STUDIO VISIT
Alex Katz in conversation with BRIAN APPEL
continued...
Alex Katz Kate
Moss 2003
details to follow
BA: When I look at your portraits
they seem initially to be lifted directly and spontaneously from the
flow of real life. John Szarkowski once said of Garry Winogrand's images
"... they seemed formed not by rules and calculation, but by intuition
and strong feeling". This seems to be totally applicable to your
own work. Can you talk about why you select the people you paint and
what kind of relationship you create between them and the viewer?
AK: Generally, I pick people
who go into my ideas.
BA: Casting.
AK: Yeah, just like casting.
BA: So you have the story
in your mind and then you look for people to fill those roles?
AK: Right. And then you have
to deal with people. They vary a lot and some people have a look from
a mirror they want you to paint. And other people freeze. In general,
with portrait painting, I think you have to get the person to relax...
you establish a relationship. And then you have to see what gesture
is natural to that person.
BA: Right. When you were
talking about Brady's pictures during the civil war you talked about
the long exposures... how you're getting multiple views of them and
they sort of...
AK: ... make a big singular
image...
BA: Yes.
AK: They were influential
to me in the late 50's. That General Sherman portrait is about as good
as anything I've ever seen.
BA: You have a postcard of
that somewhere taken by Brady.
AK: Yeah. Hanging up there
[motioning to his painting area]. I was in a bookstore flipping through
some Civil War books and saw that image and...
BA: It spoke to you.
AK: Yes. I hadn't thought
of Brady in years and years.
BA: I loved the way you deconstructed
his gestures [at the Silver Auditorium] in that photograph. It was like
a psychiatrist...
AK: Yeah. He has a crooked
bowtie that goes this way and his face goes that way. And he can get
away with it.
BA: I wonder why Brady didn't
straighten it?
AK: Because it looked great.
And I don't think anyone would straighten out Mr. Sherman's tie. [Laughs]
BA: At the time, people got
there photo taken maybe once or twice in their life. So when they were
being photographed...
AK: Oh, it was a big deal
because it's like this new object.
BA: Right. Now, it's so ubiquitous
people just...
AK: It's replaced seeing,
basically.
BA: Right, right. When you
go out to look at art, what are you looking for... for your own nourishment?
AK: I don't know.
BA: I get a sense from you
that you're extremely hungry visually and you need a constant diet of
stimulation.
AK: Well, I like looking.
I love riding the subway where you can look at all these different people.
It's so fascinating because you see people that are beautiful in their
culture and you wonder, do they know how beautiful they are?
BA: Right. That hunger is...
I normally associate with actors who are constantly looking for information
to appropriate for some future role. When you go out to look at art,
what would be the ideal exhibition, one-person show to see?
AK: Well, you see different
things for different needs. You can go to a show and get it in about
15 seconds and it might not be a bad show. It's kind of interesting-
I'd like to see the next one. And you can go up to a painting and spend
five minutes looking at an edge or something. So you really look at
art for different reasons... different kinds of things. On a whim, I
went to see the Parmigianino show at the Frick Museum.
BA: ...got to get there...
AK: Yeah. He's a Mannerist.
And it's like a fantastic show! I wasn't expecting it. I thought the
stuff would be more like Pontormo, who's very linear.
BA: Don't know him, but...
AK: Well, they're Mannerists
and he's... like the second or third one down. But Pontormo's like the
living end. He's sort of like the great queen of Western Art. There's
no one more effete. Most of his art is on paper. He's a fantastic draftsman.
And you're just sort of swimming inside the stuff. You just go in there
and you look at it and you really can spend some time on it. You take
back a lot. But in general, I don't have a lot of patience. I'm really
quick on stuff so... you look at different things. While I was at the
Frick I went and looked at the paintings. It's always nice to look at
the old paintings. You see them a little differently every time. You
see those old paintings through what you're involved in. So they change.
BA: It seems to me that you
are trying to engage the viewer in a little bit of work when they interact
with your pieces.
AK: I think my images are
aggressive and unavoidable.
They...go... pow! You're
really hit with them. And then you can't understand them. So you have
to spend a little bit of time on the image if you want to get it.
BA: Cut through the clutter,
and then, ultimately extend the viewing?
AK: Yeah, because it's not
a... it's a compressed, reduced, reductive way of painting.
BA: You could say that about
photography, too, though. Because it's one frame from somebody's life...
AK: Well... photography functions
in a different time. Photography, no matter what you do is past tense.
It's happened.
BA: The way it was.
AK: The way it was the minute
you click the shooter. The painting doesn't work that way. It's present
tense if it's any good. You look at a good painting that's 100 years
old... it's present tense. And so they do function very differently.
With the paintings, I think it's pow... and then, if you hang around,
they start to move.
BA: Interesting.
AK: And the people come out...
the people get more complicated. The space becomes more complicated.
BA: Yes. I've found myself
talking to your characters on occasion. How do people react to your
depiction of them?
AK: Most people like it because
there's a generalize. There are details that are specific and details
that are left out. All realistic painting is that. But I leave a lot
more out than other people normally do in a realistic painting. And
so... you can get the age but you don't have a lot of...
BA: Imperfections.
AK: Yes. Imperfections.
BA: So you glamorize?
AK: It's glamorized in a
way. It's general. I think of it as generalized rather than glamour.
People do say it's glamorized...
BA: So, you are going for
essence... instantly perceivable but slow to be appreciated. The other
stuff would be...
AK: Naturalistic.
BA: Looking at your large
paintings of groups of people or even at isolated portraits of individuals,
I sense that if I could pull back your frame of reference slightly,
a camera and lights would appear. Even your outdoor landscapes have
an artificial movie set feeling about them. Have you ever looked upon
your pieces as stages for some kind of theatrical or filmic narrative?
AK: Well, I think my scenes
are dramatized a bit.
BA: Heightened... like picking
the time when you paint. That 15 minute window before the sun sets...
AK: Yeah. I think it's trying
to make it function as people, and then, as paint. And so, it makes
it aggressive... which I guess is what you're talking about, which is
what dramatizes it.
back continued
