Joey Skaggs: The Fat Squad

Joey Skaggs is a performance artist whose life work is poignant, hilarious, intriguing and frequently, unbelievable. He’s also, not surprisingly, an amazing storyteller. More than 50 years ago, he set in motion his own form of performance art using satire and irony to make social commentary. He began creating fictitious characters, businesses, and events all of which the mass media reported as fact. Building on his successes, his work became more and more complex and outrageous. Still the news reported it. Journalists looking for sensational, eye-popping stories simply could not resist.

The “Bad Guys Talent Management Agency”, created to help his friend get an acting job; the “Fat Squad”, where you could hire commandos to keep you on your diet; a “Celebrity Sperm Bank” where you could purchase rock star sperm; a portable confessional booth, “Portofess”, where you could confess your sins in the streets. These and many more performances on a wide array of subjects have garnered enormous media attention world-wide.

Joey’s performances take place in real life and in public. They are here today and gone tomorrow. Journalists and unsuspecting strangers frequently become part of the work. Early on he realized that he had to collect as much proof (photos, print articles and television news reports) as he could or no one would believe these things actually happened. As a result, he has an extraordinary archive of multi-media materials that provide fascinating context to his escapades.

I’ve helped Joey manage his archive for a long time and have a keen familiarity with and admiration for his work. In 2020, we joined forces to produce, direct, shoot, and edit this new oral history series, “Joey Skaggs: Satire and Art Activism, 1960s to the Present and Beyond”. In each one he shares not only the backstory of various performance pieces, but a window into what he was thinking then and what he thinks now looking back. My contribution is to meld his on-camera interviews and the incredible back-story into engaging gems. To date, we’ve shot more than 40 stories and I’ve edited eleven. Each one is a complete piece that can stand on its own or in concert with others. We won’t know the shape of the end result until we’re further along, but we are creating a unique way of viewing Joey’s work in a non-linear fashion.

I’m excited to share these films with people who may not yet know Joey’s work, or who may know it but may not be aware of the inside stories. I find them inspirational and I hope other people do too.