‘I want to do extreme damage’: Harmony Korine

Harmony-korine1Nosheen Iqbal at The Guardian:

Korine might now be a 43-year-old married father, but he sounds pretty much just as he did 20 or so years ago. “I never feel overwhelmed,” he says, when I ask if he ever worries about keeping up with contemporary culture or staying relevant. “I feel underwhelmed. Sometimes there will be this electronic DJ or a kid on a laptop that’s exciting to me. I don’t pay attention to, say, music with instruments that much. I don’t even understandwhat you would do with a guitar now.”

What does he find interesting?

“Just, like, videos of asses.” He laughs, “girls with huge asses”.

Back in the 90s, Korine would appear on Letterman and prank the show, playing a droll caricature of himself. He was, and still is, a fixture of the style press; his brand of wired, avant garde experimentalism doesn’t really go out of fashion, it just becomes part of the cultural vernacular. American Apparel would not have looked the same way were it not for Kids, while Gummo’s crystal meth aesthetic has been referenced everywhere from the work of Ryan Trecartin to Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Mike Kelley’s shorts to Nike ad campaigns.

more here.