You 've been working now for almost forty years... is that correct?
Since 1951 to be
exact.
In what sense has your worked evolved over the years?
I think in some ways it has expanded in a creative sense: I have evolved
various
ways of working, from line drawings to very complex and texturally rich
larger
and increasingly material works. Everything seems immerged in them... and
to
emerge from them. I've been concentrating on background quite sometime
now -
finding new materials and working out certain chromatic effects. I often
use a
roller form of painting, the kind of rollers used by housepainters. But
it took me
many years to develop different ways of using it, to let it go many ways
pressure-
wise, to put individual colors into a spectrum along the very edge of the
roller
and then flood planes with color or gain special textural effects by
blending oil
and acrylic. I realize my drawing is an entirely separate entity.
Drawing, even the
feeling for drawing, is totally different from painting. Painting
backgrounds is
what I most enjoy doing: it takes less effort because it's instantaneous,
exalting,
and one has to keep making discoveries plastically and emotionally, to
get new
ideas, to find new materials. It keeps me on the go. Mostly my interest
has been
in texture, even putting in three-dimensional objects. I don't do that so
much
anymore; I don't like to glue on things or pieces of things, it seems
artificial. The
support itself should bring out the texture; the two should merge. As you
know, I
use a variety of supports: coarse- or fine-grained paper, Japan paper,
paper that
is smooth or heavy, tracing paper, translucid paper, photographic paper,
etc.
Drawing is a less immediate, an intellectual and physical operation you
have to
carry out all on your own. It's the tedious part; you have to be in a
certain frame
of mind, both relaxed and fully under control.
You do portraits as well, don't you?
Yes, but i don't mean portraits in a conventional sense. i mean in the
creative
sense which combines the inner thinking of the artist, realism and
caricature.
I want to be able at any given moment to detour from the actual person
being
portrayed to delve into the realm of the subconsious. The more abstract I
get in portraiture usually means the less interested I am in the person
I'm
drawing. I make up the whole thing; I make up portraits of myself as
well. ...
Frankly, I feel the most interesting material in drawing comes from the
innermost core of the unknown in every person.
There has always been dialogue in your work between lines and
background...
I did drawings right from the start. ... Basically, I use a thin line and
it disappears
into the background many times and gets lost. Sometimes I put color over a
line and you can still see it. For many years I had a very difficult time
resolving
drawing with a background. I went through a period in the 50's and early
60's using a lot of black and colored inks: you can use several washes of
colored inks without losing the line. But people kept saying: "it won't
last more
than 10 years". ... Oh well, I think I would have gotten tired with that
one
technique anyway.
What is the meaning of line for
you?
Line means an escape from say a stressful situation, a boring situation.
You
get a feeling you're doing something, actually going somewhere. If a line
is
done fast, if the creation goes fast, you can get some very unexpected
results.
And what does background mean, to you then?
It's an area you cannot speculate about ... there seems to be this aura
of the
unknown which I like to present as it floats, free of gravity, so you get
a sort of out-of-
this-world effect.
Isn't it more of a space within you yourself?
I have found out things come out different ways internally and
externally. Sometimes, for
instance, I draw externally and I utilize external thinking to the point
where the object
becomes what it is in reality, But you can also draw from an inner
reality and it's a
whole different process. I like to play back and forth between the
subconscious and
conscious elements in the same picture. I've been seeing other artists
recently doing
the same thing, It's my way to escape from my past, something that is
really mine. ...
When I was a young person, I had all my decisions made for me, and my
lifestyle was
entirely up to parental say. So drawing was, at last, a way of living out
my personal
wants - something I could do on my very own. And I feel in that sense it
lets me keep
my persona together, keeps me going. Art saved me: I could say if I
hadn't discovered
drawing, then I probably wouldn't be around at this point.
How would you explain the way your forms keep emerging and disappearing,
the
dialogue between forms now-present, now-nigh disappearing?
Well, I find my relationships in a big city - in New York, which is my
whole
outlet - represent an emerging and disappearing type of social life ...
people
disappear, they reappear, they disappear again - I mean they can go away
forever... everything is unpredictable. I seem to remember my own family,
always on the run socially, as disappearing all the time. I felt
isolated. I really
didn ' t know what to do so I'd dance around the room - I love music - and
pretend there were lots of friends, people, around. Of course no one was
really there; it was all fantasy. As a child, people never seem to be
around
just when you need them. I think you never get over that disappearing
business,
you never learn to cope with yourself. The whole concept of my work is to
escape all this; I am always looking for a new image that would stay with
me,
would be my friend in a way, a new - another - world. So a special quality
of space emerges. And I think in my newest larger works drawing and
background really merge so it seems to me very little disappears. But what
can I say? Every day is a different day, and I even see things entirely
differently
in the afternoon - when there's a lot of contrast ... no merging or
disappearing
- than at some other time of the day, when things tend to merge and
disappear.
Are you slowly familiarizing yourself with this new world you're talking
about?
Have you been able to enter
it?
The new world has different meanings ... it can be the end of my
existence.
I have been thinking what happens as one gets older, constantly obsessed
with
longevity of life, of my life. So I am concerned about a new world but the
search for discovery is sort of frantic, hasty, because so little time is
left.
I believe something has to be achieved every day towards finding thi's new
world, a world I think I found, as I say, in certain of my larger
paintings.
What kind of a world do you have in mind?
It seems to me ... bodies are spiritual forms ... that travel through
space into
infinity.
You mean some sort of icon-world? That wouldn't be so far-fetched if one
were to consider your backgrounds - so very 'precious' and beautiful - as
corresponding to the gold or preciously carved backgrounds of ancient
icons,
in their manner of suggesting space that is other ... space that
texturally
translates into immateriality Grid pure spirituality.
That could be.
Could we soy your work seeks to plastically translate a particular and
emotional space ...
space situated elsewhere?
It's also a frantic attempt to get away from this world. I can say that
now that I'm
older, but I realize that I've always wanted to get off this ... to get
out of this
world.
Yes, but at the some time I think that your works lend testimony to our
world, to
contemporary society: lines and backgrounds snatch each other up, prey on
each
other...
Our world is full of irony - I mean dramatic, mortally dangerous irony.
It is a very
mercenary, selfish society ... pillagers. Selfish in the sense there is no
inquisitiveness, it seems they have limited interests and are really
fooling
themselves about what they think they really are. They are quite - I
don't really
like to use the word - grotesque; they are dancing about over a void,
which
amuses me a great deal.
Isn't there somewhat of a contradiction between your wanting to get out
of this
world and oil the time you spend depicting it?
What else is there to do? You can't really grasp onto anything but
reality.
I mean how do you reconciliate life and pointing?
Well, one thing I do is, a lot of the time I escape from life ... I go
back into
history. This has some influence on my painting. I look at art books, and
latch
onto some historical figure, say Louis the XIV. I go back into time and
bring
back imagery, maybe out of a painting done in that period. I bring the
images up-
to-date and ... I have one here in Geneva: Louis the XIV riding a horse.
... Now I
do this very frequently: I spend a lot of time redesigning these people.
Believe
me, I am not recopying in any sense: I am making them come back to life.
Maybe
I think it was a better time, which of course is totally irrational.
But why Louis XIV in particular?
I don't know. Maybe I would like to have been like him for some reason -
all
that pomp and power, his eccentricity, the fancy garb and those hats. I do
put a lot of hats on people. I don't know why I do that - perhaps as a
medieval
form of punishment.
What do you mean by
that?
There's this inner sense of guilt in all of us. ... In Massachussets they
made
children who were bad sit in a corner with a dunce hat. I don't know but
as
I said, I think a lot of my work is a personal reflection of my
childhood. I can't
always figure it out. That's what keeps me doing more work: who are - were
- these people? Part of my past or of the future; sometimes they all get
mixed
up together. But do I like to keep the past separated from the future; I
mean
art is always travelling back and forth between yesterday and tomorrow. If
one believes in heredity in any sense, then the fact that my people came
over
from France as Huguenots, that they were persecuted and that they
emigrated
... is at the basis of my desire to return to Europe, to an earlier life
as a
European. I can't actually do that, but painting renders the impossible
believable,
tangible, even if it's for just a minute. The past and the future play a
major
role in everybody's life, but nowadays I often get the feeling humanity
has
little of its past left and even less of a future, because people don't
care any
more about either. ... The present in itself never meant anything at all,
it has
no significance
whatsoever.
But royalty interests you more than the common people do when you
delve
into the past, doesn't
it?
Yes, there's something about royalty that ... I am obsessed with real
royalty
English, French, Spanish. I come from a very egotistical type of family;
they
all thought they were supreme. My mother was a beautiful woman, I mean,
extraordinary, in the classic sense. My father thought he was, you know,
no
one was as clean as he, or did things the right way. He had to boss
people,
including myself. He was the king, and my mother the queen. ... So I
decided they
bored me and I'd rather go back to real kings and queens. (laughter)
Well, you said you define yourself through space, didn't you?Just going
through space,
or what you call 'infinity'. So how would the concept of time fit in with
that, with your
work?
I am afraid of time in some ways because I come from sort of a
workaholic type of
family, where the concept of time was something that could be a
frightening experience.
Like: "Oh what am I going to do? I have some free time on my hands!" The
tendency
was to go back to work, so when I go to space now (which I obviously do),
I am not
aware of time at the moment ... because I am afraid even to think about
time. It's sort of
frustrating in a way. I don't want to get caught up in time, because
there's really nothing I
want to change in my life, I'm only interested in getting on with my
painting and drawing
... I'm not preoccupied by success. Overly competitive, very destructive
forces occur in
that direction. People spend so much time on succeeding, it actually
kills them. Time is
only limited in certain spheres but I have abolished it in my work.
And how do you actually see the infinity you talk about?
I find that's a fascinating subject. I think, for instance, just
travelling on a train is relaxing
because of the movement. And there you are going through space. I almost
always
have the feeling that I don't want to get off the train because I'm
enjoying the feeling
somehow of space. Travelling through space gives me a sense of security
because
you don't have to make any decisions. There's no worry whether or not
someone is
there, at the end of the space - because that's my biggest fear: being
left, that somone
might not be there. So I feel I would like to go on into infinity, space
as everlasting ... a
regal notion of space as magic, sacred.
But do you know where you're heading?
No, because I'm afraid once I get there, I will not like it. Maybe it
won't be
any better than here and now. Things often wind up badly, life can be a
disaster.
So you think it's preferable to float around in space?
Painting in itself is a step to the sidelines, to detaching yourself from
here and
now. And I've learned to adapt, to be alone. But I know that particularly
in
the artistic world, people are not aware of how much time they lose by
thinking they have to keep this or that relationship going. This puts
creativity
aside, because creativity is work ... I mean because it has to come out
through
labor ... it means waging a terrible battle with yourself every day and
there
is no time for any sort of dependency.
Generally speaking, do you feel we spend too much time on others, and
don't
leave enough time for our own inner growth?
Well, I would say the way it's done today is not the way I think we should
relate to others. Today's lifestyles are tremendously dependent on the
spoken
word ... spoken by others, usually the media. The media have taken over,
have more power than humanity does. "They" talk to you as if they were
sitting right with you, you know, like your friend, and tell you what to
do,
what decisions to make. And who are "they"? Mannequin-type individuals,
overdressed men and women with dyed blond hair ... We have become a
robot society. You listen, and are told not to go someplace because that's
where it's going to rain or that's where the traffic will be too heavy.
You
need to be alone to do artistic work, to stay self-reliant and not depend
on
authoritative outside advice. Refusal to shoulder responsibility condemns
society
to dependence: American society seems condemned to dependency on,
especially, the media.
Could we sum it all up by saying you want to live and work on your
own?
Yes.
And for you, floating around in your particular kind of space is the best
way
of being on your
own?
I only have myself to deal with: I'm lucky to be where I am now. I never
got
much of a chance before, especially when I was a child. It takes a long
time
to learn to be alone: you can't just up and leave everything behind,
because
you're still left with the trauma marks of it all, the inner fears and
anxiety.
Before, I couldn't take more than fifteen minutes at a time of being
alone.
Nobody stays by themself more than five minutes in New York: that's our
modern society. I'm just beginning to learn to live alone.
First interview with the artist, by Sylvio Acatos. Lausanne 1988
