK: I now do all kinds of other stuff, but that's what I originally started doing.

GZ: Was it always on a professional level?

FK: Years ago, when we had this thing called "punk rock" all my friends were in bands and nobody had any money, so we would draw and Xerox our own posters, and it sort of grew from that. That was 15 or 17 years ago. They were really crude black and white collages.

GZ: Have you always lived in San Francisco?

FK: No, I lived in Texas for a long time, so I was there for a lot of the early Texas punk scene. Around 1980 there was an original scene of hard-core punk rock bands like The Offenders, The Dicks and The Big Boys and that sort of turned into the Butthole Surfer era. Then bands started touring through there, like Sonic Youth and Ministry and I'd do their posters. That led to doing some fine art for collector people, like painting. But now I mostly do album packages and advertising in Europe and Japan. I'm more relaxed working in other places because I can do weirder stuff. It's gotten to be a pretty big deal.

GZ: Do you still do the Xerox posters?

FK: Sometimes, just for kicks. I do the band stuff for free, basically. And I've had a label now for three years (Man's Ruin Records). But 60 percent of our sales are in Europe, go figure. Nobody buys vinyl here.

GZ: Do you think you'll stop doing your art, eventually, to just concentrate on the label?

FK: No, not at all, because the label actually allows me to do more of my own art. People have gotten pretty conservative with the posters, they want to see the same old shit. But the label is in a different context, I can take photographs, I can do whatever. Everyday I put more energy into the label.

GZ: Where do you get the ideas you incorporate into the themes of your posters? Do you try and use the attitude of the specific band when making the poster?

FK: Right. I've been going to shows and listening to music and meeting the bands for a long time. I try and do stuff that isn't a real direct connection. I think that's why people like the posters because it's not just a picture of the band.

GZ: And your influences?

FK: The first few Raw publications from New York. I grew up in Europe, so I was really into European comics. I came here and there was nothing, it was Marvel and DC and it sucked. But then I started getting into punk rock. It was a combination of punk rock shows and Raw magazine and the first couple of ReSearch books. I'm also into nostalgic art and military propaganda advertising. It's totally dependent on the music, without the music I would've never done it. I don't think I'm an artist. There's no ego involved with what I do graphically. I schedule myself in the studio and I don't take my work home. If people stopped wanting my stuff, I'd stop doing it. My friends that are "artists" have a really hard time with that.

GZ: So, do you think it's ironic that your work has become an expensive commodity?

FK: I used to pay a lot of money when I collected toys. It's like a sickness, so I understand the collector's market. I get paid well for the advertising work because those people want to trade their money for access to what they perceive as the youth market. So I don't feel guilty for taking money from clients. As far as the posters that are worth sick amounts of money, I don't have anything to do with it I have always sold my shit as cheap as possible.

GZ: You don't have any decision in the price inflation of your work?

FK: I sell the poster from $3.50 to $6.75, and I get a small amount of profit to pay for printing. I have nothing to do with the after-market value, I don't set it. The stuff that's selling in record stores or on the Internet, I don't see anything from that. I get phone calls from guys in bands that say they never got one of their posters and I have to tell them I don't have any and I've seen them going for $600. That's a bummer for that guy, or his girlfriend who wants to get him something for his birthday.

GZ: What advertisers have you worked with in the states and is it just print material?

FK: No, I've directed videos and TV commercials. I did a Soundgarden video and some R&B videos for Mint Condition. I've done Nike, Gatorade, Toyota. In Japan there's photo booths that have little characters that border each picture and I'm designing a Kozik one. In Japan they consider me a designer, and I'm not so much attached to the rock scene. My name is a commodity there.

GZ: As far as how movies have influenced you, what genres do you like?

FK: I'm totally obsessed with westerns, science fiction, noir. But I've never been into horror. I like big, cheesy epic films, 1950s and '60s technicolor shit. I like '60s Peter Sellers comedy stuff.

GZ: How about TV?

FK: I don't have a TV in my home. When I watch TV I get depressed. I was raised in Spain, there was one channel and it was under Franco and was pretty boring. I grew up under a Victorian childhood. My mother was a fascist with a lot of money, we lived in a mansion with servants. I had to wear little suits and it was very uptight. I had an American dad, I would come over and he was a sort of swingin' drunk guy, so I didn't like it over there.

GZ: What pieces have reviewed the most vocal reaction?

FK: The most popular and at the same time, the most condemned, is the girly stuff. I don't do much of it anymore because I got tired of it. But for awhile I did a lot of powerful, naked women stuff. Either people, both men and women, really dug it or they really loathed it. I've never had trouble with conservatives, whenever someone has tried to censor me, it's been liberals. It's interesting how different people react. That in itself makes it worth it because it really is a mirror of people. I'm really curious about how other people see the image because I still don't really understand culture, at large. A lot of times it's just kind of me testing the waters to see what kind of reaction I'll get.

Kozik's prints and posters will be shown through Nov. 8 at Elizabeth Cherry Contemporary Art Gallery located at 437 E. Grant Road. Man's Ruin Records carries such acts as Melvins, Unsane, Chrome, Dwarves and Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3.