Bill Daniel – Who is Bozo Texino?
This show is to observe the 55th anniversary of artist Russel Butler’s railroad moniker, Colossus of Roads, a railroad graffiti practice he began on November 11, 1971. Russell, known as buZ blurr in the mail art world, is featured in Bill Daniel’s film on hobo and railworker graffiti, Who is Bozo Texino? Daniel will be present for the screening and Q&A, and will have a photo exhibit on the walls and merch photos.
Who is Bozo Texino? chronicles the search for the source of a ubiquitous and mythic rail graffiti– a simple sketch of a character with an infinity-shaped hat and the scrawled moniker, “Bozo Texino”– a drawing seen on railcars for over 80 years. Daniel’s gritty black and white film uncovers a secret society and its underground universe of hobo and railworker graffiti, and includes interviews with legendary boxcar artists Colossus of Roads, Coaltrain, Herby, and The Rambler.
Shooting over a 16-year period, Daniel rode freights across the West carrying a Super-8 sound camera and a 16mm Bolex. During his quest he discovered the roots of a folkloric tradition that has gone mostly unnoticed for a century. Taking inspiration from Beat artists Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac, the film functions as both a sub-cultural documentary and a stylized fable on wanderlust and outsider identity.
Bill Daniel is a photographer, filmmaker, author, curator, zine maker and publisher whose work spans documentary and experimental forms. His practices are informed by his formative experience in the Austin, Texas punk scene of the early 1980s, and embody a DIY ethos of touring and self-produced exhibitions. In the late 1980s Daniel moved from Texas to San Francisco, found work as a bike messenger, and became immersed in the art and film scene in the Mission.
Daniel’s seminal 2005 film on hobo and rail worker culture, Who is Bozo Texino?, helped originate the contemporary practice of moniker writing–now a foundational element of punk and graffiti cultures. The film has screened worldwide in festivals and art centers, and been shown on tour in hundreds of diverse venues in the US; from the Walker Art Center, MoMA in New York, to The Mudlark in New Orleans and The Smell in Los Angeles.
Daniel is a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, and has received awards from Creative Capital, the Wattis Foundation, and a 1999 residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts where he collaborated with artist Margaret Kilgallen. He has exhibited at Deitch Projects and MOCA LA. His work is in the collection of MoMA, the Beinecke Library at Yale, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
