Artist Chris Johanson and I had lunch at Tropisueño on Yerba Buena Lane in San Francisco during the installation of his summer show This, This, This, That (June 3–July 30, 2011) at Altman Siegel Gallery. Over burritos, we discussed the velocity of Johanson’s art career. From drawing figures on random public surfaces in San Francisco’s Mission district in the early ’90s to achieving international fame after participating in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, Johanson’s rapid ascension in the art world forced him into the spotlight and precipitated a dramatic two-year hiatus away from it all.

—Natasha Boas

I. THE ART OF NOT-MAKING

THE BELIEVER: So you’re living in LA now, not Portland?

CHRIS JOHANSON: Yeah, we’ve got a view of the HOLLYWOOD sign and the Griffith Observatory. And then downstairs is my studio that I share with a bunch of black widows.

BLVR: [Laughs]

CJ: It’s a little two-car-garage studio. I have a pretty big studio up in Portland, and I just didn’t want to multiply that, you know? I just wanted to have a very discreet, kind of humble…

BLVR: A different type of work environment? A sunny climate?

CJ: Like, yeah, and we built all our furniture in our house, and Johanna Jackson, my wife, made all the textiles and then sewed everything together, and I Dumpster-dived all the wood and made all the tables and stuff.

BLVR: Everything is handmade?

CJ: Yeah, because we decided that we wanted to actually live… I think making art got too much like a job or something. So I took a two-year break and I just canceled everything and couldn’t do any more shows. I did a couple, but I didn’t go to anything.

BLVR: But you’re so back right now, and you’re doing all this new work.

CJ: Yeah, but I had to take a two-year break to be able to do it.

BLVR: That makes sense. You took a pause.

CJ: Yeah, because you know schedules—I can’t make art on a schedule like that.

BLVR: And was the intense scheduling because of the high demand for the work?

CJ: It was the high demand that I put on myself… pressures. I don’t care about that, especially not now. I’m over everything, kind of. You know, we’re just into living. It’s still how we make our money, whatever, but we’re trying to not have it be like it was. It’s not a very interesting life, really… Because to just make, when you have to live to make, is a very special place to be. I just thought, I have to make my art myself. I mean, I understood someone like Jeff Koons seemed to be doing a conceptual thing...