Gary Card: Giant Domed Cities

Gary Card cannot be described with a single label. Over two decades, the London-based artist, illustrator, sculptor, and set designer has built one of the most visually distinctive practices in contemporary culture, creating worlds for Comme des Garçons, Lady Gaga, Rei Kawakubo, Tim Walker, and Louis Vuitton, while developing a fine art practice that exists entirely on his own terms. His installations are maximalist, playful, and often a bit unsettling: smiling faces that are also melting, curiosity shops that feel like fever dreams. In this conversation, he talks about the gap between commercial work and creative freedom, why beauty alone has never interested him, and what it actually feels like to collaborate with someone who trusts you completely.

hube: Set designer, artist, illustrator, sculptor—the labels keep multiplying. At this point in your career, does any single one of them feel true, or has the work always existed somewhere between all of them?

Gary Card: The original polymath, master of none. I definitely exist in the in-between. I never really felt comfortable with the term set designer. I made artwork for fashion industry projects, whether that meant a photoshoot or a catwalk, it was always my goal to bring fine art into fashion. It sounds obvious now, but it was an almost radical proposal at the beginning of my career, and really gave me a signature style. As I got older, I became more of a traditional set designer. When I started, my rule was that I would never make a room set, ie a traditional hotel room or a wood cabin set. But in order for my studio to survive in this turbulent industry, that rule fell away, to the point that over the last 5 years there’s been a huge divide between my set design work and my art practice. I treat them as two separate schools of thought. Occasionally, both practices collide. But to do justice to my own creative impulses, I have to make artwork for myself, without the constraints of a client. Making my own work keeps me engaged and reaffirms why I wanted to make things in the first place.

h: Commercial work for Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Comme des Garçons and solo exhibitions on your own terms. How different does it feel to make something for yourself versus making it in service of someone else’s vision?

GC: Sometimes making sets to clients’ specific preferences can be freeing, in that I have certain parameters I have to work within, like following a recipe. Whereas making my own stuff is far more precarious, there’s far more danger in that respect, as the factors are limitless, so you have to be laser-focused on your point of view: what is my visual identity? There’s no big brand safety net to catch you, but at the same time creating something on your own terms is far more rewarding.