tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20239079.post4271603008982369758..comments2024-03-04T04:12:57.650-05:00Comments on THEORY NOW: Close(r)Mark Cameron Boydhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04697922195376438088noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20239079.post-37346250062568476142009-11-13T01:32:31.326-05:002009-11-13T01:32:31.326-05:00Hi Mark,
Thank you for your response. I should h...Hi Mark,<br /><br />Thank you for your response. I should have included more details about the documentary to provide some context. The film was made by Marion Cajori and titled "Chuck Close." http://www.arthousefilmsonline.com/2008/11/chuck-close-2.html<br /><br />I actually saved the film on Tivo, so I've transcribed, as best I could, the bit of Close's comments that lead me to contact you.<br /><br />Chuck Close is speaking about how Al Hold was important to him at Yale, encouraging the students to go to New York city. Close says he used to visit Andy Warhol's "Exploding Plastic Inevitable." Then it cuts to Warhol saying how he doesn't believe in painting anymore and he liked the combination of music, art and movies, thus the "Exploding Plastic Invevitable." <br /><br />Close then says, while pictures of the work produced by the three artists (Warhol, Pearlstein and Katz) is on the screen, "We don't often think of Warhol as a figurative artist, but, in fact he of course was. Certainly Warhol along with, uh, Philip Pearlstein and Alex Katz, uh, kicked the door open for the kind of, uh, intelligent figuration... but I really didn't open myself up to the people who were figurative." <br /><br />Cuts to Katz<br /><br />Alex Katz - "Chuck's work, I remember when I first saw it it was initially amazing. The way it could control the space in a room - from the up close to the back. It was much more interesting than the story about the person. The story about the person is just like any other story about a person. You know - he's rich or he's handsome or he's powerful or he's weak or he's got soul. It seemed very, very uninteresting next to the thrill of seeing an object that's magic, you know. Chuck's working from photographs and I'm working from direct information. But you have the thing, trying to deal with what you're looking at rather than what you think about it. And, uh, I think it is very difficult to grasp what you're looking at."<br /><br />Katz continues, about his own work, which you may find interesting...<br /><br />"There was one painted I did that had just three windows in it and the only guy who got it was a guy from Canada. And he said, "oh, that's a camp and seven thirty in the morning on a foggy day." Now, no one else would have that experience to put that together. They just see it as an abstract painting or an arrangement of forms, so I don't think many people have optical experiences they have, uh, with the perception of things, I think the most of the way people see things is at this point is almost all through movies and media. My instinct were always figurative painting. And my view was to make post abstract figurative style. And it was problematic whether you could make a large scale figurative painting -it hadn't been done - I mean, if it was done it was like retro - sort of adapting the brush strokes or something, but the really abstract figurative thing was... it couldn't have been made without abstract painting because it uses the same grammar."<br /><br />I'll let you chew on the above before asking further questions. Thank you for your time and insights.<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Curtis,Horological Rexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14473425987753126253noreply@blogger.com