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I think representation is the greatest invention after the control of fire allowed us to actually extend our experience beyond the uh the reach of our senses.
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We take that for granted.
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The artwork starts happening when there's somebody in front of it and you realize what you seeing is something that the person can be seeing as well.
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And how do you have this dance with the audience when you're dealing with representation?
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And this is probably the most interesting part.
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>> I just had the most wonderful conversation with my guest this week, Vic Munz.
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He is possibly one of the most creative artists working today.
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Vic's art is widely collected in museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the Whitney, and many, many international museums as well.
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Please enjoy my conversation with Vic Munes.
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Vic, it is so great to have you here.
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I am one of your biggest fans.
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I'll get that out of the way.
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We've been collecting your work for a long time.
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Most of it is at uh our house in Connecticut.
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But this one, we had a fight for that one, Vic.
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Well, >> because when we went to buy it, um, the gallerist came over and said, >> um, somebody a little more important than you is interested in this, and I'm like, crushed, right?
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Because we just loved this piece.
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>> And we ended up getting it, obviously.
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But let's let's start with your background for people who might not know.
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Tell us tell us your your your superhero backstory.
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Well, that's not Well, it's it's a long story though cuz that's a long life. Thanks God.
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I was born in Brazil in S.
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Paulo, the largest city in the southern hemisphere.
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>> And it's uh I was My father was a waiter. He worked as a wait. He died this year.
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Then he worked as a waiter his entire life.
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My mother was a switchboard operator at the local phone company.
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And we lived in the outskirts of the city in a pretty much like a little bit more organized slum area, you know.
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So I was born in the favlla basically.
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And then my father came from as an immigrant from northeastern Brazil, very poor area at the time.
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And growing up I didn't really have my father neither parent had much of an education.
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you know, they had a they didn't complete even like they didn't go to high school.
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Uh, but I was very fortunate to be raised by my grandmother who also never had a single day in school, but she she learned how to read just by looking at her kids uh books, you know, nobody knows how she did it.
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Uh, and I tell you this, I'm mentioning this because it has a lot to do with my becoming an artist as well.
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So I my grandmother is probably the most intelligent woman I've ever met and then she u I remember the day my father brought this only books that we had at home was a set of the encyclopedia Britannica.
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He brought it on a wheelbarrow.
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He had one piece on a pool game.
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Uh, and my grandmother and I, we spend days and days and days, all our afternoons looking at those pictures, you know, and reading the way she taught me how to read on on an encyclopedia.
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And she read encyclopedia from A to Z several times because those only things there was to read.
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She knew every capital, you know, if you ask her, you know, what's the capital of Malta?
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She go Valeta, Lisenstein, Vadus.
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you know, it's like this, you know, she's or every bone in the human body, although she never been to school a single day of her life, but she taught me how to read the way she taught herself how to read is by memorizing uh the the the shape of the words.
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So, I am a self-taught dyslexic person.
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So so much that when I started going to school, I did not could not write because I had to relearn how to read and write and it was very complicated for me to do those things and I was reading already chapter books but I could not write a word on my own until the third year of school.
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until the third year of school. In that period I think is something very because I had kids you know when you start learning about or or actually having a different picture of the world through symbolic exchange you know so you start learning more words you you you know you broaden your vocabulary and then you have things that stand between you and the world so they start this edifice of
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little symbols you know I think it's a very important perhaps the most important part of your formation as an individual you know when you start creating the tools that will inter may they help you interface with the real world until then your
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relationship is very direct so I started I could not write and I started drawing at that time so I had a kind of like a shorthand uh that I developed you know that I if I would do dictation if I didn't know a word. I would just make a short drawing
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I would just make a short drawing like you you know secretaries you used to do in the past and then and my copy books looked like the Egyptian section of the mat.
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of the mat. So it's just I but I could read those things, you know, and then all of a sudden they started like getting a little bit more refined and eventually I learned how to read and write like everybody else but but I had
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a different relationship which is it was very they were kind of you know and those things developed after some years that they developed into more elaborate drawings and by the time I was like eight or nine I was the kid that did the the caricatures of the teachers. and
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and knew how to do perspective and I could draw things from nature, do did pictures of the girls I liked and things like that.
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So my identity as somebody who dealt with representation, drawing was became who I was and I was the guy who made drawings and by the time I was 14, I was enrolled in I represented my school in a for it was a public school obviously and then I I represent the school in a a statewide uh was a bit of a contest, you know, art contest.
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contest. test you know it happened exactly where the SO actually happens in the BA for the first time in my life I realized there were kids like me I was a bit of a lona I remember that day you know and I did things that were three-dimensional kind of like that perspective and
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collage not very different than the things I do today it's very strange when I remember I think I've been doing this all my life right I thought that was the prize and I won first prize and it was a two years of uh academic drawing training at the school a private school called the scholar paname. So I would go
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So I would go there in the afternoons.
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So when I was 14 I was drawing naked people and I never missed a class.
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The first naked person I saw in my life was during the live drawing class.
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>> That's a way to hook you in for a while. >> Yeah, man.
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>> Yeah, man. That was really exciting and by the time then you get used to it and I think there was also a moment so it's like weight loss you know you moment you make a lot of progress and then it it gets incrementally less you know as you drawing is the same by the time you
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develop more more and more technique your developing development becomes less and less visible so I started becoming intrigued not about the fact that about the drawing drawings themselves that the the technique of drawing the the ability to make a reproduction. But I think I had
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But I think I had to fulfill that lack of improvement, you know, with understanding and discernment about what a drawing really was.
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So I I I started thinking about representation in a deep deeper more wider sense.
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How do we see things in pictures?
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You know that when did it start? How did that develop?
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So and I went back to you know paleolytic art and started understanding how do we develop perspective and art history became something that fascinated me and also psychology.
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You know at the time in Brazil was during the the military dictatorship and it was interesting to assume the identity of an intellectual at that time.
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Uh, and I was I was into uh experimental theater.
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Um, and I'm the last generation of the the the I'm the last generation of teenagers that lived through the dictatorship.
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But it was a I wasn't a victim of the dictatorship, direct victim.
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I wasn't tortured or anything like that.
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But uh I I was very sh my understanding of society was a little bit shaped by that kind of environment which was a moment where you cannot say what you think the way you want to say it and all the information that comes to you comes from very biased sources.
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So you you have to be very skeptical get very cynical about how the way you receive information.
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So it's it's a bit of a semiotic black market.
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You know, you just have to negotiate everything.
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And I think that along with this interest that I had in representation sort of like makes up for what I do have done all my life.
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You know, I tried uh to had a deep interest in psychology to say like science a lot.
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And for a moment uh I started reading these books by experimental psychologist names James named James James uh Jerome Gibson.
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He uh wrote several books on perception you know then some of they had very rudimentary translations in Portuguese at the time.
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there was not that many books available.
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But I remember started reading about this and and he developed uh he was hired by the air force in a moment they were developing jets in the 50s to understand how you know the eye perceives depth or or perspective and and so it it was like he they had to understand uh perception in a challenging environment in order to improve its interface.
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you know for the equipment and and everything else.
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and and everything else. And this he had so many interesting ideas about how the way we move you know there's not actually space there is ambience is it's what we deal because as we move and everything moves with us so this consciousness of the visual space that was it opened a huge set of ways of looking at things for me and I thought maybe this is what I would like to do you know I would like to be a um a psychologist like an experimental
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psychology and work in the field of uh vision you know and I tried for the vestibula which is the exam for the private schools twice but I was there was a very broad test and I wasn't very good in math and other things so I
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failed twice and I settled for a a half scholarship in advertising you know communication studies but with the major in advertising which I did go for six months because I realized that you know my father was taking a second job in order to pay for expenses. Our
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Our grandparents lived with us.
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So I said I cannot afford that and I have I have to help at home.
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And I remember then that I was something really interesting happened.
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I I I could not read the billboards around the town, you know.
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I there was had an extreme it was very hard for me to to read the billboards.
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And I thought it was some kind of like it had to do with this self-taught disslexia, you know.
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And uh but then I realized that nobody could read them.
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Uh I was I drove my mom once to go to the bank. Can you read that?
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She said, "No, what about if I go 20 kilometers an hour? Can you read that now?" "No, what about 10?" Started making notes.
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And at the end of like a couple of months, I had developed a chart that um crossed the vectors of like uh speed, angle of approach and the number of size of text.
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So I created uh and and I went to one of the there were two companies that did point of sale uh advertisement in Brazil.
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One was called Alovo, Target, you know.
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And then I went to this guy and I said, "Listen, your your ads, your signs, your outdoor billboards really suck.
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I mean, I I they're awful, you know.
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You have all these billboards on the side of the jockey the the the the horse race track, you know, and they're on the wall and you have to be a person who can read three lines of text at 90 or to 100 kilometers an hour backwards to be able to to buy what you're selling.
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I mean, you just have to change their position.
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You know, that's uh they're really I I've done this.
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Look, I I developed this chart and I can help you do this.
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If you don't hire me, I'll go to your competitor.
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Well, he hired me, very little pay.
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He had I was driving around with my Volkswagen bit making notations, you know, and then I worked for he gave me gas and some money, but it was enough for me to help at home.
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And I dropped out the school that year.
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At the end of the year, this chart that I wrote got published in an advertisement advertising magazine, you know, around the beginning of the following year, I was uh given a prize for young talent, you know.
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So, it was the day I went to pick up this uh prize.
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I rented a tuxedo and I it was a plexiglass thingy.
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I never saw it again because I have to tell you what happened.
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Uh, I went to this thing, picked up this thing, and then I on my way out, uh, my somebody, a woman stopped my car, and she said, "You have to help me out.
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They're killing my my fiance."
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And then I looked and in fact, there was a person. They're all dressed.
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They were all in the party.
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They were dressed with, you know, bow ties and, you know, tuxedos.
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And these guys were like this guy was hitting the other guy with breast knuckles against the car.
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And I I got out of my car, left the car in the middle of the road, ran and I pulled the guy, the aggressor.
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And he this guy ran away.
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And I hear people, you know, horns and because I had left my car in the middle of the road and I s I'm going to park my car and then I'll see what happened. Help this guy.
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On my way to my car, I hear an explosion and then I'm on the floor.
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And I said, "What happened?"
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And then when I turned, the guy who I had just saved thought that I was his aggressor because everybody was wearing a tuxedo.
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You know, that's a this looks like a James Bond film.
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And uh and he started he grabbed a gun in the car and started shooting at me.
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So he hit me and he I just saw him shooting again and again and again. And I saw the bullets.
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I mean, I tell people that nobody believed I I I when I saw the Matrix, you know, the bullets come like I said, I' I've seen that, >> you know, I was so And then I I somehow made it to my car and drove to the next near the nearest hospital and I I even hit the u the car on a corner and I don't remember anything anymore.
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Uh 3 days later I wake up and the first thing I see is the guy who had shot me apologizing.
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He was full of bandages on his face.
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I thought I had died and go to gone to mommy heaven you know and then or mommy hell and then I this guy said I'm sorry I'm sorry I had dislocated my jaw. I couldn't speak.
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So I was like couldn't even say it's fine you know.
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Uh but so luckily it he hit my leg like half inch half half centimeter from my femoral vein although I wouldn't be telling you the story here and uh luckily also he was rich this guy who shot me and then he paid for all the medical expenses and agreed to pay a sum of money that would help me go through a year without being able to work cuz I just I couldn't walk you know with this money.
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I bought a ticket and I came to the United States in 19 in in ' 82.
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So, this is uh the reason we're having this conversation because I got shot.
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You know, this is how lucky I am. >> I I love that story. I I'm familiar with it.
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Um because the the serendipity, right, like this awful event, right, leads to this terrific and wonderful career.
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Now, you would have I I suspect you would have been as uh effective had you stayed, right?
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Uh in in Brazil uh because the thing that fascinates me about your work is at least for me, I always get lost in it.
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Like this here, I can literally stand in front of that for an hour and I just literally get lost in it.
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And I'm really interested because I know you have a theory that you as the artist are only half the equation, that the viewer is the other half.
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And I find that so refreshing because, you know, we collect a lot of different artists.
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And I would say that's not a majority view for a lot of the artists that we interact with.
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Talk a little bit about that. >> I don't know.
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I I think I am as I mentioned before I discovered like books very early and I was in I'm not ever good to at in sports or anything like I was always a little bit of a loner and as a loner you know you get sick of yourself and uh you you discover pleasure in interaction in conversation in and and that I think is has shaped a little bit my my relationship to the public you know I think uh it's uh you you only do half of it.
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You know, the artwork starts happening when there's somebody in front of it and you realize what you seeing is something that the person can be seeing as well.
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And how do you have this dance with the audience?
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Um when you're dealing with representation, this is probably the most interesting part.
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I have to think that, you know, maybe 50,000 years ago, a guy walks into a cave, you know, and he sees in a in the cracks of the cave, something that's a shape that he seems to have seen it before.
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But it's not just a shape.
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It's a shape that like shapes like an animal. Not like not any animal. It's a bison. Okay? And not any bison.
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is the bison that he had hunted when everybody was hungry in his tribes, man.
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And then he remembers the hunt.
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He remembers the rush, you know, the adrenaline and the taste of the meat of the animal.
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And all of a sudden, he looks at that again and it's just some cracks on the wall.
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And then he picks up some kind of, you know, a little rock and then he draws the missing eye, a little horn, a tail, and all of a sudden all those memories come back.
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This is really interesting.
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But the most interesting part is when he brings his tribesmen, his fellow tribesmen and shows it to them and all of them see the same thing.
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>> And this is how magic it is, you know.
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And he can bring the past into the present and that hunt will be forever there and future generations will be able to get access to that.
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So he it transcends time and transcends space.
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Uh I think representation is the greatest invention uh after the control of fire you know because allowed us to actually extend our experience beyond the uh the reach of our senses.
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I we take that for granted, you know. I always do this.
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I have a school in Brazil, you know, and I sometimes I go there with the kids in the favlla in Vigalo near near my house and then you go like you just do like this, you know what what do you see when you do this just as a gesture, you know, and people say the sun >> and I said the sun is a ball of fire, you know, eight light minutes from here, you know, it's like it it's a >> it is and you you can bring it into this room just with a gesture. This is magic.
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And we forgot how magic it is.
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And because we're spoiled with easier or easy to digest forms of representation, we forgot this ritual the power of this ritual tools that we've created, you know, and how they have actually shaped our way of seeing things.
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things. I think it's the there were moments you know in our history that we have an evolutionary uh relationship to the ambient to the environment to the visual environment you know but there are some revolutionary moments you know like I say the industrial revolution
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probably and the invention of brought the invention of photography and serial production of images made the whole world different and the relationship with people to the world was so traumatic that it took took two world wars for people to start learning how to deal with this new world again. Right
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Right now and and around that time you know of the industrial revolution you have a complete shift in the way representation was actually had to evolve and artists had to evolve with it.
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You know uh when in 1839 when painting when photography was invented the next all the newspapers celebrated the death of painting and we can we can buy paint even easier today than we could then you know and actually photography liberated painting from its uh duty to portray the world as it was. >> Totally agree.
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After that painters had the luxury of saying what is painting then painting is something from the dream like in surrealism or painting is a gesture like expressionism painting is color who you did in >> Yeah. Yeah.
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>> Yeah. Yeah. So you you you start questioning the medium and all of us it's very interesting you know right now you know we are in a I think in a much deeper uh state uh of adaptability you know because we it's like the ghost of
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painting came back to haunt photography in the form of visual digital imagery but it's not only that I mean we u our relationship to reality has been completely uh uh changed to the point that I think it's even more traumatic
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than it was that all of a sudden you realize that the world extend beyond uh the city where you live you know like was you know 100 200 years almost 200 years ago because right now you have to think of all the tools that started with that guy that I explained to you like
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you know the paleolytic artist you know he invented something that actually improve his relationship to the environment >> uh People talk about artificial intelligence but they did not question natural intelligence. You know intelligence for
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You know intelligence for me is the ability of any organism no matter how small or simple to feel and react.
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If it feels and react it's intelligent.
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So that makes everything that is alive today intelligent.
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Otherwise you'll be dead you know by the force of evolution.
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You wouldn't be around us.
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So everything that is alive today is intelligent to some extent.
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We are different because we do not we would not think we believe >> that yeah that's where I was just about to go.
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I think the the the interesting thing that I've heard you talk about and agree with is that of all these living organisms we humans at least for as far as we know are the only ones who have beliefs. Right. And maybe dolphins do. I don't know.
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Maybe I know elephants have great memories.
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>> Well, they shape them differently. Yeah. >> Yeah.
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But the also back to the cave paintings.
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Um I I've watched all the documentaries on them and I've looked at all the books.
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I'm absolutely fascinated by that because you are absolutely right in that this was the first way for humans to not only understand their environment better but to let their tribe understand it better but also plan for the future seeing >> model making. >> Yes.
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>> Yes. model making and you know the Corbinsky is the famous uh quote uh the map is not the territory right and and so many people I think sometimes confuse that they don't really think that way right >> especially now >> and what do you what do you think about
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that what do you think about our current situation where the map is kind of becoming we we are so abstracting things right and using symbolics and a variety of those things that I'm noticing some people are kind of forgetting that the map is not the territory. >> The fact that the the person who made
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>> The fact that the the person who made the bison, you know, it stood there, it everybody was amazed and then two weeks later another guy went there and then say it's missing a little color here.
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is missing some shadow because it's floating in the middle of the and it improved a little bit, you know, and then everybody go, "Oh."
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And then they got tired of it and somebody else did something else.
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And then the the whole development of our relationship with the world through imagery has been this race uh between technology and skepticism you know like so it's always going >> a little bit and that race has actually you know allowed us to know the weather that's coming and knowing things that are going to happen and and it's interesting to also to notice that the whole deal of art happens in the realm of the inconsequential.
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You know, it's that we because we deal with possibilities, not real facts, you know, the fact that but these are important because we shape futures, we shape or we actually shape the past too, you know, as we we know more and more.
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But the thing is art not not only say art but um because art for me is a very broad term and it but also representation you know is a set of tools that allowed us to actually see the world and understand the world beyond beyond the reach of our senses. Right?
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But it was always in the service of feeling and reacting of intelligence. Right?
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So it allows us to know that there is a city called Tokyo that I was there yesterday, you know, and uh that that I can go there and that allowed me to think that there was a guy named Napoleon Bonapart and allowed us to think about it broadened but it was all based on fact some kind of evidence. Right. >> Right.
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What happens right now is that the image no longer tells you that something happens, you know, and then it it has become an autonomous entity.
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It does not serve the process of feeling and reacting any longer.
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So, and it it's actually it is still the ground in which we're walking and feeling the world around us.
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So it's very dangerous proposition that you have something that is made to be believed but it no longer serves its purpose.
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What's the the alternative is to think is to actually create discernment.
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I I find that uh we we managed to do this before you know to learn how to live into this new environment you know and I don't think uh uh this is any different.
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uh uh this is any different. I think we're just going to artists, creative people are going going to start having to create understanding and discernment but this is not going back to your question you know this is not something
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you can do alone >> right >> you the artist has to have participation and then and I find it um in the fine arts you know this the name fine arts already is a it's a kind of a I don't I find it very old you know like 19th century Yeah, I kind of like it, you know, fine art. I'm a fine artist. I'm a fine artist.
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It's the only fine thing I am.
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Uh I I find it uh it's very elitist.
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find it uh it's very elitist. It's it's it's a for it's it's a privilege you know and when it should be a right almost a duty you know for people to be engaged into thinking about the way they deal with the world through the representations the way the world is
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presented to symbols you know uh this should be taught at schools in a way that is not totally agree um I've been working with that developing uh you know programs that deal with Even that helped kids, you know, deal with technology, the technology of images, >> right? You know, uh, Buckminister Fuller
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You know, uh, Buckminister Fuller made a comment about the microscopic world in which he said the microscopic world existed before we knew about it.
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We just weren't tuned in.
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We needed the microscope to get tuned in.
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>> And I look at art, and by the way, I also have a very broad definition of art. Um, literature is art.
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Anything that can explore possibilities, I find is art and I have six grandchildren and I love watching them because we're born natural artists and then we have it beaten out of us, right?
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>> When people ask me, you know, when did you become an artist?
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I said I don't remember when I became but I remember very well when everybody stopped being on our around me.
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So, you know, I just kept going.
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You know, there's nothing really uh it has to do with the idea of how you apprehend symbolic language that some people I kind of stayed there, you know, in the sort of pre-linguistic thing still speaks to me very strongly because >> I was kind of a delinquent with my learning process. Maybe I don't know.
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I I I'm still very curious about that and having kids really helped me because I used them as Gaia pigs.
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Uh you know, I experimented on them quite a lot.
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>> I my my wife wanted to put an end to me doing that with all of our kids. >> Yeah.
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I think it's a fatherly thing I guess but I and to a point that you know I I had to open a school and I said listen my in Maloo my my wife said to me are you sure you want to do this?
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are you sure you want to do this? I said, "Listen, it's either that or you going to have to keep having kids, you So I we have four uh so I said you know like at I think I'm going to make a school and then the school has become a very fertile ground for experimentation and for discussion
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and uh it's it's quite wonderful because uh you're dealing with kids that very much like me they live in an urban area where they exposed to desire to media to a lot of the the mediatic environment is very you know it permeates every section of Brazilian soc society people are very
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uh good uh with uh you know with the digital era they really everybody has a cell phone no matter where they live they're very and they're very good at it you know posting and sharing and and these kids but they don't have the means to actually acquire things you know and
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when you so they're very similar to what I was when I was a kid you know I was exposed to ideas but I wasn't you know exposed to to to goods you know to real things It's fascinating to to deal with image saving kids that really represent probably the largest uh number of individuals in the world. The world is The world is poor.
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You know there some people fail to also realize that we're very very privileged uh people and we have to be aware of the of of our privilege and uh and we have to do something with it.
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Uh, and I I always go back, you know, to where I come from, uh, all the time.
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And especially when we're talking about accessibility to art, you know, it's just something if I I don't I think I don't raise too many political flags in my work.
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I think it's a dangerous things because I'm very wary of art that starts with good intentions, you know.
34:52
>> I think good ideally make good art.
34:56
I think uh curiosity and and and sincerity and and investment, intellectual investment makes uh good art and that art may become political as a result of how close you are to what you're trying to portray. It becomes a tool too.
35:16
I think if I am what I do is political in the fact it helps people see things or ask questions about what they're looking at, you know, which I think it being a a sort of a product of a of a society where this was not allowed.
35:30
I think I I valued that a lot.
35:33
But also I think you know I'm very conscious of the fact that the first time my parents saw stepped into a gallery or a museum was to see an exhibition that I did.
35:49
>> They wouldn't venture into a space like it was very hostile, very exclusive, very you know um was not something that they would go to.
35:57
And it's a pity because contemporary art it's a it's it has the power to unsettle you know the the status quo.
36:07
It makes you puts you in a different kind of way of looking at things >> and that is a healthy thing.
36:12
It's like exercising your relationship to the what you think you know >> to totally agree but also you you mentioned the power of art and like the various political operatives have always known that right like the CIA when we were in the cold war with the Russians had an operation they called operation long leash and basically it sponsored abstract expressionist uh exhibits all around Europe.
36:46
And of course, it contrasted against Soviet realism, right?
36:48
The use of art, if you're familiar with Soviet realism, was all meant to glorify the state and everything.
36:56
But it >> when I learned about that, I was like, well, of course, right?
37:01
like on on the one hand of the United States and uh the so-called free societies, they're like, "Of course, look, abstract expressionism.
37:13
We also uh sent because they said the United States was a very racist place."
37:18
So, they underwrote sending our best black jazz musicians all around Europe. >> Yeah, it's true.
37:26
But the thing that I particularly love about your approach is there there's always a a wonderful aha moment at least for me.
37:39
We have your the birthday party which is the collage. >> Oh wow.
37:45
And and and again like this piece, I just will sit and stare at it and there's always something new for me which gives me a new thing to think about and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I never thought about it that way."
38:00
And and like that that seems to be the more I read about you and now uh chatting with you, that seems to be part of your intention, right?
38:10
It's like you don't have political intentions.
38:12
You don't have your your intentions seem to me to be drawn driven mostly by just wonder and curiosity and wow look look at this possibility.
38:25
The other thing I love about your work is you work in so many different mediums and and I love that about you because you refuse to be this is your lane, stay in this lane.
38:40
Well, I I think I get bored very quickly with things.
38:43
Yeah, maybe that's that's the reason I work with different things.
38:47
But I um I mean when I I the the idea of access, you know, it's very important because I deliberately chose to work with simple materials, things that people don't they don't not part of hierarchical, >> right?
39:05
things that don't inspire the idea of mastery, you know, like if you make something out of spaghetti.
39:12
>> It's not like oil paint.
39:12
It's like that creates immediately creates a difference between the artist.
39:16
So I try to make it approachable and try to make it common.
39:23
When you think about the political influence of an artwork, you know, I feel that it's very pretentious almost.
39:32
Um, I don't I don't think I can I I want to communicate with society as if society was a thing, >> right?
39:40
>> I don't I don't believe that.
39:40
So, I think you're becoming older.
39:42
You're becoming aware of the scope of your influence.
39:47
And I think I can affect individuals better than I can affect a group of people, you know.
39:53
And I think if you are effective at least you're not going to change people but you know you're you're on this line here.
40:03
All you want to do you want to do like a little you know a notch >> a little. Yeah.
40:06
So you go to that that side but if you can do that that is for me my work is already done.
40:11
In order to do that, you know, I have to be close to things that I involved personally involved and I try to be involved with uh, you know, I I I I work for say I love uh toy stores, you know, I love uh I like to read.
40:32
I I like to I I get for one thing like the piece that you described the birthday party.
40:38
I remember when I arrived in this country, I lived in Chicago on the suburbs of Chicago for like a few months, you know, because I was initially the idea was to learn English and then go back to Brazil and I did a something, you know, I did a mistake uh u I came to New York on a 4th of July and I became infatuated with the city and I said I want to live here.
41:02
that that and it was a weekend before I was about to go back and the weekend now it's like 40 years lasted 40 years and I I remember you know when I was in Chicago it's a north northern suburb of Chicago Northbrook and I I my when I was a kid my my mother's sister worked in the airline so she she lived in between Miami and She worked as in a in a as a stewardist and she come to visit us every year and she has a camera.
41:40
So she takes a picture every year of me and then she goes back and it takes me a year to see the picture.
41:47
Now when I told that to my daughter she was like why didn't she show you on the phone? No, no, no. It wasn't like that.
41:52
So I had to explain it to her how it was. She was so sorry for me.
41:56
But I as a result I had only nine or 10 pictures of me as a child.
42:05
When I saw on a garage sale photographs being sold, I didn't understand how can those could those pictures become separated from the people they portrayed.
42:16
They're like orphans, you know. >> Yeah.
42:19
>> And I had no had very little money then, but I bought them, you know. I kept buying them.
42:24
buying them. So for 40 years I've been buying family pictures and then I I have to say I never had a class and I taught photography at Bart College but I never had one class on the subject in my entire life but everything I I learned about photography I learned from looking at family pictures
42:46
>> and uh and it became more than a hobby because it every picture is fascinating you know there you get like I now I have like 250,000 photographs of people that I never met, people who are not here anymore and and it's you look at it, every single one of them is a moment that somebody thought it was important >> and it's beautiful, you know. And then I
43:08
And then I these things are in boxes.
43:10
I said, I have to do something.
43:13
So I started making collages with them uh and bringing them back to life and to back to people's awareness, you know.
43:21
But there was I mean there was so many in amazing things from looking at especially bad pictures.
43:28
You know there's a there's a one that's very funny.
43:32
It's like the picture of the aphalt tower.
43:34
You know people go to Paris and they say I want to take a picture with the Aphel tower.
43:37
So but the there's a the problem of scale.
43:43
You know this there's a this discrepancy because the Ephw is a huge monument and the person is a small thing.
43:49
So you try to make a picture and they go to the A4 tower to take a picture with the A4 tower.
43:54
So they could never do it.
43:56
So there's a little head and then the thing there's like a pictures of people with camels.
44:00
Camels are very big, you know, but people don't realize until they are because they either So if you get the whole camel, you don't know who it is.
44:07
So it becames the camels are completely nonsense.
44:10
But if you get the purse, you lose the camel, right?
44:14
camel, right? So how you get the parts and the whole you know and then when you're talking uh maybe this is one thing that is always in my work it's to think that everything that you see that's representing something is made out of other things you know and it's
44:33
the transformation that actually makes it possible for you to there's a moment of transformation you know that you actually you reenact when you're making the work that is almost like a it it it's the ritual that how you get to connect to the world. I don't
44:49
I don't know if I'm I'm being clear, but >> No, you are.
44:53
And and like that sort of leads into the fabulous documentary Wasteland that was made in 2010, I believe. >> Yeah.
45:02
>> And and you helped those people see themselves. >> Yeah. I like to think so. Yeah. >> Yeah.
45:09
Well, I think I think you definitely did, but for listeners and viewers who aren't familiar with this, let's tell them a little bit about the project.
45:18
Well, it all started when a group of uh there was a director uh and a producer, they they approached me for a documentary on my work and I didn't want to make I had already done that a small documentary and I I thought it's I wasn't interested in doing that.
45:36
I thought, what about if you document one series, you know, because I work in series and the way I do this because it allows me to use what I learned from one work to the next the next and at the end I'm not into making a masterpiece.
45:50
I never I do not think of art in that particular way making an amazing artwork.
45:58
I make incremental pieces that actually make up a curve.
46:02
The moment I become interested in a material and the way it it interacts with a certain subject, I start putting these things together, experimenting with them and then I get better and better and better at connecting these things to the point that I get bored and then I just filling up gaps.
46:21
And the important thing after almost 40 years working as an artist is how do you know manage this creative flows you know there are like and I this curve is something that I hadn't really I I was aware of it but I wanted to maybe document so I could understand it better.
46:41
So I proposed that they would follow me through a series from the beginning from conception to the moment I show it in a museum. Right.
46:49
And then I had I wanted to do these things with garbage because garbage is a material that tends to invisibility.
46:56
It's something that normally we hide.
46:57
It's a part of our history that we always hiding, you know.
47:03
And uh I thought maybe if you do something it would be quite interesting because it would shake up, you know, the way we're looking at things.
47:11
I had already done works like the one behind you with like a pieces of like metal scraps, things like that. Junk. Yeah.
47:21
And but garbage is different. >> Yeah.
47:23
>> Garbage is in a state of the compulsion.
47:26
So it's a it's it's something that is not doesn't have the usefulness of that what it was made to do, right?
47:35
>> But also it hasn't become material like hasn't become >> substance. Yeah.
47:39
So it's I love anything that's in between, you know.
47:42
I'm I'm very interested in grays, you know.
47:44
So I I >> these gray areas are very good.
47:47
So I I thought I had tried before to do this a few years before.
47:53
So but they were uh the place that I had to work with garbage was uh controlled by the narot traffic in Brazil.
48:03
So they used to put weapons and and it was a very dangerous environment to work.
48:08
So I I gave up but I I still wanted to do it and I said maybe I should try I can propose it to them and they and they bought the idea.
48:18
So we thought about doing this and we had some um help uh from some other people had filmed this particular area and and we didn't know that this was the largest uh garbage dump in the southern hemisphere when we went there.
48:34
Gramsho was the name of the site, you know, and I thought that I was just going to make these drawings using this material.
48:40
And all of a sudden, I see this workforce there, the people who actually do live make their living from the um extraction of recyclables.
48:53
You know, Brazil is the second country in the world that recycles more, not because we're organized, it's because it's a lot of poverty that lives from it.
49:02
of poverty that lives from it. And I became involved with these people and u and I and not for how different they were but how similar they were to me you know and I kept thinking that maybe if by some if if some turn of events if my father had become sick or I would I could possibly end up in a place like
49:28
that and it's it's it's amazing to think about that right I invited them to work on their own portraits uh using the material that the same material that they do with every day because that was what makes something change when you use you work with something in a certain way you work in a different way to actually create something completely different than what you're doing. These people
49:51
These people they uh had not seen most of the representations of themselves.
50:00
They were that they had were from cell phones that they were uh that were found discarded tiny little you know pictures of themselves.
50:08
Sometimes in a document they'll see like a little you know identity papers and things like that.
50:14
And all of a sudden they were we had a whole like a something the size of a of a basketball court where we make these portraits.
50:23
They and you cannot immediately see what they are because they are not they're elongated and they're trapezoidal.
50:30
They a number of it's a number of fosses.
50:32
So so when you're looking at that look just looks like junk.
50:37
But when you go on top of a 10 m tower >> uh you see what it is you know.
50:41
>> uh you see what it is you know. So we had this in the film this reveal and it was very um it was very emotional because when they see themselves at that scale >> it's something changes you know in the way >> when I was watching I literally turned
50:57
to my wife and said he has unlocked something in them >> because you have to I definitely recommend watching the movie if you haven't seen it but that moment like you could see on their faces like a they they saw themselves in a new and different way. >> But unlocked something in me too.
51:19
>> But unlocked something in me too. >> Yeah, sure.
51:21
>> Because uh you know what I when I make uh an artwork and I share it with people, you share the result, but I it's sharing the process.
51:32
It's also fascinating, you know, when you bring people into the studio and and also made me become aware that I work with people.
51:42
I'm always having, you know, people say something to me. I'm very porous.
51:45
So, I work with assistants, you know, if they say, "Oh, why don't we do this?"
51:48
Like, I say, "Yeah, let's try it."
51:50
I I don't I don't have that kind of like control authorship, you know, and I I'm getting better and better at this.
51:57
better and better at this. So in I'm also getting better at communicating uh the ideas and and but I I this was like because at the end if you work with people on a project like this you don't end up with something you want but you
52:14
end up with something much bigger right >> you know and it's something that reflects it's more than you >> I don't think I want that much control over what I do anymore I mean I this is important when you're still acquiring a a concept or a technique about what you're doing. But after a while, I mean,
52:30
But after a while, I mean, I think this is part of the way you become an artist or and I consider myself a successful artist because I can live from what I do and I I can live very well from what I do and and I I think uh there was a point that what you want to be is an artist.
52:50
You know, you do everything to be an artist.
52:52
So you you you want to be called an artist.
52:54
If you want to be important, relevant as an artist.
52:56
So you play the game of the art world. Right. >> Right.
53:01
>> But there's after a number of years is you you're an artist already. So what do you do? What what is that for?
53:07
So this question start haunting you.
53:10
And I think wasteland was for me what really changed is also I realized that art can be a lot more just a simple practice something that you do and you test on people.
53:21
And I mean one thing for one thing is just it it made me realize that when you are dealing you know you're dealing with the world or the interface you know I think art is my my concept of artist is that my idea is that art is the evolving interface you know between mind and matter between consciousness and phenomenon.
53:45
And when you're dealing with that, you already dealing with the world.
53:51
But the fact that you can fix or change the world beyond the model. >> Yes.
53:59
>> You see that that is um I had the work the film had an impact on these people's lives that extended beyond the simple fact that they were looking at something that or the fact that they actually were part of the process of doing their portraits which was already something important.
54:15
But um we sold the works.
54:15
We actually sold gave them the money.
54:19
We worked on we did many things.
54:22
But I think the most the greatest achievement of the film was it changed the perception of the entire Brazilian population because it was a big deal there. >> Yeah.
54:33
>> About who these people are, you know, and dehumanizes them.
54:35
Before people didn't think of them as people, as workers, you know, as professionals and now it allowed them also to organize better.
54:47
And now the these cooperatives, they don't they're not in garbage dumps anymore.
54:51
anymore. they get the recyclables directly on large events like the Olympics or or the World Cup or they they were allowed to actually now they they they're organized to actually pick up the recyclables directly when they are disposed where they are disposed and I think there was a soap operas are big in Brazil right and there's this guy
55:12
Kawan Raymon the very goodlooking guy and once I was having lunch with my wife and this guy just hey uh I want to talk to you because I'm going to be portray Katador guys people who actually live from recyclers and I said are you yeah you are he say yes yes yes I said and then yeah you did the film and I'm I wonder if you could help me out because I want
55:38
to meet some people and actually learn because I want to do a laboratory because I want to know more about to become to be a to to do the the the character well and when the the best looking guy in Brazil is just doing a playing a katador means that we did something you know we achieved something the perception is different but for me I think the the the biggest thing is just
56:03
like I realized the power and actually if I do something that is the remotely political which I think this film is you know I think there's you have to come with a a a capital exchange you know you have to it has to have you have to that you have to transform that in something that actually helps directly the people. You're not just illustrating a problem,
56:28
You're not just illustrating a problem, right?
56:30
>> You're actually acting upon it.
56:30
Uh and I've been lucky with that, you know?
56:35
>> I I I put everything through a filter which I call win-win.
56:38
And like I don't do deals anymore that are not win-win because they're just so much better for everyone involved, myself included.
56:46
And when I was watching the film for the first time, we rewatched it recently as I knew I was going to be having the pleasure of chatting with you and and I had the insight that you grew up in an authoritarian military dictatorship. I I like you.
57:04
I'm I'm not a very political person, but I am fiercely anti- athoritarian.
57:11
And one of my insights was what do authoritarians do? What did the Nazis do? They dehumanized people.
57:16
They looked at them not as as human at all.
57:20
And when I was re-watching the documentary, I'm like, you know what his genius here is?
57:31
Is he is re repositioning these people to the rest of other people. These are people. These are human beings.
57:40
And so I love that story because that like a great arc. >> It's a conclusion.
57:46
I said no it could be you could be me. Absolutely.
57:50
>> You know and the fact that uh I think this is the most important part when you perceive something that is not right you know and the fact that sometimes the you have an opportunity to act upon it and you end up winning more than giving.
58:06
You know, I have always have this sort of like adept I'm debted to these people to this project in in general.
58:14
But I I've been there was I've been this be after wasteland I became very attempted you know like I'm very aware u I'll give you an example between my house and my studio there is a daycare center which is run by nuns.
58:30
I got married at this church and I baptized my daughter in this church because by convenience it's very close right?
58:37
They they came to me one day.
58:40
They said, "We're about to close the daycare center."
58:42
The daycare center attends all the poor people that live in Hosa and all the favllas nearby my house.
58:50
And the people, these people work in the southside on the houses of rich people and they leave their kids there, you know.
58:59
And if there's one sound that I love from a safe distance, it's like when they go on breaks, they go, "Ah!"
59:07
I love that sound, you know, and I couldn't bear the fact that I wasn't going to listen to it anymore.
59:11
And I said, "Well, what's the problem?"
59:14
Oh, you know, there's not many baptiz people were not doing weddings here and they were actually were about to close.
59:20
We're going to serious finance.
59:21
And when we got married there, we actually got married in the parking lot because there's a garage, but my wife is very good at transforming spaces.
59:30
So, she turned it into sort of like a magic jungle.
59:34
And I said to them, "So the month of December," and I said, "Oh, are you free?"
59:41
She said, "Yeah, we don't have anything going on."
59:43
And I said, "Oh, I'm going to give you this money just to to help you this month, but I think I have a better idea."
59:49
So I was working on portraits of saints for many, many years.
59:57
And obviously, it's very hard to show this in a gallery or show this to a museum.
1:00:01
People see you study when you study art you study all the you know kavajto there's all sacred images a lot you know Catholic cannon you know and then and these images are supposed to be in a in a palace or a church you know and you study this and then when you you get graduated and you're supposed to be atheist and communist you know so it's kind of like they're very confusing you know so I I I love religion in general.
1:00:35
I'm very curious about it and u and I think you know belief is something that set us apart from any other living species and you have to understand it but you also it's something that is is a broad subject that deserves attention if
1:00:49
you're an artist you know and uh I I had these pictures of saints you know that I I couldn't I didn't have a place to show them and I said what what if I it's a church and a convent there it's a perfect place to have this show you And
1:01:05
then I I because I have the thing I have before there were superheroes they were saints right >> they're very similar you know and you have to understand there is a direct relationship between the Marvel superheroes and the saints they perform
1:01:19
they do amazing things they're they're superhuman you know >> and uh and I I I thought oh this would be a so I said what if we do a show and I showed the nuns they really like the idea and we sold the works and with the sale of the works. We managed, it's open
1:01:34
We managed, it's open right now and we managed to keep it open.
1:01:38
You know, >> things like this, another example, the National Museum caught fire.
1:01:43
The major museum in Brazil, the entire collection was burned.
1:01:50
Oh, and this is the place where I took my kids and and I was working in a project in Holland at the time.
1:01:55
And I thought, "Oh, God, this is a place that all they burn the they they had the skull called Luzia, 14,000 years old, you know, like the greatest the oldest found, you know, skull of a humanoid. All these things. There was the mummies. There were the Egyptian.
1:02:15
There was a a paleontology collection.
1:02:18
There was several dinosaurs and things.
1:02:20
There were u u it was like the largest entomological uh collection I think in the southern hemisphere.
1:02:31
>> You know millions of little specimes, butterflies, bugs and things like that.
1:02:36
Uh I I I'm museums, you know. I I'm a museum rat.
1:02:41
So I felt so bad that I realized that during the you know they this happened during the Bossaro the last administration and they had the funds for museums or institutions were severely cut.
1:02:56
So they had no money to deal they had a lot of 3D renderings that they have tomographies that they had done on some of these artifacts and that they didn't they needed to actually print them or or use digital work.
1:03:07
They had no funding for this.
1:03:11
So I team up with them and actually they gave me the ashes of this specific artifact.
1:03:17
So like for the Luzia for the skull of the polyolytic skull, they gave me the the ashes of the skull and I actually made the picture of it and I and we made several of of these because the there's something very incredible.
1:03:36
Normally archaeologists they work in the field and they bring the what they find to the museum.
1:03:43
There were teams of archaeologists working in the museum, something completely unheard of, you know, so they're very organized, you know.
1:03:53
So they had little Tupperware with specific dust from specific things, you know.
1:03:59
So I they gave it to me, they lend it to me, so I made pictures of it.
1:04:04
And with the funding from the sales, we actually managed to keep the program of the rescue uh alive, you know, so that we actually helped them reconstruct the many many things because they were not having any other help from from the government or or or anything.
1:04:20
And and now I'm going to have this is an exhibition that I'm very excited to do because the museum is going to reopen uh the first wing and they're going to reopen with this exhibition, the Museum of Ashes.
1:04:32
So, and we I never had the opportunity to show it before.
1:04:36
So, they're going to open with the sort of a memory of these artifacts, you know, that they were there before.
1:04:42
And it goes on and on, you know.
1:04:45
I've been able to actually do things that had a a practical physical impact, you know, and I I am very fortunate that I had the opportunity to do this things, you know, >> and and one of the things that I love about you is this idea of like I made most of my career in asset management, right?
1:05:09
And that's all probabilities.
1:05:12
Um, I'm fascinated by possibilities, which is where I take such inspiration from you.
1:05:18
And when I look at your work, I just I always get a smile because like, how did he think of that?
1:05:25
And of course, the the famous spaghetti medusa.
1:05:31
Weren't you reading a book on Carvajio and and just like, huh, I might be able to turn this into a Medusa.
1:05:37
I was just playing with it, you know, while I was looking at the book, you know.
1:05:42
I mean, it was like leftover pasta from from the day before that I hit up. Wasn't very good.
1:05:51
And I was I was doing a a piece at the same time that was actually is at the uh is in Rio right now at the museum modern art which is the descent from the cross.
1:06:03
But I then I I looked at the med I look at the pasta and I just changed it.
1:06:07
I'll put some oil here then and I looked and then I was it looked good.
1:06:10
So I just put it under the camera and took a picture of it.
1:06:14
But a friend of mine had put me in a show that I was curating but I was I was the curator.
1:06:20
I didn't want to be in the show.
1:06:22
It was a show about apparitions you know.
1:06:24
And then she said but what about your work?
1:06:26
I said I don't have a work.
1:06:28
I said oh you have to have a work. Oh, I have something.
1:06:30
And then I I I made a print, you know, and I put it on a round frame that I found around here in a square.
1:06:39
And I found this print, this frame, and I I made the print to size and I gave it to her.
1:06:43
She put it under a vitrine like this.
1:06:45
And funny enough, I got a review at the New York Times, and it was like, this was Monday when I made the piece on a Sunday, uh, you know, arts and entertainment issue.
1:06:57
There was twothirds of a page.
1:06:59
It was my plate of food, >> you know, and and that makes >> But you know what's funny that I did this in five minutes, you know, and I at the same time I there are things that I spent four months making like with like working with dental tools, masks, gloves, like working like little pigment series.
1:07:19
Yeah, >> we have one of those.
1:07:21
>> Four months working on that thing. >> Yeah.
1:07:23
>> And uh I have to sell them for the same price.
1:07:28
And what it what that makes me wonder is is there it seems to me that many people in the art world really attach the value to you the artist the human being uh dead or alive, right?
1:07:43
And two things made me really start thinking about that.
1:07:48
Uh, one was this idea that if Andy Warhol, found a dollar bill just lying on the sidewalk here near his factory, >> and if he took that dollar bill, did a little doodle on it, signed it, Andy Warhole, and put a frame about it, it would become worth a hell of a lot more than$1.
1:08:12
>> But then I was also watching I have you seen the film The Last Firere? >> No.
1:08:17
It's about the very famous Dutch forger Van Migrin.
1:08:22
>> Oh yeah, I'm familiar with him.
1:08:24
>> He he did he did a lot of forgeries of Vamir.
1:08:27
Um and his backstory was very interesting because he his own art was a big failure and he was really upset about this.
1:08:37
And so he did all of these fake vamirs.
1:08:40
Um and famously he sold one to Goring the Reich Marshall uh who was like the truth of that man is stranger than you could ever make him fictionally.
1:08:53
Um but the Dutch were very uh brutal in the way they treated any collaborator.
1:09:00
Anyone who was found to be a collaborator was literally tied to a post in the public square and shot publicly.
1:09:07
And they said by selling that to Goring, he not only took this wonderful Dutch art and and sold it to this monster, but that he was actively collaborating with the Nazis.
1:09:25
And >> actually, I saw the film now. Yeah.
1:09:28
Now, now, now >> and and and I'm thinking about the end of it, though. to clear him.
1:09:33
The man who was representing him had him do another forgery.
1:09:39
He actually put his representative his representative in court, his lawyer into the painting. >> Nobody noticed.
1:09:46
They had all of the famous authenticators would said, "Yes, this is a vimeir, etc."
1:09:51
And then I think the film dramatizes this, but he splashes a solvent on the painting. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:09:59
And and underneath it is Van Migran's signature. >> Yeah.
1:10:04
>> And then Van Migran has this moment where he says to the courtroom, >> "Isn't this fascinating?
1:10:12
Not a single brush stroke on that painting has changed.
1:10:15
Not a s single image on that painting has changed.
1:10:18
But with that reveal, it went from being priceless to being worthless.
1:10:30
And I wonder what you think about that.
1:10:32
uh well we live in a in a era of quantitative value you know like I think uh it's very interesting that before uh let's say in a time where there was art criticism was very important you know and and people read about art and that had a sort of there were movements there were manifestos you know actually people were influenced by each other.
1:11:03
There was there was the the the flows in the art world were easier to identify.
1:11:09
Sometimes the opinion of a single individual would just set you know things in motion in a particular direction.
1:11:16
the idea of quality, you know, even though it was probably artificially developed like you just mentioned, you know, there were other forces, you know, acting upon it like in the case of abstract expressionism or or even, you know, Russian pamphlet posters and there's always like outside in forces that come and shape the taste or the market of art.
1:11:41
But what's it seems like we live in a in a digital era, you know, like it it numbers sort of took over, you know, and you mentioned, you know, possibilities and statistical uh value.
1:11:56
All of a sudden, you know, great art is the art that sells for a lot of money or great images are the ones that uh get a lot of likes on Instagram, you know, and and everything is became very numerical.
1:12:09
But what is interesting though is that how to you you tap into taste when it's just based on what everybody is looking at and it's how do you how do you gouge how how do you control how do you measure this flows when you know the the game is clearly rigged?
1:12:35
clearly rigged? the algorithms are actually you they're designed they're biased they're they're not impartial you know so there is an enormous control over taste and and fashion and and the way opinions go around and it's a it's a
1:12:54
very scary proposition I think because it is just focusing a lot of power in the hands of a very specific interest and and and people don't seem to be aware of this and art is being part of this whole thing because it's also something very basic. is something that
1:13:09
something very basic. is something that um it's very easy to I you know it's it's something that it's just like the plasticine of it's like the the what you shape is so primitive it's so basic you know it's so the it's like how ideas
1:13:25
visual ideas come you know you think visual art is it's something that it's what shapes the rest of it you know the I feel like sometimes I'm working with clay you know in in in face of all the the all the types of sophisticated media there is around it. No, sometimes I I my
1:13:43
No, sometimes I I my first film was called the worst possible illusion because I think uh I'm dealing with uh illusion you know in in the sense that only through illusion that you understand what the reality is but I cannot compete with people who are at the end of the technology of the simolac you know like uh at the time was Stephen Spielbert now is you know open AI and instead I work on the other end of the spectrum of illusion.
1:14:14
It's just like you look at something, you go, how can I be fooled by this?
1:14:19
Uh the you try to get the simplest, the most crudest because you're not just fooling people, but you're actually showing giving people a measure of their own belief.
1:14:33
You know, how why do they get fooled by that?
1:14:36
I think there's one work probably my first photograph.
1:14:40
It's of something and it's at the collection of the Museum of Modern Art and I'm so happy that he made it there.
1:14:48
>> It's just a picture of a nail >> on the wall hung by a real nail.
1:14:53
>> Yeah, >> it's called two nails.
1:14:54
>> It's And then what I do sometimes I I I with the pencil I figure out the light and I I pencil a little bit the shadow to match the shadow.
1:15:03
So when you look at it, you see two nails, but when you walk only one nail moves, right?
1:15:07
I think all my works come from that piece because there's something that moves, something that doesn't, something that is physical, something that is not, something that is things that is like a puzzle that doesn't really fit and it's up to the viewer to actually try to make it fit even though it doesn't.
1:15:27
You know, for me is the most important thing is actually to create something that is left to the viewer to complete.
1:15:33
and and that is one of the central things that I think about all of your work.
1:15:39
Uh we we collect a variety of artists and your work in particular always invites my participation.
1:15:50
It always like my grandchildren.
1:15:50
I love watching my grand they go in age from about 1 and a half to 11 and I love especially the younger ones when I take them around and ask them what they think about art and guess who's winning. >> Yeah.
1:16:05
I'm being with children cuz I have Yeah.
1:16:10
It comes it comes from testing on them too. Yeah.
1:16:12
But but I but there's a lot more as far as I'm concerned to that because it is that invitation that gets you yourself thinking in terms of possibilities and opening your mind up and saying, "Wow, like that's really cool.
1:16:27
I I'd never had that thought."
1:16:30
And and that's a that's a real gift in my opinion because I've met a lot of artists and and I've dealt with artists all my life because we love art and and um there is a certain segment of artists who are the aur right no this is my work and I do the you said something really funny that I heard when I was uh going back over uh your your career and it was about an artist who um uh said that she just did the work for herself.
1:17:05
And you and this is why I felt such a connection with you because you did what I would have done.
1:17:12
Oh, and parathetically, by the way, I grew up also reading the Encyclopedia Britannica.
1:17:16
Um anyway, uh you raised your hand and and you said, "Well, then why why do you make um uh series?" What? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:17:26
And every time I think of that I I just smile and laugh because you really just nailed it. >> Make editions. Yeah. Because Yeah.
1:17:33
some important artist, some artist that I I really like, you know, but she was giving a lecture and she said, "Yeah, I make work for myself.
1:17:44
I don't make it for anybody."
1:17:46
Said, "Look, so why do you make additions then?"
1:17:47
So to which she got really really pissed.
1:17:54
She didn't she didn't want to talk to me anymore.
1:17:58
But that's the other great thing about you, uh, as far as I'm concerned, is you just have such a wonderful Another thing that we seem to lose when they try to mold us out of what we kind of naturally are as children is the the the the spontaneity, the curiosity, but also the sense of humor, >> right?
1:18:19
And and I just love that about your work because it can be both at the same time.
1:18:26
And I don't see a lot of other artists where you can see all of those various things at play at the same time and and come away kind of with a different feeling.
1:18:39
>> But humor is a a strategy.
1:18:39
You know, I use visual illusion for instance, something that is always somewhere there because it ambiguity is something that you have to inject in the work >> in order for the image to be interesting. Yes.
1:18:54
or to to actually be engaging to some extent.
1:18:57
U humor is also a technique which is very similar to visual illusion.
1:19:04
You know what it is like we have a a a you know a handicap short a problem because we have a little bit of a bottleneck in the way our thoughts >> Yeah.
1:19:16
>> or or the experience of the world is filtered through our inner self you know our thinking.
1:19:23
So uh we can only have one idea at a time and I have argued with neuroscientists that actually the fact that our eyes are so poorly designed >> you know helped us create narratives you know we only see a little bit in focus so we keep moving our eyes in movements called sakads and that actually what develop the narrative thinking model you know that helped us develop ideas in linear way and organize them and create memory u you know threads.
1:19:56
You know maybe consciousness come from the fact that we see things poorly.
1:20:03
>> You know there is a relationship to you know the size of brain in animals and how well they see.
1:20:08
Crows for instance don't see very well and they have huge brains >> right >> and they they're very intelligent.
1:20:13
Well, uh you know, humor works in a very similar way cuz uh uh that with visual illusions, but uh what it is, we have this bottleneck that only allows us to have a a single idea at a time.
1:20:26
And what happens is like when you're actually telling a joke, you know, you're focusing the attention of a specific narrative and you're building a structure as you're giving elements to it.
1:20:41
And you the person who's listening to it is actually building it with you, you know.
1:20:47
And at a certain point, you know, when this this uh structure is at a certain level, you take a very important part of it and the whole thing collapses, right?
1:20:59
>> And when it collapses with the punch line, you know, because your entire attention, the world is based on that narrative thread, >> right?
1:21:08
all the logic collapses and you have a moment of intense relief that is expressed through laughter.
1:21:14
You know, you have this spasmotic reaction and u and this is because you feel free from all these little constraints, all these little, you know, logical things, you know. >> Yeah. The logic box.
1:21:28
It frees it breaks up the logic.
1:21:31
>> It breaks up the logic box and all of a sudden you're free.
1:21:33
uh it creates what uh Anton said it's a space for life. Yeah.
1:21:39
You know laughter is something very very important you know in that sense.
1:21:43
Well when you're looking the comparison to visual illusion is that with visual illusion you're dealing with things that are you learn how there are structures that you built at you know at your entire life.
1:21:58
We're learning to look at things and all of a sudden there's something that doesn't work >> right.
1:22:04
But the fact that these are so inside of you because you've lived with those cues for visual thinking for so long makes a visual illusion work every time you look at it and different than a joke that if I tell you the joke a second time, it's not going to be as funny because you're not you're going to know when I'm going to take that important part out of it.
1:22:26
important part out of it. I mean but these are all dealing they're all structural exercises you know and humor I think everybody who wrote about humor Freud did many people did you know they they weren't funny you know and and I think that yeah son did uh there it's a
1:22:47
lot of texts about humor and they were I think they got something wrong because in order to write about humor you have to write it in a funny way too you know like uh There's a a really interesting book about comic book by a guy named Scott Mloud and he wrote it in a comic book format which is brilliant. You
1:23:04
You know, I think that you have to use the language of the subject you're you're you're dealing with. >> Yeah.
1:23:12
>> And I think this is the practice that I I I've never met a funny person who wasn't intelligent. >> Nor have I. >> Nor have I ever.
1:23:22
And in fact, I find myself using it as a litmus test. >> Yeah.
1:23:28
>> If they are not funny or if they don't appreciate humor. Yeah. Thank you.
1:23:33
>> Well, it takes it takes a a keen control of language to be able to subvert it. >> Yes.
1:23:39
>> You know, once you subversion is something that you need in order to do it successfully, you have to >> incredibly subversive >> just by its very nature.
1:23:47
Well, you know that you you speak another language and when you can tell jokes in that language and people are laughing, you know, you can tell jokes in people are laughing. >> Yeah. >> It means it's okay.
1:23:57
You're you're you're actually doing better.
1:24:00
>> And and it's coming back to the authoritarian theme, right?
1:24:01
Um Hitler made it the death penalty for mocking him.
1:24:10
So he didn't have a good sense of humor, but he understood the power of humor.
1:24:14
So did Mark Twain where where Twain has that great quote where he says that laughter can destroy anything.
1:24:22
It can bring down the the biggest, you know, drags who want to be head of society.
1:24:28
It can just rip through anything.
1:24:31
And I think it was Billy Wilder who said, "If you want to tell people the truth, you better be funny because if you're not funny, THEY'LL KILL YOU."
1:24:46
WELL, THAT'S Dwayne said also that fiction is more difficult than reality because fiction has to make sense, >> right?
1:24:53
But, you know, I'm working on my I've written four books.
1:24:56
They're all non-fiction, and I'm taking a swing at a fiction thriller.
1:25:00
And one of the things that's really coming true uh through doing the work is it's easier to tell the truth in fiction. >> Yeah.
1:25:13
>> Than it is in non-fiction.
1:25:15
>> Well, that that explains like the, you know, the success of com you know, comic satire in politics. >> Yes. Yeah.
1:25:23
That's really if that is is incredible, you know, how when people are actually trying to tell you what's happening in politics, they seem suspicious and when somebody's laughing about it, you know, it seems right.
1:25:35
It seems it's totally convincing, you know, >> and you can tell, you know, the preoccupation with humor, it's a it's something that's age old as you in the example of Hitler, but still going on. >> Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
1:25:51
You know, it's just like >> humorists are being persecuted as we speak. >> Exactly.
1:25:57
And because they I have never met a really funny person who is also not really intelligent.
1:26:05
>> It's it's be because it's also it's that that's the key to a good joke.
1:26:08
You do get them you build a structure for them and they are following along.
1:26:14
they're following along and then you pull that part out and the the it is this I love the way you phrase it the it is a relief because it it is life.
1:26:24
We were we're talking about the idea there's something there there's not something there. Yeah.
1:26:31
not something there. Yeah. You know I think this is my thing with theater for instance comes from the fact that you mentioned something about before about the ambiguity you know the ambiguity immediately forces visual uh viewers participation you know if you something that is complete that is perfectly done the viewer will look at it will think of
1:26:56
how good the artist is I'm not interested in that you know because I don't even think I'm that good I think uh I am good at creating uh connections you know and in in a in a film uh you see something that is happening may happen before was edit it was cut but in the theater you're seeing somebody becoming somebody else in front of you. >> Yeah. And you have the actor and the >> Yeah.
1:27:19
>> Yeah. And you have the actor and the character sort of like you know negotiating a role you know how you know sometimes in conceptual theater like Braxton theater the actor has to appear as well Stanislavski were completely opposite to that but there's a very funny story that once I I paid $40 I think to see Anthony Hopkins
1:27:47
through uh Lear you know, he did it for a very brief period of time and I felt robbed because when the moment the great actor became, >> you know, the dying king, he was lear he was not Anthony Hopkins and I paid to see Anthony Hopkins, you know, and I I didn't want to see I've seen the king before and I read about it. It's funny. It's funny.
1:28:11
And but but then a few weeks later, I paid like $5 to see a guy perform in a place in Queens was an abandoned uh fire uh uh station.
1:28:23
And uh and this guy, you know, he started out, he was a his name was Joey.
1:28:29
He was a gamur theater uh actor.
1:28:32
And he started out, you know, he's an Italian guy with a face painted black.
1:28:37
He was doing Otello and then in the first five minutes of his performance he was you know the Morish general you know he was Otello and then he after five minutes he became he was a plumber.
1:28:49
I talked to him then he became the plumber and then he became the general and he became the plumber and then for $5 you know I had two tragedies for the price of one.
1:29:02
But this guy Joey, while Anthony Hopkins delivered a character, Joey delivered theater. >> Yeah.
1:29:09
And you know the pleasure that I had watching this the amateur uh actor was the fact that the I was trying to figure out exactly when the plumber became the general and when the general became there's a moment like and this is for me the magic of art is the sublime is when you are looking at something and it's a landscape and you approach it a little bit more and it becomes just pigments.
1:29:39
you know, minerals and you know, paint and just material and then you go back and it's a landscape. >> Yeah.
1:29:47
Well, it's also like the vermier at the Frick, right?
1:29:50
You get really really close to the fur.
1:29:55
>> Oh, the lady with the yellow cloth.
1:29:55
I take I take students there >> because what's fascinating is not just that you don't know why you're seeing fur in something that looks like a gel when you look back. >> Yep.
1:30:08
You know, the guy not only he knew how to how to see fur in something that is just a a glazed gel looking thing.
1:30:19
There's not one hair painted individually, >> but he knew how to make it. >> Yeah. Well, he was a magician. >> Yeah.
1:30:25
You know, and this is a funny thing.
1:30:26
Why why would he you try to fake verme from all people?
1:30:30
You know, that would be very difficult to do, you know.
1:30:34
Try doubra or something like that. Much easier.
1:30:37
Well, I think that was the reason Vanigan did it because he was like, I can even fake Vimeir.
1:30:46
>> Yeah, that's very pretentious.
1:30:48
>> Yeah, very very >> but I I think uh you know the idea of being able to just sense that what glues what connects you know the physical world from what's what's outside and inside.
1:31:04
what's outside and inside. I think this is the most uh when I think about my work as an artist for me the most important thing is to focus on this little fragment of a moment when the outside becomes inside when something is
1:31:22
physical becomes something an idea you know this is uh these are the moments that we do not we miss we some people spend an entire lifetime without being conscious of this transition ition, you know, >> or because this is what really really this is what defines real consciousness. You know, when you fully conscious,
1:31:43
You know, when you fully conscious, >> you can slow down the process like you know the you know some in the in the east people do it through meditation, >> right?
1:31:54
>> And you create like a more porous space between the inside and the outside.
1:32:01
But it's uh I I find it fascinating when you do it like in a in an everyday life when sometimes just you know when you hold a cup and the heat from that cup becomes a sensation you know and you and you aware of that.
1:32:15
I mean these little things you know they may be insignificant but you know sometimes they just they start adding up and they become a weird soup in which you can create and think of things in a different way >> which is I think the perfect place for us to conclude.
1:32:33
We have a uh tradition here at infinite loops.
1:32:36
Uh, we are going to make you just for the day the emperor of the world. You, but careful. There are rules.
1:32:45
You can't kill anyone and you can't put anyone in a re-education camp. >> Oh, >> I know. I'm sorry. I'm so not fun.
1:32:52
But what I am going to do is I'm going to hand you a magical microphone and you can say two things into it and it's going to incept the entire population of Earth.
1:33:05
Whenever their morning is the next morning, they're going to wake up and the two things that you're going to incept will be in their minds and they're going to look to whoever they're with or they'll say to themselves if they're alone, you know, unlike all the other times when I had these ideas and never acted on them, I'm going to I'm going to act on these two things.
1:33:27
What two things are you going to incept into the world, Vic?
1:33:35
You are only a child once, but that can last a lifetime. >> I love that. You get another one. >> Another one. Oh god, now you got me. I think I only had one. >> You got that one.
1:33:53
Well, I think that I obviously I think that kind of covers everything, doesn't it? >> I hope so.
1:33:58
Because that's that whole beginner's mind.
1:34:01
When you when you break through to real creativity, I think you have to start looking at the world through the eyes of children again because the the wonder we we lose the wonder or we have it beaten out of us. >> Yeah.
1:34:17
We start I think we started out very we start out right. Oh yeah.
1:34:19
You know >> I think we just education at Oh, who who said that?
1:34:26
I think it was Mark Bueno. Never. Never. Oh, yeah. It was Mark Twain.
1:34:30
Never let education interfere with what was it? >> Yeah. Never let uh Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:34:36
>> School interfere with my education. >> My education. >> Yeah.
1:34:39
>> We'll make that your second one. >> All right.
1:34:43
>> Vic, thank you so much for coming on.
1:34:43
I love your work and >> this has been just so much fun for me. >> Thanks. Cheers.