Exhibited
Venus Over Manhattan, New York City, NY “Are your Motives Pure? Raymond Pettibon 1985-2013”, April 3 - May 17, 2014
Literature
A. Lindemann and C. McCormick, Raymond Pettibon: Surfers 1985–2015, Venus Over Manhattan and David Zwirner Books, New York, 2015, illustrated, p. 72, p. 114, p. 116, p. 134.
A. Lindemann and C. McCormick, Raymond Pettibon: Are Your Motives Pure?, Venus Over Manhattan, New York, 2014, illustrated, p. 8, p. 10, p. 72, p. 101.
J. Brisick, B. Lukacher, R. Pettibon, Point Break: Raymond Pettibon, Surfers and Waves, David Zwirner Books, New York, 2022, illustrated, p. 115.
Catalogue Notes
"There’s the wave itself, which is more a part of the sublime, what we’d call nature…As the wave gets bigger, it becomes more about man against nature. One doesn’t conquer either one. Man with nature, I guess. Small waves and big waves are different experiences."
—Raymond Pettibon
Combining literary references from Herman Melville with California surf culture, Raymond Pettibon’s No Title (My chambers were…) exemplifies the artist’s celebrated Surfers series. Drawing on the elevated lyricism of Cy Twombly and the darkly humorous sensibility of Charles Addams—the creator of the Addams Family—Pettibon’s surf images evoke allure and terror. They juxtapose the intoxicating serenity of the beach with the sublime and untamed power of nature.
Pettibon came of age in 1970s Los Angeles, a cultural crucible for punk rock and underground art. Self-taught, he developed an idiosyncratic style influenced by William Blake, Honoré Daumier, William Hogarth, Leonardo da Vinci, and Francisco Goya. This visual language found an early outlet in the DIY punk scene, where Pettibon created drawings for flyers and album covers for bands like Black Flag and Sonic Youth. Reflecting on his artistic formation, Pettibon once remarked, “No one taught me how to draw, how to hold a pen, the mediums. I did all that on my own.”
While his punk roots often lend his work an air of resistance, the Surfers series transcends overt politics, instead addressing the tension between individual will and overwhelming forces, whether societal or natural. Pettibon himself noted his preference for drawing waves, telling Vice: “To me, it is natural. I grew up with ocean views—not even so much from the shore in real life but rather from surf magazines. It’s imagery that, for a lot of people around here anyway, is pornography.”
In No Title (My chambers were…), Pettibon depicts a lone surfer as an anonymous thrill-seeker, effortlessly riding a monstrous wave. In a manner reminiscent of Caspar David Friedrich, the surfer embodies man’s attempt to conquer nature. Yet, his victory is fleeting. The towering wave, rendered with jagged loops and a rhythmically worked surface, reminds viewers of the inevitable crash — Pettibon’s metaphor for the impermanence of triumph.
Cultural critic Carlo McCormick encapsulates this tension, explaining, “Raymond Pettibon's surfer images imagine an ecstatic peace, of being swept away from oneself in some flight with only the wing and a prayer of survival as one's pilot. He draws this idealized space for what it is, not a tangible reality but a dream, taking us to that magical place where you might just find yourself when the horizon line is lost and disorientation is your only compass. What makes these works truly about the surf is more than mere subject matter; it is their rhythm—the insistent up and down, the in and out, the dissolution of what it means to be inside or outside. And there in the spume, or hovering above it all where the sea in veils and shrouds approximate the clouds, are the words like desperate messages slipped out of their bottles…”
Much like the ocean itself, Pettibon’s imagery is fluid and ambiguous, drifting with layered meanings that compel contemplation. His works leave viewers on the metaphorical shore, pondering the inexhaustible mysteries of the sea, the self, and the sublime.
