His first NYC gallery show in a decade exorcises many demons.
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I
meet the sculptorThomas Houseagoon a sunny August day at his outdoor studio on an oceanside cliff in Malibu.
Over the next six hours, he does.
There are also some pleasant domestic still lifes: a sunflower, a coffee pot.
It takes up three floors of theLevy Gorvy Dayangallery off Madison Avenue.
Houseago, who is 52, has never been an easygoing person and never made easygoing art.
Its usually men with some unhealed trauma who gravitate to my work, he says.
He grew up poor in Leeds, England.
There are tales of drunkenness and drug use, bankruptcy and despair, in his history.
He tried to work it all out in his art.
He became a success when his monumental primitivistBabywas a standout at the 2010 Whitney Biennial.
Soon after, he joined two mega-galleries: Hauser & Wirth and Gagosian.
Walk into Gagosian or Zwirner and tell me, Is that a warm environment?
See the people at the desks?
You see the terror in their eyes, he says.
Houseago describes the art world in the language of trauma therapy.
Gagosian, for example, is a stand-in for his absent dad.
He has often found himself thinking, I need to talk to Larry; hes gonna save me.
Then he remembers, No, hes not.
He doesnt give a fuck.
Hes on a boat somewhere.
He was talking about art like he owned it, he says.
I go very quickly to Leeds, 1976, when he feels a man is trying to dominate him.
Im like,I could probably tear your eyeballs out with this pen.
Houseago insists hes getting better now.
His most recent troubles date back to when his father died in mid-2019.
He flew from L.A., where hed been living since 2003, to Leeds.
When he saw the body, he felt first elated, then overcome with rage.
He says he started to unravel after that.
On New Years Eve, I beat myself up with a rock, he says.
After that, he quit making art while he tried to rebuild himself.
His treatment manager had moved him into a place near his own in Malibu.
His life exploded, Houseago says.
Houseago wasnt sure he could afford to stay in Malibu.
They realized they lived just two houses apart and began hanging out, often discussing art.
DiCaprio heard about a house in Malibu whose owner was annoyed with the fussy tenant.
DiCaprio, in Houseagos telling, told the owner, You should ask him to leave.
Ive got this guy youre gonna love.
And apparently because it was DiCaprio, they agreed.
Hes got that golden key to everything, Houseago says.
Everyone wants to love him.
Houseago now lives there with his two teenage children and brought on DiCaprios former assistant as a studio director.
Why am I friends with all these super-fucking-sonically famous people?
Perhaps its because they can drop their armor with him, he says.
Hes interested in the vulnerabilities beneath their superhero facades.
Today, Pitt, Houseago, and another friend, Flea, have matching green-triangle tattoos.
Houseago says the triangle represents the three poles of trauma healing in his therapists model.
Theres a commitment among a group of people, like, Lets try and take care of each other.
Besides, these guys are more his speed.
Then, you go to their homes and youre like,Oh no, youre the tastemakers.
For this show, he reconnected with Dominique Levy, a dealer he had previously ditched for Gagosian.
She had since co-founded Levy Gorvy Dayan in the mansion built for the Wildenstein dynasty of art dealers.
When Houseago saw it, he knew it was perfect.
He and Levy patched things up.
I fell in love with him all over again, Levy later told me.
Theres nothing more beautiful than a powerful vulnerability and a calm strength.
Hes like the samurai.
It was like bearing witness to a mans metamorphosis from a self-realized Dantes Inferno.
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