Connecting Time and Place Through Art

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Malcolm Mooney, “Papa Fauv,” 1985, oil and Dorlands wax on canvas, 36" x 48" (photo by Blaine Campbell courtesy of Leighton Art Centre)

Malcolm Mooney is a painter, teacher, poet and performer.

Best known as the founding vocalist of the influential German psychedelic band, Can, he has performed at The Barbican Centre in London, England, and his art has been exhibited across Europe and North America, including shows at Galerie Max Mayer in Dusseldorf, the Aspen Art Museum, as well as Ulrik and White Columns in New York City. Mooney performed with White Columns curator and DJ Matthew Higgs at Art Basel Miami in 2013. He holds an MFA from California State University and a BFA from Boston University’s School of Fine Arts and Applied Arts.

Now a painting instructor at the Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts) in Calgary, Mooney is also the magnetic centre of a growing community of artists and musicians in the city. 

His latest exhibition, Kewanee Street, Malcolm Mooney & Doyle Lane, presented by u’s, is on now through June 2 at the Leighton Art Centre southwest of Calgary, Alta. (U's is an organizer of pop-up prairie art events in and around Diamond Valley, Alta.)

The idea for the exhibition developed when a casual conversation revealed that Mooney and Lane had been neighbours outside of Los Angeles, Calif. in the 1980s. They lived on Kewanee Street, a street that overlooks Los Angeles and, at the time, was home to several artists, giving them a quiet refuge to work away from the city. 

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Left: Doyle Lane in his Kewanee Street studio, circa 1985-1988 (photo by Malcolm Mooney; right: Malcolm and Alma Mooney in front of Malcolm’s Kewanee Street home, 1987 (photo by Andrea Mooney)

Lane, who died in 2002, was a major figure amongst a group of Black artists in postwar Los Angeles and an important voice in West Coast studio ceramics. His work is found in collections across North America, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The exhibit explores affinities between the two artists and these hilltop artistic communities — Kewanee Street of the past, and Leighton Art Centre of the present — and features Mooney’s early abstract paintings, prints, and paper cutouts alongside Lane’s delicate ceramic weed pots. The show's feature image is a portrait of Lane by Mooney.

Over coffee, Mooney talked about the exhibit and his multifaceted artistry. 

Can you share some of your influences as an artist?

“I listen to music when I’m painting. I’m a jazz fan. I like Coltrane, I like Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis, World Saxophone Quartet. My nephew Caleb ‘Oakboy’ McCoy, has a brilliant spiritual rap that is unbelievably great. 

“I’m still looking at Philip Guston. The book I Paint What I Want to See; is an interesting take. His imagery to me, it’s representational in his mind – his surrealist hand. He was an activist, I believe; I admire what he did with his imagery. And Pollock and Arshile Gorky…” 

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Malcolm Mooney, “Kewanee Street,” poster silkscreen on 140 lbs stonehenge paper, 18" x 24" signed edition of 5, 2024 (photo by Blaine Campbell, courtesy of the artist and u's)

How did you develop your work style? 

“My dad was a silkscreen printer. I worked for my dad. He had very demanding schedules. There was no smoking, lunch was at a given time; if he says jump; jump. There was a lot of jumping. 

“While I was getting my master’s degree, living on Kewanee Street, I worked in the art department at a silkscreen company and I was an installation guy. I worked for two galleries and a company installing work in the city. You know, I was trying to keep busy, stay out of trouble.”

More than a decade before you moved to L.A., you were a founding member of Can, with Holger Czukay, Irmin Schmidt, Michael Karoli and Jaki Liebezeit. What was that like?

“It was all about everybody being together; everybody was there every day. We’d get up in the morning. We’d go out to Irmin’s apartment; we’d have breakfast. And then we’d drive out to the castle and start recording – then stay there until 11 or 12 at night. I took three days off in two years.”

Any feelings about your upcoming Sled Island performance?

“Oh, this is exciting. I’ve never worked with this many people. I’ve worked with everybody in the band but not all together in the same configuration.”  ■

Kewanee Street, Malcolm Mooney & Doyle Lane, presented by u’s, is on now through June 2 at the Leighton Art Centre southwest of Calgary, Alta.

Malcolm Mooney and the Eleventh Planet will perform June 20 at the Sled Island Music & Arts Festival in Calgary.

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