Cockrill/Judge Hughes
1980- 1987
I arrived in New York in late summer 1979 with no clear direction in my art. When John Lennon was murdered in December 1980, my work changed overnight. The art I studied in school and found in galleries felt elite and remote from the America I grew up in. I began collaborating with a provocative contrarian who lived in the raw Brooklyn factory building I had moved into.
Over a two-year period we collaborated on a graphic novel/cartoon book called The White Papers (published in 1982): a psychosexual American history from the assassination of JFK to the murder of John Lennon nearly two decades later. I named my collaborator Judge Hughes when he insisted on remaining anonymous - after Sarah T. Hughes who swore in LBJ on the plane in Dallas.
We worked together from 1980 until 1987, creating large cartoon paintings (a populist style Judge Hughes urged me to use), satirical writings and performances that were included in a number of exhibitions; we were soundly rebuffed by offended critics who dismissed our work as tasteless and offensive. In my view, our transgressive output was raw and honest — but an honesty wrapped in brazen satire.
“Mike Cockrill and Judge Hughes have an uncontested claim to be the most vulgar artists in New York today. … What is most controversial in their work is that they package social satire and sadomasochistic sexploitation in a graphic style that appeals neither to the art world’s nor the porn industry’s taste. … Their frustrated vision of male sexual folly is symptomatic of the growing awareness of masculine inferiority in the coming age of women’s ascendancy.” ”
