city looking like in 2018 or 2020. I’m not for war. I like peace and everything, but when people call me to do an anti-war t-shirt, I tell them “You’re going to make $25,000 on this t-shirt. If you want me to do something, I can, but I don’t need to create a design for you; it’s never gonna change anything.”
What goes on at your storefront, Studio 101? It’s very much like my studio–sometimes you see me and sometimes you don’t, but it’s like an open window. There’s no signs, it’s not in the Yellow Pages. I don’t spend money on fashion editorial, but if people pay attention and feel like coming in, they can.
Do you see a lot of people trying to capitalize on the anti-war movement? If I really wanted to be successful right now, I could just take one of my projects–[like] this one poster with a guy twisting someone else’s head–and just replace the heads with Bush and Mickey Mouse and people would buy it. But that’s not what I want to go for.
You’ve done a lot of work for corporations and brands. What’s your selection process? I’m known for turning people down–that doesn’t give me a great image. They think I think I’m a bigshot or whatever, but I’m just very careful. Some of these brands can come in and [ruin] the design. They can kill you–you could be successful for three months but then never work again for three years. You have to understand the power of it. If you only have one style and it takes you such a long time to create that, you become a product.
Can you elaborate a little bit on your name? The two letters, W and K, don’t mean anything. They’re not my initials, but I do like the design of the letters. Later, I added my own fingerprint, because I believed that in the future you wouldn’t have to sign anything, you’d just put your fingerprint on a door and it would unlock it. I like all that kind of futuristic stuff. The “Interact” is because I had a show at this fashionable place called Colette in Paris once and I needed a title. It was one of my first projects being shown inside, and I liked the sound of “WK Interact at Colette”–it felt more like an action.
vis-ed.net/wkinteract
Could you do this kind of work in Europe? I create a very cold, visceral, and strong image, and it works because it’s from New York. Instead of recreating where I’ve come from, I’ve adapted and sucked up the whole culture of New York. I have a ton of other images, very French things, that if I were to put on the street, they’d arrest me right away. But if I put up something strong, violent, and powerful, people understand. I did some stuff in Paris that was totally different–it was a butterfly woman masturbating. There was no violence–it was completely erotic, and it looks great in Paris and Italy. But where could I put that in New York?
Left: "WK Bike," 2007
Above: (top) "WK skate decks," 2007; (bottom) WK’s arsenal, 2005
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