SPARK
SI-004, from issue2, 2021.
People Like to Confess. Tell Secrets.
Lucas Mascatello, New York artist, operates as a strategist by day and the second half of Civilization Magazine by night. He loves to get others talking, sometimes that goes into the pages of Interview Magazine.
LM I try to be pretty honest and make stuff that is easy to make. Often that is an intersection. It’s easier to let people say what they have to say. A lot of the more commercial editorial process is about trying to frame things in a certain light and position people to look good. So, it can be fun to let go of control a little bit. I think it’s less about me critically unpacking people and more about presenting the information the same way I receive it. Rather than doing a voiceover of the content, I push it more toward being an artifact or a record of the conversation.
UDÖ Did you had an experience where the conversation was different than what the person was actually saying?
LM It helps to find people who want to talk. People like to talk about themselves. Often, I try to point my recorder in the direction of those people and catch people when they’re in a good mood or when they are the kind of people who like to brag or tell stories. People are desperate to connect. If you look somebody in the eye, it’s surprising how quickly things can get intimate. You don’t even need to ask questions. Sometimes you just need to get people going. Just listen. Talk forever.∞
UDÖ Is it because there’s no consequence of them knowing your emotions?
LM People like to confess. Tell secrets. Obviously, there is the religious tradition, but there are also people who pay for therapy or call the help-line. It’s awkward to give somebody the truth, and then have to meet them again, when you’re not in that same vulnerable space. You’re right, strangers are a good place to go to find intimacy. I think it helps to forget that you’re recording, being present. I’d rather have a really long recording that I need to edit a lot than have a short one. Often, it takes a while for them to get comfortable.
LM …like making stuff? I tried to make art in different ways. And I had a lot of friends who were involved in making magazines. They asked me to get involved in loose ways. Richard and I met working in MTV, he approached me about Civilization as an early idea. I think I just got lucky finding print as an outlet for the same art making impulse. Although I like talking to people, I also can be kind of antisocial. Disinterested. For those periods of time, Civilization or Interview can be really productive. So the process and the product are built around ways that I’m able to be productive. You find the rhythms that are conducive to you making things. Then you design projects around it. Even though interview comes out every two months, sometimes I put it together in like a day, and sometimes I work on it for weeks. When my brain starts to work in a way where I collect things, I put them back together on these pages.
UDÖ You taking the freedom to go with your own flow is quite ballsy.
LM It’s a combination of different people’s skills. You just need to find people that you can work with who are producer minded. At the same time, there are people like me who get hired because I can do my job alone, but it comes out differently than the rest of the magazine. I would encourage everybody to be stubborn enough to either find a position that’s right for them, or force the company to create a position that’s right for them. Because even though Interview is kind of formal, I’ve earned the freedom to be kind of informal. That’s how I’m able to make stuff that I like, or that is worthwhile to someone.
UDÖ I feel like so many people are stuck with what they have been given? And they’re just like…
LM …totally fucked. All of those people are totally fucked. I mean, I also work as a strategist and I do brand consulting. So I get to work with fashion brands while also working with a lot of big corporations that make hundreds of millions of dollars. It is very difficult in any of those situations to work your way up by getting hired and trying to climb the ranks. You always see people get brought in from outside, who are good at doing their own thing. So I never really thought that I could get anywhere by trying to do it the traditional way. I wouldn’t encourage anybody to try to do that because I see a lot of talented and passionate individuals in those companies get taken advantage of.
LM You just have to figure out where you’re going to make your money and where you’re going to do your thing. Anything under $500 a day, I’m going to do basically for free. Let’s say, you are offered an opportunity to write an article and they’re gonna pay 300 bucks. You might as well write whatever the fuck you want. $300 is not going to change your life. If it is $3,000 to write this copy, just write the copy that is going to work. I wouldn’t encourage people to make compromises early on, but to build equity into different industries and bring it together. Although I’ve worked for a lot of fashion brands as a strategist, Calvin Klein hired us as Civilization. When that happens, I get to do it my way. But it only happens if you can build up enough of an identity that people can comprehend what it would mean to hire you. Right?
UDÖ What about criticisms to Civilization becoming more about the image of Civilization than the stories of New York after the collaborations with Calvin Klein or Junya Watanabe?
LM It doesn’t matter what people like. What matters is that you are making stuff you want to make and that it circulates. People like the way it looks, or the language. That’s cool. If they hate it, that’s also cool. We only publish 1000 of each issue. For anybody who feels like it’s selling out, it’s all kind of relative. I’m not worried about my ability to make art in the future, but it’s hard to make money off your art. If anybody ever wants to pay you to do your thing, fucking take the money.
LM Being an artist is like 99% making stuff that people don’t give a shit about. For whatever reason that this project engaged a couple, I just feel grateful that people are interested. The last issue sold out in a week. And it’s great, but I’m mostly just happy that psychologically I can move onto something else.
UDÖ The form of Civilization is also a statement about the idea behind it. The rawness of it hooks people.
LM When people have fun making things, it’s obvious. Right? Or when things are sincere… Richard and I are like best friends. He’s much older and comes from a different background. But we have a similar set of values. So we’re trying to communicate with each other and please each other. Maybe, a rebellion to working in commercial spaces, but the point is not to be rebellious. A lot of successful publications fail or turn super commercial and boring. It’s a great time to be making. If it’s in print, it’s a magazine! If you can convince people to buy it, then it’s legitimate.
UDÖ DIY is right now! Now, you as Lucas, are able to sell to others, and that is completely legitimate.
LM People are confused about value right now. What’s valuable? How money works? How business works? If you have the conviction, almost any project can be viable right now.
UDÖ Is it because value has always been artificial?
LM People have a lot of instincts about how the world works. Then people
rationalize themselves out of it.
UDÖ People will value anything as long as they see you value it.
LM The only struggle that you’re ever going to have as an artist is finding the motivation to make. Nothing will prepare you to make your own thing. It’s always better to just give it a shot. I still have trouble believing in the things that I do. But because I have a creative partner, we can bounce it back and forth. Right? We can take turns believing in it. But it’s not like one day you wake up and you feel like you deserve it. Look at projects you want to do and be like: “Okay, even if nobody likes this, I’ll keep doing it.” If people do like it, then you just run with it.
UDÖ Do you kill projects that you absolutely love but they weren’t as liked by others?
LM Well, given up on a lot of stuff. You drive yourself crazy trying to make ceramics or paintings, right? It becomes difficult. When Civilization started I was making so many other things that I thought of it as something I was doing on the side. When it worked out, I started to think about it as an art project because I was expressing myself through it. Because I was not so focused on it, it made it more likely to succeed.
UDÖ Whenever I’m critical of myself, the things I make are so dead.
LM Everything runs on momentum. That’s why we make the newspaper pretty fast. It doesn’t matter if there are misspellings or fuckups. Nobody really cares. They just want stimulation. People want to live in an active world. If you want to make something and you’re excited about it, that’s the best indication that it’s going to be successful. I’ve always been messy and desperate to get things done. So I set up these processes where I can write, record, take photos and draw. Just stick it all together later.
UDÖ What is something you make daily that people don’t care about?
LM Everything I make is sort of designed to go into the buckets I’ve created. So they’re less distinct. I made a lot that I felt shy about showing. Once I let go off that and started just showing work in progress, it became really easy. That’s not to say that people care about everything I make now. But, I treat everything the same.
UDÖ You spend more time on one thing organically?
LM Sometimes you’re just more interested in some stuff. The trick to let go is to treat it as work. How do I get over my emotions and turn it into something that is liberating and productive? Artists tend to have a lot of anger. I have a lot of anxiety too. The first Civilization we put out, I was kind of stressed about it. I thought it would be read carefully. Over time, I just published whatever I wanted, and it’s never been a problem to do so. Mostly, the way I set it allowed me to even think about style or aesthetics…
UDÖ Richard, your publishing side project partner, is someone older. I guess you never where a good friendship will come from?
LM You should work with the people that you’re like, intimidated by and impressed by. When I met Richard, I thought he was so cool and I was impressed by the work that he’d done. At the end of the day, you want to work with people you like, people you get along with. The friendships are the most important part of it.
LM Anytime. Happy to chat.
Follow Civilization here
interview by Utkan Dora Öncül
Spark Interview-004