Talking is also work. At least in the world of contemporary art, where Hans Ulrich Obrist or Doug Aitken turn their conversations into films or books.
There is something legendary about Andy Warhol’s interviews. An art historian once spoke about “absurdly superficial interviews”. For example, Warhol was asked whether he believed in flying saucers, what soap he used and whether he liked chives. Yet if we’re honest with ourselves: These are the questions that interest people most. Although they are disappointing for those art historians hoping the interview will reveal deep insights into the artist’s oeuvre. This expectation has a long tradition because at the beginning of art history was the history of artists. In his “Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects …” Italian Renaissance painter Giorgio Vasari spoke with the artists in his area in the hope of gaining privileged access to their works. A work of art, and especially a masterwork, needs someone to decipher and explain it. That is the task of art historians and art critics, who hope by visiting the artists’ studios and talking to them to get very close to the origin of the work. At least this view persisted until the 20th century.
Pop and Interview
The advent of the mass media brought us interviews with stars. Though our contemporaries Pop stars are out of our reach, so it is all the more important that interviews let us get close to the stars. Andy Warhol had a fairy good understanding of Pop culture, and understood this closeness is actually a matter of pretence. In a television interview from 1966 a reporter asked him why he had stopped painting, and whether he believed his reputation did justice to his art. Warhol found the whole thing too complicated and asked the interviewer to supply the answers explaining: “I’m so empty today, I can’t think of anything.”
There were several artists in West Germany who produced their own version of Pop Art. Advertising, fashion and Pop music offered a diversion from the dreary everyday world of West Germany. The young artists did not think much of the established art critics’ talk of authenticity anyhow, which is why in 1964 Sigmar Polke fabricated an interview. Polke has the critic John Anthony Thwaites talk to his friend, artist Gerhard Richter. Richter says he is physically fit and trains his arms with an expander. Artistically, the fictitious Richter also sees himself at the height of his powers. It all starts off pretty harmlessly. But in post-war Germany there is no such thing as harmless tedium or normal cuteness. The Gerhard Richter of the interview says his paintings are so good that he cannot show them to anyone and even claims that his paintings serve as instruments of torture in concentration camps and Stalin came to power simply be using only two Richter paintings.
Prefer talking
There is hardly a museum today that does not own a Polke or Richter. Polke and Richter were two of the most prolific artists of the 1960s and 1970s. But at the end of the 1970s there were artists who preferred to talk. Martin Kippenberger said: “I also much prefer it. Never painting, painting takes too long, which is why I have abandoned it. Prefer talking. It goes down well.” That was in 1978, and he was in his office in Berlin. Kippenberger went to his office towards midday, then sat there in his suit. In the evening he ran a club, the SO 36. Otherwise, Kippenberger had stickers printed with inscriptions such as “Kippenberger out of Berlin.” “What does that have to do with art? No idea,” he claimed. But he did know that the era of the diligent art workers was over. Because talking was also productive.
Back to Andy Warhol and his “absurd superficiality”. Warhol also stopped painting, then he made films, after which he started painting again. In-between he founded the magazine inter/View. Initially a film magazine that revolved around Warhol’s Factory and his superstars inter/View soon became the “crystal ball of Pop.” In the 1970s, Warhol’s magazine differed from other glossy magazines because Warhol featured seemingly unedited interviews, and in a pleasant chatting tone. For example, Jodie Foster, who Warhol interviewed in 1976 when the actress was all of 14 years old. The young Jody had hiccups, and Andy Warhol said of a party: “It was so exciting!” It no longer seemed to be a matter of talking about art or even producing something sensible as long as talk took place.
Meanwhile, another form exists. Neither Pop star interview, nor a matter of Kippenberger’s refusal to work, Doug Aitken’s interviews in “The Source” also have something to do with productivity. Tirelessly, Aitken travels through the United States, visits artists, architects, academics and musicians. Full of curiosity, he asks how they work, where they work and why they do it. The inventor of this interview format, Hans Ulrich Obrist, once said: “The thing is always to find something out in these interviews.” What Doug Aitken has found out became the film “The Source” which can be watched online.