Marlene Dumas at the Munch Museum - artist talk

[Music] [Applause] buckingham from last night's we were dancing is there's a picture in the book for the day after and I think yeah this is not the nature film this is the day after this is a day where you have to lie in bed I just like to say so yes is that I wish social circle today I'm not so social but ok I'll try my best but this is the day after ok I was thinking first we could just say something about the background for the exhibition us it's only two and a half years since you got the question do you want to come here select words you really think I have never gone it is a very bad thing you say yes gracious thing how can I say no to moon animation and yeah because I also think it's a point because many people know that we all have this plus monk series at the Museum and many rights that this is still a part of this series but it's not just monk was a more a presentation we're curators from the museum or typical of historians made exhibitions with monk and another artists and then last year we stopped that series and we try to experiment a bit more here the last time on 10 and before we make it permanent collections in the new museum so first we had the mickey ball which is also present here cultural theorist artists curators to make an exhibition then we invited the writer Cordova class good then we have the painter finally and I wonder do you think as you haven't seen although the other but you hasn't Mickey's execution do you think it's they it's which this is very visible but it's a painter now but the difference yeah this I think it's more people who've seen you to comment on that too if they see such a big difference I don't know because as I said yeah apparently apparently that's what everyone tells me yeah cuz when you make an exhibition you okay you yeah you look at the painter but you look also as a writer you look in as a third person yeah so there's so many things that you consider I I don't know I said I said maybe yeah yeah this yeah seeing that I plant as a power yeah yeah okay I go a little back again when we first met two years ago and this project started and I arrived in Amsterdam together with universe Eric and we were there to convince you to do this and then we learned that you're just written you're a text the monk called MOOC and why I like him so it's like a gift for us cuz amazing and then I really understood how you have been fascinated by MOOC for many years even more than I knew so then I wonder how long back was it actually how long have you known I knew I was going to get that I think you know the time and I keep on saying you know I I cannot really remember all the moments because it's a very long term and as we said we all at school even in South Africa we have so we all I'm sure you know that I knew of much earlier on that are now if we put the data on 1981 but because of the specifically interest in the Alpha and Omega but yeah monk was sort of part of our history everyone knew moon but you didn't really look at me you know you know this is the man of the screaming and all those things that's all lists of anxiety its etc so yes a MOOC was is sort of person with a history made by the RT stories OOP there it does again I just orange and yeah so it's difficult to say all the different moments you had workmen crews but if I look back I saw in the document I think of 1992 was a catalog where someone else also made a link to me and Moon which I totally forgot and I found again so other people did make connections to me and look more than I yeah I sometimes have to go back to find these information again and then there is Rene Daniels yeah which of the presence yeah yeah and and I mean really in the eighties I had not really thought about monk anymore but but Rene sort of it wasn't sort of so much that they're nice I go and look at moon but he worked in a spirit of monks the same energy the same lightness way is suddenly here as a painter made me see monk as a painter much more I'm a sort of sometimes bit slow in I said I need the eyes of others to see things to I'm not one of those painters think often the painters you say I don't see anything I don't look at it I'm the art I find that a bit dangerous Paris then was the eighties but you were here for the first time in eighth yeah this is a in the same period yeah would you tell us about how you have used it in the exhibition how its yeah yeah well I think most people have seen the exhibition now but in case they didn't I mean did you make an exhibition you have to find a structure and and that was very difficult because having you know I mean I always also and then old interview somewhere with somebody that ask me which paintings which should take to a desert island then I saw that I said the death of Marat of Moon which also forgot that I said that so but so then you think oh I you know that's one of my favorite paintings you know that that's so but how do you structure exhibition and because I liked the Omegas eyes so much I thought and it's a female character in his story and I'm a female and so I thought that's a nice sort of link to make also to take his tragic comic they also have the interest in in language checks and which makers very good at but which I like the combination of that people don't only see things they see what they've heard so they see what the type if the title says vampire then they don't think oh you know it could be also that actually this ambiguity in his work or in my work because we use titles and Rene also uses that actually the words in the painting itself so that and so that so his story was the case I mean if he wrote and omegas eyes if he wrote something totally different underneath it if he said there's any woman eating a flower that would you could have the sound drawing but you would not have the same impact so when he says who make us eyes would change on ordinary days they would be para lo but when she looked at her lover's they became black with flecks of carob and red and sometimes she would cover her mouth with a flower well if you read that you think it's something to think about so it makes you think also I am you have to look but you can't separate these two things the thinking artists and so that's also I think was one of the reasons I I took the Alpha and Omega narrative as a thread to build up the rules and so that is simple it's actually simple exhibition but but simple I hope in the right sense of good sense of the word but it's not sometimes it gets too simplistic and then I'm sorry but but so you walk in a sense through his the atmosphere of the Alpha and Omega and you also say something about in the beginning is the end and I think it's a link here with a phone Omega to the last room in the exhibition yes Oh always we look at books I often I feel a good book or a good show you if you start at the end you can also go from the end to the beginning or from the beginning in the end so that the the structure yeah as I said and in this case then you have the Venus and Adonis story and so this link and but the actual expression comes from samuel beckett's which i and I don't know if he said that the beginning is in the end or the end is in the beginning but yet to be go on so like was it originally mine but I use it for other structures do know I also think you should talk a little bit more about rhenium yes because it's it's not so many Norway who know your work and it has become a very nice room the new nice room if you would talk maybe about yes yes I would I would love to talk about Rene Daniels works and what what I also like so much because when I use this thing of a sense of humor that everyone says two main right Lisa well moon wasn't that funny and I know so if we have to go into the sense of humor just talking about the work then I would say moon has got in but not so much then I maybe got a little bit more and then the Rene has got it the most and in the very elegant sense of the word because the works itself makes you smile but it doesn't the works surprises you humor to find something funny there has to be an element of surprise in it otherwise I mean that's why mean humor is not only haha funny it is a good painting needs element of surprise beat in the composition I mean what was lovely also looking at Rene's work in this show you see that as I said I'm a bad looper and I always because one of the paintings I tried it with him for one of mine and that is the two Eastwood you know but in my head I would think they are like this but they're not like this they on an angle there's a you know all these little things and so it is in the one hand it is very simple but you you you have to really to see that you remember it all wrong or not seeing all those so if you if you stand in the room at we sitting here now if I would be in the room it's easier to show you how are the different gestures that Rene uses each painting is called a different gesture and I also want to relate it I said last night about he taught me about you have to love your subject matter but love is he also mentioned you know that sensitivity ain't enough I think that's a problem with many artists you know if you too brutal that can be tedious but if you too sensitive that's also not enough you love is one thing but I mean depends how you define it but what's so wonderful about these spendings they light but they're not but they are serious and they are strong the forms are strong you know it's also the problem with watercolors I spoke to someone last night or so watercolor is the easy medium in the sense of it flow so everything flows so if you only use that you can get into trouble because you know life is you need all the different forces together and so in a better parenting you have these different forces together and and I think yeah Renee and also with the subject matter but without imitating MOOCs but it's got that monkey in touch then the whole painting is done you know it gestures goes like this or the chest is called like that and and yeah so if you look at what there is it is it's got that energy that that's why also younger people also when there's love Renee's work so much because it isn't dreary it doesn't and a new head this thing also that energy doesn't die you know so the better monks also has got an energy that you can still feel and it's also like I have mentioned to you that one reason is very important for us that you're here or that one thing you do with MOOC is that you make him contemporary we see him differently with you and Danny else also when we were there looking at the Daniel besides the MOOC starry nights without the stars and you suddenly see all this physicality how the figures normally that they can disappear very fast and we you are really into all the surfaces all the paint it's that's where I think you as a painter security is very important how you have that this whole exhibition well some someone else also last night said to me in the sense every good painting okay then we get into the definition what's good but it's contemporary but I remember I think it was just for John's not in the show you had here but a long time ago I think it was he where I read it first was I was much younger and I read a sentence like you know because sometimes you think what miss you do with all the dead artists it's old art it's dead and then and then you get to this point where some of the Dead is much more alive than the living and so in a sense but not you but people but but you forget to see it sometimes so if it helps to make you see it then then I think I'm happy yeah yes in a way yeah we when we talked about the last room the ourselves like this has been a very long process of selecting works and during the process you started to work at the exhibition it's your New York gallery David's Venus and several of that works also I think relates a bit to this exhibition unluckily we got Omegas ice I don't know if you can say something about moocs influences on you can you yeah well yes would you say this when I gather is not so new anymore edges that there was 8 years in between from our show and this last one but that's just a factual thing but I don't want to say oh yeah but when I yeah I mean that is the the difficulty of how can I say putting things in indifference you don't always know exactly how everything into X and so I had the drawings already of awareness and the darkness that took me also quite a long time to to finish and to decide on that so they were there as a basis also for that exhibition and at the same time I was indeed looking at moon and I think what was the Act to do other aspects to but I think what moon did for me was and that's something that I always preach about but appreciate for also for myself is that you forget that all rules are made by people so to say this is like it is it can't change I mean it can you make the rules we make the rules also for our artists you you get stuck in your own processes and in your own or own rules and the effect of thinking you know come on you know your life is almost over and that's all you can do so that it was more again that spirit of thinking you know come on let you know so it's the movement aspect also of that yeah this is a defect is a painting can it's not the subject matter that makes it dead you painted dead so so I think that that helped me such of thinking of what monk did all these things how many years ago and now we hundred years later and people still are so stuck in so many rules I saw that is for my first picture for my seminar about cinema I saw it was mr. Egham pronouncing Megan he wrote beautiful books on mu and his book on monk and photography because I used to telegraphy I mean everyone uses photography these days in one manner it's part of our culture but there was a picture of the mother of moon sitting very beautiful and totally in focus and MOOC as a baby is out of focus because he moved and they said and they especially in those days you don't move in front of the camera you sit still and and the father thought and the host thought useless photograph because he is out of focus and I thought you know even now these days if they want to make a portrait photo of you you have to stand still oh it's out of focus it's moving it's not right you think have we had made any progress so you know press photo come sit here do that and so column drinks a soda yeah so move made me aware also how static people can be in their search and that one needs to that things color sometimes breathe more open more and yeah so I think that influenced the show that was one of the aspects or a big aspects of working on the medicine mortals she'll answer very good answer and I also yeah yeah also when we were looking at the movies for this show it was some similarity that when we looked at different worsens as we have all these paintings MOOCs kept at actually more than thousand paintings and when we have maybe looked at one one multi we want it and then we found out it's a second version and the third version and often it became the second or third person you chose more sketchy and finished opens breathing painting and citizen so it's yeah also very important for this exhibition I was trying I was thinking we should also talk a little bit about the book we have made as this book is not an ordinary catalog we wanted to try to do something more so it was just not not just a repetition of the exhibition filled with a lot of articles of art historians but in a way you were a curator there so it's more like an artist book where you have made a wider selection of MOOC and yourself also the nails and texts and they broaden the perspective I think of the exhibition even more and it was also the fact that was both works by monk anew we couldn't include in the exhibition so many of them are also in the book I don't know if you would you like to say something more about the selection how we have built the book in different sections how do you begin where he wants okay I just want to say person that's a med book I made because you know designers of tiptoe I can't say that while its Apocrypha people you know they are so very important because so here's company Alec coats yeah yeah we yeah on the big pressure because they on the one hand they say it's a book it can also exist without the exhibition but we had to get it finished now so yeah I had a lot of pressure and also really working together you you get into things like I said we should not cut off the pictures and the edges because also relating to makers book about the cinema graphic way of working and looking when you use photography with figures of finger with monk or so you think did he actually cut off that foot or is it because most museums are they cut off you know if you you buy a most kind of Vermeer's woman of the pearl they don't it doesn't fit on their postcard size that there's a lot of black to the side so they're always scattered so that it looks quite normal and you only can look at the pearl but actually the pictures got much more black to the side which you would say you should respect that yes what so part of the psychology of the pitchers are throwing says in this case I thought let's not cut off any of edges so that one can see where Chris monk also the figure sometimes too big it can almost not get into into the frame and my figures are also bit suffocating in their frames and sometimes with some of them I think oh now did I do that well they kind of dogs there sit durable cut but so I mean so that was something that we decided to not do and but then you have the size of the book and so and then if you don't put white around the edges so if there then you have new you put a color around it you know I also want to say me and Rene from the artist comes from the time where and he is a much better than I am it but where you recognize that as the art act is a performance but the exhibition is a performance and their relation to the architecture is part of it and all these things influence one another and so also the book you know and the colors of something because I was saying monkey so bright and then if you have a reproduction where Mook looks like mud you know you say you know who says he's so bright he looks very Brown but on the other and also my own works you you think I can't I can't remember my own colors anyway but so there's so many things that you that's not about now the content of the structure I mean that's all part of the content but I mean that is sort of also things that that the more that you look at books the more you think what is wrong with this book and so so that was a big thing and if it's not the catalog how do you what can you say in the book that you don't have in the catalog so yeah I started specifically with a quote of monk where he says not all of his that all of his works are confessions and what why I am so interested in that is he contradicts himself because sometimes and it depends what you choose because I think in now I don't know if it was a writer with Shiva Cisco any right under and nose guard oh can never say his name right yeah that's good you know I think he must forgive me but I think he used a quote where me does say you know it's all confessions but then you know I use a quote when he says no and mic like I think is of a lighter side yeah I didn't look at the dates in the beginning but where he's making a point that it is not all confessions he has used because so that was one of the aspects I wanted to stress that if you only work with confessions you can't keep up you know such a girl Thundra pronounce that other like moon has God so that aspect and then that his art is not morbid he says it himself and it's nice how he both of the argument and then we had a red line too because if you read the quote you you forget that this is that because he says so many other things that's what happens with me too I only make the one point because everyone forgets the point but so we tried in the book to stress some stray specific points in his writings it's really you have your own on the lines yeah it's very nice and you also made the you split the book in five different sections and I like I like the titles so you also see some of the exhibition of course we have a dolphin Omega Venus and Adonis sunset and Anais but you also have smoking and drinking and that's also I think important how we you stress the fact that he got humor and I mean because right from the finishing adore art of an Omega he also made other works caricatures and some that was not printed or published and and about the city of free love and I've used some of that in their jewel where he he does use the artist the artist goes to the city of free love and there's all these women drinking and there's they I do very much like that that's one specific so he he does my a joke on he like dummy air and people who you know made a social satire awesome because then you have the the rich lady going to the poor artists like own artists artists and the poor one and you're on their own board that's also you know the housing of the board females or or the board not a modern situation where that's another long story but anyway but they he draws in a sense himself also in this position which is also quite sir I now forgotten the question really no nice yeah but so we added a few things so it was about the drinking or the smoking I mean but the thing about the bar the whole thing about the Berlin bar and the ladies and the and the the the Polish man that I can't pronounce is he could say it again it's difficult to say but a bit if you read what he wrote also about moon you used you couldn't feel his spirit in the writing very much and everyone quotes always you know what the first person has written you don't know even even know but some who has said it anymore and it becomes part of the myths because he's is all the time you know and sexuality and repulsion and he was a Satanist at end good Howard and big they said so I really enjoyed reading about all their drinking and smoking in the Berlin bar but then we didn't have place anymore for so we put a little bit in the book but we couldn't do all the aspects of monk in the exhibition I'm not to mention you write to you have written for many years I don't know how long actually yeah well the fact in 1984 I don't know if it was before that but maybe before that when I started to have solo exhibitions in galleries I started to write my own short new teachings or notes or so so I don't really see it as it's not really proper homes it's very sort of a parallel little chicks because uh that's also why I'm always so upset about breadstick so other chicks because it's not because I think I am such a wonderful writer I can write so well but I want to participate in if you know what if people frame the work in a certain way then everyone sees it in that way so if you do take language serious then you know then you also when I think me as part of my audience me looking at myself I also want to say what I think and so I started to then but also that changes a bit as you get older you know I was better my writing was better when I was young and angry now I'm older and you have also published a book with there's just a mention that those who doesn't know we have a few of them in in the bookstore as well actually a few of you and you have written new text here and I was thinking maybe we should and if I could ask you to just again I find my glasses Oh give me the bag it's impossible to find anything in there thank you you have you have written a new texts and you also use quotes a lot of quotes very nice quotes and you quote him and you cook back can you use quotes from Kierkegaard I think and we have some go get some food so it's a very nice mixture together and then it's one short moonrise all right this one oh I thought maybe I can you can do it what yeah okay I can do this one but none of this is the best one this about moonlight yeah I I tried I thought yeah okay okay moonlight MOOC did not imitate nature but he used nature more than I do he said I don't paint what I see but what I saw I say I don't paint what I saw but what the fainting wants me to see for MOOC the moonlight is outside for me the moonlight is imagined I remember as a child watching films at the drive-in called the sky view where the light of the full moon affected the screen the screened light of the film stars [Applause] thank you I think actually our time is already up so I gather Lisa where you going to you want this to have some practical no okay then I just say thank you to everyone who are here it was very nice and very soon we will be book signing yes yeah [Applause] [Applause]

Channel: Munchmuseet

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Id: sZ0Tsni2a3E

Length: 37min 5sec (2225 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 09 2018