Danny Volk

Danny Volk. That was my first visiting artist lecture ever as a student here at Illinois State and I must say I am pleasantly inspired. All of his projects were extremely intriguing and stimulating, not because it was so deep and serious but because it was so playful and free. He started his career as a theater major and acted most of his life but he realized that the stage and him did not mix. Danny began his journey pretending to be someone else on Instagram during his DVNY project, then went on to GAP mimics with his GAP project, then to having people paint on his face during interviews for his very own show Made-Up, which led all the way to him managing a boy band.

Danny's DVNY project started in 2012 with his Instagram account. Danny's explained how he was tagged in a photo with Heidi Klum, but not because he was in the picture but because the person in the picture was another Danny Volk from New York. Danny noticed that he started gaining a lot of followers with a similar portrait of of themselves on Instagram, luxury. Danny decided to establish himself as the New Yorker on Instagram by pretending to be the luxurious Danny Volk in an almost overly creepy way. He took photos from other Instagrams and google and continued to post them as if it were him. If I wasn't at the lecture and someone were telling me about this I would probably be shook but because I could see him laugh at himself and poke fun it made me settle in and enjoy his story. Danny continued this project for a decent amount of time, Danny even involved friends and random strangers, who weren't so involved, in the fun and created false stories about this New York Danny's life. Danny realized that his creepy little project was only available to people with Instagram. You would think this project would end with a crazy story of Danny meeting Danny but it wasn't quite like that. Danny had found out New York Danny was having a birthday party at his New York night club. Obviously Danny's first instinct was to go to New York and do just that. When Danny got to the night club he noticed that he did not fit the ambiance. It wasn't a story book ending for his project but it was very unique nonetheless.

Danny's GAP project was also very intriguing. Danny explained how he got a job at GAP over the holiday season and told us his crowd was restricted to men or people shopping for men because he worked in the men's section. My first thought was, he did this while he worked? I related this to myself because I always feel as if I am experiencing people and observing their actions during my everyday life. Danny illustrated this project as a growing, intimate, uncomfortable relationship with random people asking him for clothing advice, because its his job! Danny described these awkward brief relationships as subtle skin on skin contact and series of passive intimate dialogue. 

After another creepy little project Danny was in an exhibition with other artists where he recreated the GAP check out isle with identical decor. Danny then gathered a production team of models and photographers to take photos just like models in a GAP advertisement. During this project Danny wrote stories on found paper about his awkward relationships with these random people. Danny said the stories were things people shouldn't tell people at all.

To conclude, I was very impressed with Danny Volk, he was hilarious and pleasant. I was locked in on his lecture the entire time and the brief lecture only made me more curious. The DVNY and GAP projects were my favorite of his, but his show "Made-Up w/ Danny Volk" that I was able to check out a few episodes afterwards had me laughing even more. I think it's comforting to know that people like Danny and myself can still go and be fun and playful even with the label as artist attached to ourselves that I feel locks down the creative process now-a-days.