Joe "Wild Joe" LaCroix
Created | Updated Aug 20, 2003
Famed North American woodsman and artist. "Wild Joe" attained notarity in late 1987 when his barefoot summit of K21 shattered the previous2 record made by Swedish climber Torstein Clannfhearghuis, who took to the peak in double layered stockings in March 1921.
Wild Joe and the Art World
Wild Joe spent much of the early ninties in seclusion, his hiatus from public life a result of his addiction to the barbital that he used to sedate his frostbite.
Wild Joe returned to the public eye in 1999, when he opened a gallery of painted and sculpted works, titled The Eunuch: Diary of a Warrior. The show featured works that he had been creating throughout the decade. Utilizing various media (oil, acrylic, blood), Wild Joe created a new breed of mixed-media forms. Henry: Skull Walk Stick is an example of sculpture using natural forms and materials. Nude Circus on the other hand, used a more traditional medium, acrylic on board, while exploring an unorthadox theme, nude circuses.
The show was held in the lobby and ajoining bathrooms of the La Buvette building in south Minneapolis, recieving attention from not only art critics and meuseum goers, but also from the middle managers and office workers of the building's banking firms:
"I went to work on Tuesday morning as usual, then during my lunch hour, they had installed this art show thing. On my way back from TGI Friday's something caught my eye. I stared at it for over an hour. I didn't find out until later that it was called The Purple Jesus People Eater... needless to say I didn't go to work on Wednesday."
The exibition gained media attention when Wild Joe, inebreated, exibited his scar-ridden privates to a crowd of visiting animal rights protesters, exclaiming, "Save this!". The protesters, who were speaking out against the piece Adolf the Endangered Seal3, began to riot, and a number of lobby elevators and antique light fixtures, which dated back to the turn of the century, were irreparably damaged.
Literary Aspirations
Joe "Wild Joe" LaCroix, while best known for his Regean-era adventuring, was one of the most unique and troubled artists of the late twentieth century. His 2002 memoir, Goddamn: On the Karakoram Range, sheads little light on his inner phyche. However, his recently re-discovered 1996 novella, Oregon, a thinly veiled autobiography about a man who hitchhikes from Fresno, California to Coos Bay, Oregon4, only to lose his mind to an addiction to muscle relaxants, provides a portrait of a lad insane5, who's hopes are destroyed by his own unconscious desires.
At the time of this writing, Oregon has not been distributed by a major publishing firm, however, photographs of selected works from The Eunuch, entitled No Penis Muscle Man, featuring free-form poetry by the artist, is avaliable through NakedArt Press.
Works in Progress
Wild Joe is in talks with Charlie Friedenberg6 to open a new mixed-media exibtion in the Jeune Vacher Gallery in New York City, where he will conduct readings from his as-yet-untitled book of short stories.
1The world's second largest peak.2...and little known.3Oil on whaleskin, 22"x124".4...while barefoot.5David Bowie fans will recognize this as the phonetic pun from his 1973 album Aladdin Sane. Wild Joe has long claimed this to be his favorate album. However, in a 2002 interview with Nu Artist Monthly, he admitted to have never heard of David Bowie.6Art promoter from San Francisco, California.
