Nick Kushner: Life, Art, Legacy

Nick Kushner opened his show, Aceldama, at Binghamton’s JungleScience Gallery on February 7, 2014, as a returning hometown hero. His 2011 solo exhibition at Studio Servitú in downtown Los Angeles (the star-studded attendees of which included Marilyn Manson, who entertained with a rare, pre-release listening from the album Born Villian) made LA Weekly’s Top 10 Badass Parties of 2011 list, due in part to Manson guitarist Twiggy Ramirez’s all night guest DJ set. In April 2012, the esteemed Museum of Fantastic Art in Vienna, Austria selected Kushner’s painting, “Maldoror,” for inclusion in an exhibition. Months earlier, that same painting had been selected as the cover art for a new Russian edition of the classic poetry book Les Chants de Maldoror. Kushner returned to Binghamton a star.

The worldwide attention Kushner’s paintings garnered was clearly based on more than morbid fascination over his chosen medium. Yes, he painted using his own blood, but the artistic merit of his work; his stunning attention to detail and graceful composition, would hold their own regardless of his choice of paint. Nick’s mother, Emily Luckert Chello, speaks of his 2008 painting, Borgia; The Pope Entering Pandemonium:

“…He drew with great detail, and I would just watch him. It was like beautiful pieces, and he would add different textures, but it all came together beautifully. One of my favorite pieces that he drew had Pope John Paul and a naked torso of a woman. Then you have somebody-- but you have to look-- there’s somebody by a pillar creeping by. It’s almost this fluid type of person. But, you know, with Nick’s work, you’d have to study it.”

Nick Kushner died on June 15, 2016 at the age of 33. The official cause of death, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner, was acute infective endocarditis-- that is, an inflammation of the inner tissues of the heart caused by bacterial infection. Such is a risk associated with the use of IV needles, to which Nick, who collected his own blood, was no stranger. (Nick had fallen uncharacteristically distant from his friends and family over the months preceding his death, leading to speculation of drug use, but to date the cause of his fatal infection remains a mystery.) The young artist is gone, leaving behind grieving parents, siblings, friends, memories, and a cache of canvases representing thousands of hours of contemplation, bearing his mind’s vision, his hand’s skill, and his very DNA.

On Friday, October 7th, the walls of JungleScience Gallery will once again be adorned with Nick’s blood paintings, along with earlier works provided by his family, that showcase his artistic progression. The crowd that assembles to celebrate Nick’s short life will include friends and colleagues from all across the United States in a celebration of the life, art and legacy of a young man from Binghamton who died too soon.

Nick Kushner had a true calling; he was born to draw. “The only way I can describe it,” says his mother, “when I would watch him-- and this was when he was very young, like 4-- is that he had, almost, like a demon inside that he had to draw. He was driven. He was always drawing. That was his world; he was just compelled.”

Nick’s father, Frank Kushner, sensei of FMK Karate Dojo in Port Dickinson, recalls feeding Nick’s artistic appetite: “It was kind of a ritual of mine to stop at CVS regularly and buy drawing pads. I kept them in a stack upstairs where I’d be cleaning and doing things in the karate school. Nick would call up, ‘Dad! I Need a pad!’ And I’d just drop it down to the bottom stair. He would fill up drawing pads, sketching, drawing, whatever he wanted. I made sure I kept him well stocked because I knew he loved it. I had no idea where it would go, but I knew he was on his way to some kind of calling, because he’d just fill them up.”

Nick preferred colored pencils when he was very young, and standard graphite pencils as he grew older. One day when he was about fifteen, his father noticed a red thumbprint next to his characteristic “NK” signature, which the elder Kushner assumed might have come from a stamp pad. Nick explained that he had made the thumbprint using his own blood, which he had extracted from a small, self-inflicted cut on his chest. He said that he wanted to have part of himself, quite literally, in his paintings. Over time that “part of himself” began to supersede pencil and charcoal. As Nick graduated to painting entirely with blood, he also switched from the inefficient method of squeezing droplets from his chest to drawing blood using professional phlebotomy kits and storing it in vials.

Frank Kushner recalls, “He ended up having equipment to do it, the small tubes, it was pretty much hospital-type equipment and I’m not sure where he got it. His younger brother, Michael, used to joke and he said, ‘I saw vials of blood in his apartment; do you think he’s gonna run out and we’re gonna find him up there without any blood, like a vampire?’ I said, ‘no, people donate blood; Nick’s donating it to his canvas.’”

Nick’s mother was a Binghamton University Art History major, and his grandfather, Walter Luckert (to whom he dedicated Aceldama), was a professional sculptor and worked at the Binghamton University Art Department. Their household was full of art books, exposure to which led to Nick’s precocious interest in early 20th Century German Expressionism, especially the works of George Grosz and Otto Dix. Thus, when Marilyn Manson released The Golden Age of Grotesque in May 2003, Kushner easily recognized the preoccupation with Degenerate Art that pervaded Manson’s lyrics and his cover art. Eager to bring public attention to the forethought that Manson put into his work, Nick designed and published a website, www.nachtkabarett.com, that delved deeply into Manson’s sources of inspiration. It remains an important resource for Marilyn Manson fans to this day.

Nachtkabarett’s audience quickly expanded. Nick continued to manage and update its content while freelance-designing new websites, including one for Las Vegas magician Rudy Coby, a close friend of Marilyn Manson’s. [As of this writing, Rudy Coby intends to be at the October 7th Opening at Jungle Science.] Coby forwarded the Nachtkabarett URL to Manson, who was so impressed with the accuracy and breadth of Nick’s work that he immediately invited the artist to meet him.

There ensued a long, intimate relationship between Manson and Kushner. Nick would stay at Manson’s house, and often toured with him. At one point, Manson even offered Kushner a paid position as his personal assistant, although he turned it down, preferring not to enter into an employee-employer relationship that he thought might compromise their friendship.

Nick moved from Binghamton to New York City, spent two years there, and then moved to Los Angeles. His talent, charisma, gentle demeanor and eccentric appearance endeared him to many, including tattoo artist and fellow blood painter Vincent Castiglia, who added “Maldoror” and two creations of Otto Dix’s to the tattoos that covered Kushner’s body.

Both of Nick’s parents note that he wasn’t trying to affect a “goth” persona. In fact, he disliked any label. He simply made one-by-one decisions over his appearance, each of which bore deep personal meaning. Says his mother, “…the man that did these tattoos for Nick is also a blood artist and a wonderful person. I think it helped his art. It made his art grow and gave it more dimension and influences, you know, stuff that he loved. And on Nick’s way all through this it opened doors to wonderful friendships with people—other artists, but you know, in different realms, photography, magic, so it really was wonderful for Nick.”

(In an October 2012 interview in support of his exhibition, Resurrection, at Sacred Gallery in New York City, Vincent Castiglia said, “Every painting is intrinsically a part of me and in that way it really dissolves the barrier between art and artist in the most literal sense. I have to say, the shedding of blood, it’s a kind of rite of passage, you know, and it’s such an intimate connection with the work…this work is sacred to me in that each piece is a sacrifice, you know, and it is so much a part of me.”)

At his 2014 Aceldama opening, I asked Kushner about the technique of getting such nuance out of blood. He seemed genuinely touched that I would think to ask, and he carefully described the blending and layering it took to go from the lightest wash to near black. Behind his affectations of darkness lay a gentle soul. He could listen with magnetic eye contact and a disarming smile.

Says his mother, “He had gone to another Marilyn Manson show. Everyone was waiting outside and Nick had this particular pair of long gloves on. He would dress outlandishly, and he was wearing these gloves, and he said there was a woman-- maybe in her fifties-- at the door taking tickets. They couldn’t open yet, so she was standing by the door and Nick was up in front of the line, and she started talking to him about how much she liked his gloves. He struck up a conversation and they had a very nice talk. Later he was sitting in his seat and she just walked by and she said, ‘come here with me,’ and she took him and brought him to a really great place to see Marilyn Manson; you know, better viewing. He wasn’t being nice to get something out of it, but to make a connection with another person. You know, kinda God-is-watching, not out of shame or guilt, it’s just to be kind. I admired that about him; that he was kind to people.

Says his father, “He had the most peaceful approach to art. He would sit in an office chair with his legs crossed like in a meditative, yoga lotus position, with his cat curled up comatose at the center of his legs, and just draw and paint. When I saw him he looked happy, doing what he was meant to do. His cat just adored him because he was so peaceful; the cat felt all that peace and would stay there with him for hours and hours and hours.”

Nick’s study of Marilyn Manson, nachtkabarett.com, his personal website, thethirdangelsounded.com, and his Facebook page remain up and active. Join me and many others from 6-9pm on Friday, October 7th at Jungle Science Gallery, 33 Court Street in downtown Binghamton, to celebrate, to mourn, and to share in Nick Kushner’s vibrant legacy.