The Books, Songs and Video Games that Influence The White Pube

To celebrate the release of ‘Poor Artists’ (2024) this week, The White Pube share a list of cultural media for frieze, consisting of works that have left a lasting impression on their practice and continue to influence their approach to the art of writing.

Japanese Breakfast, ‘Paprika’ (2021)

Gabrielle de la Puente Michelle Zauner sings about the creative process as if all artists are overpowered wizards with magic streaming out of them – magic that electrifies, drowns and transforms any living being in their wake. I listened to Japanese Breakfast’s album Jubilee on repeat when we were writing Poor Artists, and it made me believe the book could be a spell. A mad, joyous spell. With the marching drum undercurrents of the music, the lyrics remind me of ripping loose a Beyblade or running down a giant hill at full pelt. It dares me to write about loving art with the same energy. Art criticism is way too sober. I would love to write something that makes the reader want to do a high kick. Bang a tambourine. I want euphoric criticism that becomes a kind of art in and of itself.

Hannah Black, Dark Pool Party (2016, Dominica/Arcadia Missa)

Zarina Muhammad My first art job was a weekend invigilation shift at Arcadia Missa, back when they were still in Peckham under the railway arches. I was still at art school. I got paid cash in hand and also in publications. Hannah Black’s Dark Pool Party landed in my hands at the end of my shift. I read books, but not like this. In the first story in the collection, ‘Celebrity Death Match’, I read the sentence ‘there was a Dutch man at Rihanna’s symposium who reminded her of her racist brother-in-law, she said’. My brain went pop, the lights switched on. It was like reading someone’s dream, it was like reading words someone had fished out of their pocket, it was delightful and surprising. I realized that writing could be literally whatever you wanted it to be. Hannah Black handed me a yardstick for measuring what art-writing could be, Hannah Black opened up a world of possibility that I am still scrambling across on my hands and knees, screaming.

Ma Qiusha, All My Sharpness Comes From Your Hardness (2011)

GP To this day, I still haven’t felt as emotional in a gallery as I did watching the top-down video of artist Ma Qiusha’s legs hanging off the back of a car as the ice skates on her feet grind along the concrete. I saw the piece at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art as I was starting my writing practice, and I’ve wanted to match its example ever since. The nimble show-don’t-tell dance. The pain, the focus. The poetic tableaux of ice skates cutting the road. I felt a million things before I’d even read the press release. I hope one day I write something that makes other people feel as deeply.

Hennessy Youngman, Art Thoughtz (2011)

ZM Imagine it’s 2014 or thereabouts. Imagine you’re a very confused art student, you’re in the studio and you’re desperately googling ‘what is relational aesthetics?????? ’You’re hoping, praying, you’ll find an answer that’s normal, one that’s NOT written in artspeak or academic riddle. Hennessy Youngman’s video comes up and you thank the Lord Jesus Christ because he’s talking in real sentences with real words and he’s actually funny? He’s cracking jokes and he’s talking about the internet, and he’s cynical, scathing. He’s critical and this is probably a pisstake, but it’s teaching me something? He’s also absolutely right. Not to sound dramatic but without Art Thoughtz, there might not be The White Pube. At least, not as you know it. He showed us how to hit that sweet spot: critical pisstake. We’ve spent nine years chasing it.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017, Nintendo)

GP I grew up playing games, then took a short, boring hiatus while I studied art at university. When I came back to games, they were no longer these mindless, childish things I did for fun. They were complex packages combining all artforms in one interactive experience. Visual art, music, acting, writing, storytelling, 3D design, game mechanics. I realized after playing Breath of the Wild that I have spent more time in game worlds than I have in galleries. I have laughed more, and I have more easily found community in gaming too. My art criticism has to cover game design because I think it might be the ultimate art form. Roller coasters are also up there, but until I learn to drive, an Alton Towers review is out of reach.

Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad’s ‘Poor Artists’ is published by Particular Books and is available to order now