Clamor and din

Charlie Rose interviewed Chuck Close Tuesday night for the hour. Close said—I’m paraphrasing here—that photography is the easiest medium for a person to become proficient in (anybody can take a decent photograph) but the most difficult for an artist to develop a personal vision in, because the photographer is not physically involved, is not touching the canvas, shaping the material. He said that if you’re standing across a room looking at a photograph and you can readily identify it as a specific photographer’s work (presumably never having seen it before), that photographer has accomplished something significant.

He also mentioned that, when he was introduced to Willem de Kooning, Close told de Kooning that it was nice to meet someone who’d painted even more de Koonings than he had. Charlie asked him what had become of those de Kooning imitations of his, and Close said he’d destroyed them all, that the artist isn’t responsible for anything unless he puts it out there. Of course, he also mentioned how he goes into museums and touches up his own work, adding to it when necessary, so maybe the responsibility doesn’t end even then.

Finally, when Charlie asked him why some artists make it and others don’t, Close talked about the artist happening to have what the art world was looking for at just the right time and place. Produce work the art world isn’t ready for, and they won’t be interested; produce work that the art world is already over, and they won’t care.

I’m enjoying the sense of community in this virtual world of bloggers, the discussion with people I might never otherwise have crossed paths with were it not for a series of hyperlinks—one link leading to the next, like synapses firing in the brain. But I am equally overwhelmed by it, frightened by it, wishing that I could hit the Pause button on the rest of the world while I spent a few months or years just trying to figure out what I think, what I want, what my own vision is. I’ll have to settle for finding these answers in spite of—and because of—everyone and everything around me. There is no other option, and if I can’t use the din to my advantage, I have no business even trying.

I’ll add a photo later today, but for now, I wanted to get these thoughts out there, while Charlie and Chuck were still on my mind, and before the clamor claimed me.

UPDATE (11:13 a.m.): Check out Shelly Lowenkopf’s post today about Zoe Strauss’s recent Guggenheim post. Both posts are brilliant, and seem, already, to have made me thankful I don’t get everything I wish for, Pause buttons included.

UPDATE (9:26 p.m.): Added photo.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball