"The Butcher Kings" Full Recap Madness

THE BUTCHER KINGS HAVE LEFT THE BUILDING.




For 35 days straight, Skinner and I shacked up together, cut off the outside world, gave two shits about what anyone wanted us to paint for a new collection of pieces, and laughed our way maniacally through mutual therapy as we may or may not had been committing career suicide. And it was the best 35 days of my life.

If you hadn't been following us and have no idea what "The Butcher Kings" show is, you can read a pretty good summary of the madness leading up to the event over on my TUMBLR page HERE.


"I was offended.  After viewing Pardee and Skinner's "The Butcher Kings" I swallowed half a bottle of cough syrup and slammed my dick in a window repeatedly.  I highly recommend seeing this exhibit while you can." - Adam Green, Director of HATCHET, FROZEN & HOLLISTON


So Now that the first step is over, and the show has opened at Gallery 1988 in LA, we want to thank everyone for blindly supporting our annoying weirdness throughout the process. For numerous reasons, Skinner and I had always intended to try a new approach in marketing our "Butcher Kings" show, but we didn't really know what that meant at first. As the paintings started to come together, so did our cabin fever, an endless supply of in-jokes, and a sickening amount of laughter and burritos. We realized early on that there wasn't going to be one, two, or even 10 pieces of art that would represent the whole collection of work visually, so instead we just decided to focus on the madness that was developing inside of us both with photos and videos (you can watch all 5 of the "Butcher King Tapes" HERE ) as our sleep schedule got worse and our stress levels heightened as we tried to reach our goal of 80 paintings in 5 weeks. We knew it was an odd way to promote an art show without ever showing any art at all, but thanks to a lot of our friends, fans, and some really supportive websites, we were able to spread our Mort-ness to quite a few avenues and we had a really really good opening. We got great coverage on Laughing Squid, the Nerdist, Slash Film, Complex magazine, Geek Tyrant, Daily Dujour, Spanky Stokes and more! So yah, thanks again for everyone's support. Here is a gigantic random collection of photos, videos and art from both the opening and some of the days leading up to it.


And some of the original paintings and drawing (as well as a 40 page book containing a lot of the paintings) are still available to purchase online through GALLERY 1988 BY CLICKING HERE. So make sure to check it out.



"The Butcher Kings" show will be on display at Gallery 1988 in LA until Oct 29 so please please go check it out if you get a chance to. Skinner and I will officially appoint you MORT if you do so. Stay safe. word.


Oh 3 other extra little exclusive thingies:
1. Skinner & I terrorized Jensen Karp after he graciously invited us to talk about our "Butcher Kings" show on his Smodcast, "Get Up On This". I haven't listened to it yet frankly because I am a bit afraid to, but you can DOWNLOAD IT HERE OR ON iTUNES.

2. We got asked by the good folk at FUNNY OR DIE to provide some "creator commentary" on some of the Butcher King paintings, which we DID. so you can see/read that by clicking HERE or on the BANNER.

And 3. Beau Ryan, the RADNERD himself, put together a nice little "Butcher Kings Opening Night" Video for us, and it rules.




The photos below are (in no particular order) courtesy of MAGGIE WEST, TRINA CALDERON, RYAN RESCOBER, KEVIN HAYES& HAL ROTTER.













Fuck The Police.
























Full Sequence

And a small selection of the artwork on display:


BiggieFoot


Wu-Tang Clown




Batman?






Dr. Whoxtable


Conan L. Jackson


Captain Kirk Cobain




Columbian Meka-Neck Tie




ED-2090210




Elephant Man-At-Arms


JuggaLobot






Macaulay Hulkin






Krispie Centipede















WE ARE MORT. WE ARE SAFE. WE ARE THE BUTCHER KINGS.

Final revelations. "The Butcher Kings" OPENS TONIGHT!!!!

Today is the day of the Mort. Skinner and my art show "The Butcher Kings" opens TONIGHT at Gallery 1988 Melrose in Los Angeles (on the corner of Melrose at LaBrea). We are continuing to keep all of the actual contents of the show in wraps but Skinner and I kidnapped a few people we admire, showed them all of the art, tortured them, shoved a tape recorder in front of their dumb mouths and forced them to tell the truth about what they saw…..






And as an extra bonus, Trina Calderon came by and, after getting tortured in similar ways, wrote a sworn statement over at JUXTAPOZ Magazine

"THE BUTCHER KINGS" OPENS TOMORROW!

TOMORROW! OCT 6! 7PM. Los Angeles! Gallery 1988 presents "THE BUTCHER KINGS", a collection of over 80 new affordable ($300-$1000) acrylic paintings and drawings from myself and Skinner. Skinner and I have been living together for the last month where we completely destroyed all of our memories of the pop-culture icons we have grown to love, then channelled the soul of a cynical, witty, self-destructive and borderline insane man-child and reconstructed our memories to create an odd new world of mort.



"The BUTCHER KINGS is fucking hilarious.  This show is the most fleshtacular event of the decade.  It does for the mind what meat does for teeth!"
-Matt Maiellaro, co-creator of Aqua Teen Hunger Force



The images of the paintings are not being shown until the show opens because we are encouraging you to come down and allow yourself to be sucked into the entire collection at once. All pieces will be online for viewing/purchasing.
Meanwhile, to give you an idea of the mindstate that Alex & Skinner have transcended to during the creation of the show, they have spread around some random footage only labeled "The Butcher King Tapes". Below are a couple of the videos and some more info on the direction of the show. See you there!

WARNING: "The Butcher Kings" show contains graphic and sexual imagery that may be inappropriate for young children.

Oct 6 -29 (Opening reception Oct 6 @7Pm, free admission)

Gallery 1988 Melrose

7020 Melrose Ave












And some words from Skinner and I regarding the scope of the show:


When Skinner and I met in the late 90's, the Internet hadn't yet been integrated as a common marketing tool for artists and musicians, and the actual outlets that WERE available for us to spread our imagination and artwork out to were limited to friends, family, schools, the local comic shops and the occasional small cafe-galleries and musical acts that catered toward non-traditional artwork. The bi-product of being undeniably driven by the passion to create without having outlets for either critiques OR validations, however, was that we both created our artwork strictly for ourselves and to make US happy.



Over the course of the last decade, as the Internet has become a more common and extremely useful tool in all aspects of art appreciation, execution, networking, and entrepreneurism, Skinner and I have attempted to adapt our thinking and artistic approaches in conjunction with this accelerated technology, but on numerous occasions we have also caught ourselves falling victim to this new widespread accessibility to our artwork.



The Internet provides such a rapid firing of both criticism and praise that, over the course of the last few years, has made both Skinner and I almost TOO aware of what people will like and dislike when our work is displayed publicly, causing us to recently question just who we are now creating art for. Are our imaginations subconsciously aware more so now of what others will think about our art? Are we now being secretly driven to create something that more people can "relate" to in hopes that we will in turn get more Twitter followers and more Facebook "likes" and somehow transcribe that invisible validation to more monetary success? In short, Skinner and I both realized that, for whatever reasons, we were taking ourselves too seriously.



Well, fuck that.



We missed creating art with the sole purpose of making ourselves smile and laugh. We missed not caring if we "lose a follower" by confusing someone with a drawing of VIKKI from Small Wonder or offending someone with a drawing of a demonic dick if that dick was fun to draw. And trust us, dicks are fun to draw. And they're hilarious.



So in an attempt to re-unite our fearlessness, and to simply have fun using our separate memories and inspirations as our tools, Skinner and I present to you, "THE BUTCHER KINGS".



Using the existing pop culture icons that we adore, and mutually drawing inspiration from various sources including Gary Larsen's 'The Far Side', Jack Kirby, Wheel of Fortune, Carrot Top, Filmation Cartoons, Robot Chicken & Aqua Teen Hunger Force, we imagined what would happen if all of a sudden the memories of every pop culture property had begun to be torn apart by an unknown force and, in order to save the memories from total eradication, had to be gathered, reassembled and possibly even pushed off of a cliff by someone who was goofy, cynical, socially inept and slightly insane. That person….is us. 

Enjoy.

First "Butcher Kings" Review is up.

If you didn't know, Skinner and myself have donned the burdens of nine thousand Morts and joined forces to unleash a new collection of over 80 new affordable paintings and drawings at Gallery 1988 Melrose in LA this thursday, Oct 6 at 7PM. The show is being shrouded in silly secrecy because A) we really feel that the collection of paintings works best if you let yourself engage in the whole retarded shebang, and B) because we kinda feel like it.

Meanwhile, artist and disgustingly Korean adventurer Dave Choe spent some time with us checking out our dicks, i mean our paintings, and just sent over the very first review of the show. I can't tell if it's good or bad, because honestly, I'm still digging feces out of my throat and brain from when we all played "Centipede" by the campfire. So yah, here is Dave's review, and make sure that if you are in LA and like laughing either with us or AT us, come check out our "Butcher Kings" show.

And remember, come dance. WE. ARE. SAFE.

"The first time Alex Pardee, Skinner and I acted out our version of the Human Centipede, Redvine inspiration hit. Alex tried to say something about Gary Coleman or Ed-209 but I couldn't make out what he was saying because my entire Korean kimchee-laced asshole was in his mouth and both of my ears were muffled inside Skinner's unnaturally large foreskin, which is the skin from the eyelid of a Siamese cyclops from an extinct ruling class of Mermen with impenetrable cat-tongue skin which was sewn onto the head of his dick,  so as you can imagine I  couldn't hear so good.

These two idiot Shamans got together behind my back to make a secret language of paintings based on the secret teachings of serial killers all to make me jealous. And it worked!  Here are two socially inept, borderline retarded manimal boys' take on all the shit you and your horrible fake friends talk and think about but would never dare to actually create because of the social criticism, political outrage and outcasting you'd feel from friends and lovers, but that's the best part of being retarded (besides jacking off whenever and wherever you want). Alex & Skinner just don't know any better.

No art like this exists on the planet because no one is as stupid/ignorant/genius enough to spend this amount of time to render and craft what its like to get down with your syndrome, and carpet bomb your fleeting fantasies like a cum glazed bear claw dripping with rotten ignorant sperms. If you want to look, you're gonna see shit you wish you hadn't. You will see shit from your funky dick cheese smelling dreams you wish that you'd forgotten. Enter the Butcher Kings at your own risk. They will cut your dickclit off  and you will see what happens when two people like Skinner and Alex truly believe that incest IS best. 

Dave Choe

Oct, 2011"

New Garbage Pail Kids Paintings!

If you are anywhere near LA, and are even remotely interested in some good disgusting 80's nostalgia, you HAVE TO go check out the official Garbage Pail Kids art show tonight at GALLERY 1988. The good dudes at 1988 & THE HUNDREDS have put together a phenomenal show and given how much impact Garbage Pail Kids, and specifically artist JOHN POUND who painted a majority of the cards, had on me in my childhood, I couldn't be more excited to be included in this event. We were asked to pick specific cards from any of the original TOPPS-series cards and use them as inspiration to re-imagine the card however we wanted to. Here are the 3 that I did for the show, all of which are original watercolor paintings measuring 11 x 14 and up for sale at the show TONIGHT, SEPT 2, AT GALLERY 1988 MELROSE in LA. Wish I could be in attendance at the show but I'm locked up in a hole drawing more shit, dicks and robots with SKINNER for our 2-man show (also at G1988) next month! Word. Thanks for the vile memories, GPK's.

Here is a side by side comparison with the original cards: