MARKO DANIEL, TATE MODERN:
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Tate Modern. My name is Marko Daniel,
I am the convener of adult programs, and it gives me great pleasure
to welcome you here this evening for tonight’s first event
in our new series of conversations
and talks by artists, The American Artist Lecture Series. This is a program that we have developed
together with Marjorie Susman, wife of the U.S. Ambassador in London,
whose brainchild this was, and we started talking about it
just over a year ago, and it seemed such a brilliant idea,
that we've now started this, and we're doing a series
of twice yearly talks by artists, starting tonight with Brice Marden,
and, in fact, the next one in the series will be Maya Lin
on the 15th of October. For tonight though, I just wanted
to welcome you all here, and welcome of course
our fellow partners in this project, but also give you just a few words of kind
of housekeeping advice. Please turn off your mobile phones
or set them to silent ‒ and we'll have the ‒ a couple of introductions here now
and then a presentation by Brice Marden, followed by a conversation
with Nick Serota and time for questions. When it comes to question time,
please raise your hand if you want to ask a question,
and we will bring a roving microphone to you,
so that everybody can hear you. For now though, I just wanted to say again
how delighted we are to be working with the American Embassy here in London
and with the Art in Embassies Program. Following me now, the second introduction
of the evening will be from Virginia Shore, who is the head
of the Art in Embassies Program, Virginia over to you. MS. VIRGINIA SHORE, CHIEF CURATOR
AND DEPUTY DIRECTOR,
ART IN EMBASSIES PROGRAM: Good evening, it's wonderful to be here. This has been about a year, as Marko said,
it's incredible to work with the Tate Modern and with the London Embassy, Marjorie Susman
came up with this idea about a year ago. Our program is ̶ our 50th anniversary
is this year, so we're coming up
with all sorts of new programs and ways to enhance
what we've been doing for the past 50 years. We curate art exhibitions
for the ambassadors’ residences all over the world and now our program
has grown in the last decade, in the right direction we think,
and now we actually, it's not just about
American artists anymore, it's also about artists
from the host countries so with every new embassy
or consulate that we're building, we have a team of people
who curate site specific exhibitions that are permanent. We commission work,
and the program is now truly become about cross cultural exchange,
so it's moving in the right direction, and we're all so excited. I just wanted to say thank you
to the Tate Modern. Marko’s been incredible to work with,
and Sir Nicholas Serota, and Chris Durkan, and the team and the London Embassy, Marjorie Susman and Helen
and Lynn and Monique and the whole team there
and our director. I'm the Chief Curator
and Deputy Director and our director, Beth Desoritz,
who’s sitting here in the audience as well, it's so great to be here,
and this is one of six lectures that we're so excited to do
and thank you for coming and we hope we'll see you again on the 15th
and now let me introduce Marjorie Susman. Thank you. Wait, most importantly,
I forgot to intro ‒ to thank the artist. When we got together –
when we got together 8 months ago and were trying to figure out
how we were going to do this and who the artist would be,
truly at the top of each one of our lists, we all wanted to aim high,
and we put Brice Marden down never knowing whether
it would really happen and it – it has,
and we're all so incredibly grateful that you're here,
and it's very exciting, so thank you. (applause) MARJORIE SUSMAN:
Last August, sitting on our porch at our home in Nantucket, I told my friend
and philanthropist, Agnus Gund, of my dream
of bringing the most iconic American artist to London. What a way to celebrate
America's greatness in creativity. What a way to expand
our London Embassy’s commitment to use American
modern and contemporary art as a form of cultural outreach
and wider diplomacy. Aggi's enthusiasm matched mine.
We exchanged a flurry of ideas. She encouraged me forward
to think big. On returning to London,
I went straight at it. With Virginia Shore
of the Art in Embassy program and Marko Daniel
of the Tate Modern the result of our collaboration
is the American Artist Lecture Series. For me, it was essential
that the inaugural lecturer be a rockstar of the art world. The overwhelming choice of our –
of our whole partnership was that we should launch
the initiative with Brice Marden, one of the most influential
artists of our times. In the early 1960's,
while a graduate student at Yale, Brice developed a way of painting
that is distinctly his own. Public recognition was swift. Almost immediately his work
was seen as powerful and important. By age 36, he had a survey of his work
at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Over 30 years on,
his impact is undiminished and his gifts to us
continue to be profound, engaging, and challenging. During an interview, when asked,
“Who do you paint for?” Marden answered,
“I paint because it's my work, “and I paint because
I believe it's the best way “that I can pass my time
as a human being, “and I paint for myself,
and I paint for my wife “and I paint for anyone
that's willing to look at it, “really at heart,
for anybody who wants to see it, and when I say see it, I mean see it.
I don't just mean look at it." Brice is an artist
whom all the art world holds in highest regard,
and that is rare indeed. We are privileged
that his wife Helen and daughter Mirabelle
are here with us this evening. It's an honor and a yearlong dream
to introduce my hero, Brice Marden. But first, I'd like to – to bring Sir Nicholas Serota,
Director of Tate forward to say a few words himself.
Thank you. (applause) SIR NICHOLAS SEROTA,
DIRECTOR, TATE: Marjorie, ladies and gentlemen. I was in Chicago
over the weekend for the opening
of the Lichtenstein exhibition, which comes
to Tate Modern in February, and I got off a plane last night and I woke up this morning
with complete jet lag and walked into a door,
if anyone wants to, I don't want you all to be spending
the next half hour speculating as to why I look as I do. What Marjorie didn't say of course
was that both she and Lou, as… are not only the American Ambassador
and his wife in this country, but also great collectors
and passionately committed to the visual arts. We've been particularly fortunate
in London over the last six or seven years in having Ambassadors follow each other
in the American Embassy who have had a passion for the visual arts, Bob and Maria Tuttle
and now, Lou and Marjorie Susman. But, it was Marjorie's initiative,
as she said, to initiate this series, and we're really incredibly grateful
to you Marjorie for the impetus that you've given us. And on the screen, we're going to,
for the first part of this talk and conversation, show some images
of Brice's work, just to refresh your memories
and memory is very important in his work, of course. And also for those of you
who aren't familiar with the work, just to give you some sense
of an overview both as here on paper and then later in the sequence on canvas. In 1974, Brice produced a series of notes,
drawings that was, together with some text, and amongst the text he said, "Painters are amongst the priests,
worker priests of the cult of man, searching to understand
but never to know." I often think that curators
and critics spend their time trying to pin down artists,
and artists spend most of their career trying to escape being pinned down. And if you look in most of the standard
histories of the last 40 years, or if you look in a source like Wikipedia,
Brice is always described as a minimalist. I think that the images on the screen,
and indeed probably the conversation today, will make it apparent that he is also,
as Wikipedia says, difficult to categorize. That I see as a great strength,
and in my experience over a long period
of looking at his work, I have consistently found myself
surprised by what I see. And only last week,
I went to see a show of paintings that Brice has made recently,
works that Brice has made recently on marble in Chelsea, New York, the second time that he's produced
a series of works on marble, most of which have been made
I think in Hydra, where he spends part of every year. But then along the street,
there was a small gallery space, within it, a single painting
comprising nine canvases in different, and barely different, hues of blue,
abutting one another, plain surfaces, each 24 inches by 18,
in a line, hung low, and to the side a small shard
of a ceramic pot, and I learned that, this was clear,
a new work by Brice Marden although many people
would probably regard it in certain ways as closer
to some of the earlier works that are seen on the screen here. The two were brought together
because Brice had a memory of a very extraordinary group
of ceramics that he had seen in China. These were ceramics
made in the 11th Century A.D., and the blues in which have been described
as the color of the sky after rain, and the paintings were made
in memory of his experience of having seen that – those shards
and indeed the presence of a single shard in the room was in a sense
an evocation of that. I dwell here really, largely because
I think it’s characteristic of his work to keep moving,
almost like pebbles in a hand. A whole series of ideas
and concepts, many of which, notwithstanding the changing
physical appearance of his work, have been consistent
over a very, very long period. As early as 1963,
in his master’s thesis at Yale, he could write, "I began to concentrate
on this idea of rectangles", and then he went on, "I consider color as tonality,
edge as interpretations “and meetings of shapes,
space as the lack of it “in naturalistic terms,
technicalities as permanence, paint as surface, light atmosphere" no as there, just light atmosphere, "form as poetry mystery,
that unexplainable thing that good painting has." Well if it was there in '63, 50 years ago,
I would argue it's still there. Again, just to remind you,
Brice grew up in – outside New York, upstate. He went to Boston as a student,
where he saw and fell in love with a great many of the Spanish masters
in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and we might come back
to his particular attraction to Spanish painting, I think,
in our conversation. He studied after Boston, at Yale,
where his fellow students included Richard Serra, Chuck Close,
Robert Mangold, Nancy Graves and Michael Craig-Martin. From the mid '60s, he began to make
what Wikipedia and others regard as his characteristic paintings, those made in oil with turpentine
and beeswax, not on the screen, but I think probably will be
on the screen shortly. He worked as an assistant
to Robert Rauschenberg for four years in the late '60s. In '71, he went for the first time
to Hydra in Greece and in a way that marks
the beginning of his engagement with ancient cultures. '72 he visited the Rothko Chapel,
recently inaugurated in Houston, and from '78 until '85
he worked on plans for a series, a group of windows
in the cathedral in Basel. These were never realized,
following a disagreement between various elements
of the commissioning body in Basel, very sadly. But they became
a very important moment in his career and led on
to a different kind of drawing, a different kind of way of working,
a new and bolder use of color, which culminated in a series of larger works
and indeed a series of larger paintings, they’re called "Mountain Series",
one of which will come up shortly. And over the last 10 or 15 years,
he's continued to develop these paintings with a calligraphic element,
but also increasingly and most sumptuously,
very, very rich color. As I say, he moves, I have said,
he moves from New York to Hydra, but he also has studios
outside of New York in Pennsylvania and upstate
overlooking the Hudson. And it is his communion with nature, which I think has become
ever more present in his work. And I think that's probably enough
from me at this stage, just to set the scene, and I'd like to invite Brice Marden
to say a few words and to introduce his work
through some notes that he has made in the course of being in the studio,
Brice. (applause) BRICE MARDEN:
Yellow bark acacia, fever acacia, wet areas,
misty white blue green, yellow greens,
umber stems, yellow bark fever acacia. Darker, warmer greens,
jades, umbers, soft yellows, white blue green up to dark blue green. Dark warm green. It's a note from Lake Manyara
in Tanzania. The title of this talk is, “This is what I do,
and this is what I try to do.” I've just been in Hydra, Greece, where there is the tail end
of the spring bursts of wildflowers and the return of some warming sun. In a walled garden,
I made notes for this talk. Roses, jasmine, lavender blooming. I was working a painting on marble,
started last summer. I was with my beautiful wife. We read poems by Greek poets,
drank coffee, ate fruit. Close to ideal. I arrive here in London (laughter)
and find my notes way too romantic, complicated, and confused. Things like my embrace of the square,
infinite possibilities evolving into repetitious clichés,
belief in the hand, arm to body, so trained as it may be,
can still deliver individuality or through muscularity,
express and deliver the inner workings of the human with infinite subtlety,
the hand to human connection. Dance, inner expression brought out,
the jasmine window, capturing the evocation,
being about something, not a picture of it. Detachment, transformation,
is balance form. Perfect balance,
to follow the dictates of the image. Ambiguity, inquiétant,
oppositional forces, opposites, equals, yin- yang, acknowledged
and allowed to turn into feelings creating an elevated sense,
which puts you back in touch with being human
in this environment. Subject matter. I acknowledge nature
and form as my guides. Form is in-correctable.
Form is the in-correctable attainment. Stop the motion, freeze the energy,
only to show the motion, keep it moving, retaining the energy,
perpetuate the validity of vagueness. I thought that was pretty funny myself.
(laughter) "Pictures must be miraculous" –
Mark Rothko. In the Acropolis museum,
the Greek light on the marble of the sculptures, it's working,
everything becomes enhanced, the Peplos Kore, in perspective. In the distance, Giacomedi,
the specifics of her subtleties, the light, the marble. Images quivering
on the brink of becoming alive. I like to work within given restraints. A given shape, a wall, a specific space. I like number systems. I work with a grid of four and three, four
representing the elements and three representing the trinity,
and I had a numerologist friend who told me my number was six. And so I made a painting called
the "Propitious Garden of Plane Image", and plane image is just another way
I refer to myself or the studio or whatever. So I had – the painting
was made up of six panels, each with six colors, they were 4 by 6
which is 24 which is six. I was beginning to feel
this some sort of ultimate self-portrait. I showed two of them in a show
at the Modern in New York. I invited my friend Jeffrey
to come to the opening, and he said, “Why was I invited?” I said, “You said my number was six,
I made all these paintings.” (laughter) He said, “Your number’s 15.” (laughter)
So now I'm working on 15, (laughter) I call them stelae paintings. There's a poet named Von Segalen,
who is very interesting guy. He was doctor who –
he was the guy that bought all the Gauguins
that came up for auction in Tahiti after Gauguin died,
and he was an early Orientalist and he wrote a group of poems
based on these stelae, which are these stone tablets
they put up with sort of instructional, either poetry or just instructions
on how to deal with your life. So I have five of these
in three different studios, each with five,
three lines of five characters, and I'm working them
in the different studios because I want to see
what the differences will be by being in different places. So I have a group in Nevis,
in the Caribbean, we have this beautiful little hotel, if you want to come stay,
just give us a call, and I have a set in New York City,
and I have a set at upstate in Tivoli. They haven't gone very far,
but it's a plan. Avoidance of the givens, the square,
the perfect abstraction, always keep things a little bit off. Acceptance of the given,
my recent embrace of the square. I had these extra 6 by 8 foot
canvases around the studio, and I've been doing
these horizontal paintings that I just turned vertical,
did a 6 by 6 foot square and it didn't look square
so that's become part of what I'm making a painting to be titled, "The Moss Sutra". It consists of a large center panel, 9 feet by 15 feet, four side panels,
8 feet by 6 feet each. The center panel is divided
into four horizontals, four horizontal areas, the largest being the center,
which holds a grid of 35 vertical lines of five characters each. I took this from a piece of calligraphy
that an expert told me was a sutra. I love a moss, and a favorite image of mine
is the dry stone waterfall in the moss garden Saiho-ji
in Kyoto. The side panels are to be painted
as the seasons, terra verde under all, season color, yellow, green, red, blue
as ground color. A formal system,
a cycle of blue on yellow, yellow on green, green on red,
red on blue. Then, red on spring, blue on summer,
yellow on autumn, green on winter. Then, green on spring, red on summer,
blue on autumn, yellow on winter. All panels have all seasons. Through this layering, one hopes,
diverse drawing opportunities, will open up. All layers – all these layers
are joinings of characters, characters, I don't know how I can say it,
I got quotes around it here, they’re like my –
my own fictitious calligraphy. The layering process
when the image reveals itself by coming up,
emerging from positive application, that's where I draw
something down, negation, which is I usually get
the whole thing worked and then paint over
the whole thing, scrape it down and see what starts talking to me. Search, reapplication,
negation, search, explain. "The ultimate aim of painting
is not decorative beauty, but truth. "What is truth? "It must not be confused
with formal resemblance. "Indeed formal resemblance
only reaches the appearance of things. Or as the function of truth
is to capture their essence." That's by Shi Tao. Thank you. (applause) SIR SEROTA:
We should be live. Is that working? Are we getting –
Brice do you want to test yours? MR. MARDEN:
Hello. Hello. SIR SEROTA:
Yep. Okay. Brice, you declaimed the way,
explain a moment ago, and I don't think any of us
were expecting explanations as such. But, I suppose I want to begin really
by obviously reflecting on both a couple of comments I made,
but also the way in which you consistently seem to come back
to certain themes in the work, and especially, I suppose,
let's start with the idea of your relationship with nature
and the seasons. I mean, that's something which is present
from a very early moment. There was a painting,
"Nebraska", for instance, which is quite frequently
referred to in the literature as a painting that records,
not your view of, but your experience
of traveling across that country and then you were talking a moment ago
about the quality of being in a courtyard or a garden in Hydra. How does that –
what is the process that leads that into being translated into a painting? Does it begin with drawing,
do you go straight to the painting? MR. MARDEN:
There's different – there’s different ways, you know. Sometimes it's much more formal. Like this one, "The Moss Sutra",
the one I was talking about, I mean it was a – the... sometimes you make works in groups. I would like a group because we always
just break all the groups up, and it’s how I tried to come up with
some group and it’s – I'm just kind of ending up
with this bigger and bigger painting and – and that you know,
I gave a talk in Houston at the Rothko Chapel last year, and this is the first time
I ever gave a talk with the whole thing was written you know, and most of it,
a lot of it was written by other people, and I just read it. (laughter) But, as I put it together,
and I have a painting in the Menil Museum called “The Seasons”,
which I made for an exhibition they did down there with David Novros,
myself and Rothko, where they presented
the optional Rothko panels. And… SIR SEROTA:
…that's the painting with four panels… MR. MARDEN:
Yeah it's four you know. And I thought, you know I said,
you know, I don't know what was going on
with my mind then. It doesn't look that much
like “The Seasons” to me, so I thought, I give it another stab. And I have all these ideas about it
and you know, and I've worked a drawing that’s this big
and I’ve worked a drawing that's this big and then now I'm working
on a really big finished drawing and the formality of the task. I'm a little,
I'm at the point where this ends. And I go back,
I've got to start figuring well what is going to happen,
how am I going to turn these things into “The Seasons”
and I figure every time I give it another hit,
each season will get a little bit more
specific about you know, the color will get a little bit more
specific about the season. But then I'm mixing
all these colors together. It’s a – well, you know –
I just don't know what's going to happen. But, you know. SIR SEROTA:
So why didn't that earlier painting look like “The Seasons” any longer? MR. MARDEN:
I went down there, I painted it and put it in the show
and it was a show, you know David Novros does these big installations,
room installations, they're really beautiful. And so I did these four panels and I was –
there was a real time deadline thing, so I did these four smaller panels
where I put a color on the big panel and then I would correct it
on the little panel. And I put the little panels were on the side
then the big, and then the side. So it was like a cyclical kind of thing.
And I told Mrs. de Menil, I said, “I'll show it, but I want to
work on it some more.” And she said, fine, and she gave me
a studio down there, and then I went on this long trip with Novros,
driving around the southwest, and you know the southwest color
is like a whole different thing. And you know you're looking at
cottonwood trees. I never see cottonwood trees up north,
you know. And it's like this really soft thing
and so I think that maybe, so I come back and I repaint the painting,
I was – stayed in Houston for like weeks working on this thing and I said,
“Mrs. de Menil, it's ready.” And she comes, she had this great voice, she would come in
and just lie down on the floor and look at the painting and she said,
“You ruined my beautiful painting.” (laughter) I said, “Oh God”, but she kept it so. But that doesn't –
that doesn’t answer the question. (laughter) Am I, I'm now upstate,
I have this studio in Tivoli, New York, and I'm basically looking
at the classic Hudson river landscape, you know the school at Hudson river,
and I just think well I'm here and I'm working and I'm looking at it
every day and it's got to have some effect. And it is having an effect.
I mean you know, I look at – there's two studios, one’s down by the river
and the other one is much higher and so you get this real expanse. And I think that's where
like this long painting, this "Ru Ware" painting,
this idea of something like a long thing. And… SIR SEROTA:
So those two studios, up and down, one is closer to the water,
the other is closer to the sky. MR. MARDEN:
I can hear the water in the down studio, it's wonderful. And the one up above is,
you know, and you get these things, you get these sunsets. You get the Catskills in the background,
you know this classic Thomas Cole, I'm 10 miles away from Olana,
which was Frederick Church’s house. But you know,
I don't want to push it, I don't want to say
do a Hudson river landscape, but I know it's having an effect. I mean going through spring up there
is like so incredible that you just have to make paintings of it. SIR SEROTA:
So do you move yourself from studio to studio according to season? MR. MARDEN:
No. I mean, I go to Greece in the summer
but as I said I was just there. And this is an incredible time
to be in Greece, they have more wildflowers
than any other European country, and you know, they're out.
It's just, and it's cool. It was – it was really beautiful. But being there was almost like
I was so surprised, I've been going there like
30 something years, and it was almost as though
I'd never been there. And we're reading these Greek poets, you know, Seferis and Cavafy,
Ledus you know looking at the, you know,
lavender, and bay leaves. It was truly inspirational,
and then also going to the new Acropolis Museum
and the way the light comes into that museum
and hits these sculptures is, it's so moving, and I have this thing
about the Peplos Kore, I think it's this sculpture,
you look at that and it gets that close
to becoming alive. And I think that at a certain point
that really was part of the idea. And, you, you walk in
and you just see this room, with one unbelievable piece of sculpture
after another, and the light coming in and hitting it is exquisite. Yeah. SIR SEROTA:
You were known as someone who took drugs a great deal,
at certain moments, and I'm sitting here wondering
whether nature has replaced that for you. (laughter) MR. MARDEN:
No, no, not really. It was nice to take drugs
in union with nature. (laughter) I don't take drugs too much anymore
because they just make me too tired. You know. You’d wake up in the morning
and you're asleep on the floor in the studio, you know. Jesus, something is a little wrong here. So I really haven't been –
I don't do too much. SIR SEROTA:
So in the mid ‘80s you went to the Far East, if not for the first time
at least for an extended period. And from that moment onwards really,
your engagement with well Japanese calligraphy,
Chinese poetry, and Chinese and Japanese landscape painting
became profounded. Did that fundamentally change
the way you thought about nature and the experience of nature? MR. MARDEN:
Well, you could – I mean it added
to the way you think about it. I mean or… SIR SEROTA:
So what did it add? MR. MARDEN:
Well it's just this whole thing about the, you're looking at the gardens
and it's about this idea about landscape and the energies in the landscape. I love this whole idea of the energy
in the landscape and, you know and then there's this kind of abstraction,
the rocks, and they've been collecting the scholar’s rocks
and you know drawing them. And they sort of represent
how these energies are moving through the earth. A lot of Taoist stuff but I'm,
I don't, I'm not a good scholar and researcher on these things,
but I know people that are and I ask them questions, you know. Like – yeah. I think –
I mean, going into it, I had a note. I didn’t put it in
about how you can just see it growing,
how it just grew. It just came up
out of the earth. And… SIR SEROTA:
The landform you mean? MR. MARDEN:
Yeah, and just those energies. It’s just so exciting and powerful
and you try and get it in the painting. And painting is, it's as I said,
transformative. So you’re taking that kind of idea,
you're representing it, and... SIR SEROTA:
Do you find it easier to get the energy into the drawing
than into the painting? MR. MARDEN:
Yeah. Drawing is much more immediate and so there's less between you
and what you're doing. There's no... It’s immediate,
so you can convey a kind of energy... I mean we talk about it,
you know, the hands and the body thing. It’s closer when you draw. The thing about painting
is it’s just richer because the material and color. But I love going out
and drawing in, I say, in nature. I don’t draw trees and stuff.
Not yet. There’s this thing going on
up in the country. It’s sort of become strange, cause I have this...
I call it a garden. And I have this big rock
out behind the studio and I’ve just been stripping the rock. So it looks like a rock that will be sitting on a table in the studio... except, it's big. And, you know working with that... Gary Tinterow said, “While you’re up in the country
have you taken up gardening?” And I said, “No”.
He said, “You will.” (laughter) And I think this is sorta gardening, you plant a lot of junipers
or something. SIR SEROTA:
So you do draw out in the nature, out in the landscape? MR. MARDEN:
Oh yeah. Yes. SIR SEROTA:
But in small notebooks? And then what happens?
You come back in the studio and…? MR. MARDEN:
You build it up. It gets bigger, you know,
let me look…it’s gone, but the Chicago painting. There's a big...
I did a group of paintings called “Letters”, and I was on the same trip
where I saw the “Ru Ware” there was a group of Sung Dynasty letters by guys like Mifu, Su Shi,
and they're just classics of Chinese calligraphy. And I started doing drawings, you know,
I left Taipei, doing drawings, and they were little calligraphic drawings. And I will have a book and I'll get
every page in the book started and then I go to the one I think needs
the most work and I work on that. And I ended up with this group of drawings
that were based on the letters and then I made some bigger drawings
and then I decided to make a group of paintings so I did smaller paintings
and then I made these big paintings. SIR SEROTA:
So is it a struggle to get the energy of the drawings into the paintings? MR. MARDEN:
One of the reasons I like to make big paintings is that I don’t think people do it well. You know they turn into machines and it’s hard to keep like an energy in it. They go a little cold. And so that’s one of the reasons
I like to work on the big ones. SIR SEROTA:
You talk about – you did talk about the importance
of seeing the Pollock show in the late ‘50s shortly after his death,
at the Museum of Modern Art. He continues to be a challenge to you, does he? MR. MARDEN:
Well the whole thing about having the image emerge,
that’s what Pollock does. You know, everybody else
applies the image to the surface. Pollock let the image come up
out of the painting. And that’s why I do this –
you hit it, you paint over it...you know, and then when you paint over it,
you go back in, you pick out things you like, or whatever, and you're letting it talk to you and – you know, you’re working with it. I mean, I… But I’ve got to the point with this painting
where I did all this stuff and this is all supposed to happen and it’s not happening. You've got one little section. SIR SEROTA: This is the moss painting? MR. MARDEN: Yeah. You just gotta go at it. You know, that's... SIR SEROTA:
But several of your cycles of painting – I mean even the
“Cold Mountain” paintings, which went relatively quickly –
were three or four years work. Five years work maybe? Or the "Letters"
have been three years’ work? I mean that’s not... MR. MARDEN:
Yeah, the "Letters" were I guess about three. Yeah they take a long time,
but you're working, like, how many, big “Letters”, I think it was five. They're big...they were...I got this studio. This is another thing
about restraints and all that. And when we got this place in Tivoli,
there was this big barn-like structure. It wasn’t a barn. And the guy who was fixing it up,
he just wanted to have really great parties. And he had these…there are these beautiful windows
which were based on the windows Jefferson designed for Monticello
and they were triple-tiered windows. So you could open these things, and
they were nine feet high...opening. And leaning against the wall
were these three panels and they were 4 by 8's, I guess.
And they just looked perfect in the studio. So I said oh… call up… send me five, 4 by…
you know, 8 by 12 paintings and then it took me years
to get them started. I mean, just enormous
and then you know it came up and you know that's when I really got serious about spending time up there. Now I try… I keep telling myself
I am living there but I’m not really. I have a lot of the major stuff
that's going on up there. I still have the studio in New York
although when I go to New York I’m there for two or three days. I'm not getting as much work done.
But it’s this thing, it's evolving. SIR SEROTA:
But if you are working on these cycles of four or five paintings
and they take so long and you know that the next cycle
is gonna take four, five years, what is the trigger
that actually gets you to commit to beginning that cycle? MR. MARDEN:
This "Moss Sutra" thing. SIR SEROTA: Yeah. MR. MARDEN:
My brother died. And it was a, basically,
an unexpected element. He wasn't hit by a bus... …he got sick… which makes, brings on all these feelings of mortality. And this coincides with this offer
to do this thing, this big project. I figure, well, this might be my last thing. You gotta get serious.
Because it’s harder to work when you’re old. You know, I mean… climb up the ladder all the time.
And so, that had a lot to do with it. But since then,
since I started the painting and working on an optional painting
in New York, and I’m working two… This whole thing has turned into a group,
but I don’t really have it all going. But I – when these things they go
you just get into it and you just can’t stop. SIR SEROTA:
And are the paintings always in contrast to Pollock
against the wall? MR. MARDEN:
Always against the wall. SIR SEROTA:
Always vertical or virtually vertical, or on the wall? MR. MARDEN:
Yeah, yeah. 2 by 4s underneath. I hang them on the wall
more often now. I used to never do it.
I always like the kind of surprise – you work the painting for a long time
and then you say, “Oh it’s finished”, and then you hang it up and say, “Oh, eww",
I didn’t know that was going to happen!” But now I am putting them up more. SIR SEROTA:
So, how do you know when they're finished? I mean, drawing stops
but a painting doesn't stop. Does it? Go on. MR. MARDEN:
Well... SIR SEROTA:
Or should I say it's easier to let go a drawing perhaps or is it easier to let go a drawing? Sometimes you've worked
on drawings for years. MR. MARDEN:
Yes, yeah...yeah. Well, I could be glib and say,
“Well the show is coming up.” That stops it. (laughter) But that really isn’t what does it.
It's...I mean with this “Ru Ware”, this blue, this “Ru Ware” painting
it was just a total surprise to me, one day I just looked at it and I said...
and, you know, I had this whole plan
for this painting, I was doing all this kind of stuff
and I just looked at it one day and it was finished. And...but then I had
like a mark on one panel, so I had to repaint the panel
and so, they all had the exact same number of coats on it
and so with one having an additional coat of paint on it,
gave it a different surface, so I had to repaint the whole thing
but I had...you're getting very... you have these trays you know
and you have the various colors in them and so it's not...it's a little bit more orderly
in the studio now. You know, now I'm actually,
you know, say in Greece, I was working with these marble things
and that thing's heavy. I couldn't even think about...
so you have to get three guys to come in and take...all you wanna do is lift it up against the wall instead of having it laying on the floor and so, I'm thinking much more
of like help in the studio. But, I've always been sort of...
I like to do everything myself. Yeah. I mean I don't stretch...
I don't do that but… I mean it's mine,
I want it to be mine. SIR SEROTA:
So, I mean being...how... do you go into the studio
for regular hours or do you... MR. MARDEN:
Not really, no. SIR SEROTA:
Insist. Put yourself in there for five hours
and see what happens? How does that work for you?
Do you have a regular pattern? MR. MARDEN:
I'm always forcing myself to work. Yeah. Come on...get in there. And then, one thing to be in there
and then it's another thing to be... to really work and…
but then there are lots of situations you start doing certain things
and you have to...there's a start and a finish. You have to do it, you can't just leave it. Say, if you're repainting
the whole canvas, you know, and I always use these little painting knives
it's the same...I forget what the number is, I was gonna put it in the lecture but I forgot. So, you're going over this huge thing,
you know, some... and you know every inch of this thing
is being worked by this... and I keep thinking that puts more of me
into the painting and I like that... like, you know, I have this painting which,
it's up in New York now and it's... it's called the "Polke Letter"
and I was working on it, I was working on a group of paintings
and it was the most complicated one with all these lines,
it was just awful, way out of control
and then polka dotted and I said, “I'll do this for Polke”,
cause I think Polke is just a really great, great artist. So, I put a color at each intersection,
you know, so it had sort of like, you could say, polka dots or you know,
they weren't really dots, they were lines but and you know,
it went to this and this and this... but it kept going and going and going
and it really ended up all that was gone and it ended up, you know,
a very kinda greyed misty painting with a...I thought the drawing
was really quite refined, and, but you… you know, I was always thinking of
when you're working on it and you know, you just, I just feel that gets into the painting. And I used to talk more about
the magical objects and bla, bla, bla, you know, but I don't do that
too much anymore...but I still believe it. I mean, I believe, I believe,
painting can do things that hasn't even begun to do
and I think this is real power in the image. And, I, you know, I haven't been there
but I was talking to this friend who's been in the caves, you know,
and why do they make these things, you know, then I put pictures on the wall, you know,
and they worried about the animals... there's something evolving out of the earth
and their whole relationship with it and it's a very, very strong powerful thing. And, I think it still...it happens with art. I mean people don't talk about it too much
sort of unfashionable and it's one of the reasons I like
the Art in Embassies thing, you know, it's nice to have this stuff around,
you know, people that probably don't even look at it much
or are exposed to it and then these things...
they're up there...they're working. I had a friend who used to deal
in Native American objects and he invited Carlos Castaneda
to come to his house and Carlos Castaneda comes
and he goes, "This is not working." "This is working." You know, I mean there is...you know, I... it's like I keep telling the story of this
“Fang Head” in the Metropolitan Museum, which they don't, they refuse to tell anybody,
but the Plexiglas box keeps breaking...(laughter) Now, I don't know if this is true or not
but I love to tell people this, you know, like... cause those things are really powerful, you know...and you try to, you know,
and you put it in a Plexiglas box, it's...it's hard.
(laughter) I mean I can be, you know,
with all this trouble in Mali, in Mali,
they’re the most unbelievable artists. Yeah. But so much of their art
was about controlling the people. Well, I'm carrying on. SIR SEROTA:
You're not. You're...but so do you see yourself as being... I mean you've just been
talking about art of rage and culture and [inaudible]. Do you also see yourself
as extending the modernist tradition? MR. MARDEN:
Very much so. I mean, I am, I am, I am not breaking
with the modernist tradition. I believe the modernist tradition
is still trying to figure out more and more powerful ways
of making pictures. And, I think the artists
are working very hard at it. And it's exciting.
It's an exciting time. I don't stay in touch that much. I mean, you know,
sure you go see lots of things and... but I don't know
what younger artists are doing. You know, you...
but I have faith in them. I mean you do this stuff enough,
and you're alone in the studio and you just like going like this
and you just have to be thinking all the time and everything you do is a decision. You know, so your brain starts working
in a certain way and I mean, you know, worker priests and the bla, bla, bla,
but you know, this stuff is just not some
commercial property, you know. This is really powerful stuff. I mean, you remember,
remember when “Blue Poles” was here? I mean it still just like
goes through my mind you know and it was so incredible. Ah! SIR SEROTA:
So, why is plane image your alter ego? MR. MARDEN:
(laughter) You know, because I'm...
that's basically what I work with. It's the plane, and then the image. SIR SEROTA:
...you know, you visit his studio and there's little plate,
nameplate on the door, which says, not Brice Marden but,
Plane Image, P-L-A-N-E Image. Just explain that. MR. MARDEN:
It used to say Inc. (laughter) SIR SEROTA:
Inc. You've given up commerce. So, what is plane image? MR. MARDEN:
Well, the whole modernist idea is you're working on this flat plane
and the thing is to connect this image with the plane in a very, very powerful way. And, so, I forget when I did that
I came up with a name, I forget what I was doing, but... SIR SEROTA:
You came up with it early. MR. MARDEN:
Yeah, it was in the '70s or something. But that's what I just find amazing,
a painter like Ryman, he's just right up there and he's just pushing it more forward.
And he does it with a cunning... it's almost like, you know,
I keep saying how he's a Romero, you know, but it's...those things are so...
he did a show in New York last year and I was like, he paints on these various
pieces of paper and he paints… chooses his paints
and the whole thing is... it's just amazing
and he's right up there on the plane. And I always thought
that's what was great about Warhol. That Warhol figured out a way
to represent the image in a much closer to the plane by,
you know, that silk screen thing and it's right up there
and there's a physicality to it and yet, boom, there's that image and I just.. I, I always thought that's his major thing. Now you know everybody runs around,
Warhol, Warhol, you know, but I thought that was a real modernist leap.
Yeah. SIR SEROTA:
Let's leap into the audience and pick up a few questions. One at the back there. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Hello, hi. I was just wondering,
I was looking at your work earlier today, and I just actually happened to have taken
a Japanese art exam at my school, and I notice a lot of overlap
of what you do with Zen Buddhism and spirituality as a focal point in your art. And I was just wondering
why do you invest such a strong interest
in Zen Buddhism? Because when we think of art of the 1960s,
we think of, you know, pop art, we think of a shift towards
more secular trends, and I just wanted to know
why this is so important to you and if you could
just explain it a little bit. MR. MARDEN:
I just respond to it, you know, and you know, you know I'm...
I sort of come out of the late '50s, and there was this whole
Beat thing going on, and that was very,
very much Zen oriented. There were aspects
of abstract expressions in them that way, but then also, you start looking into it
and the things they say, what they believe in and, you know... it has an effect on you. I mean it's like, well...I was gonna say,
Shi Tao, but he's Chinese, but he wrote a book on how to paint
and it's extraordinary. You know. And it is about these ideas,
about energy and all, you know, it's...the Zen...I always, you know,
wanna go sit, you know, and learn more about Zen,
you know, and you know I have more half read chapters of Suzuki,
you know, it's just, you gotta, you gotta... you need a teacher, you gotta, you know,
if you're gonna get it in that way, you know, but I figured, well, I can paint.
I'll just paint. SIR SEROTA:
You remind me of a moment when Tate Modern opened and I took the Queen through the displays
‒ you won't anticipate this, I'm sure ‒ but we walked into the Rothko room
and she turned to me and she said, "Is this man into Zen?" (laughter) MR. MARDEN:
Fabulous. (laughter) SIR SEROTA:
The other moment was when having introduced her to Bridget Riley, we walked out and down the stairs
and she said to me, "I really couldn't see that woman much
as I wanted to talk to her, there was so much dazzle." (laughter) Sorry. Another question. There was a question back here.
Just up there. PARTICIPANT:
Could I ask you to wait for the mic? AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Thank you. You talked about the difference
between applying the image to the surface
or letting the image emerge, letting it come up. And, forgive me, because this assumes
that sometimes you have bad days, but do you think that it is possible
with a painting to get to a point where you have killed the surface
and that painting is ruined or do you feel that any painting
can be saved? Can be brought back from that? MR. MARDEN:
Yeah. That's the way I work. I don't throw anything away. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Yeah, that was my question. MR. MARDEN:
I mean, you know, it's...I'm cheap. SIR SEROTA:
Scrape it down. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
No, he doesn't have to be... MR. MARDEN:
Scrape it up, you know, sand it down, you know...
just go back into it. I mean, that's, I had a painting
up in the country and it was like, it was the last painting
in this letter group and I had it right on the verge
and it...there was a color thing going on, it was just wonderful and I said,
and I went in to the studio like for about three days and,
well...for the logic of the painting I had to try just one little line that let...
and I did it and it didn't work. So, I painted over the whole thing
and just went back in and repainted the painting. You know, I have all the colors there
and you know, I repainted. Every time you do it,
it looks different but... and I started repainting
the whole thing and bla, bla, bla,
and you know, it's gone. And so, I go back
and I just got a whole fresh start. You know,
rather than trying to save it or something. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Could I ask about your drawing? Why sticks? MR. MARDEN:
I was living in a house that had these ailanthus trees in the backyard and, oh…
it's so beautiful and graceful, it would be a great thing to draw with,
you know. They really weren't.
(laughter) But...but I did draw with them. I mean there's that great
drawing up there, you know, “Mirabosa”. And I just got into it,
I mean, I liked the idea you could be in the distance,
you know, and work the painting. Also there are a lot of accidents
that happen, which is very convenient... you know, and I use that a lot,
cause you get these drips and splashes and stuff,
cause it's hard to control it. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Was that just a period of time that you happened to do it
but that's not common practice? SIR SEROTA:
It continues, doesn't it? MR. MARDEN:
No, I still do it. I always draw with sticks... and I had a friend named Anthony Kingsmill,
he says, “Build with the bricks at hand”, you know and there's always
sticks around. You know, all you need is ink and a pad,
and you can find something to draw with. Yeah, yeah. SIR SEROTA:
So, which are the better sticks if ailanthus are not? MR. MARDEN:
...bamboo is not very good. You know, things like oak and... SIR SEROTA:
Too rigid? Why is it not good? MR. MARDEN:
It is, it's a little too rigid. And, you know, you have to have,
find, you know, the tip of the stick has to be able to hold the ink
or you have to able to manipulate it in a certain way and, you know,
if you can't, I usually just break it off and try again, but harder sticks are better,
you know. Like, it's really a drag when you're working
your drawing and your stick, you know, gets soft. (laughter) Pardon me. (laughter) You know, and you have to give up
a stick half way through the drawing, it's really a drag. (laughter) SIR SEROTA:
Follow that. In the middle, back...
no come to you in a moment... MR. MARDEN:
And there's also the thing you know like, the pictures of Matisse,
drawing with a stick, but he had a piece of charcoal
tied onto the end of it but there is a thing when you're like,
you're far away, and it also occurs
at the time I needed glasses. So you have a different kind of focus
when you're using some sort of long thing, but you know, the way my drawings go,
they usually start from, you know, like with a long stick, far away,
and the closer I get to being finished, the stick gets shorter and shorter
and I get right on top of it. SIR SEROTA:
Center here. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
I was wondering if there's anything that you might call technology
that you've reacted to very strongly? Like, you know, you get into
a really nice car, a Mercedes or something,
and you think that that might affect the way you paint? MR. MARDEN:
No. (laughter) Cars get you from one place to another. I mean. I'm not a big technology person. I still like pliers, a hammer
and a screwdriver. You know, but...I mean,
I'm impressed with the stuff that's going on and what I really think
is one of the great things that's happened, I think recently, is artists
are really beginning to control a lot of the technological stuff. You know, a guy like Wade Guyton, I think he...he...
he's not victimized by the machine. You know.
I mean, I think that's happening. I'm sure it's happening
but a lot of artists I don't know much about.
But, it's exciting. SIR SEROTA:
Question here. Try and get the mic to you..
just coming along there...just here. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
You said you like to work given a certain set of restrictions or something. I was wondering if that makes you feel
freer if you have those sort of restrictions and also maybe a freedom to get lost
or do you always know what you're doing when you're...when you're working? MR. MARDEN:
No, no I don't always know what I'm doing and I, you know. But the restrictions thing,
it's nice to have something you have to work around.
It's not a rule. You know, and if I want to get rid of it,
I just do. That's the great thing, you know,
there’s no rules. But, it's a great thing, but yet you know
you gotta keep remembering it. SIR SEROTA:
Back there. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Thank you very much for this. Picking up on this idea on restrictions,
I wanted to ask you something about control. Because while you were reading your notes
there was something that kept recurring... this stopping motion or freezing energy. And so I wanted to ask you
what does it mean control and what do you have control over,
is it the image in its process, is it forms, shapes or plane? MR MARDEN:
Well, you're trying to have control over everything. That's what ...you know,
and when it's all controlled then the picture is done. It's ideas, it's color...
you know there's all these things... AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Sorry. Is it controlling something that emerges
because then in your conversation, you talked a lot about something
almost intuitive of the image. MR. MARDEN:
Yeah, I mean that's the big thing. Is intuition. Every mark I make is intuitive,
it's not...it isn't intuitive... I make a lot of marks, I use a ruler,
you know, but when I say these characters, you know, it's purely intuitive, and...well,
it's not purely intuitive because I also say you know watch out
for the repetitious cliché, cause you know you're doing it for 50 years
and you know you gotta watch out. But that's exercise in control.
If you successfully watch out for that. Yeah, I mean, you know,
you're sort of in this dialogue, you know, you want this image to emerge,
you want to be...you're not its victim but you have to be...keep yourself
in a position to acknowledge it. Is that any help? Eh… (laughter) SIR SEROTA:
This dialogue you have with a painting, is anyone else ever involved? Does anyone else come in the studio
and comment...do you listen to anyone else or is it only you that has to be satisfied? MR. MARDEN:
I have long conversations with David Novros. And David and I once...
he's really wonderful... the Native Americans had this thing,
they would have someone in the tribe that was the contrarian. He would wear a mask
on the back of his head, would walk around backwards
and he fought against every idea that came up and David's sort of that way,
and it's really great to talk with him. I mean he set himself outside...
he set himself outside of the art situation. He doesn't show that much
and he refuses to make portable, bourgeois objects, [inaudible]
and really, and you talk with him, and we have a lot of fun. And he said, well, like on the big letter
paintings, he said, you know, you should stop doing these big paintings cause you know... I said, "Why?" And he said, "Well, you have this great touch
and you lose it in the big paintings." And nobody said anything
close to that to me when the show was up or... And then also my wife is very good.
She sort of infers it. You know, you can (laughter)... you know, "Are you sure about that?" Or, you know, (laughter)
and she is really good, she's herself a very, very good painter.
Very good painter. And...Mirabelle is doing pretty good,
she's coming along great. I mean she has this very good eye. She's my daughter
and it's like one of those things, you know, like..she will say something...
what? Wow, that's right on. But that's a big help. But you know,
it's not...not a lot of people. Course, you always remember
the bad criticism. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
You just touched on something that I was thinking about
as you were speaking in reference to those large
four by eight sheets that were leaning up against the wall
in your studio that you took years to start working on. If you start with the small drawings
and then work them up into larger and larger things and then you get
to these very large paintings, do you find that there's
a loss between the small drawings, that are so immediate
and have that touch, and the larger drawings
that you perhaps use your systems to devise in a way
that might sort of undercut or undermine that spontaneity
and that intuition? MR. MARDEN:
No...I don't...no...I don't, I don't find it. I mean they're different and by the time
it gets into like doing the bigger things, certain things have evolved
that aren't in the drawings but wouldn't have evolved
without the drawings. Yeah... SIR SEROTA:
When you're making the paintings you don't as well set aside the drawings, these paintings are works
that you continue, as you said, in the studio for several years
and you're continuing to draw which, in some way,
informs the paintings as they evolve. MR. MARDEN:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do a lot of drawing in Nevis and I do a lot of drawing
in Pennsylvania, and they're different
environments, you know. And a lot of the drawing... I mean, I really believe in the idea
of the finished drawing. I don't think every drawing should be
some sort of study or a thing like that. I mean, I think drawing is...
of it as a final kind of material. You know, if I make a lot of drawings
I really, you know, I take a long time and I go from studio to studio, and they somewhat separate
from the paintings but they all really are
related to the paintings. Yeah. SIR SEROTA:
Another question at the back, there. AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Hello again. So, I was just wondering. So the Tate Modern
has two shows on at the moment, the Damien Hirst exhibition
and the Yayoi Kusama exhibition, and this is sort of a two part question
because they're both... it's two different questions but...
at the Tate Modern. And I was just wondering,
the first question had to do with Damien Hirst. And I was wondering
what your thoughts were because one of the things
which you were talking about in your discussion was your concern
with making a canvas too large because it'll appear mechanical and,
of course, that's one of the major concerns which a lot of critics have
with Damien Hirst for example, that it becomes too mechanical
or he becomes too dehumanized from his process. So, that was my first question.
What your thoughts are on Damien Hirst? And, second question has to do with
Yayoi Kusama, who I know was based in New York City
in the 1960s, when you were there. And I was just wondering
what your thoughts were on her, especially since in a way
she's the antithesis to Damien Hirst in that way that she was making
enormous infinity net paintings which were very visceral
and more along the lines of what you're doing. So, I was just wondering
what your thoughts are on those two artists and the exhibitions
here at the Tate Modern? MR. MARDEN:
I haven't seen the shows but Kusama had a show in Boston, and it must have been like the late '50s, big, white paintings, and one of the most
impressive shows I've ever seen. It's...you know...these kinda loopy things...
it was really...and it sort of predates everybody. You know, they were amazing. With Damien Hirst,
I mean what the dot show in New York, I just...I didn't go see them all but I was really surprised at how good they were. You know, you're very willing
to go and say...haaaa, you know, this and that. But, those, I think...most...you know
they were very delicately held their sizes. I was impressed, you know. I wanted to see the one here
but I wasn’t feeling well today (laughter) …too much formaldehyde. (laughter) SIR SEROTA:
Well, having Brice Marden expressing surprise
of the delicacy of Damien Hirst is probably a good way of concluding.
(laughter) And so, I think we'll call it a day there,
but thank you all very much for coming. Brice, thank you. Thank you. (applause)
