Derek Erdman

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American artist (born 1973)

title: "Derek Erdman" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["american-contemporary-painters", "postmodern-artists", "american-male-musicians", "rappers-from-chicago", "20th-century-american-painters", "american-male-painters", "21st-century-american-painters", "21st-century-male-artists", "artists-from-chicago", "american-pop-artists", "1973-births", "living-people"] description: "American artist (born 1973)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Erdman" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American artist (born 1973) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

FieldValue
nameDerek Erdman
imageDerek Erdman in Scotland.jpg
birth_date
birth_placeChicago, IL
occupation
websitehttps://derekerdman.com/
::

| name = Derek Erdman | image = Derek Erdman in Scotland.jpg | birth_date = | birth_place = Chicago, IL | occupation = | website = https://derekerdman.com/

Derek Erdman (born December 6, 1973) is an American performance artist and painter from Chicago.

Early life

Erdman was raised in Ohio by a single mother with what he has described as "very little stability" in his upbringing. He went to Kent State University to study English literature but dropped out after getting a job at Kinko's. He credits working at the copy shop with teaching him efficiency and the basics of graphic design. He published zines, contributed regularly to Seattle's The Stranger, and learned to paint by copying the clip art of Tom Tierney.

Career

Artist

Erdman has made his living for most of his career as an artist, though he has held day jobs, including as receptionist at Sub Pop and at a civil rights law firm.

Erdman moved to Chicago in 1997 and began showing his art and selling his paintings from his home during art walks. He worked at record stores and eventually part-owned one, but sold his share in the store to sell his art full-time. His last solo exhibit in Chicago during that period took place in August 2010, after which he relocated to Seattle. In 2017 he moved back to Chicago, where he continued to exhibit his work.

He is a noted mail artist and runs a mail art Friend Club with over 2,300 members.

Erdman directed the 1998 found-footage film Girls at the Carnival.

Hoaxster/Prankster/Provocateur

Erdman created many widely publicized hoaxes and pranks, such as purportedly selling Kurt Cobain's possessions on Craigslist, posting satirical posters around Chicago, and making prank calls to Real World cast members.

Rap Master Maurice

Erdman's revenge rap service, at one time "perhaps [his] flagship enterprise," worked as follows: if you had an incident or a problem with another person, you could pay Rap Master Maurice $17, and he would write a rap about your issue. Then he would deliver the rap in a phone call.

Rap Master Maurice was created when one of Erdman's friends was having a personal issue with a co-worker. The friend asked Erdman to give the co-worker a warning, which Erdman considered too threatening. Consequently, Erdman decided "perhaps i would do it in rap form". Erdman pursued the Rap Master Maurice act because he wanted to be more "service oriented" and "live off the things [he] made and not have to have another job."

''Kathy McGinty''

Kathy McGinty is an album of prank phone calls recorded by Erdman and a friend in 2002. The eponymous Kathy is actually a collection of pre-recorded phrases on a Yamaha SU10 sampler. Callers expecting to have phone sex with a young woman instead conversed with "Kathy," who repeats herself often, responds bizarrely to questions, and becomes increasingly unhinged as the calls progress.

Professor Jacob Smith of Northwestern University discussed the cultural significance of the Kathy McGinty calls in his 2008 book Vocal Tracks: Performance and Sound Media. He wrote that Kathy uses vocal performance "to explore the boundary between human and machine, and to search for the lines dividing technology, self, and performance."

In a 2002 BBC interview, Dan the Automator revealed that Kathy McGinty was the album he had most recently purchased.

Personal life

Erdman was married to musician Emily Nokes for three years in the 2010s. The band Death Cab for Cutie mourned Erdman's departure from Seattle for Chicago in a song, You Moved Away. He now lives in Chicago in Logan Square.

References

References

  1. Swanson, Fritz. (1 February 2014). "The Discarded American Palette".
  2. Bickel, Chistopher. (14 May 2015). "Derek Erdman: America's greatest living 'Art Garbage Movement' painter". Dangerous Minds.
  3. Sessums, Zoë. (21 April 2020). "Derek Erdman's Chicago Apartment Is Brimming With Art and Oddities". Architectural Digest.
  4. Sabella, Jen. (6 August 2010). "Five Questions With...Derek Erdman, Chicago Artist On His Way Out Of Town After 14 Years". Huffpost.
  5. Goggins, Joe. (7 August 2018). "Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard: On new album 'Thank You For Today' and Seattle's slow disintegration". The Independent.
  6. White, Anna. (5 September 2018). "After eight years in Seattle, Derek Erdman is back in Chicago, and he's having a show". The Independent.
  7. (17 April 2025). "You got WHAT in the mail?? Mail art in Chicago history and today". WBEZ.
  8. Friedman-Parks, Shira. (8 April 2025). "Chicago's mail art renaissance". Chicago Reader.
  9. "Girls at the Carnival". Letterboxd.
  10. Reilly, Dan. (4 March 2014). "That Kurt Cobain Craigslist Sale Is a Sub Pop Hoax". Spin.
  11. Hauser, Alisa. (13 June 2018). "'Feed The Rats' Poster Encourages Chicagoans To Love The Prolific Rodents". Block Club Chicago.
  12. Erdman, Derek. "Prank Calls to the Real World". luckypeach.com.
  13. (16 August 2011). "Rap Master Maurice on Starting Your Own Paypal Empire". NBC Chicago.
  14. link. (2012-02-23, ''FUEL.TV'', Chicago, 2009. )
  15. [http://www.cbc.ca/wiretap/index.html?copy-podcast "26 Minutes, 30 Seconds"], ''WireTap Radio''
  16. "My Muff Has Tusks".
  17. (August 2008). "Vocal Tracks: Performance and Sound Media". University of California Press.
  18. (28 April 2002). "My Music: Dan the Automator".
  19. (24 August 2017). "You Can Quit Us". Sub Pop.
  20. "Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard".
  21. Parrella-Aureli, Ariel. (7 December 2023). "You're Invited To Artist Derek Erdman's Historical Logan Square Home For A Birthday Market". Block Club Chicago.

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american-contemporary-painterspostmodern-artistsamerican-male-musiciansrappers-from-chicago20th-century-american-paintersamerican-male-painters21st-century-american-painters21st-century-male-artistsartists-from-chicagoamerican-pop-artists1973-birthsliving-people