Todd James as the artist who designed logos for The Source and the Beastie Boys, or maybe you know him as REAS, the writer who tagged NYC Subways early in his career. Despite an already impressive résumé of work for rappers like Mobb Deep and Eminem, plus a stint as a puppet designer for Jimmy Kimmel's "Crank Yankers" show on Comedy Central, Todd James is an important fine artist. It's no surprise that he was asked to design the bears for Miley Cyrus' (controversial, historic) performance at the VMAs, where he applied his captivating, colorful, and ironic aesthetic to her backup bear dancers. The bear crew supported her singing and twerking act on the KAWS-designed stage and was one of many exciting instances of visual art at the VMAs. Read on for what he has to say about designing the bears, her performance, the awards show taking place in Brooklyn, and more.
Did Miley have any involvement in the stage design? What did she think of what you made?
What did you think of the final performance? Did Miley outshine the bears? Was it vice versa?
Did any other performances or stage designs stand out to you from the VMAs? What did you think of the KAWS takeover?
Being from New York and having done so much work here, what do you think of an event like the VMAs coming to Brooklyn? How have things changed, in your eyes, for Brooklyn's artists and for the borough as a whole, culturally speaking?
You have a history of collaborating with musicians, including a lot of rappers. What are the positives and negatives of creating art that represents or supplements music, and what do you think about the increasingly obvious amount of mainstream artists using visual art to support their music?
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