#riprambo

THE LOST GOLDEN SKULL

I was asked recently what became of the skull of my friend and mentor, LANCE DE LOS REYES.

For context. Lance was a modern American artist who worked in many mediums. These would include; canvas, assemblage, sculpture, poetry and graffiti that was often painted in very dangerous and high exposure surfaces such as billboards.

He became very well known for writing RAMBO and was even interviewed by VICE magazine about his relationship to his alter ego. In the piece he simply stated that he knew him but that he was most certainly not him. The interviewer really tried to play into the graffiti culture trop of shine and recognition but ultimately what he was writing on the billboards was part of a much larger and more ambitious piece or art that he’d worked his entire life to construct.

The pinnacle of his masterpiece was something I was told he had been talking about for over 20 years. I’m unclear on when and how he came to this idea but it was something he was very vocal about explaining in detail to anyone who could endure what he described.

The idea itself was simple.

Lance would have all of his teeth completely cast in solid GOLD and then have all of his teeth removed and replaced with brand new SOLID GOLD TEETH. He would then create a living will like document in which he would sell his GOLD TOOTH SKULL proprietary to art titan DAMIEN HURST for $1,000,000. This was to be his most ambitious work as it would require actual physical suffering, anxiety, trauma, planning and a very long and painful healing process once the teeth had been successfully implanted into his skull.

Many people who I’ve met have shared that they too knew of the skull project and that it was a THING that really separated the BELIEVERS from the NAYSAYERS. Just the reaction that would generated from explaining his idea has a pretty visceral reaction from most people. I don’t think that the IF IT’S NOT BROKE, DON’T FIX IT mind that many of us adhere to on a really basic level would never, EVER include modifying one’s TEETH to create a piece of art that would rip a hole in time and space by the pure intent of effort expended in doing so.

At the point in the yarn when I explain that he did actually find the financial backer to support his vision and allow him to TRANSFORM into the piece of LIVING ART that he reached at with a full heart from his first breath to his last. Most people do not believe that this is a thing that actually happened and that his face is one the cover of a magazine, stretched into a contorted, clinical grimace to proclaim without any uncertainty that he had indeed executed the most brutal show of devotion to one’s own artistic vision and mission.

The last time I saw Lance alive, I picked him up on Hester street in Chinatown in WOOF, MCODY’s HONDA CIVIC. We had worked very hard over the course of several weeks on a series of drawings and videos that accompanied them as they were produced. All of the work was created and bounced back and forth between us, while I was on holiday with my kids. It’s ironic as the very first piece I made for him was made entirely in the passenger seat of a rental car driving to MONTAUK.

After I returned from holiday we met up and I drove him to pick up a rental car from JFK, so he could go to the HAMPTONS for a two week artist residency. He has completed replacing 60% of his teeth at that point in August of 2019. He had intended to return to paint his first billboard in many years and paint an actual image on the board instead of invocational words. But he fell from the ladder many stories when his hand slipped out of a glove.

He explained how the ritual of getting up on the board works. I will not explain this. But will say that he had a process and something must have been a miss when he approached this particular billboard. There’s so many variables and we all are careening through time and space in utter oblivion of the chaos that swirls around us. Just no the other side of every choice. He fell what he said was over 50 feet. There’s no way of knowing and he lived after shattering his pelvis from the fall.

He had only been out of the hospital a few weeks when I picked him up in CHINATOWN.

I jumped out of the car and helped him down the stairs trying to shoulder as much of his weight as I could. He seemed pretty solid but also was obviously in a ton of extreme pain from his shattered pelvis (which CANNOT be cast) and his mouth full of throbbing gums with shiny GOLD TEETH gleaming out. We made our way to the car and I helped him in. Right away he told me to drive chill because he knew that I was an agro person. So we drove the 90 or so minutes through traffic chatting and planning his pop up with CHAMPION that was launching that fall. He had been waiting on this capsule partnership for a while to give him some much needed footing and passive income.

We intentionally tried to keep it light though as MCODY was in the car with us and we were both like little kids, so happy to see each other and high five on all the hard work we put in on the 100 SKETCH project we busted out a couple weeks before. I think about that day a lot and what he said. We spoke on the phone a few more times but it would just happen in 2021 when I saw it pop up on INSTAGRAM..

I knew he finished and had let him know I was proud of him. He was always cycling in and out of circles of people and would also go into super hiding and just make for marathon periods.

At his wake I heard some kids mumble something about the skull and tried to put it out of my mind. I didn’t want to speak at all because I was really thankful to have worked with him and I didn’t need any of these people to know who I was or what we did together. I introduced myself to BAILEY, the guy he did some video stuff with after me. He was really cool and it felt super healing to have a couple minutes with him.

I spoke with ANNA, his widow at the wake and was able to give ROMAN his son a hug. It meant alot to her that I came. I was glad and did my best to show her eyes how sorry I was so she could keep doing her best. I really respect her so much and have always tried to be a positive force.

I was too broken inside to be present with my brother who was at the wake who introduced us. I knew what would happen and how horrible I would fall apart, so I just shuffled off. It was something that I feel really ashamed of because I could see him just feet away from me in such pain as I spoke with her. I didn’t have it in me be present for him. In a strange way, I know that he and Lance would have completely understood how much it hurt and why it would have made it worse for us both. We left and had some of the best drinks of my life at the NANCY WHISKEY on LISPENARD and AVE OF THE AMERICA’s, up the street from the CANADA gallery where the wake happened. It was a brutally cold and crisp winter day. Perfect weather to cuddle in the pub with GUINNESS and POWERS neat over several hours of reflection and laughter with MCODY. It was the place

I would have had a wake for my DAD if that had been possible.

We drank to Lance and his life. To the art that he gave to us and his character that would always leave a lasting tree with roots growing from the base of our souls. We felt the warm embrace of the weathered wooden shanty that sat atop the kitchen in a precarious treehouse of booze, nestled on top of the train in TRIBECA.

What is the value of art?

What is the value of life?

What is the cost of possession?

Lance did not ask these questions.

He replaced the teeth in his head with GOLD TEETH. It’s unknown if he sold his skull.

It doesn’t matter to me. I miss my friend desperately and live in a shadow that his greatness commands from me. Because he looked me in the eye and told me that I was a great artist. That this life would command huge sacrifice and demand everything that we have to give. But our children must see us live as men who do not follow the lamb to the blade but charge off into the heather to live free. ART is WAR. It is not something that is simple, easy or a straight line. Many humans I know learn to master their own hearts at a young age and follow a very prosperous path into a glorious kingdom of their own making. Others succumb to the forces of context that summon the demons who take them back to the other side. We always try our best to never quit on them ever but know that every day and breath we have with them is precious.

That is not the path for people like myself and Lance. We are born into a context and survive the many trials and choices we are presented with. The approach is zealous and driven by something utterly SUBLIME. The quest to create and actually TRANSFORM ourselves is paramount to the degree and magnitude to which the work is capable. At its core, the work has to confront the DOGMA that we see and present a force opposing it. This doesn’t need to be violent, destructive or scary. But sadly, the process for people like us to move our human frames through the fabric of time and space with all the collateral synchronicities elapsing and collapsing upon each other.

If we are to live in the form that we choose, we live and become the art we define.

KNOW GODS JUST WORK

The price of the GOLD SKULL is a debt that is never ever paid. The people who love him the most will always keep paying for this piece of work, because we cared for him so much and wanted him to live so badly.

It doesn't matter at all where that physical object is. What would it matter if a person possessed it?

What function does it really provide to a person that allows them to accomplish or achieve anything? The art world is built upon a foundation of value that is purely intrinsic.

To the person who could or would possess the GOLD SKULL of RAMBO, would the $1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 really be any kind of currency in relation to what the GOLD SKULL is?

All the wealth in the world cannot possess the GOLD SKULL because the force that created it appeared for a time in a human form and then returned to the universe transformed into another.

The pain that grows and changes into the art we allow it to become is the GOLD SKULL.

THE BONES OF THE MASTER ARE NOT FOR SALE

1.19.24

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ARCHIVAL RELEVANCE

(Roller skater with large works)

https://www.tumblr.com/trascapades/654086318632091648/artisaweapon-newexhibit-lance-de-los-reyes

VICE