CECILY BROWN: PAINTINGS. INTERVIEW WITH DR. ROLF LAUTER @ EXHIBITION IN KUNSTHALLE MANNHEIM 2005.

episode mom interquartile Cecily how does it come that you create such an intensity expression and energy your paintings well that's a very difficult question to answer I just show up in the studio every day and and begin I don't usually have a clear idea of what each painting is going to look like I just I like to begin I don't have the ax that some people deal with in front of the white canvas the problems for me will start later I I begin I don't know what's gonna happen and it becomes I see what is suggested by the first few marks the painting changes a lot in the course of the making there's a very organic process I just try and bring to it as much energy as possible I think your paintings give us a deep insight into nature and the beauty of sexual life of subjective experiences and collective memory how do you start the painting and how do you put your physical effort in it while you paint I always work on several things at the same time so they feed very much into one another when I begin I often just lay down a wash of color maybe I choose it's going to be mainly red mainly green usually a form is suggested very quickly and sometimes I'll have a clearer idea for example the girl on the swing or the woman on the bed but more often but it can go very far away from that as as I carry on I like to keep it very open and not you know as give as much take as much from what the painting suggests as from what it's a battle between my well imposing that and seeing what is what ideas come as I go along it's always a matter of trying to surprise myself and trying to that's the only way I think I can hope to surprise a viewer but I have some I have very different canvases always going on side by side I like working like that one painting always leads to five or ten more and I find I'm more focused when I'm more spread out is it a physical effort to paint yes cause I mean some of the canvases are quite large if I'm feeling under the weather it's a disaster you have to really have the right energy and be fit and you know mental and physical energy it's very important I mean I usually work on the whole I don't tend to stand in one spot and work I'm up a ladder and down I bend and stretch and it's very physical and of course do a lot of walking back and forth but also I spend a lot of time just sitting staring at the painting when I physically paint it tends to be quite frenetic quite fast a lot of decisions made very quickly but that comes after a long time of sitting staring at the paintings trying to get clues of how to proceed I like to spend a lot of time looking at them so that's this looking slowly so that I can paint quickly you can see the paintings in the modern exhibition there is always a tendency for figuration and on the other side abstraction these two polarities for Kandinsky have been to opposites for you it's there are two parts for something in common for what's your concept to to make these paintings that are partly abstract art a figurative what do you think I would like to abolish the terms abstract and figurative for me it's there's not really any difference i I don't feel like I approach a so-called abstract painting differently from a figurative one the it's as I prefer the word figure are where there's some kind of trace of a figure or of something from the real world but that I like playing with a sense of uncertainty and things become forms in the process of becoming something or in the process of dissolving or melting or breaking down I'm most interested in that place where things are unsure that seems like a sort of realism to me everything's in flux my ideal viewer would spend a lot of time looking at a work my ideal painting would keep changing over years of looking it could survive being looked at for a long time they change when for me when they work it's when I keep seeing new things in them that perhaps I didn't intend I like to keep it very open so that a different viewer will see each viewer I think sees it quite differently but I like to I like to when when a painting planar painting starts getting too far from something recognizable I get into a kind of panic and I try and bring back a figure or something recognizable and some of these recent works there are you know bits of architecture or ladders and objects bits of the still life but I like that it's that sense of things breaking down and fragmenting that is interesting to me and there's or the feeling of something seen at high speed so I really like that thing of when you can't be quite sure but not in a frustrating way I want people to be able to look at it that it keeps revealing itself the more that you look at it the more you're going to get from it and I think sometimes with the very clear figures perhaps that's a more difficult thing to do because I think people tend to look at it and think they got it straight away so even sometimes I want to do a very clear figure but I also want to even with those paintings make sure that there's some kind of shift away from what you see in the first instant I always want to have a painting that kind of grabs you grabs your attention grabs your eyeballs but you try and turn away and you can't because it keeps it holds you there I like very much the idea to bring the viewer to catch a lot of works if you look to your works you have to be in the page you have to go into the painting and I very much this new perception is different perception from others you are for me one of the rare artists that come to a museum to make the installation of the show what do you feel when you see your works from the last five years well it's quite terrifying at first I didn't know what I would think you know I feel like it's gonna be a test of if they stand up over time some things I hadn't seen for four years three years I love the selection of works they're all things that when I painted them I thought were you know more or less the best of that period so I was hoping that that they I'd still find them strong and I'm very happy with the way it looks you know I can there's always room for improvement it's all theirs even when they're they've left the studio there's a sense what more I could have done how I might have done something differently so the whole thing is like a in progress as I said to you it feels like the beginning of painting I've been painting for 20 years but still it's fantastic to see sort of where I am so far but it just makes me quite impatient too there's so many different directions they could go the paintings never really finished it's always it's a question of you have to stop at some point so the process of still looking at them now is I feel there are so many possibilities that there are lots of different ways they can be pursued so but it's great to you know have a have a show of the model here these paintings or friends maybe I mean they have a life it's hard to talk about it without sounding so too romantic of course I feel a very strong attachment to them but people ask do you mind when they leave the studio that I don't I'm usually I'm happy for them to go out into the world what I don't like is the I wouldn't like them to be in somebody's storage I love it if it's fantastic to have them displayed he one wants them to be seen they're made to be seen what does sexual relationship mean to you simply regarding your paintings you mean subject well I've from very early age I've started painting figures and bodies and putting figures together I think it came from something very simple which is I started painting around 16 I would paint a nude a figure in a room and that bored me quite quickly I wanted to have more than one figure but I didn't know what they should be doing together if there's two figures what are they doing I didn't really want to tell a story but I thought if they're kissing if they're embracing if there's a sexual activity it manages at the same time to be an instant but kind of outside of time so it's a way to it's not really telling a story but it's telling it's hard to explain it's not telling one story it's something everyone can recognize everybody can respond to it's universal of course visually it's very exciting to look at and then there's an emotional charge that I think comes with using this kind of imagery which I've one of the things I've always loved about painting other people with old master paintings is it the its ability to carry an emotional charge that the magical a chemical thing about painting being able to that this inert substance on a still canvas actually has the power to its you know to elicit an emotional response so I suppose it's kind of taking that idea a little further of perhaps sometimes illustrating the idea in a way there's not so successful but it seems I used to paint the subject a lot more I think for me it always seemed like one of the most ideal subjects for painting the oil paint lends itself very well to describing flesh or not describing so much as making an equivalent to flesh and all the things that I'm really interested in in painting are there in the sexual act at the sense of movement and light across skin flesh and some kind of charge and tension the things I want above all the tension and electricity and energy so that's it makes it a good subject I also I love old master paintings and I always I think the ones I love the most of always very erotic are erotic works which were possibly made at a time where there was you couldn't really be explicit in some ways it's more powerful I hope to be able to have an implicit erotic charge but Titian or you know of course so many thousands but yes the idea of the Venus of Urbino or something just so sexy but it's a it's not it's like a full you get a visceral response I want a visceral response it's not just I love the way that it's it hits your eye your mind your body your sort of nervous system so I was always interested in how close can you get to how can when is it not pornography how close can you get while using this kind of imagery but still remaining on this where it's appeals to the whole body all the senses and not aiming sort of below the belt I mean I really love looking at old paintings probably more than in fact most other activities is my favorite thing to go to see very you know to see Goya to see early Italian paintings to see Velazquez and I've probably got most out of that kind of thing of course there's it's so many names of the 20th century I mean Picasso Warhol a lot of German painting has been a very big influence basslets especially vacillates in the 60s I mean a huge influence the fracture paintings the hero paintings one of the most income of the best paintings ever made Gustin bacon of course de Kooning Gorky but I mean really far too many to name I love to I love to have all these people sort of in my head at once and I feel like but um I've never felt like the art of the past is something from the past really for me it's living its today it's alive so let's think the younger people today I mean I love Richard Prince is probably he's one of my favorite artists now Jeff Koons there's not that much good painting today but there are a few he was very important for me thank you thank you

Channel: Rolf Lauter

Views: 62,687

Keywords: Kunsthalle (Museum), Mannheim (German City), Kunsthalle Mannheim (Museum), Interview, Cecily Brown, Rolf Lauter

Id: DR_hoK9aI5A

Length: 16min 50sec (1010 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 19 2014