ANDREA PIERRO: Hello. Good evening, everyone. I'm Andrea Pierro, Director
of the Visiting Artists Program at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago. And it's my great pleasure to
welcome you to this evening's lecture by a visiting artist,
Tal R. This program is presented in partnership with
SAIC's Department of Painting and Drawing. And I'd like to
thank my colleagues in the department for their
support and collaboration. Additional support is provided
by grants from the Illinois Arts Council Agency
and the National Endowment for the Arts. SAIC's Visiting
Artists Program is dedicated to hosting a
variety of presentations by internationally recognized
artists, designers, and scholars each academic
year to foster a greater understanding and appreciation
of contemporary art and culture. It's so exciting to have
Tal here in Chicago. And I'd like to thank him
for taking the time out of his busy schedule to
travel here from Copenhagen. At the end of lecture,
and actually possibly throughout the
talk this evening, Tal will be taking
questions from the audience. We will have microphones
circulating from our staff. So please raise your hand, and
we'll get a microphone to you. And I just want
to mention, I hope you'll be able to join
us again next Tuesday when we welcome visiting
artist, Juliana Huxtable. Tuesday, October
11th-- that will take place here at 6:00 o'clock. And now I'd like to
welcome to the podium Terry Myers, professor and Chair of
SAIC's Painting and Drawing department to introduce
Tal R. Thank you. [APPLAUSE] TERRY MYERS: Thank you, Andrea,
and thank you, everyone, for being here tonight. It is my great
pleasure this evening to introduce Tal R, an
artist from Denmark who has been working and exhibiting
since the early 1990s. I have known Tal and
his work since 1997. And over the years,
I have observed the international reach of
his work expand exponentially. His work is exceptionally
idiosyncratic, yet informed by an expansive
view of the history of painting and by extension, art itself,
creating a potent model for emerging painting to
continue after modernism and post-modernism
without apology or return of the
manipulative and worn out death of painting mantra. Alongside other painters
of his generation, like Daniel Richter, Laura
Owens, and Chris Ofili, Tal deserves major credit
for giving younger painters plenty of permission without
suggesting that anything goes. I am drawn to the playful and
critical aspects of his work as well as the complexities
between them that make him absolutely relevant today. As professor of painting and
drawing and current Department Chair here at SAIC,
I know firsthand the high regard that
serious painting students have for Tal's work. For the past few
years, his name has been at the top of their list
of desired visiting artists, and I am grateful that he
was able to make the trip and spend some quality
time with us this week. Tal's exhibition track
record is world class. Since 1994, he has had more
than 80 solo exhibitions and has participated in
numerous group exhibitions. His solo exhibitions have been
at galleries and institutions, including the Kunsthalle
Mannheim in Germany, the Bonnefanten Museum in
Maastricht, the Camden Art Center in London, Cheim
and Read in New York, Kunstahlle Dusseldorf, the
Museo Brasileiro da Escultura in Sao Paolo, the Gallerie
im Taxispalais in Innsbruck, Austria, the Stadtische
Galerie Wolfsburg in Germany, the Pinakothek der
Moderne in Munich, the ARoS Aarhus Kunst
Museum in Denmark, Sommer Contemporary Art in Tel
Aviv, Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin, and the Institut fur
Moderne Kunst in Nurnberg, among many others. Next May, the Louisiana Museum
of Modern Art in Denmark will present a major survey
exhibition called "Academy." For this, I have been invited
to put together an extended conversation with Tal for
the catalogue-- a dialogue that will include a discussion
of the teaching of art. And Tal held a professorship
at the Kunst Academy Dusseldorf from 2005 to 2014. I may also incorporate
things said during this week, so I hope there will be some
great questions later, meaning I might come looking for
you if you had something amazing to say that I
will want to include in this dialogue for the book. Full disclosure-- several months
after Tal confirmed his visit, I completed an agreement
to write a monograph on his work that will be
published in the fall of 2017-- a book that will focus upon his
painting, although, of course, it would be inappropriate,
and it will be impossible not to take on the massive breadth
of his production-- paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures,
ceramic, furniture, fashion, and on and on. Without giving too
much away, by the book, I can describe the
plan for my approach as a three-part structure based
upon the well-known categories of people, places, and things. At this point, I see the
structure functioning in two different yet
interrelating ways, the first being
obvious, which then helps establish the second. On their face, Tal's works
depict people, places, and things, so much
so that it would be possible to categorize
everything quite efficiently and leave it at that. What is more provocative
about his work is the extent to which
each of these categories are reworked within the
varied states of his painting. For example, a painting, even
a so-called abstract one, as a person with a personality
and an attitude, and it doesn't hurt that the
work is constantly sexy. Another painting as a
place-- a construction site-- of literal material,
including collage, photography,
sculpture, et cetera, and then yet another painting as
a thing, in the obvious sense, but also as a kind of
creature-- sometimes even a monster or a kind of
building or scaffolding-- a thing to put other
things in or on. The complexity and raw
beauty of all of this is what makes his
work stand out. Even after 20 years, Tal's
world is more than ever someplace I want to stay. Please join me in
welcoming Tal R. [APPLAUSE] TAL R: Hello. I hope you can understand my
poor Scandinavian English. I had several titles
for this talk. One was the "Deaf Institute." What means "Deaf Institute?" It means that once I pass
by-- oh, here's light. OK, I walk in there. I once passed by this
institute for deaf people, and there was a playground. And on the wall of
this playground, there was a very simple drawing. There was a big eye. And I always thought this was
so precise and so beautiful that it's even bad
to explain why. But if you have a place
where people can't hear and where they
can't really talk, then the eye becomes
so important. So what you draw on a wall of
a deaf institute is an eye. And that leads me
to the next thing. I've done this
quite a few times-- being invited and asked
to talk about my work. And on one hand,
it's really easy. It's just to start. You can start from the
beginning, from the middle. But actually, it's
kind of a tricky area, because going back to
the deaf institute, what should an artist actually
say about his own work? There is a reason why
I didn't write a novel, or I didn't make a film. I make these mute objects. And I make them so
I can walk away. So what should I actually
say next to a painting? I think if an
artist starts to be a good person, a good student,
and try to contextualize, put themself in art history,
they're doing it wrong. That's a major mistake. I think that's not
the artist's job, and it's something
very sticky to try. Then the other
thing you can do is you can start with
private anecdotes. Why did you do this work? Where does it come from? And that's, in a way,
always quite interesting. That's like candy to get
all these small stories. But I don't know
if that actually leads you anywhere
deeper into the work or to the ideas behind the work. So it is quite tricky. What should an artist actually
say next to their own work? And it has to become more easy. It is, one hand,
easy, and I can do it. But on the other
hand, it's tricky. So I want to put one more
word in front-- the word that I'm happy that
it exists in Danish and it also exists in English. It's "irresponsible." I think an artist when you
do an artwork, if you feel, oh, I'm ready to do this work. I am ready to paint the
horse in the horizon. I know exactly how to do it. I am a responsible person. Because usually
in the real world, outside art-- whenever you want
to say something, do something, you should know what you want
to do, how you want to do it. That's being responsible. But actually, great
art is the opposite. You have to feel irresponsible. That means you have to feel
like this that you know, you want to go
somewhere, but you have no clue how to get there. That's a bit irresponsible. You don't want to let
your kid out on that walk. But that's a good
beginning-- irresponsible. And I'm also doing this talk
in an irresponsible way. That means I don't plan it. I have no idea. It's me. I'm going to talk about me,
so what is there to plan? But if I would do this
in a responsible way, I would hate every
word that I would say. So before going into images--
I just picked out images, because if I don't
know what to say, at least we can
look at some images. But I'm going to start. I wrote one word
here, "failure 1996." Do you have the word
in English, "fiasco"? No. Yeah, OK. That's even more
grand than failure. That's really when you
land on your stomach. So in '96, I convinced this
local independent space that I could show my work there. I walked in there,
and I explained that I had a project for them. And I would do a sound
piece on the wall, something on the wall, and I had
everything under control. I was responsible. And I think I talked so fast
that the people sitting there, they just wanted to me
to get out of the room. And anyhow, you had to
pay everything yourself, because it was just
run by artists. So they said, OK, you can do it. You can do it. So I had everything planned. And I went there on a
Tuesday, and the show was going to open on a Friday. And I knew on Friday
all the real artists, all the people with the right
sneakers, would be there. So I had to prove myself. So I started installing. I wanted to do-- I
can't even remember-- some kind of wall painting. And there should be
this loud speaker that played into itself again. And I was being responsible. But Tuesday morning I started. And Tuesday afternoon
I get this feeling. You know when you've said
something embarrassing that you can't pull back, you
start getting red in your face? And you know that
this is a disaster. And at the end of the week, you
are going to be that disaster. So something quite special--
I think in those three days, I learned more than in
six years of art school. That's being a bit cynical. But in a way, I
learned a major thing. You could say a major
free fall, because what I did in those three
days that I [INAUDIBLE], I kept my guns in that
sense that I still kept the idea that what kind of
atmosphere I wanted to create. I just threw everything on
the floor that I had planned. And I had a week of just
walking around with the gun and just looking for
objects, looking for ideas for this kind of idea. And I would pick up
stuff on the street, and I would just
turn things around. And in a way, I
was just fighting not to be a wonderful person--
not to make great art-- but just to survive
major failure. And I also said to myself,
if I'm going to fail, at least I'm going to
fail in grand style. And when Friday happened
and all these people came, and I had no fear
anymore, because I know in a way
something very real happened-- something that
was without discussion-- and something real was
there in front of me-- something that had a rhythm. And I even saw something that
I didn't have a language for. When I look back
at that show, it was not about whether it
was a great show or not. But it moved me a lot. I understood there
that-- and what I think I've been practicing
and stabilizing over so many years-- is that
whenever you have an idea, there is always a free fall. And that's where the word
"irresponsible" come into play and where we are back
to the deaf institute. Maybe let's just
look at a picture. And I have this
small beeper here. This is a painting from
when I was still a student. I think it's around '98. And I also admit when I
look at this painting, I feel embarrassed,
because I think I see more mistakes than I
see these things that I really enjoy today. But I think it's quite
important to understand what happened here, because
at that point in the 90s, if you were interested
in painting, and if you were a painter,
that was similar in Europe to be stupid, because
nobody did painting. And if you did
painting, that was just about investigating the
media, the possibility of things happening. Or you would have a French
philosopher writing something, and you would do a
painting next to that. That was actually
really being the way. And then something
started happening, and it didn't really
happen in painting. I saw it first time in video. There was especially
one guy who was supposed to be a conceptual artist. And he always failed
with his conceptual works because his life
was actually just about drinking and
getting naked at night. So suddenly in the middle
of this-- and it's not me. I would admit it. I would be very proud,
but it was not me. You know who it is-- Peter Land. So that-- [LAUGHTER] So Mr. Land suddenly,
out of the blue, did a video where he was just
dancing naked and drunk at night. And again, it was
not really about whether this was
a great artwork. But someone just said,
this is what I am about, and this is where my
work is going to be. It's not a French writer. It's not strategy. It's not investigating blue
this way and red that way, with all respect for that. But every form
gets into a corner. And that kind of
academic approach mid 90s was in a corner. It led nowhere. And especially a student,
which if my life is like this, why can't art-- the
music that I like is in the middle of my work. The clothes that I
wear is in the middle. Everything I read
is in the middle. Why should paint be over
there in the corner? So I was looking for a
way to paint narratives. And then suddenly one day, I
wanted to paint my living room. And I was not really a
teenager, but maybe in a way I was a teenager. I painted loudspeakers
and a lamp and a stereo. But what's important
about this painting is that I painted this kind
of color field at the bottom. And I found out it's a trick. I found out when I
could do anything. I could even do a very
abstract painting. And if I did this
on the bottom, that meant it had gravity and that
meant it belonged to a world where somebody can walk. That's all it meant. And I decided that I would use
this as long as it made sense. All the small dots is like
when you place stuff there, and you feel that they're
all standing awkward. And you want them
to get in place. Whenever you messed
around with things, it just looks like it's
left over from the process, it's actually just stabilizing
what is already there. So a few paintings
from that period-- good friend taking a nap, also
objects from my living room. And I decided a painting should
just be anything that you like. You just place there. It's been cut in the wrong way. I'm sorry about that. There is a color field there. Next one-- this was
called the "New Quarter." And also, there was
this pattern that you could have this
kind of thing that was coming out of the painting. It's actually
all-- at that time, I would have a special saying. When people would
ask me, I would say, you do stuff with
your painting that gets people on the dance floor. No, it actually
means that there has to happen something that
makes people just move without they even want it. Then you start
talking with them. So that's also be another
thing that I have developed over the years, because
basically, I never like an abstract entrance. That means you're
looking at a painting, and there is
something happening. I want the painting-- that
it should happen something that you can explain. Oh, there is, in this case,
something architectural. And there's some
stuff coming out. Something you can explain--
then maybe the feeling or the experience
of the painting should be very abstract. Or you can explain
it as something that you take in
your hand, and you're quite sure what you're holding. And it just melt like an
ice cream on a summer day. You thought you were quite sure
about what you were looking at, but then it's gone
between your hands. So I always wanted--
and you will see over the next images-- I always
wanted a concrete entrance. But basically, I wanted
a very abstract exit. So still 90s,
trying [INAUDIBLE] I think this painting--
"Victory Over the Sun." I wouldn't be able to remember. So this is a woman
with her grocery, walking towards the horizon. Many suns and trying out
different structures-- and that was also,
again, this idea of playing with the
help of the viewer, because each of you in
here understands what the stupid artist is saying. He's saying, OK, that means
those ones are further back. And those ones are
further in the front. But these are all things
that we have just learned and that you can play on
the edge of how much is the viewer going to help you. Actually, the viewer,
even if they don't want, they're going to help you. They're going to fill
the gap and say, oh, that's what he means. So just play on this
edge between something that's absolutely flat. And let the viewer start
saying, I know what you mean. So this was "Riders
from the Sky." And I remember at that time,
the studio had a low ceiling. So the reason why the
paint run that way is I had to paint it like that,
because it was simply too tall. So a painting like
this is something that I'm still interested in. First of all, I like the idea. I think every painting should
have just a small melody-- a small tune like,
(SINGS NOTES). And then, even better,
(SINGS FLAT NOTE). But a painting like this, if you
should explain it very simply, it's a train, but something
happens that can't happen. The train goes out of the canvas
and into the painting again. And it's even so stupid that
it's almost embarrassed to, but that's even what
excites me today-- that you have something
that happens outside, and it gets into the work. And even better, it
disappears into a tunnel. That's everything I need for
work that it has this aspect. Even you are not quite
sure if the train is going in and out of the tunnel. These are the elements, I think,
that keeps walking to my work. And also that there's
a certain structure you're going to see
again and again, and it's not
something I developed. I would love to say
I invented that. But I think somebody would
throw stones after me. But there's three
levels of a painting. You have an entrance. That means the railway tracks. That means you and
I, we walk in there. We walk like a train. Then we get into the middle
area of the painting. Here's what's happening. We are going to go into a
tunnel, all of us together. And what's happening
in the tunnel is just whatever I place
here, it's going to affect your imagination
about the tunnel. And that's everything. There's no more to say. I could stop now. That's everything you have
to know about painting. There has to be an entrance. There has to be information in
the middle area of the painting that starts your imagination. What's happening in the
place that you can't see? And even if I would
put a flashlight and show you what
happens in the tunnel, that would be the
major disaster. And even, to be
more honest, I also have no clue what's
happening in there. We are on the same level. We always think that the
artist knows about the mystery in their work. If the artist knows about
the mystery in his painting, he's being responsible, but
he's being a bad artist. A bad, bad artist-- you
should, as an artist, be able to unfold
certain mysteries. But if you try to control
them-- bad artist. Even if you try to control
the symbols-- if you think you're very clever to
play with the symbols-- you are being responsible
about the symbols-- bad artist. Just another variation
of this structure of these blue stripes--
you can't really see it on the
painting, but these are stripes of layers of paper. The reason for these
layers of paper is that-- actually I know
there are so many students, so there are two explanation. The one that is especially for
a student is in the beginning, you develop structures
or tricks for you to overcome what you can't do. In the beginning
very early on, I couldn't stand the
feeling of painting on a dry canvas when the paint
starts to go (CLICKING NOISE). So I always painted thin wide
so the brush would go like this. But it only lasted
for a little while. Those tricks only
last for a while. Also, I couldn't,
in the beginning, stand to have too much energy. So in the beginning
when I started painting, when I was still
a student, Monday, red. Tuesday, blue. Next day, green, black, brown. Friday night, you
do the painting, because then you're tired. You worn yourself down. Those are just
tricks, or even better to say tools, that
you teach yourself according to your problems. When it's done, you
put your tool away, and you pick up a new tool. The tool in this
painting is very simple. If you have stripes and
you're going to paint a boat, you can always have the chance
to let the boat disappear into the painting. It's good that
there's not a wire. You see here the ship
is supposed to be here, but it just disappears in there. And again, the
viewer is so helpful. Oh, we understand what the
artist is talking about. The ship is just
inside the painting. It's so stupid to explain
it, but this is actually what is happening. So I hope that's enough
of the blue ones. Again, you have an idea. You realize in the middle
of the painting that a road with fruits that's on a marsh. They want to walk towards
the end of the painting. And then in the middle
of it, you decide, this is no good idea. Is there any way to do
some kind of destruction? Because when I was
a student early on, I destroyed everything. And I'm not saying
this in a heroic way. I really destroyed-- I
think the only thing that's changed over the years is that
I destroy very slowly now. I destroy similar
somebody putting up-- you call it nail polish--
very precise. That's the way I destroy now. So this one is in the middle
of it, you understand. You fail, so at least
fail in grand style. For a long time, I was
looking for possibilities to paint figures. And this is another
version of it. I used this title a
few times and the idea of a new neighborhood
or a new area. So maybe some of you
is going to recognize. This is a record
cover from the 70s. I can't remember the band. But-- somebody said it. Never mind. But this was first time. And you go from one figure
to-- I do little eyes, because I come out of a
generation of artists. We don't trust eyes. We don't trust a nose,
especially no fingers. I don't even want
to mention feet. You just don't want to
go into that debate. And even worse,
what about emotions? Figures-- should
they have emotions? That was a no-go. And I think I
spent-- you will see at the end-- I spent maybe
15 years just walking slowly into this arena. So still this painting
had to be done, walking a little bit
forward, pulling back. You could say tongue-in-cheek,
but it's not really the right way to say it. But you all the time
had to find these tools that you could go into the
painting from the side. You could jump over,
or go in that way. But this was first time
where I was kind of satisfied putting up a group of figures. And you see there are certain
places where I just left them out because I had
no more courage. I said, I used all my courage. They just have to be blank. And that's another thing. When you do a painting, if
you keep your integrity, you understand I can't. I can't. If you just leave it
open, then everybody's just going to think of it
as a plus, not as a failure. Maybe art and painting is
the only place I can actually embrace that thing that
you say, no I can't. Again, actually quite
flat, but we all know what Tal is thinking about. This is a cemetery, last garden. There are trees. They get smaller the higher. There's a yellow road. This painting was actually
coming from a completely different place. It came from [INAUDIBLE]
mounted paintings of trees, yellow trees
lying in the forest. Very awkward, very complicated,
composed paintings-- and I kind of sneaked
into his painting by just doing this yellow
road that leads straight up, but actually you can
also understand it that it disappeared
somehow on the horizon. It gets more close to
the Munch painting. Here we are in this wood. And it's a tree, and it's
also some kind of character. Again, there is this
paper that I used. And again, I just couldn't
stand the idea of trees that goes all the way down. I just couldn't stand it,
so I had to break it up. So again, you find a tool. Instead of killing the
painting or vomiting on it, you just develop
these kind of tools. And after a while, you
put just these tools away. So this is just tool. I had a scholarship in a
small German town-- smallest of all towns in the world. And I remember walking around. And there were posters
of, you call it, a lunar park-- a park where
there's a Ferris wheel. Ferris wheel, you
understand this? Where you sit and you
go up and you go down. And that's a very poetic
image-- that you go up, and you sit there. And you go down. Like smile now, cry later--
something like this. And I tried, but
I couldn't really get the Ferris wheel right. But I understood, oh, this
is kind of a funny image. It's a bit cheesy
in a way to have an image where it explodes. And you can put all
these things that you like, like the explosion. And if people ask you why,
you say, that's my brain. It exploded. Anything you're
going to say when you're just out of art school. So I took it one step further. And I started playing
with this idea. The other thing was that I-- I
think you have a word for it, "hoarder." Hoarder? So it runs in my family. And it's something you
should keep it under control. You should fight it like
you fight the devil. It means that you
have a hungry hand. And the hand just
picks up stuff. You go to the dentist. And there is all
these brochures, all this material about anything
that society wants to tell you. And you just love it. You love an image where
there's a brochure for women who is pregnant without a man. And then they can go to a
course where they can make a plaster cast of the belly. Then they feel less alone. And you pick up that material. Your hand just need that. You just need it. And after a few years,
you have a mountain in your studio of things
that you just need. You don't even know why anymore. So on one hand, you
failed at Ferris wheel, but you have all this stuff. So you created a
structure where you can glue all this stuff
on it and get away. And you can even argue
why you need more. So yeah, more meets more. After I did this one--
and I did maybe one more-- I understood that's over. That means that for me, when
something is over, I call it, I don't want the work to
turn into Persian carpets. What means a Persian carpet? A Persian carpet is something
really sophisticated where there is so much craft
putting into all the weaving, I don't want my work to
go in that direction. I want it to stay where
it still has a discussion. It is not, again, me
being a nice person. I get very lazy if I don't feel
I'm in this-- not fight, that makes it too romantic. But there's this
struggling going on. And I understood after
I stabilize this idea with images, I could stop. But then I also at that time,
I got all of these requests for going places to
teach or give lectures. And I thought, I know
this way so well. Why not to have a studio
where you invite people and just let them play with you? So for a three year period,
I had a studio called [INAUDIBLE]. Is no real language. It's in between German, Dutch,
and Scandinavian language, and French maybe. So it's nonsense, in a way. But it means goodbye,
everything interesting. It means goodbye, everything
your hand picks up. And in a three year period,
I did nine of these collages where a lot of different
students came and slept there. And we did workshops. I even sent people
out to find material, just glue it up there. And we had concerts. We had workshops. So I used it. Instead of just doing
Persian carpets, I spread the collages out
to be a more social thing-- that a lot of people would sit
there and almost weave on them, because they are
done so detailed. They are done like by Rain Man. There's such an amount
of detail that you have to be mad or
communion to do them. For some reason, they
have been very popular. I think in a superficial
way, I understand why. But I don't think that they're
really that great artworks. I think that they have a point. And they put that point
in front, and that's it. I don't feel that there
is any movement in them beyond that point, so I would
never go back doing them. A lot of the time I'm
in one family of work, and then I start
another kind of family of work meantime, same time. Sometime in the
beginning, I start slowly. And the super way, it
came out of, again, Munch. And it doesn't actually
mean that Munch is my favorite artist. It's just a coincidence
that I mentioned him twice. But he has a painting
where he's standing-- it is called something
like, "Between the Clock and the Bed." And he's standing there. Old man, ready to
fly away and die-- and there's a bedspread
like a blanket on his bed that's painted very
similar to this. And afterwards, I found
out several artists have been inspired by this blankets. For some reason, this blanket
punched further than Munch. It's just 20 years ahead of him. And I love that pattern. And I took this pattern out. And then I decided, OK,
I need more clear answers from the work that I am doing. If I need more clear answers,
why not just use the colors from that blanket? So in a three years
period, in the studio, I only had seven
buckets of paint. And I had a red one. I had yellow. I had brown, black, white. Anything you can see there--
you can count them yourself. But it meant not a
very special red, like oh, I need this kind
of-- just like the word red. Oh, give me a red. Oh, yeah, I pass you the red. Oh, can I have a brown? Yeah, I give you the brown. Because usually the
debate in the studio is about getting
the right color, finding out to speak
in the world of colors. And I actually wanted to
get out of that discussion, just say brown as
the word brown. So I did a whole
group of painting that all my interests,
all the motive, I simply put through
those seven buckets. Again, it's just another tool. It's just something to--
the moment you understand that you are starting to make a
kind of institution out of it, you just leave it alone. You go somewhere else. You put it behind you. Again, here I'm
trying something. Even for me, it's
interesting to see it. It's called "Model
Alone in the Studio." And it is a model in the studio. And again, scared, I
try to do nose, eyes. And I think I even draw them. It's just a drawing. I didn't even dare. Actually, this painting
is done like this. I do a drawing. The amateur way of
doing a painting is that you do a drawing, and
then you start filling it out. That's a disaster. And that's exactly how
I tried this painting. I would say, OK, I try
this idea with the drawing. And then I asked the
question, where can I enter in a normal way? If I use another
more hippy approach, where can I enter my drawing
in a natural way-- in a way where it actually happens by
itself-- that there is a way I can color that area. That's OK. That you understand very clearly
that you have a conscious and also a very
unconscious debate inside-- like when I say,
I don't trust hands-- I don't talk about feet. I don't trust nose and eyes. That's a debate for some reason. And just forget about asking
why you have this debate. You have this debate. And it's good. That means you have
problems-- artist problems. Then you try to enter. You try to get around
your so-called problems. So in this one, I try to
get into the idea of a model in a studio without the artist. The artist is out. The artist is gone. It's just the model alone. And she is lifting
up her blouse. It's not for you. It's not for me. It's just for the painting. Another version of the super
way-- actually I mix it up now. I'm sorry. Because there's green here. So OK, I like this
painting still. That's of a lady. The bed is from a drawing that
Hans Christian Andersen made when he was traveling in Italy. He just made a
drawing of his bed. He was quite a
paranoid character. He would always have
a robe next to his bed so he could always
climb out of the window. Maybe in a way, it's
a quite good idea. But then there is this black
silhouette and very simplified. And there's only seven colors. And just playing with how much
do you need to put in there. Also, it's important to say
that none of these paintings are done. Just go in there. Just start to paint. Just go with the flow. Go with the flow for 99% of you. Maybe some of you are
geniuses out there, so you're the 1% that doesn't
need something in your pocket to start a painting. But the rest of
you need something. At least you need
something to fail with or something to run away from. So always when I start,
there is a certain idea. There is a certain direction. Without direction, there
is no painting for me. Then there is something
that doesn't make sense. But you're in your
studio alone every day. You need your own jokes. You need your own escapes. So I remember that this
was in an exhibition in May '07, but it's dated in July. That means there are
two months where people are going to be confused. Now it doesn't
matter, but I remember it gave me a real
weird feeling of power that I had two months where
I could plan it ahead. Also, I mixed up. Also after or just
before the seven colors, because it's green. It's a Beatles cover. It's again, playing around. I could handle people with
mask better than real people. So this painting
gave me less trouble. Also, the thing that keeps
repeating-- and I tried also and I played with
the seven colors. Also, another thing
that's almost as stupid as dating something
two months ahead. I could have at least
done two years ahead, but that's too much. Then it becomes too much. So in this, what
about writing the word red with a green color? That's what I can't explain
you how much entertainment this gives me. And even when I do it,
I think I'm a genius. It's the only time I feel
like a genius is when I write the word black with white. And it makes no sense. That's why I tell you. Another kind of taking the main
area of the painting, the place naturally where the eyes go, and
just put a black square there. Or something that
is stretched out, and there's the big wide open
in the middle of the painting. How much can you place
close to the edge? Again, playing with these
words, red, black, brown, green, and the opposite. Gold is over. I think what I've always done
with my work is I've always been fishing in my own work. That means that, as I said
before, this is, I would say, a very abstract painting. You still have an up and down. But you sit there, and
you watch your painting. And maybe you
suffer, because you understood that part
of the painting failed. But you understand that
also something succeeded. Something you
didn't plan succeed. Fishing-- just fish it out. Maybe you give it
a whole painting. Maybe this was just a detail. Maybe this was something
under the table in the model alone in the studio. So around 2008, I'm just going
to show a few paintings there. I was out of the seven colors,
and I was walking around with-- and I couldn't understand that
something start happening. It's like you understand that
you are going down a hill. Not in a bad way down
a hill, like the show is over or something like that. But I understood. I could smell the next
level of my painting would be much more on a mental,
much more symbol, narrative pushed out. It was a movement
that I started myself. I couldn't blame anybody. This is something that I
pushed further and further with the seven colors. I was painting some
teenagers on a beach. And I could sense
this all the time that there was just a very
few things holding it back from just being dots
or lines or stripes. This is just the
weather on the beach. And I could sense that this
is where it's going to go, and that's why I show this one. This was the last
painting from that period. This is also still the beach. Certain abstract ideas
about the weather-- and I could say nice
things, but I remember something about the weather. So I suddenly had this idea that
at least just for a year or two years, I wanted to carve out
a valley in my own production of very clear
narratives-- more clear than I've ever done before--
something that I could call any of you and say, oh, I
just did a painting of two gentlemen facing each other. One is holding a gun. The other is probably
a captain, and one is wearing a-- what you
always steal in hotels. What are they called? AUDIENCE: A robe. TAL R: Yeah. Yes. And there is a weird
character in the back. And I started. And I said, OK, if
I'm going to do this, I'm also going to change
the technique so I'm not in my normal safe zone. So I started painting
with rabbit skin, glue, and pigments. The only thing about that
medium is that you can't really edit a lot. It seems like when you
work, you go like this. And at the end, if it doesn't
work, you start all over. You start a new painting. So you have to be quite precise. It's not something you want to
fool around with very early, or at least it would have
been a disaster for me when I was younger. I needed oil painting, which
is just being like a sculpture. You can just-- you could
just move it around. This one, you can't
move it that way. It is slowly. You add layers. You build up the
colors like this. So in a way, I can't find a
better word than academic. But it is the wrong word. But it's a word in the
arena of the word academic. A ship, you are inside again. Those three steps, you
are inside in the room. The viewer is in there,
sitting in the dark room. Then there's kind of a balcony. Even the viewer
can go out there. And then there's a ship,
just passing by for a moment. And there is a certain
call in that moment. There is a certain-- you're
looking at this ship. And this ship even
has the notion of being something
that looks back on you. And there's this meeting. We don't know where
the ship is going. We don't know where the
ship is coming from. I also don't know. I should know. I told you this earlier. And I don't want to be in
the category of bad artist. So I got even more into
playing with figures. I got over my idiosyncrasy. At least I could do something
that looked like hands or do something that
looked like faces. Even they are very simplified,
I dared getting more closer. I also, art
historically, I started getting more interested in
paintings before-- let's say, before the camera was something
that people could buy. That means that in painting,
characters would never be standing like this. They would always be posing. So I looked a lot
in the art where people are actually really
posing for the painting-- that they get into character
to be in a painting. The thing is that the
ideas behind the paintings is always the same. It's something that
moves very slowly. The thing that I push
into the painting has actually nothing
to do with art. These are just the things that
each of us find interesting. It's important for us. Private stuff--
but the weird thing is I think what you really
have to learn as an artist is that whenever there is
something that is really important for you, we think that
that's the most natural thing to paint. But that's actually asking for
the biggest punch in your nose you can ever ask
for, because what feels important in your
living room with your parents when they did this and this
to you, when this wants to walk into a painting, you
get a punch in your nose, because it doesn't
work like that. So somehow what you
all the time are looking for as an artist are
tools to make this connection. Very often quite
brutal tools-- and what means a lot for you
is not something you had to think
about for something that means a lot for you. Sometimes it's like a carnival. It has to find-- oh, it's like--
even better-- on the plane yesterday, I saw
a bad scary movie where somebody is
processed by a demon. So private material is a demon
that needs to possess things. It could be a flower. You look at the flower,
and you understand this flower-- this
Morandi flower-- is perfect for my demon. I bent the flower
to watch my demon. That's actually how I
find a way of doing it. A boy-- again, you
still have this feeling, is he going to fall? Does it mean that he's far? And he's wearing these pajamas. For a second, he's wearing
this kind of African mask. I'm going to go a little
bit quick forward, because there are certain image
that I understand that I only have three more minutes. So I'm just going to say a few
words for each of the image. Men that can't sit on horses. Horses as bad as feet. So if I don't want to
even talk about feet, I don't even want to
say the word, "horse." So again, I think that's for
all artists, not just painters. You always try to
enter what you can't do or what you can't talk about. When I did this, I was
very happy about myself. Finally, a horse. People sitting on
a balcony-- it's characters that blurs
into the background. One of my favorite
Matisse paintings, I think it's his
sons playing chess. So it's not the
wrong way around. It has to be like this. Again, what I had
said earlier, I did a drawing the amateur way. I did a drawing of
the Matisse painting. And I said, where is it possible
with all my idiosyncrasy-- or a better word for
that-- with my education, with my own private academy,
how can I enter this painting? So whenever in a natural way I
could enter, I would paint it. I don't want to it to be the
right way, because then there's too much attention on
the Matisse painting. It should just be a painting. And it should be me
trying to enter this. Again, these kind of corridors,
some kind of character sitting there alone. This is from a tiny
drawing I saw in a museum once for refugees. I think he's actually
not a refugee. I think he's a guard
from the Ottoman Empire. He has this kind
of Turkish hat on. So-- ah, nobody's going to
push me away from this stage. I need five more minutes. Dare you get up
here, push me away. So again, especially
for all of the students here, this
describes-- and if you should leave with one
thing in your pocket from this explanation, it's
the third time I explain it. This is a framer. This is a framer that I saw. And there's all
these empty frames. Already the idea of a
shop with empty frames, it's almost on the edge of
being a cheesy pop song. But it's kind of OK. It will do the job. A framer at night and no
pictures in the frames-- that means you start
playing with the thing. You can walk here. You can make the decision. The artist have to get
the person into the shop. He has to get the people
on the dance floor. That means go into the shop. The viewer says,
OK, I-- you made it. I'm going to go in there. They open the door,
and they're in there. And in there, there's this
different information. There are these empty frames. And you stand in there. But most important, there is
the back room where only you can imagine what's in there. Even I don't know. But this is actually
what it's about. It's one, two,
three, all the time. One, two, three-- just expressed
in different variation. At that time, I was
going further and further just to make it more
and more simple, to make a painting which
is just about a man walking on the street. And there's a certain
curve in his walk. That's it. Just a man walking. Man sitting on a bridge with
a funny hat, a bottle of milk perhaps. I guess it was not milk. Also, this is-- I don't
know how well you can see. If you want to kill
yourself as a painter, try to paint the moon
reflecting in water. That means you
have a composition of two holes like this. How to you handle that,
you find your way. Here's a color
version of the same. It's just the moon reflecting. I asked for five, so I'm
just only going to use five. So there's another
thing, just at the end here, that after finding
out that hands and feet, they are possible. I started being
interested in working in what I call real time. That means the possibility
for the painter not always to be in the
studio, but actually to sit in the landscape, or
even sit in front of somebody, asking somebody, excuse me,
can I make a drawing of you? And for all kinds of
probably good reasons, this was taken out of
the main arena of art. Usually again,
it's only amateurs doing something or
your aunt or your uncle in the suburbs, who's sitting
and drawing in the forest. So the question is, is
it just a romantic idea? Or is it productive for
you to sit out there? So during a summer, I didn't
go very special places. I went to the same three
places next to my summer house. And I was just painting outside. What nature teaches
you is it teaches you brutality, because there is
just too much going on there. There's just too
much, so you have to make up your mind to say,
OK, in front of me is this bush. And there's just so much. How am I ever going
to go home for lunch? That means you just go, "boom." And the moment you just say,
bush is just a boom, you translate it. You did the brutal act. You are being irresponsible. So here's more nature works. OK, last thing I think
I'm going to talk about. Then I went further. I took three years where I said,
OK, pink paper-- mostly pink paper-- having it
in a suitcase-- very spacious suitcase. Has to be a very
spacious suitcase. And whenever I
would go somewhere, I would make appointments
and just draw. And you enter a hotel room
with mostly a stranger. And you have a debate
with them, is it going to be with
or without clothes? It's embarrassing. It's intimidating, not so
much for the other person, but for me, it's terrible. Again, is it productive? Or is it just a romantic idea? And I did this. And I think I can
just recommended it to find ways-- it
doesn't matter if you're a painter, whatever
you do-- where you find the ability
to work in real time. That means you're doing the
work while you're there. It means it happens while you're
sitting there, because it gives you a great feeling of time. And you can have a better
imagination than me. It doesn't have to be
nature and naked people. And here I started
really loving when I got to the point of the hand,
because I was always saying how wrong can it go? And there would always be
new ways for it to go wrong. In the beginning, I
also always asked, even if the model
was not a smoker, please have a
cigarette in your hand. And it was not to be politically
incorrect or anything. I just needed this as a
object between them and me. You could almost say
like an antenna-- that if there was a cigarette
and even if there were smoke, there would be this
element between us. After a while, I also didn't
need that tool in a way. I could do without it. But in the beginning, it was
helpful with the cigarette. It's also a weird thing when
you know every painting happened somewhere. This happened somewhere. It's not just found images. It's not just
something you imagined. This happened. And then I took the drawings. I had all the drawings on
the floor in the studio. And I asked, is there
any of these drawings that still has enough
question, enough stuff, that I can bring them into painting? And this was from a drawing. That's the only painting that
comes from a drawing that was from a drawing class. It was in New York in a
private house, five artists and a model. And the dogs were lying there. These are actually dogs. You all know that. You can see that very clearly. I don't have to explain
you anything, right? Oh, I'm sorry. But the body has
many possibilities. And then this is a
painting I still like. Always you draw. You understand that
you are insecure. You understand that you
have all these emotions before you start. You have all these things,
all these so-called artist problems. The only thing is to find
a way to unfold them. So if you start
and you understand, I'm not really prepared. How much do I actually
have for this painting? And just leave what
exactly you have, what exactly-- I had
this for the painting. Everything I do
beyond this point is just me trying
to excuse myself. So if you leave it
exactly at that point, it's still going to be
a beautiful painting. And I talked with
a friend today. And he referred to this
as a boy in the shower. And he can keep dreaming. This is a very skinny
girl in the shower. Oh. [LAUGHTER] So you remember the moon
reflecting in water. [LAUGHTER] I think we are
almost at the end. No, no, we go back. The last of these
paintings was actually-- and actually it's a drama,
similar as a Rhianna song, something very banal. Just imagine if I
would tell you-- even if a student would tell
me something I have said, don't do it. I want to paint a
mirror-- a black mirror. You can say, that's
the most stupid idea. It is. Black mirror. So that family of naked drawings
and paintings and mirror, are over also now. That's also finito. And I'm just going to show
you just fresh things. I'm not going to
say much about it. Two different
version of the same. And this was the first one. And the next one, I understood
that the bench that she's sitting on had possibilities. I could explore the--
bench, you say?-- where she's sitting on it. I can explore it. I can get it in as a
partner, because the woman is kind of in her own world. She's sitting there, but
somebody is looking back. Maybe this thing
looking back at us is part of the reason
why she's sitting. Or maybe there's this play
between the bench and her that I tried. Oh, here we are--
deaf institute. The eye in the playground
of the deaf institute. And in a color version. And that's it. Finito. [APPLAUSE] I think that you are allowed
to ask questions if you want. Maybe you're all tired. So you can ask
anything you want. Yes? AUDIENCE: This is a
little off-topic but-- TAL R: I think somebody is
giving you a microphone. AUDIENCE: I'm a former painter. I still paint. But I got scared off
by the gallery system. So I guess I wanted to ask
you a bit more about courage and being not self-conscious. And maybe it's easier as a man. But I'm just curious. And maybe it's even a
rhetorical question. But how do you deal with that? How do you cope with the mirror
effect of the gallery system? TAL R: Oh, the gallery system. AUDIENCE: Yeah. TAL R: I can say that I
think it's different today. I have a feeling that art
students today, very early on, knows about this system-- know
that there is also a game going on that you can decide
to play or not and how you want to be in that game. I only got to know about what
you call the gallery system when I was in middle
of it, because it just happened very fast. I think that if I knew
what I know today, I would have done things
quite differently. I think I wouldn't have been
able to do it differently. But at least I would
like to be clever now and say I would have done
certain things differently. I think you can say that you
get scared about the art system. But I think it's not
the right thing to say. You have to understand
that the art system is also scared by the artist. And you have to believe in that. You know what I hate? I hate when artists, they start
complaining about auctions. I think that's really a sellout. Oh, people, they put
my work at auction. What's the problem? Everything goes to the flea
market sooner or later-- [LAUGHTER] --even you and me. So what's the big deal? So you just have to
find your way in those, because they're not system
like a stone or a tree. It's things that you can decide
how to communicate with that. And actually, as an artist,
you can find your way in that. I don't know if I answered. I tried. More? AUDIENCE: Will you
explain your name? TAL R: Yeah. We should ask my parents. But Tal is-- I was born
outside Tel Aviv in Israel in '67 by Danish mother
and Israeli father. And Tal is a very
normal name in Israel. And we moved to Denmark
just right after I was born. And in Denmark, Tal is an
absolutely disaster name because it means nothing. It actually means number. So as a kid, when I
would say, my name is Tal, they're
going to say, yeah, but what's your real name? So it's doesn't exist as
a name where I grew up. I'm on the edge of being-- I
can't even pronounce that word right-- "dig-lec-tic"? I can't spell. I couldn't write a letter
without 100 mistakes. So the reason for the R
is just that Rosenzweig is damn difficult to
spell, and I understand it. So I just simply, very
early on-- and very early, even when I was in
school, when I was 10, I remember I always
played with my name. I always thought it had
a certain plastic inside. So just very early
on, I took it away. Maybe also you
have to understand that being Jewish in
American is common. When you're Jewish
in Scandinavia, you are like exotic minority. And to have a name that's not
a name and a second name that puts you in the ghetto of
Czechoslovakia, of Prague, is just too much
for blonde kids. You just want to hang
out and be like anybody. So somewhere in between,
that's explanation of my name. Yes? Yeah? Just speak loud. AUDIENCE: You were
talking about control and not planning your work
and being irresponsible as in being a good artist. In terms of
production of a work, how do you feel
about controlling in terms of knowing
when it's done and the completion of the
work and feeling confident, if that makes any sense? TAL R: OK. That's many questions,
but let's just take one, because that's always the
interesting question about, when is the painting done? Are you an art student? AUDIENCE: Art history. I went here for two
years and transferred. TAL R: Because the truth is when
you start from the beginning, according to how
educated you are, you notice, here is the
possibility to finish it. If you don't take it-- you
don't take the bus, you go on. Oh, again, here is the
possibility to stop. It's not like every painting
just have one bus stop. The more you work on them,
usually the longer it's between those stops. And the stop where you
say, now, it's not a point. It's not a dot. It's actually a debate room. It's a room you enter
and say, in this room in here-- in this painting--
in this discussion now, I have to finish
inside this discussion. If I move ahead, I'm
in another discussion. I can't go back. So it's always a
question where artists should give very heroic
answers, but it's not like that, at least not for me. It's much more something
you can move and play with. AUDIENCE: Thank you. AUDIENCE: Up here. Going back to the
idea of community, I know you curated a show
at CFA for your students. TAL R: Yes. AUDIENCE: I've seen you
work with Jonathan Meese, and I've seen you
and Daniel Richter talk about each other's works. And you moved around a lot. So back to this idea of
community and how those guys and how they've
helped you or what's the importance of
that is for you? TAL R: Yeah. Again, to do it very simple,
you have ideas in your pocket. And the ideas have no limits. They have no form. They have no material. Then you look and you
decide, OK, I get this idea, and I put it into a film. Or I make a nice
dress out of it, if you are that broad
in your practice. But even sometimes there
can be certain ideas that it makes sense if you
do it with somebody else. But if the desire
comes from outside, like I want to
work with somebody, it's more complicated. It's more easy that you
have a certain idea. In the case with
Jonathan Meese, we had a certain
friendship where there were certain kind of talks
that only him and I could have. And then there
were certain ideas that we could address similar--
the idea of the mother. So with him, it had a natural
reason to do it like that. And very often,
friendship is not enough. I think even if you say it
should be with a friend, you are on a wrong track. It all goes back to the idea. When I did the big
collage, it was simply the only way I could
continue if I did it with a group of other people. Alone, I would be too lazy. It simply asked for
other people, this idea. Otherwise, it
wouldn't be possible. AUDIENCE: Thank you. That was fantastic. I wanted to pick up on
something that Terry mentioned in his intro about
your relationship with the history of art. And as you know,
we're a museum school, and so we often bring our
students into the museum. And you noted Edvard
Munch and Matisse, and there's a lot
of early modernism that I'm seeing in the work. And I'm wondering why. What is it about early modernism
that you're attracted to? TAL R: I think for the first--
when I was an art student, and even five, six, seven
years after art school, I rarely went to the museums. Just an image in a
book would be enough. I learned everything
from just watching, because what I really
needed from the images was just a drawing. I didn't need the feeling
of standing in front of it. Even I would say, that
would kill me at that time. I could even have an
image this size to get the information that I needed. I think my interest in art
before, it was much more about folk art, like
applied art-- anything done outside the main arena of art. At a certain point, I
think my own work pushed me into really being
interested in art history-- not art history as
something that is a line. I wouldn't approach it, I
think, like an art historian. But I actually approached it
like when you go into a buffet, because whenever you are working
with a certain group of work, you are in a debate. And there are
certain artists you meet who has the worst or the
best answer in this debate. Then you go for [INAUDIBLE]. Then you go for Balthus. I can't even say
that I it's about whether I like them or not. It's not even about that. It's just information. Not necessarily technical,
more structure-- how they structure things. And I need this information. I remember I went to see
the Picasso show in New York-- the sculpture show. I went only-- and that's quite
extreme to go all the way just to see one show. I spent one hour in the museum. I don't want to spend more. I just want to go in. And then you get in
contact with the work. You understand certain
structure things. Then you go out. Maybe you buy a
postcard on the way out. Also, my interest in art
has mainly been after 1850. I'm very rarely
interested in art. There are a few of
them that I can-- and I'm not talking about
interest in an academic way. I can't use them really. I can usually use after when
art was in the popular way set free-- when art didn't
work for the church or for the nobles-- when
it's just about painting something on the field. That's where my art history
starts, at least for now. Little bit before as
well-- maybe the Golden Age around 1840, but
anything before that, I try but has no interest. So modernism-- if you're
interested in saying, OK, how to draw figures? Then actually the last 150
years, it's just 10 minutes. It's just people circling
around the same questions. How to enter-- I went to the art
school in the 90s. You entered representations
tongue-in-cheek, ironical. You could do it like that. I think many artists try. Is there more, not being
regressive, not being vintage, but are there ways
to walk into it? And if art history decided
we don't need people in the painting, we don't need
these kind of stories anymore, then it's a good question
why everybody in the pocket have a phone-- that all the time
shows whatever they're doing, how they're posing. We still need to see each other. And maybe even more,
we need painters because painting, from the
very beginning, is stupid. So we trust the painting. We don't really trust
the iPhone in the pocket. We know that there's
all these filters. But if somebody is
painting boy walking, we know, oh, this is
just this wet material and our old blanket. It's actually, in a weird
way, it's without power. So we trust it. In a way, painting
has a possibility to speak in the now. Again, maybe I'm just
imagining, but I'm working on-- this
is my interest now that as an artist, that you can
speak quite directly about now, because the
photographers, they're under pressure in that area. They're actually pushed
a little bit back now. So can paint painters enter
that without being regressive? Yes? AUDIENCE: My question is
similar to the last one. Here. Hi. I have one class. And I know that in the coming
weeks, they're going to ask me, why is this piece a painting? Or why is this painting
acrylic as opposed to oil? And why are you a painter? I'm wondering what
your answer would be-- TAL R: Where are you sitting? Put your hand up. Are you there? OK, whoa. Yes, oil and acrylic-- AUDIENCE: I'm wondering
what your answer would be to this question
or what you think of answering these questions? TAL R: I really didn't
get the question. I have to get it again. I couldn't see you, and
then I couldn't listen. AUDIENCE: OK. I am going to be asked
why my paintings are acrylic as opposed to oil, or
why is it a painting at all rather than a photograph? Or why are you a painter? I am wondering what your answer
to those questions would be. TAL R: Oh, that's
a lot of questions. So you said something
about painting opposed to photography? AUDIENCE: Yeah. TAL R: I also hear you said
something oil against acrylic? AUDIENCE: Yeah. There's a lot of questions
when breaking down your work and why is it something
rather than something else. TAL R: I think in a
way I answered already this about photography, saying
that I think more now today, things done with hands full of
mistakes, that painting is also about what didn't happen,
what didn't succeed. And a painter tries
to drive somewhere. It drives towards something. I think more than ever,
it's something society or we all need that. It wasn't a very
academic question, and I'm not sure I could answer
this in a real academic way. Oil and acrylic-- and
I'm not being rude now, but I'm going to tell you a
little joke-- the only joke that I know about art. So we have a garden. In this garden,
it's the IQ garden. The further in the garden, the
more intelligent people are. So in the middle of
the garden, there's two philosophers sitting there. And their discussing
the meaning of life. They're sitting there,
and they're talking. You go a little bit
further to the entrance, and there's the people
who are into mathematics. And they're discussing
infinity, whatever. At the gate, two
painters are sitting. And the one painter
is asking the other, are you using oil or acrylic? [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE]
