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MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM

(Picture: The Challenge… A Tribute to Modern Art documentary)

Special Edition

I am putting my TV-testscreen-T-shirt on – to celebrate the medium that more and more gets deconstructed by contemporary ways of online broadcasting and crowd participation: good old-fashioned television. And we are doing this by dedicating a Microstory of Art Special Edition exclusively to appearances of painters on the TV-screen. To appearances, and also to their speaking about the medium of television – from painter’s perspectives – and on TV.

(Pictures: The Challenge)

Painters On TV & On TV

ONE) From the 1966 Picasso TV-interview:

Interviewer: Est-ce que vous aimez la télévision aussi?
Pas tellement?

Picasso (stuttering approvingly): Je l’ai, je l’ai…

(Interviewer: Oui?)

Picasso: J’ai commencé un jour parce qu'il y avait le mariage de la…, de la Princesse Margaret et quelqu’un m’a pręté un appareil, alors j’ai vu le défilé de la Princesse Margaret (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Margaret,_Countess_of_Snowdon#Marriage) et j’ai continué aprčs.

Interviewer: Vous savez ce qui serait formidable quand on vous a devant les caméras de télévision, ce serait de vous laisser tout seul en liberté et vous seriez tellement… capable de faire des choses formidables pour les téléspectateurs, vous leur inventeriez des choses…

Picasso: Oui, probablement. Des fois, je trouve des choses magnifiques ŕ la télévision, des choses trčs jolies, que j'aime, qui m'intéressent.
Mais des fois, c’est des fois épouvantable.

Picasso: N’est-ce pas, je le dis parce qu’on est lŕ tous les deux tous seuls. Ah non, c’est pas vrai, tout le monde m’écoute.…

(Source: 13 Journée dans la vie de Pablo Picasso; transcription: DS, with help by fresques.ina.fr; see: http://fresques.ina.fr/jalons/fiche-media/InaEdu01201/interview-de-picasso-en-1966.html; bg pictures: Film Socialisme)

TWO) Chagall Shrugs off the Critics

(Picture: The Challenge; bg picture: Film Socialisme)

THREE) Balthus Doesn’t Think That…

(Picture: Balthus the Painter/youtube.com; bg picture: Film Socialisme)

(From The Last Legendary Painter – Balthus with David Bowie:)

David Bowie: (…) What do you feel about the use of television to introduce people to art? Is this a good or a bad thing?

Balthus: I don’t think it’s a good thing.

DB: Even for those who stand no chance of being able to get to see…?

B: Well, it may make them curious to see the real thing, but I don’t think that they can tell anything, because I saw lately on the television – I don’t remember what it was – a film on painting . Curious thing is that good painting comes out better than bad painting.

David Bowie: What I find is that if there is no texture… because one of the great rewards of seeing a painting is that the texture…

Balthus: They are usually in colours. That’s a mistake.

DB: One sees only the graphic image and one can’t see the texture or the paint itself.

B: You can’t see the painting itself.

DB: Also the way the light falls on the paint is very important. Since we’ve been here this painting (Colette in Profile) has changed.

B: Yes, of course.

DB: I noticed when we came in from lunch that it looked slightly different from when we left to go to lunch.

B: It changes with the light. The tragedy is that now the modern museums, they all have artificial light, which is a real tragedy.

DB: And it’s usually blue. It amplifies the blues in everything.

B: Terrible.

(Source: Modern Painters, 1994 Autumn; bg picture: Balthus the Painter/youtube.com)

FOUR) Giacometti Affirms

(Picture: The Challenge; bg picture: Film Socialisme)

FIVE) Gerhard Richter Dances

(Picture: Gerhard Richter – Meine Bilder sind klüger als ich/youtube.com; bg picture: Film Socialisme)

SIX) Neo Rauch Reflects

(Picture: Neo Rauch – Rätsel der Epoche – Ein Porträt; bg picture: Film Socialisme)

»Wir müssen nicht wachgerüttelt werden, das glaube ich einfach nicht. Wir haben den Fernsehapparat. Der serviert uns… Ströme von Blut und Eiter auf den Abendbrotstisch, Tag für Tag. Wenn ich mit den Mitteln der Malerei glaube, damit wetteifern zu müssen, dann habe ich nicht verstanden, worum es in der Kunst geht. Es geht eben genau darum, eine Fassung zu finden für all das, – die uns Fassung sein kann, in unserer Fassungslosigkeit.«

(Source/pictures/bg picture: Neo Rauch – Rätsel der Epoche – Ein Porträt)

»We don’t have to be given a wake-up call, I simply do not believe this. We have the TV set. It is serving us… streams of blood and pus onto the diner table, day after day. If I do believe, with the means of painting, that I have to compete with this, then I have not understood what art is all about. It is precisely about finding a frame (Fassung) for all that, – which can be composure (Fassung) for us, in our discomposure (Fassungslosigkeit).«

(Source/pictures/bg picture: Neo Rauch – Rätsel der Epoche – Ein Porträt; translation: DS)

Balthus, Colette en profile
(picture: pinterest.com)

(Picture: The Challenge, Orson Welles-narrated 1974 TV documentary on Modern Art)

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