Raymond Pettibon

Raymond Pettibon (born Raymond Ginn, June 16, 1957) is an American artist who lives and works in New York City.

"Mr. Pettibon is, with gratifying regularity, a sharp political critic. It is the most interesting thing about him. His targets can be quite specific: the drug-wrecked hippie movement of the 1960s, the American war in Iraq. Yet his entire output, despite interludes of lyricism and nostalgia, and a running strain of stand-up humor, is a steady indictment of American culture as he has lived it over the past 60 years."

The fourth of five children born to R.C.K. Ginn, an English teacher who published several spy novels; his mother was a housewife.

Pettibon grew up in Hermosa Beach, California.

He was raised Christian Scientist.

From the late 1970s through the mid-1980s, he was closely associated with the punk rock band Black Flag and the record label SST Records, both founded by his older brother Greg Ginn.

In 1976, his brother, guitarist/songwriter Greg Ginn, founded the influential punk rock band Black Flag.

Initially, Pettibon had been a bass player in the group when it was known by the name Panic.

When the band discovered that another band called Panic existed, Pettibon suggested the name Black Flag and designed their distinctive "four bars" logo, a stylized black flag rippling in the wind.

Around the same time, Pettibon adopted his new surname, from the nickname petit bon (good little one) given to him by his father.

He earned an economics degree from UCLA in 1977 and worked as a high school mathematics teacher in the L.A. public school system for a short period, before pursuing and completing his BFA in 1977.

He started to publish them as limited-edition photocopied booklets in 1978.

These booklets, which he continues to produce as "Superflux Pubs," are considered "the sum of his ideas and aesthetics".

Pettibon started working in collage in the mid-80s with simple newsprint elements collaged onto black and white images.

In his new works, the artist again uses the means of collage.

Pettibon came to prominence in the early 1980s in the southern California punk rock scene, creating posters and album art mainly for groups on SST Records, owned and operated by his older brother, Greg Ginn.

He has subsequently become widely recognized in the fine art world for using American iconography variously pulled from literature, art history, philosophy, and religion to politics, sport, and sexuality.

As Holland Cotter noted in The New York Times:

Pettibon's artwork appeared on fliers, album covers and gift items (T-shirts, stickers and skateboards) for Black Flag through the early 1980s, and he became well known in the Los Angeles punk rock scene.

Pettibon is married to video artist Aïda Ruilova, with whom he has a son.

He is an avid sports fan.

Known for his comic-like drawings with disturbing, ironic or ambiguous text, Pettibon's subject matter is sometimes violent and anti-authoritarian.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, he became a well-known figure in the contemporary art scene.

Pettibon works primarily with India ink on paper and many of his early drawings are black and white, although he sometimes introduces color through the use of pencil, watercolor, collage, gouache or acrylic paint.

He has stated that his interest in this technique is a result of the influence of artists such as William Blake and Goya, and the style of political editorial cartoons.

His drawings come out by the hundreds.

Pettibon began exhibiting his work in group shows in galleries in the 1980s.

In addition, Pettibon designed the cover of the 1990 Sonic Youth album Goo; bassist Kim Gordon had been a longtime admirer of Pettibon's art and written about him for Artforum in the 1980s.

In the early 1990s, fellow artist Mike Kelley played guitar on an album of songs that Pettibon recorded for the independent label Blast First out of New York and London.

He is now the lead singer of the Niche Makers, a band based in Venice, California.

In 1992, Pettibon was invited to participate in Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s, curated by Paul Schimmel at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA).

In 1993, Pettibon was included in the Whitney Biennial along with Noni Grevillea.

Together with German sound artist Oliver Augst he released the musical "The Whole World Is Watching" (with Schorsch Kamerun, Keiji Haino and Marcel Daemgen) in 2007 as part of the MaerzMusik festival of the Berliner Festspiele, Berlin.

Pettibon's artwork inspired the music video for the 2011 song "Monarchy of Roses" by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Pettibon is also mentioned in the song's lyrics.

For New York's High Line, Pettibon created a temporary billboard in 2013, displaying a 2010 baseball drawing called No Title (Safe he called ...) and featuring Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers sliding home.

In addition to his works on paper, Pettibon has also made animations from his drawings, live action films from his own scripts, unique artist's books, fanzines, prints, and large permanent wall drawings that often include an arrangement of his own works on paper almost creating an installation of collage.

In June 2013, a new documentary series, The Art of Punk was released on YouTube.

The first episode features the art of Black Flag and Pettibon.

A retrospective of Pettibon's work entitled A Pen of All Work, spanned three floors of New York City's New Museum in 2017.