Canines… puppies… dogs… a man’s best friend. It’s sad when the pooches pass away. A dead dog is a dark image. A sad day. The end of an era. A loss of youthfulness.
Mario “Adeaddog” Dante’s work is a playful, yet macabre insight into the space between childhood and adulthood. Dante takes photographs of suburban New Jersey, and physically and digitally manipulates those images to imagine an alternate world. Dante recently released his first book, “Eye Spy a Dead Dog,” which is a non-children’s, NSFW I spy book. We got the chance to talk to Dante about his work, book, and video production company over beers and cannolis.
Mario “Addeaddog” Dante: You can take some of the shit I say with a grain of salt.
Waitress: Would you guys like something to drink?
Impermanent Gallery: Are you gonna get a beer?
Dante: Yeah. Can I just get a Heineken?
Impermanent: I'll do a Peroni, please… so where does the name come from, “Adeaddog?”
Dante: When I was young I was just changing my Instagram name a lot. I was just an emo kid so I wanted some sick name and then it just stuck.
Impermanent: It definitely sticks.
Dante: It's definitely disturbing though. It depends who I'm talking to, but I don't like telling people. I can kind of look at someone and be like, “yeah this is definitely gonna freak them out.”
Impermanent: To some people you're Mario, to some you’re Dante, and to others you're adeaddog.
Dante: Yeah, I'm Dante to most people I do work for. I’m Mario to friends at home or girlfriends.
Impermanent: What did your art education look like?
Dante: I went to University of the Arts in Philly. I kind of regret going because I felt I didn't really learn anything beneficial. I learned so much about how to write an essay about what I'm doing, but I essentially had to teach myself everything after school.
Impermanent: Interesting. I'm actually reading less and less of people's explanations for what they do. Which is funny because here I am asking you to explain your work.
Dante: I feel like if you're in visual art then at least your work should visually grab the viewer before anything else. I don't want to stop and read. I'd rather stop and look. I feel like a lot of people sort of learn it backwards. I'm only gonna stop and read deeper into the things that immediately interest me visually. That's sort of what inspired the book. I felt like no one is really looking at photos long enough. I want people to look at my pictures for longer periods of time. I want people to sit there staring and looking for things, rather than glimpse for half a second and look away.
Impermanent: I love that idea. I feel like when people go into art galleries they read the press release, take a walk through the space, and exit. Really, people should just walk in and experience the work for longer and figure it out for themselves.
Dante: It's hilarious to me. As if I'm gonna write something up, show it to a gallery, and they’re gonna be like, “oh he's a genius.” I'm a non-academic. I just can’t write about my art- it makes me feel like a fucking idiot. I wish I had some sort of deep meaning behind my work. For instance I can take an image of mine and say, “Well the guys in a suit so this piece is about the working class,” but that’s not what I was thinking about in the creative process. Honestly, I just like cartoon violence. When I’m creating something, one of the first thoughts in my head is, “Ok, where should the blood be?” or “Where's the explosion?” I don’t calculate the meaning in advance- strong images could mean so many different things. All I really hope to do is just make something that inspires someone else to live and inspire. It feels narcissistic that I am the one who is trying to inspire people, though.
Impermanent: It’s your job to make work. It’s the viewer’s job to interpret it. And if no one's making art then no one's being inspired. Someone has to create.
Dante: Yeah, there is a give and take. But so many people make art that it's just flooding the fucking hard drives… I hate “wanna be” art- art for the sake of calling yourself an artist. Art comes from doing regular stuff- just being a person. You gotta let go and just be a human. Like go fucking do something wrong. You're never gonna make anything by thinking all the time. I don’t even carry my camera around usually- If I do that then it starts to feel like work, not play. And the point of my art is to not become a real adult.
Impermanent: Your book definitely encapsulates, even exaggerates “regularness.”
Dante: I have to give a lot of the credit for the book to my friend Andrew. He used to be a trash picker for a while. That’s how we got a lot of the stuff in the images- he was always digging through trash at night looking for objects. He pretty much powered this project and I took the photos.
Impermanent: Why was he digging for trash?
Dante: He would sell things at flea markets and stuff. I actually shot a mini documentary of him doing that. It's like 30 minutes of him digging through trash cans. He pretty much powered this whole project and I took the photos. We worked together to stage everything except for the last page, which is my friend’s mom’s house, who is actually a hoarder. It was sort of a moral dilemma, but I wanted to leave it on a sad note. Something that sort of takes you out of the book and into reality.
Impermanent: The final page taking the reader back into real life… that’s such a good idea. And I think the book fits in perfectly with the rest of your work, too- you are always inserting objects into your frames. Your images feel like stills from a science fiction TV show.
Dante: Yeah, cartoons are a big, big influence for me. I'm constantly thinking about my childhood. I really don't feel like a fucking adult. I'm trying to bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood.
Impermanent: How did you come up with the idea to do an I spy book?
Dante: I wanted to make a photo book for a while but I wanted it to be useful. It needed to have a purpose. I didn’t want to create something that is just more visual noise. Even though that's exactly what I spy is, which is funny. I worked on this project for a year and it's very hard to show people without them actually buying the book. It’s so much more effective with a tangible version.
Impermanent: What was your upbringing like in Jersey?
Dante: It was your classic small suburb. Little tight knit houses. Lots of skateboarding. I played the drums when I was younger. I had a crazy phase where I was really into Legos and I'd make Lego stop motion videos. I think that Legos were sort of my first endeavor in art. I got into photography for real when I was 16 and it kind of just took over. All of this stuff from my upbringing informs my work.
Impermanent: What else informs your work?
Dante: A lot of weird shit. I got robbed really bad a couple of years ago. I got hit with a metal pipe and then these dudes took my car. I got jacked in South Philly. I was only 19 or 20. I think that sort of made me scared of going outside. I moved back home and then I started getting very nostalgic. I was sort of in this state of not wanting to go anywhere. I’m still sort of in that state. I just wanna be a kid and live in the suburbs. I don't wanna go out and risk my life just to live more independently or something. Parts of Philly are like a third world country and no one's doing anything to help anyone. It fucking sucks. I like New York a lot. I'm not super close, but I'm close enough. I always have fun here. I'm trying to move up here but I don't know where yet.
Impermanent: How have your parents influenced your work?
Dante: They're really supportive. My dad went to art school and did photography for a little bit. I guess he got older and lost some creative drive, but when I was younger he helped push me into that direction. He brought me to a lot of museums and stuff.
Impermanent: What are you doing on a weekly basis in terms of your work?
Dante: I'll probably do one video or one shoot, but most of the day I'm smoking weed and playing skate 3. I have projects that I'm working on. I draw, paint, and take photos all the time. I'm just like a child- a man child. I feel like I'm in a very transitional part of my life right now, figuring out how to be an adult.
Impermanent: There’s something there, though. You have to summon your inner child when you're making art.
Dante: That's the thing- people get old and they forget how to play. That’s why photography is the best thing for me- it gives me an excuse to be an idiot and play with trash. Setting up and building my images is no different than playing with Legos. I am able to do that and not feel like it's for nothing. I enjoy the process but I don't like wasting my time.
Impermanent: What does your creative process look like?
Dante: I take influence from everything. I'll watch movies, TV, or cartoons. I take a lot of inspiration from The Simpsons, which is my favorite show ever. I love reading. Books are fucking awesome because they have ideas that haven't been made visually. I’m lucky to have friends who are also artists, so if I have a strong idea I call them and we work together. Originally I was into house photography- Todd Hido type of stuff. I got really into the house photos at night, creeping around people's yards and stuff. It was fun and kind of hilarious. But then I noticed how many other people were doing it. You go on Twitter and you just see these groups of people that all take the same photos. It’s the worst. I realized I have to separate myself and grow away from that. I want to make something that's more like me- something that can't be mixed in with someone else's photos. I decided to push forward in whatever is different. Taking night photography also made me feel uncomfortable at times. I would hear cars locking around me and would get confronted sometimes. It wasn’t as much of my personality. I think your work should be a reflection of your personality. Like with Bruce Gilden you can just hear how he talks- the dude does not give a shit about how he makes someone else feel. His work shows that attitude.
Impermanent: That's very true. And no one's nighttime suburban photography is going to top Todd Hidos. No one is going to make a better Gilden image than Gilden. You have to find out what's gonna make your images a reflection of you.
Dante: Exactly. I want to be my own artist. I want to be true to what actually inspires me. You can take a whole different approach to the suburban stuff. I think every artist feels like a copy sometimes, though. I look at things and I'm like, “I'm just gonna make that and then see what else it creates in my mind.” What is the saying? Good artists borrow and great artists steal? I just decided I'm gonna take what these people are doing and then see if I can contribute to the conversation. That was the main goal. I spend so much time just looking at things and recreating them.
Impermanent: Do you ever shoot film?
Dante: Yeah, I shot a film a few times but with all of the manipulation I do it's just easier to do digital. And everything I do has to be so fucking specific so I’m not really ready for the randomness of film. The quality of film is astronomically better but I feel like some people are just obsessed over it. If I could maneuver into it I could probably benefit from it. I'm not a gearhead, though. Like, I don't fucking know anything about cameras- I just know about the one that I have. Every time I try to talk to a “camera guy" about it they just annoy me. I usually don't like the work of the people who are telling me about gear. I just need to hear from the right person I think.
Impermanent: Tell me more about like Blind Light.
Dante: I was always interested in video and my friend Aaron asked if I wanted to help with a music video. It was just born out of wanting to make videos and music videos are the best way to make money doing it. Aaron does all of the camera work and we both direct and edit. I definitely want to create my own films in the future.
Impermanent: How many music videos have you shot?
Dante: We've done probably like 30 of them now since 2020. It's fun because sometimes we'll get a big budget which is fun to play around with, but that gives you a lot of constraints too.
Impermanent: What kind of constraints?
Dante: Mainly when you have a crew there's time constraints on what you can do and how long you have to shoot. Sometimes you don't really get to play as much. You have to come up with all the ideas first. Essentially you don’t want to waste other people’s time. I like photography because it's just me and maybe another person. Some of my best images are born from that “wasted time.” I’ll be shooting and stumble upon an idea or shoot something by accident and it ends up working. We're figuring out how to create great videos by working around those boundaries.
Impermanent: So the larger the crew, the less experimentation?
Dante: Yeah, it's actually really tough. It's generally just hard to get ideas across in a music video. We have ideas for some short films and I’m excited to see what they look like in the future. I honestly have so many ideas. I write short films all the time. I fucking love the feeling you get watching a movie. There's a certain emotion that you don't really get in photos.
Impermanent: It's very true. Movies are usually more immersive but a photo is powerful because it's not a real representation of time. It's like it doesn't really exist.
Dante: Yeah, dude. It sucks because sound is such an important thing. I would love for my photos to have sound but it feels like such a weird, gimmicky thing. If I were to have a show at a gallery, I would have suburban noises playing- lawn mowing, dogs barking, etc.
Impermanent: That’s such a sick idea. I saw that you created an art installation in your own home, which I think is so impressive. It shows that if you drop your ego you can find your own way to create things that would typically only exist in a gallery space. And by doing that you can still show people your vision through social media.
Dante: There's so many ways to achieve an idea. There's no real excuse to not do something.
Impermanent: Do you think AI also helps with that now? Lowering the barrier of entry for creativity?
Dante: Yeah, exactly that. There’s less and less excuses to create. Growing up skateboarding taught me that the only way you can land a trick is to just do it over and over. The only way to make good art is to constantly make it. And the only way to constantly make art is to constantly make it. What do you think of all the AI stuff going on?
Impermanent: I think that a lot of digital illustrators should be looking for new jobs. I think that AI is exposing what true originality is versus something that can be replicated by a robot.
Dante: There's a whole section of the art community that absolutely despises it. Like, shut up. I personally love it. AI is letting people that haven't been creative in the past start to experience creativity. I don't know how anybody could hate that. Everyone should be allowed to play. And yeah, someone can try it out and create something better than what you've ever done in your whole life. But that's life. Just go make some better stuff.
Waitress: Would you like a cannoli or cheesecake?
Dante: Cannoli would be great, thank you… I don't feel threatened by AI. I can just use it if I want. It's like, who cares? The only thing that's scary is the ads and the fucking porn. I heard they're working on AI where ads will have your family members’ voices selling you shit. Targeted ads are gonna be so personalized. It’s fucked up. You're gonna be scrolling on Instagram and your mom pops up selling you CBD infused porn or something.
Waitress: One vanilla, one chocolate. Enjoy.
Follow Dante here
Buy Dante's book here