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Bret Easton Ellis and Alex Israel
Bret Easton Ellis and Alex Israel

Bret Easton Ellis and Alex Israel on L.A, hope & art

We speak to the American Psycho author and his collaborator Alex Israel about Los Angeles, Facebook and why 2017 is worse than 1984 as they launch new artwork in London

"Facebook was the showtime corporation that anyone joined, a corporation that had its ain laws, its own dictums," says Bret Easton Ellis. "You had to exist upbeat, you had to like stuff, they only had a like push, it was sexless, we had to conduct within a certain kind of morality or else we'd get booted off. I think many, many people learned how to behave by joining this corporation and it did offer an unrealistic view of the world. It was relentlessly upbeat."

I'm in a stark, white room of the Gagosian gallery in London with the writer of American Psycho, Less Than Zero and Rules Of Attraction. Sat alongside him is his collaborator, the multimedia artist and eyewear designer Alex Israel, who's wearing shades. Both are in high spirits, delighted at the success of Beyoncé's pregnancy announcement on Instagram and glad that pop civilisation has (nonetheless temporarily) usurped politics at the top of the news pile. They're lined up for a long succession of interviews virtually their new artwork that is debuting in the gallery.

The piece of work – that takes influence from the likes of Barbara Kruger and John Baldessari – is a serial of paintings of stock images that Israel has painstakingly pored over and bought to be recreated on canvas, overlaid with Bret Easton Ellis' text. To me, they appear as eerie versions of those false-inspirational, motivational Facebook memes that act every bit anaemic call-to-artillery for truly basic people. Which is why nosotros're talking well-nigh the behemothic social media network.

"It's all fake promise, the whole thing is simulated aspirations, fake desires, false loves," says Easton Ellis. "It really seems to me – the notion of interconnectivity is really merely that, a notion, and I remember everyone is alone, staring into a screen, longing for something that isn't going to happen. I'm much more pessimistic about this than Alex is, merely it does requite a imitation promise to people."

"Information technology'due south all fake hope, the whole matter is fake aspirations, fake desires, fake loves" – Bret Easton Ellis on Facebook

Despite my 'incorrect' reading of the art, Easton Ellis and Israel are both adamant that the piece of work is non almost Facebook at all, but virtually L.A. "When we sat down to piece of work on the projection, nosotros knew that the theme of this project was going to exist Los Angeles or the subject was going to be Los Angeles' civilisation," says State of israel. "And and so from there, nosotros started getting more and more than specific, so Bret started developing a world of locations, characters and motivations." One graphic symbol is the primary manipulator, who tells her lover that "this isn't a real relationship. Information technology's showbiz". Information technology conjures up that clichéd stereotype of the city – a gold-plated dystopia of angels and devils, stained with agony, deviance and glamour. Easton Ellis says that that version of Los Angeles – a place he likes now merely felt alienated past when he wrote Less Than Zero – no longer exists.

"I recollect Hollywood is over", he says. "That notion is eroded. There is a globalised feeling nigh L.A that's very different from 20 years agone. It is not the same metropolis and that thought of the farm boy getting off the passenger vehicle to make it as a movie star – that earth does not exist."

"They actually closed the Greyhound jitney station downwards. It doesn't be anymore," says Israel. "But that notion of the Hollywood of yore, that idea of showbiz, is in everything. Information technology's nowhere and everywhere."

Easton Ellis agrees. "Correct, that'south too true. Information technology'southward in the mode people brand themselves on Instagram, it's in politics."

"I think Hollywood is over....that idea of the subcontract boy getting off the bus to make it equally a movie star – that globe does non exist" – Bret Easton Ellis

Given the timing of the work's release, an observer could exist forgiven for thinking that the other canvass on brandish in the gallery is about a totemic demagogue called Donald. In fact, Israel reveals that the words "CAN 50 MILLION PEOPLE BE WRONG? PROBABLY" refer to an episode of American Idol. Actually, 63 million people voted for the current president, just both Israel and Easton Ellis are aware that people will notice new meanings in information technology. A guy walked past and said to Easton Ellis "55 1000000, mate!" believing that information technology was in reference to the U.S election and the piece of work contained a factual fault.

While the work may not be a reference to Donald Trump, he's the huge elephant in every room right now, and given that he'south mentioned several times in American Psycho (often referred to by Patrick Bateman every bit "Donny") he certainly feels worthy of word. "He destroyed the Chiliad.O.P institution – great," Easton Ellis says of Trump. "He destroyed the Republican party. He destroyed the Washington establishment. He fabricated the media seem completely irrelevant. I don't sympathise why the left does not give him points for that. Well, the media can't. What kind of a dystopian universe is that? Information technology'southward a actually crazy style to become your information – it's worse than 1984, 1984 is quaint compared to what's going on in the media correct at present."

Easton Ellis is adamant that Bateman would have voted for Trump, but with a caveat. "Of course Patrick Bateman would take voted for Trump. But information technology's a very unlike Trump now. The notion of Trump existence this aspirational figure in the 80s for these Wall Street guys...it's a very different notion now, it'south a very different aspiration. I don't remember that the Trump who has put himself out there at present would've been peculiarly attractive to Patrick Bateman. Information technology'south not actually who he would aspire to, in a sense that he'south out there really talking to the people that Patrick despised and trying to connect with them. Only who else was Patrick going to vote for? The Greenish Party?" He says that Clay from Less Than Zero would non have voted for Trump and the Bret Easton Ellis who narrates, fucks and snorts his fashion through the strange faux-memoir Lunar Park would plainly take been "too out of it, likewise scared, too wasted, to get anywhere nigh to fifty-fifty fill in an absentee ballot."

"I don't remember that the Trump who has put himself out in that location now would've been peculiarly attractive to Patrick Bateman. It's not really who he would aspire to" – Bret Easton Ellis

Ane person who certainly would have voted for the current president if he could have is British news editor Milo Yiannopoulos, who works for far-right website Breitbart, founded by Steve Bannon, at present the president's chief strategist. The three of us are talking the twenty-four hours after protestors at UC Berkeley close down an appearance from the controversial commentator, who was due to speak on campus every bit part of his "Unsafe Faggot" tour, a person Easton Ellis describes as a "provocateur" and someone whose @Nero account was deleted from Twitter after he became involved in an statement with Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones, who was existence subjected to racist corruption.

"I would much rather have Milo Yiannopoulos on Twitter than a middle-aged actress who can't handle trolls," says Easton Ellis. "This consummate disability to deal with shit is why Trump won. Trump decimated identity politics. He completely erased whatever the authoritarian PC civilization was that emerged during the Obama era and was going to keep exploding into the Clinton era. He completely blew that up, because no-ane could live nether that. I think it hit its apex with that Steve Martin tweet about Carrie Fisher (see below). Identity politics feminists wrote essays proverb 'how cartel you objectify Carrie Fisher' and he deleted the tweet. Everyone was outraged over information technology."

Easton Ellis is at his nigh animated when discussing liberty of speech or the thought that "feelings aren't facts" and information technology'southward something that he'due south spoken almost at length on his pop podcast. While information technology'southward easy to agree with him that Steve Martin existence criticised vigorously for proverb Carrie Fisher is beautiful is an overreaction, or that the determined policing of language online might be stifling word, permit me say that Leslie Jones being forced off Twitter after receiving racist abuse is grim, wrong and certainly not down to her "not being able to handle trolls". Information technology's an actress being hounded and racially driveling to the point she shuts her Twitter.

While quieter on the subject field, to an extent Israel agrees with Easton Ellis. "I call back people also have to exist okay with being offended and arguing – I don't want to alive in a globe where I'thou never offended. That'due south not an interesting place for my creative brain to live and exist."

"I think people also take to be okay with existence offended and arguing – I don't want to live in a globe where I'one thousand never offended" – Alex Israel

Neither Israel nor Easton Ellis are offended by criticism of their work. I mention 1 reviewer describing it every bit cliché, something that could be argued is a slightly strange criticism given that the paintings are based on stock photos, the most cliché imagery available. "Everyone, equally Alex said, has a correct to an opinion," says Easton Ellis. Nosotros got good reviews in the States, we got bad reviews in usa. I think some of the art writers who didn't like it were coming from an elitist point of view and non understanding, in a lot of ways, the playfulness of the piece of work and the power of that. The pure pleasure of going into a gallery and seeing these billboard-sized works is overwhelming. I think in that location was a reaction confronting that kind of playfulness. I never approached information technology as cliché, necessarily."

"What's wrong with clichés?" says Israel. "There'due south a lot of truth in cliché and a lot of beauty in truth. Stock images are inherently cliché." It's interesting to note that the terminal product is done at Warner Bros. studios in Hollywood, past the people responsible for painting the Hollywood backdrops of yesteryear, teams responsible for some of the most popular artful cliche of the final century. Easton Ellis and Israel's work appears to know who and what it is, comfortable in its own skin but it'south still sitting in an uncomfortable arena – the faded Hollywood era that even Easton Ellis admits no longer exists, of garish, physically imposing billboards, all financed by one of the "Big Half dozen" American motion-picture show studios based in California. And maybe therein lies the joke – that L.A is everything and nothing all at once, a city that always has been and always will exist.

The exhibition runs at the Gagosian from February 4 – April 2017