Studio Talk; Painting Is...

My guest this evening is Theodorus now most painter Mr. Stanwood has been the visiting critic at Brandeis University this past year and is a teacher at the Art Students League in New York. And we will be discussing painting is on the panel a seedling. Our dentist being a painter and teacher at the Massachusetts College of Art. Peter Griffin Oh a sculptor teacher at Brandeis University the uterus Thomas. How do you painting today. What is it. Is it the same thing that it was 10 years ago. Oh it's it isn't it isn't the same thing. You know it's about a flaw it's a garden. It's a box it's a formica table top. It's slick it's not slick. Some are involved in deep space Some are involved in shuttle space. Some are involved in money. Some are involved in art.

That's what painting is today. Well how can you discriminate between those who are involved in art and those who are involved in all sorts of other things. Oh I think when you visit galleries Rotella you kind of get an idea of who's involved and what I don't want to name names or galleries right now I wish you wouldn't but in terms of a non artist going to the galleries How do they make the determination. Well I think then it becomes a it becomes a very personal thing and I'm not an artist who sees these things and then it's a question of how one reacts to certain things. I as an artist and you know how some has been around for a long time I react and so it's also in a certain way. But I just have my own ideas about painting and sculpture are all right when I say What are your ideas. My pictures are paintings. Peter grubby sculptures of sculptures. They're involved with

a a a beautiful you know in a way unorthodox handling of materials. They're involved in a certain kind of space or creating a different kind of space according to the artist's ideas. They're involved in ideas whereas today you know they're really not involved in ideas and to sense of the plastic tradition. They're really more involved with you know they really involve the kind of social realism that's kind of. You know people who talk about the aesthetic revolution but that's not really in a static revolution at all it's really you know like they do very well if they live in the Soviet Union today this kind of art this kind of realism that has been hitting this country where the Soviet Union said this is the kind of art that they approve of. Well it's not an optimistic guy and it's not I'm smiling happy art is it. Well I never said it was but and that was what the Soviet Union requires a lot of you can have a grim face of your own.

Oh yeah that's true you have to smile. But I don't like the generous way you generate kind of art. Now that he's hit the big with it would you agree with. Yeah I think so I would agree that he would stop most. We had just done a couple weeks ago in a very interesting conversation which in some ways related relates very much to what we which then was just talked about. I would think that the religion which has been so I was with the Soviet Union that kind of social realist art has in a sense not a state this is still present still around us I think in spite of all the revolutions that have taken place. We have you know the first impression is the post impressions the cube is the neo plasticizers

and the Abstract Expressionist all of these revolutions have taken place for a very good reason certainly for a very profound reason. Because we wanted to change atmospherically the context of the image said we want to place the image in a new context. It was Do you accept the idea of our birth and see them as I suggested that you handle the material in the knees with that traditional sense is that what you mean by orthodox. Oh it's a bit yes. Well I mean I think it is partly in the sense of craft and that I would say if you go back to an academic way of presenting it people know how to work with materials and have learned to learn the craft.

Certain aspects of a figure in an academic sense but I think that it's not only the crap it's the knowledge that a person that an artist has about the way he manipulates materials with other materials and not the thing itself. And we make the mistake I think of going back to a very sentimental realism because we this is. You know way he makes us feel that working with the figure proves that we know something. You know that we have and we have the knowledge of something but that is working it in a realistic way that if if we deal with a figure in another that is in another context in the sense of relating it to the space let it dissolve in this space then we change the format to save the image. And I think this is the thing I'm interested in and I think of it is in there that I think stammers is also interested in

this. This approach is trying to get a new new kind of image so to speak. Well in an age when the anti intellectual attitude seems to be prevailing don't you both feel a little bit out of step a little bit away from the mainstream. Well I don't think I don't think so. You know I think I'm pretty good so I don't feel as if I've ever been out of it I've been one of the leaders sort of time gets to take a backseat now and then and I think Peter would go along with that and say you know just the fact that he lives out here doesn't put him out of the mainstream of American Art. He's been working he's been experimenting with things and perhaps he has been showing as much as he used to but I think his ideas of as an

artist have grown this way in a way it's more important than it has as a leader and a recognized leader in the area of the arts. You have seen the new leaders comedian. Well I've seen them come in the six months I've seen them go up. And so I can't you know consider this leadership sort of it's all political. It happens in countries they come in and they go out. How is it political. Well it's it's political in the sense of who you know what strings appalled what's going to sell what museums ish. I did a show one today one thing on the show tomorrow that sense it becomes a political thing. And if you're married if you're an artist and married to a critic it's very obvious what happens. Well how many critics are there to marry and it's a relatively limited political scene isn't it all except a few critics that America pandas are the ones.

Who are using the magazines as the. As the sounding board for today's art. What would you say would be a better sounding book. No listings up today I just soon see the museums close because the museums in this country aren't really involved in art anymore the way museums and in Europe are you see they don't support an artist to the fullest extent. They don't follow this artist you know from the first picture he bought the last picture he does. They drop artists in this country for the newest thing. And I don't think this is the way you know how things should be. I think things should be something like that I think things should be selected but I think that the wall should be hung you know with with every new thing that comes along. I don't think it's worth it I think it's that good. I don't think it's that important. They shouldn't be completely overlooked.

But you don't you know keep putting on that don't want a black horse every way. Were you part of the group of artists that picketed the Metropolitan Museum. Yeah that was about 1947 I'm with yes yes. And at that time you were saying my. We were not yet I don't remember what the issue was but the issues I would have to do with an exhibition and the exhibition was like. Want Pepsi-Cola us up on our right United States something I don't remember it was a big shell supposedly shell Actually I would guess you against the jury that was a jury that will select this work is really what we're against because it is a very sort of very conservative jury and we felt that none of the artists who were picketing the acts of the jury had a chance of getting through the jury I think that's what you know I think didn't go. Well in a sense.

Right now the position that you're stating you are taking the position of the establishment that you know now that I'm on that jury talking about where the nice man who's been dealing with the other gets juries in general. Why because you know let's just say it's a one man jury and given the free right of choice. When you get up a very jury in terms of you know all you know very sort of concerns and you get a mishmosh of you know a lot of different things. And I'd rather see a museum or a you know a gallery use one man to select a show and say this is the selection of one man rather than 10 men which doesn't mean anything. I think I do that you get a much more cohesive exhibition. In terms of our quality in terms of what I mean you know to the ideas yes you know I've been on enough juries and I've been so liberal of them on enough juries to see how they work and it's usually with another museum that is a very you know usually a very conservative selection but they've taken it when the how in hell they ever write of their

choices. How would you suspect that they are right now I don't know I think as as a museum people they played very safe. I remember a jury once I wasn't all that but I heard about it where. Somebody from a big New York museum selected. And he selected and they selected a no primitive exhibition. Yeah I mean it's a real private in the sense of Grandma Moses exhibition. But you know in this way he wasn't but he is not God at all. It's one man's choice and selection should have been very happy with it I'm sure. But I'm not interested in Grandmamma's. But I don't you think that was it there's no critical attitude on the part of the museum curators the critics who to a great extent almost invariably they they pick they have a tension to pick sides so to speak and it's always

a one sided point of view. And so this is this confuses the issue as far as painting is concerned because it would seem to me. There's no taste even assuming that they were realistic thing. Even there there's no discerning taste there to pick an abstraction the same thing or the same thing is true. I think it's a lack of taste all around. I think we. No one seems to know a good abstraction from a bad one or a good realistic work from a good one from a from a bad one and there's a tendency. Are you suggesting that there is no standard by which things can be judged. PETER Well I think that the standards I think mainly exist among a few discerning artist I think who I think have a broader broader scope and certainly more. Clear

idea of what is going on in the world. I go to museum people that some of us have been talking about generally to the taste makers the people who are the man said educator. People who we look to for leadership and now you're telling me that there are only a few artists who are able to really do that John. Well I mean by a few artists is that that they do get together and they do discuss the scene and it is very confused at the moment you have to admit it's confused in the sense that there is this bandwagon for the new young and the new and the very serious Salomon's other very serious artists that are involved in the whole scheme of art who really are the most serious seemed to be. They're the ones that rather that are not really shown to any advantage they're dropped by the weight and I think this is an

expression that Stan was used earlier and this is a very deplorable I think because the public does not get a continuous story rather a continuity in the developments of a style or the development of an art form. Let me say this one thing out of many spinning this timeless now wouldn't you agree that that a modern art museum let's say is in a sense obligated you know by its very nature to show the most recent you know avant garde new pieces of work right and not necessarily being good ones you see but I think isn't this their job so to speak. I don't see why any museum is obligated to show anything contemporary. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do unless you want to boost your attendance and and obviously this is what his aims are involved in today the more attendance you have the more money you'll have coming in.

I'm sure a show like the Andy Wyatt show broke all standing attendance records Freddy Music him. This doesn't make the any wife show any better. In fact it was rather depressing exhibition. You know I kind of like Why yes. You know I saw a single individual pictures and I had it you know I had a feeling as you know you going to see. Something kind of folklore show about it. But instead I saw you know a really dreary academic illustration Opana. It just doesn't interest me. But obviously this is what the American public wants and you know they have a comfort that they just haven't come very far in this cultural revolution. You know they keep talking about America. Revolution is the revolution at all. In fact if anything it's backsliding. It's really a very conservative thing that's happening in this country that's why I relate so much of the arc to social realism and the Soviet Union kind of I think they don't bring us this kind of stuff.

They love it. There's no revolution in this country. Well on a broad public basis are enough more people going to the galleries and museums. These are the statistics that are always quoted they certainly are you know and it's for us the biggest circus is the phrase free circus in the country. You know I was going to New York galleries on Saturday afternoons it's it's great that culture vultures. Well I'm not really interested in that. I just you know it's true. People have exhibitions like I have exhibitions I want to show my thing but the end and you do want to sell there's no question about it because a lot of you know to sell you feel freer in the patent from certain things but in the end you paint for yourself and certainly a pain for the few people who you know the few artists you know want to see that this is really what it's about and you know for instance I think this is a very good point it's well taken I think that there when I speak of the few artists and I want to qualify that expression is that I think there are a number of artists that I've

seen in their studios a number of artists I've spoken to who are dealing with new concepts and ideas which are not easily understood by the museum the Karaite or the critics and so on. And it's this that I find deplorable in the situation because it would seem to me that the couriers and the critic should really. In this culture of pollution they should go out to look and see the work of the artist in their studios to find out what they're doing we've got this to pay and not go out I think concentrate so much on the new thing. The young artist it's very possible that that very exciting things are going on in our with artists let's say in their 30s or 40s or 50s and 60s and I can only use one expression

there is use this this example of you live for it. Who in his search for the five great Titian paintings had to finally concede that the best the five best Titian's were done after 50 50 60 70 80 and 90 in those with the great fire the five great Titian paintings. Well it means that it does take an artist a long time to evolve a style or a concept. And I think the artist is alone in this. He is trying to express these new think new ideas relative to the past really. And this I think is very difficult for the for most people to understand it's certainly far removed from the public as a whole. They don't really know what's going on. Sure and this this sort of you know confirms what I said before not the museums not following up in an artist and showing him and collecting him. They

do it in Paris and Europe all the time. They have men they admire their man they support their men and it just doesn't happen in this country except as one of the two. This is just certainly true of the Italian tided sculptors who are have a great Bowlby at the moment. Certainly this country has gone way out for most of the Titans not as I think there are greater sculptors here in this country but they're neglected and most of the Italian sculptors are purchased here and given great fanfare and so on and many of the things are sold and so on so they have a great vogue in the at times to take care of the Italian sculptors in this country it doesn't matter they are not interested in their American sculptors or their American painters. It's a one gimmick after another and one new you know a new find a new discovery that they've seen in the you know they go out of their way to look for new talent so

that they forget that somehow art has a continuity as I said earlier. An artist develops it it's their role to go out to the studios and look at their work and to see what they're doing perhaps even speak to the artist to find out what they are and what they're about. You just simply can't look at it in one work of art and make a point. You know you've seen one painting or one piece of sculpture. I don't think this is added enough to make a judgment or to have a critical judgment of what the what the scene is you see and I think. I think occasionally one of the museum curators will visit an artist studio which is that if I say Cajun way when they're putting on a show a group show of some sort but that's the only time they come to the artist studios whereas in Europe as you know Stan when you go you know freight in Paris or and in Italy the artists visit each other all the time.

It's the collectors the critics that we mostly meet in the studio you know and it's a studio thing in this country. I don't know what it is but it's certainly not that I think one reason is that in France I spent some time there and and but it's also a you know one city Paris you see where all of these people are which is a very different situation than we have here. You see they have a very strong nationalistic feeling there but they're artists and I agree with what you said terms that they they back them up and they keep buying them and promote them you know in a decent way you say would you really like to see that type of nationalism developed here. I don't want to think of it in terms of nationalism to it I just want to see that support. Yes if you show in your work there are some who want to but I'm not interested in hearing Paris Paris doesn't interest me at all that way. I said there you see they're so anti-American. You know I can't stand to go all. Out. I mean this attitude is a completely fascist attitude that they've taken.

And whenever an American has had an exhibition there and especially at a French museum they've relegated him to the basement without any publicity or fanfare. And it's happened to a big good American painter in Paris. And it was Mao and Rose doing. And no Francis I don't you know I love France the French people I was all there before these two guys arrived. And it's going to be that when they die. But at the moment I don't think it's a place for Americans to really live in show effect. I would resent Americans going to France right now. I saw a few of your paintings style most at the University of Illinois you know and they have their large biennial exhibitions they're now in a case like this the museum people do travel around the country and visit artists studios and galleries and so forth I mean I think your work was elected obviously you know from New York this way. Yes it was. And you think that in a country like ours with the size and the

scope that we have that this kind of cross-section show would be better to to decide you know what work is really of value etc. Is that necessary with our side of it so I think I certainly think it's of value to know what's going on across the country and in the end it's going to be the it's going to be up to the whoever is selecting this work you know to have the right judgment for inclusion in such an exhibition. I don't know. I think these exhibitions are important but I think what's more important is. The way the Corcoran has been doing it for the last four years when they have their buy and you know it's. And that is to have them they visit artists or visit studios and visit galleries and make a selection of five or six pictures by an artist. So rather than have an exhibition of 200 people with one work have 25 invited artists with five to six pictures age and then

the rest just say to round out the exhibition with one of two individual pictures by 40 artist. I mean it's a much better way of doing it. And in this way one gets a complete an idea of what the artist is about right. And you know small show really it's a small show but a much more intense show. Yeah. Would you not have the same 25 people being repeated year after year. Oh I don't think they'll do that. And these acts and these shows well if they did that then it would be possible for someone who wants out of this I think from the very fact that a show that well if they did it if someone wanted to study a person's work his development and saw it that's a every two years. So all five paintings every two years he would start with over a period of 10 years to get a good idea of what this guy has done where he is and where he was going. Short for that you can always you can always see his work in the galleries in New York. Usually you know there are people like that you know have a show every year every two years

so you get a pretty comprehensive idea. Right. I just I just find it difficult to really get to see all of the shows that I would like to see. I hear what you say but I also know that if I want to know my feeling is if you can go to Washington you can go to New York you know. And I will say my my well I my my I wasn't suggesting suggesting that I was going to go to Washington. I was well I suspect that there might be a value in taking that type of show to city like Boston to Chicago to kind of circulated so that we can all get a feel for what was not on what happened at that moment. Well sure and the American Federation of Arts usually travels a large part of that special country right.

So I think yes please either one of the thing that occurred to me after listening to both of you talk is that. The question of this is a question of taste. You know value and taste in a work of art. That there are it would seem to me very exciting things that go on in certain periods in an artist's life and it's these these moments of these periods that museum or gallery or wherever are his show on around the country that it's very important to bring this new thing not not the I don't mean the new thing in the sense of a young artist who hasn't really had time to develop but rather to emphasize that say something exciting a new way a new concept which I think

would not have be of great value to other artist because the great all these complex intuitive ideas are concepts that are in and that an artist is expressing are the things that are other artists want to know about. Certainly it's important to the public. And it's these very things these new things that say that artists are doing at all ages I don't think that we concentrate much too much on one one side of things. The proof of it is in the recent development in which they carried out abstract expressionism. They came on the scene with pop and then now this new industrial art it's perfectly all right to show new directions I'm not against that but I do feel that we just simply cannot block out. You see some of the good things that are going on there. The artist contrary to what some people believe the artist in their late 40s your late 40s and early 50s are still producing.

I think it's a question of whether you're a producer you don't produce that it's not a question of being old that you're out of something. We're not we're not really quite seen art which you use in products or anything pragmatic in that sense well Art is a very very long process and it's a very complicated one and the artists that are still producing are the ones that should be seen and I think that they're the ones that will make the point not the new new thing. To emphasize the new thing to the extremes and accents of commercialism in Madison avenue that they go into the limits of they're going to buy that. They confusing me a bit you know. I get the feeling that you're talking taste Peter and some of us are talking knowledge and when you talk to Peter I get a feeling that you're talking knowledge at the same time and I get the feeling that when you're talking knowledge down those that you're talking taste part of the time. Is it a matter of

taste and knowledge or is it a matter of knowing where. Well seems quite happy it seems today most galleries involving taste most galleries are involved in fashions you know it sort of comes out the way it comes out to Madison every Vogue I think what they want is a constant. They want to get my wrong in saying that a stylist you consider yourself as you said you know you are a good painter and that you have more or less a line you know that you followed It's a very beautiful strong use of color and almost a poetic sense of that word are I and if you like to consider yourself you know a constant ever growing you know thing in art. I mean do you feel that that this is what you mean that that should be respected. Where is your show on more. Yes I think that this continuity that I spoke of earlier which I think that relates to what extent was said and what you were saying no we don't ever get a chance to see a continuity of an artist a fight we follow. Let's say following the

development of an artist over a period of years this would have to certainly come about as that was said earlier again about these purges of works of art over an extended period rather than say the way most artists or most artists today some of the serious ones had for cash sold something to the Museum of Modern Art in 1940 tool. And since then they haven't purchased a single thing of that artist that the public has a right to see the work of the development or this continuity which is not exist in reality today and this is unfortunate you know because the concepts of say the ideas and again this is not what you were talking about not taze but that it's these concepts these new concepts and ideas that are part of the artist background and part of these sensibilities. It is something that is very little

known. And so we go off in new directions it's like it's like the cat you know when you feed the cat and the butt hears a little noise it'll move around going 20 different direction before it goes back to eating again and this is the way the situation is. They're constantly being distracted by new things and they're the emphasis on the new is a bore. It's a total bore why you always the new thing. Don't we ever settle down I think you get something good up a year or two and say well let us see what the artist evolving so that it would seem to me that in the end we're going back to a frightful conservatism that will set by set art back a hundred years I think this is the danger. I think there are many situations where the public so this is even once the artist you know the concert artist to do something else you see that well this is not maybe right in the way that the artist would want it certainly but I think this is very true in other words they say well I've seen this I've seen this and what can he do now.

There's never I mean has this happened like this I still don't know what they saying. Well I mean this is I've said that I'm sure you've heard this of a thousand thousand times now you I'm sure you don't agree with and I don't either and most of these cases but is is true of the of the people who are buying should Michaelangelo team member and have just changed their style. You see they were up there a certain bias who who who backed up artists say these boys don't exist today really there was a man like it with Wales Rupert who bought Meg who bought American art you know from 1910 on and follow the develop of an artist and continue to buy certain artists and got a rep good you know representational group of work. There was Duncan Phillips in Washington who did that. And one of the big men he bought was Arthur duff and he got like maybe 40 Duff so you get a pretty good you know idea of Duff's work when you see them in the Philips gallery washed. Well today people are looking for the new the new all the time

but I'm not really involved in that. My pictures are new. But I'm also involved in a concept that creates that newness and not in terms of what new materials can I use what new industrial objects can I find that I can put together. I'm not involved in that. I'm just involved in strange ideas you know funny ideas from the beginning that I started my 1938 and developed them through 1968. Further this is what I'm involved in. I'm not involved in beams although I like to be as I'm not involve the bunch of flowers a lot like flowers. If I see it a need to use them I'll use them. But right now I haven't. And anyway you know these critics these people tell you a body always wants something new they want to be fashionable. Well you know this is what this is what helps keep making these new movements something for the new all the time. You know it wasn't six months before article paintings and you know these paintings that sort of Vasily eyes came out before they were and they were made into

dresses. You know so you can buy a dress and you can cut up and frame it for god sakes and you've got you got same thing is buying a painting so I mean what's it all about. But after that the only new movement that has interested me so far is the what people call the industrial thing. You know using beams and things you know this sort of very in the sense very honest and very straightforward and I always find this you know hour for myself as a skeleton that I can work with. You say once I see I can work with it and sense of how I react to it. I can dress it up or I continued it more than it is. And this is to me the most exciting thing so far. And a guy like Tony Smith who was an undergrad who was of was an architect you know had never shown built houses design a house for me in 1950. Finally came to the forefront to say you know it's a great arc and still there but look it's taken 20

years before anybody you know discovered it. Yes involve a sort of beautiful for you know his materials and just plywood covered with automobile paint the stuff. But you know that he's involved in something very beautiful but interesting enough this whole industrial movement still to some extent stems from the Russian constructivism not a lot perhaps we've gone further and there have been other things developed with an industrial area and so they've been able to use different things but then as a movement it's an extension really of the Russian construct of us you know you say I mean it's all very interesting you know the I was a social realism test there with Russia today. The others prefer Russia pre-Soviet or just beginning of the so it's all a very interesting thing. You're an addict Ed. at the Museum of Modern Art put a number of years ago with a number of very expensive European Karo sure are put on

display at the museum are not. Yes call rolling sculpture. Yeah and then there's the fact that they had an airplane propeller next to a brine Cousy. Well I was horrified of this and I really wonder if this is a number of years ago pressure 13 years or more ago. And I was horrified that anyone would want to museum I would want to equate it to an airplane but probably with the brunt Cousy. Well there are some very remote similarities but the moment you take an airplane propeller and compared to a work of art. Then you'd have to define your purposes you know decide well what is a work of art and I think we can back to the present day dilemma. You know what he's a work of art. And in a sense an airplane propeller can you know in a pragmatic sense. But just as for example most of the industrial art today this recent exhibition at the Whitney. I had a feeling that somehow these were misguided architects realize and not

sculptors of painters but really sort of relating to some some aspects of architecture and that I think we have to defining what it is that people are doing on it or architecture is it theater. You know like these happenings. What is it you say. And certainly the museums are adding to the confusion. So are the dealers but the dealers are the most notorious at the moment and what is you know it's for that fast Madison and your book you say that all this is being sort of perpetrated on the public that this is through you know like the public is made to see this and nothing else. And the fact is no room for anything that we consider art in the in the I would say in a very profound sense. You know like what is art. It's certainly not an airplane propeller nor is it a chair or an automobile.

We know that you know we just become very objective about it. I know a chair is a chair an airplane propellors an airplane pilot or an automobile is an automobile and that said anybody if it's an interior design that it's architecture it's not it's not sculpture but today almost anything in this sense is you know is quoted with art they say everything is art I get you know this total freedom which in a sense is his it is not a total freedom but rather a limiting kind of. Well to me it has a limiting influence because you're you're limited to something that is not architecture not sculpture. And you say you actually said but what is it really so I don't I'm not against it. But I would prefer to clarify it if it doesn't sound like you're for it.

Well I I would say I you know just as I like an airplane propeller not against an airplane apart but I'm against the idea that it's that it's that it's as good as a Broncos remember you know but you know I think that's look at Broncos unit south of it is as something itself. You see one thing is that it's more easily it's easier I should say to associate. You see the airplane propeller with airplanes. The beauty of flight romantic qualities of flight and everything else is probably much easier for a person to look at an airplane propellor think about all these things than it is for him to rise to the occasion to the level that save a beautiful brand but somebody of the face of the earth and it's a matter for you haven't you don't think of the airplane propeller airplane propeller in terms of art or anything like that. It's only when you see it in relation to art or shown in a museum up in a museum that they try to make it art and the Museum of not many years ago used public submissions called good design. You know

that sort of stuff in a way started all this is true they had you know they shoved you know very beautiful furniture and industrial objects for home use at the time but now you say this is all become this all down to up to the level of art now. That's what's happened. Then and you know there was that they're really responsible for all that I think but also just where we were just had one purpose you see in a certain time. But the whole purpose has changed. Yeah I think they were responsible and it's come to pass now that this kind of influence you say has now been a septic and minus you know you see the museums just full of people looking for a thrill or looking for something to be amused by all kinds of gadgets and so on now. You know you start something is like the Pandora box you know you open it up and then you know the years from now you know it will have its harvest and this is

the kind of thing we see around today. RAZ I think if we go back to that notion of continuity I simply can't get away from it that an artist you know develops from a certain childlike period in his life it develops his ideas. And it's it's hard it's not this earth science thing of it being a lot of other things but what it really is let's think about what it really is and if we look at the thing in itself by just the art the idea from that point of view of art the recreated thing that we are it has not changed for thousands of years it seems to me. When you think about opening Pandora's Box and you think about who did it. In this country I think we have to go back to you think your parents opened the Pandora's box you broke with the. Social realist you broke with the romantic realist movements in the

United States and you started this with this extract expression is Byzantine one point you broke with that continuity the tradition you open the box for us. God help us. But you did you. Well I did this with the Swiss the real great this is when I married you know I came into its own and I think painters governor started started acting like real people instead of a pale imitation of something. Well I think that my feeling is that it was confused the They'd leave this ideas behind abstract expressionism were totally misunderstood by many of the young artists and so that we were accused I think of so many things that are not true. Oh I feel that was a great sense of freedom and what many of the artists were attempting to express in abstract expressionism.

Most people don't seem to realize how varied it was you know when you think today people just think of Pollock or KLEIN That isn't all they watch too abstractly. The reason why my God there are 31 or 32 people involved in it and if one wants to look at those 32 points of view you will be astonished at how different they were. Oh absolutely completely buried. But all this rest today you say it's very hard to distinguish one sculptor one painting from another. I mean they're so close. People working within the say the shade canvas and using the local laws. I mean it's very hard to record to say that's this and that's what this is this guy this guy it's difficult as hell maybe this is what they want you know they want the sun and then they know that's fine. But gee I'd really like to know that you did that particular picture and it wasn't you know group therapy or group

journalism. But unfortunately this is the way the whole country is going. You're a number of your members time was done a roundtable discussion and he studied some years by I think it was originally Gottlieb. Set up a rather kind of manifesto or a kind of dialectics about the group and that one of the things he did he did say that everyone seemed to agree to was the fact that we were getting together because we had we were the same where ideas were the same. We were in total agreement as to the direction we were going and that we emphasize the sameness of style and I think this became rather dangerous in later years because it really turned out to

be something. I don't mean dangerous but it confusing not to say to the public that present a problem because they have the feeling that we were all expressing the same thing or in reality what we were really trying to do is get together as a group merely to protect ourselves from museums and a dealer. Yeah. And this was a venue together of a lot of serious artists and we. Certainly we're different then we are also today and it's the east this difference that these people fail to realize and I think that many people who rebelled against the you know sappy expressions mostly the pop and now the industrial group are rebelling against the out expression for the wrong reason. Yes absolutely and what's interesting about that is you know it was the first time in American art history that you were able to say the New York school of painting and

sculpture because for centuries they've been talking about power the power school of painting. And finally got something that was inherently you know. In approach in concept an American thing and that at the same time that they're trying to kill it and bury it you know that they want to accept it. They It's unfortunate that they try to do this in America the way they destroyed buildings that destroyed cars that destroyed people they destroyed. Ah I don't know what it's all about. Yeah but don't you feel that you're doing there Kerry that is that there is this continuity in your work that you're doing things more or less along the lines of your earlier things every day finding them more and so on. But I think so Peter. You know and I feel the same way. You see I feel that I project mean I know that it will do once it is doing big sculptures for a long time they've been cutting space in many ways for a

long time. And today this is all the talk about Sweat's culture press space. But you did 25 years ago these monumental things on they were all they're all totally destroying today because the museums at that time were not ready to write interested then they weren't interested at all. Now I find myself in the same position I watched with in 1950 when I did these large plastic figures which were I think a new concept in space new ideas. A new and abstract interpretation of the figure. Yet all these things are destroyed because the museums would not set that I had to destroy them. And yet today I feel the same way they do in the museums are here. I feel they're in the same way that they're doing the same thing they did a few years ago. They're always interested in the fringe thing. The thing that's immediately apparent the thing that will meet it with public approval it's the mass idea. You see it's like Madison Avenue. They're only interested in that they're not

really interested in hard. And if we go back to that which I rather doubt then I think we'll have some sanity you know. But other than if it doesn't then I think we're going where we're going to misunderstand everything that the artist have attempted to do in the past 25 years which I think was the great way since the great breakthrough for American art. And let me ask fior Steinitz a question again I I said earlier I know you're painting and you mentioned all the new things that are going on the fact that you you think the beam of the your designer friend design your home for you made it sound right now. Do these things have an effect in any way and you are or have you think of any possible changes in your working relationship to this or is it just a completely secluded thing that you think I. Put the quarter in look at me like the way I've been collecting art nouveau for 25

years. I accept that and put it in the other corner and look at it you know you feel not only your private mind that belongs to me as you know I guess my feeling is I discovered him I like the idea of having discovered him by having him you know designed my first house and it's something very special. You feel no need to add to changes some of the things that say that are going on today. There are there are exciting you these really have no effect on you as an artist. Well I feel revived I think by pictures of change that sense for sure developed. Sure but you know the things I'm doing today. Nineteen sixty seven certainly relate to things I was doing and I think 52 you know there's a switch here and there but basically in terms of certain shapes and colors it's like basically the same thing but 17 you know years advance and I think this is all one can ask for.

Well Tony Smith is human he is a man of very good taste. He you know he had taught at New York University a number of some time in the I think in the 40s middle 40s and he taught a sculpture course there and in these marvelous constructions that I was very fascinated with and I used to go to his I used to visit him you know and he's going to while he was conducting his classes and he would bring in students of over to my studio and we discussed these ideas he's a man of very discerning taste not only in architecture but certainly in these constructions he's a man that had a terrific background rather modest in the in the in his accomplishments. Yet he's done a lot of art. He's designed a lot of the studios and houses for many of the artists as well as you think of yourself. And it's taken all these years to bring him on the scene. And even though you know these

boxes are beautifully. You know plan they gave us this city and a beautiful balance you know this is Tony Tony Smith who has to do everything he touches is you know great knowledge of what the hell that you know he's also a guy who you know knew what was happening in the 40s and was a little means he had tried to get things you know boys like a Pollock a new med. if it's stale and things like that you know it's funny I signed up with a very beautiful beautiful collection of things. Toward the end of Pollock's life the critics started talking power like having him painted himself into a corner being trapped by Pollock in a sense do you feel as though you were trapped to some extent by someone else you know I mean just on I don't feel as if I'm trapped and I don't think Jackson has dropped the fact that he seemed to he

seemed to have been rather sensitive to it judging from his last show. Well as Les show showed it going back to a certain almost abstract surrealist images that he was doing in the 40s Well I don't think of this as being trapped I think this is really nourishing yourself you know I think it's feeding off itself but really never rushing after all if he had 20 good years of work and then going back again. See re-examine certain things I think that's a trap. I think that's that's a very normal situation you see. Again they're trying to destroy something very beautiful and very great. So I said before how could you know why. Why are they trying to destroy Pollock. They try to destroy the money it might bring in. You know he's not he's not getting it. When they try to do the guy's dead leave him alone accept them for what they are and they try to do the same thing with friends Klein.

But both artists seem to at the same time if your life like France Klein's pictures to a certain extent. Have been a big influence on the sort of industrial art the Beeman you know being sculpture right. Yeah because this is where France was painting the structure. But both painters seem to have been rather sensitive to this to this type of criticism. Well wouldn't you be. I'm I don't know. I mean after all even Harry Truman wrote a nasty letter to a critic. But I didn't change a style he didn't he didn't feel as though he had to move. From what he was doing. Who hiring you. Well I don't know. Just a great guy. Yeah. Yeah I was just thinking about the artist.

You know like painting themselves in the corner. Well it just so happened that you know David Smith and Pollock died and they're you know not to be an accident. I don't know that. I suppose we we can wipe anybody out if we decide to do it you know. Like Forrest in New York. It was trying to bring together let's say some some notions about a club that had been started by several people in and the moment you mention the name you know you can wipe out names that were connected with that club. But those ideas if you want to live by saying well a day just were not there so that you mean the white about a person so that leaves you all alone and you're the only person that was there and you make that history yourself the same with a lot of young painters you can like Pollock out you can white rock you know. Klein No. DAVID SMITH No but I don't I don't

think we have. We've we've done this in the past how can you wipe out Rembrandt and Titian you can't wipe them out you can say they have many I think and say they don't that they're that they're old hat they they don't work in styles like this or do not attempt to work it out like the old masters but you know I don't wipe anyone out I think. I try to analyze the situation or to see it as it is I assent things. And perhaps some people are bitter because they're not doing anything. So it's very easy for them to whine about other artists to say well the problem is that once an artist has really invented something it is really found something then he is stuck with it. And this is when they tend to you know wipe them out because there's something definite conclusive and formed you know to wipe out. That's where people who have more compassion than most people. So you know that's that's sort of true artist

who was named Klein who said to me good AI has to evolve by Newman and he said well what do you think about by you know what did you think by humans. Sure he was a painter and then Klein turned around and said What do you it's very good to have more on you know just trying to lead us down asked Peter great the dentist thing thank you very much for joining me on studio talk.