Abstract
The interview format, both in written form and on film, suggests that artists know best how their work should be treated, exhibited, and explained. Its general premise is that knowing the artist’s intention is necessary to understand the work of art. Even if this intention if not fixed or fallible, and the artist will not always be willing to give an explanation, it is still regarded as a vital primary source. This chapter by Sandra Kisters focuses on two opposing documentaries: Gerhard Richter Painting (2009) by Corinna Belz, and Francis Bacon and The Brutality of Fact (1985) by Michael Blackwood. In the former, the main focus is on the artistic process, the “interviews” are short questions filmmaker Belz asks Richter (1932), while the artist looks at his own paintings, evaluating them, deciding whether or not they need an extra layer of paint, often applied with a squeegee. In the latter, the artistic process of British painter Francis Bacon (1909–1992) is totally absent, although the film does include scenes shot in the artist's studio. In both cases‚ the artist is interviewed, albeit in different ways. Both films “mediatize” the artist, and they both demonstrate how the artist deals with being subjected to the camera's gaze.
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Notes
- 1.
Auguste Rodin , L’art. Entretiens réunis par Paul Gsell (Paris: B. Grasset, 1911).
- 2.
Most of Sylvester’s interviews with artists have been published in the books The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon (London: Thames and Hudson, 1987); Interviews with American Artists (London: Yale University Press, 2001); and London Recordings (London: Vintage Publishing, 2003).
- 3.
The project includes over 2000 hours of recorded interviews on audio- or videotape. See “Hans Ulrich Obrist on The Interview Project,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnW90A7YTWQ, from thomascrampton.com (accessed July 12, 2016). He first published the interviews in Art Forum and later began publishing them in, amongst others, The Conversation Series. Since 2006 the Serpentine Gallery holds yearly marathon sessions with Obrist interviewing artists.
- 4.
See, for example, Michael Diers, Lars Blunck, and Hans Ulrich Obrist , eds., Das Interview: Formen und Foren des Künstlergesprächs (Hamburg: Philo Fine Arts, 2013).
- 5.
For several interesting discussions of the artist’s intention see Michael Baxandall , Patterns of Intention: On the Historical Explanation of Pictures (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985); Catherine M. Soussloff, The Absolute Artist: The Historiography of a Concept (Minneanapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997); Raymond W. Gibbs, Intentions in the Experience of Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); and Sven Lütticken, “De onmisbaarheid van de kunstenaar. Over kunstenaarsmythen en intentieverklaringen,” De Witte Raaf (1998): 71.
- 6.
David Sylvester interviewed by Richard Cork , 1985, transcript, Tate Gallery, London, Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, TGA 200816/4/2/7, quoted in James Finch, “David Sylvester : A British Critic in New York ,” July 31, 2015, http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/david-sylvester-british-critic-new-york (accessed July 11, 2016).
- 7.
Roland Barthes , Camera Lucida. Reflections on Photography , trans. Richard Howard (New York : Hill and Wang, 1981), 8–9.
- 8.
http://www.gerhardrichterpainting.com/#/the-filmmaker/interview/ (accessed July 13, 2016).
- 9.
The Marion Goodman Gallery has three venues: London, New York , and Paris.
- 10.
For a discussion of the effect of the film camera on artists at work, see, for example, Philip Hayward , ed., Picture This: Media Representations of Visual Art and Artists (London: John Libby, 1988); Karl Stamm, “Der Künstler im Dokumentarfilm. Aspekte der Authetizität,” in Helmut Korte and Johannes Zahlten, eds., Kunst und Künstler im Film (Hameln: Niemeyer, 1990); John, A. Walker, Art and Artists on Screen (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), especially the chapter on “Arts Documentaries,” 178–92; and in particular on Jackson Pollock see Graham Birtwistle, “Actie, oordeel en authenticiteit. Hoofdstukken uit de geschiedenis van het schildergebaar,” Jong Holland 19, no. 4 (2003): 22–29.
- 11.
See https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/art/other/glass-and-mirrors-105/cologne-cathedral-window-14890/?p=1 (accessed August 21, 2016).
- 12.
One fragment is from 1966, by SWF, the other was recorded in 1976 by WDR; both in his Düsseldorf studio.
- 13.
Interview with Belz by Darrell Hartman in Art in America Magazine, March 14, 2012, http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/news/gerhard-richter-painting/ (accessed July 13, 2016).
- 14.
Stamm, “Der Künstler im Dokumentarfilm. Aspekte der Authetizität,” in Kunst und Künstler im Film, 63–68. Films by Cürlis can be consulted through the Technical Information Library Hannover (TIB): IWF Wissen und Medien, see http://www.filmarchives-online.eu/partner/iwf-wissen-und-medien (accessed August 5, 2014) or through Peter Cürlis Filmproduktion, Berlin.
- 15.
Interview with Belz by Lodi Meijer in Cinemagazine, August 31, 2013, http://cinemagazine.nl/interview-corinna-belz-gerhard-richter-painting/ (accessed July 13, 2016).
- 16.
See http://fondationbeyeler.tumblr.com/post/92535264348/interview-mit-gerhard-richter (accessed August 14, 2016).
- 17.
The title The Brutality of Fact was also used for later editions of the published interviews with Bacon by Sylvester, first published as a volume in 1975 (with expanded editions in 1980 and 1987).
- 18.
As it happens, Michael Blackwood also made a documentary about Richter, while he was preparing for his large retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2002.
- 19.
BBC radio asked Sylvester to do an interview with Bacon after his successful exhibition at Tate Gallery. The interview was broadcast on BBC radio on March 23, 1963; Sylvester, “Editorial Note,” in Interviews with Francis Bacon, 202–3.
- 20.
Sylvester interviewed Bacon 18 times between 1962 and 1984–1986. The first four interviews were first published in 1975 as Interviews with Francis Bacon , followed by expanded editions in 1980 and 1987; these contained first 7, and then 9 interviews in total, so the material of the 18 interviews has eventually been condensed into 9 texts. Sylvester edited the interviews together with Shea Mackay. For a critical discussion of these interviews see Sandra Kisters, “Interviewing Francis Bacon ,” Kunsttexte.de 3 (2012): 1, see http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/kunsttexte/2012-2/kisters-sandra-7/PDF/kisters.pdf (accessed August 14, 2016). Francis Bacon is one of the case studies in Sandra Kisters, The Lure of the Biographical. On the (Self)-Representation of Modern Artists (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2017).
- 21.
See Sandra Kisters, “Francis Bacon —Orchestrating the Beginning,” in Véronique Meyer and Vincent Cotro, eds., La Première Oeuvre (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes 2014), 223–35.
- 22.
In the published interviews the interviews are numbered.
- 23.
Sylvester , Interviews with Francis Bacon , 191.
- 24.
These surfaced during the move of the studio from London to Dublin and can be consulted in the database of the Francis Bacon Studio Project, Dublin, through the numbers F1A:122A, F1A:122F, F1A:122G, F1A:122J, F1A:122K, and F1A:122M. The answers are partly typed, partly handwritten and sometimes erased, see FBS, F1A:122A.
- 25.
Sylvester, The Brutality of Fact, Interview 3, 1971–1973, 92.
- 26.
Margarita Cappock, Francis Bacon ’s Studio (London: Merrell Publishers Ltd, 2005), 81.
- 27.
David Sylvester in Mathew Gale, Francis Bacon : Working on Paper (London: Tate Publishing, 1999), 11.
- 28.
See Richard Cork , “Richard Cork Reviews the New Film and Video Francis Bacon and the Brutality of Fact,” The Listener (London: Reprinted in Tate Gallery Publications, 1984). Also see Dennis Hackett’s review of The South Bank Show episode “Television, Reality Assured,” The Times, June 10, 1985, Francis Bacon Studio Project, Dublin, F21:48.
- 29.
“David Sylvester on Francis Bacon in conversation with Andrew Brighton ,” Tate Modern, June 6, 2000, Tate Gallery, London, Hyman Kreitman Research Centre, TAV 2217A.
- 30.
Belz mentions this agreement in an interview with Jan Pieter Ekker: http://www.jpekker.nl/corinna-belz-over-gerhard-richter-painting-het-was-een-enorm-privilege-het-totstandkomingsproces-van-zo-dichtbij-te-volgen/ (accessed August 17, 2016).
- 31.
Baxandall , Patterns of Intention, 63.
- 32.
Ibid., 66.
- 33.
Ibid., 42.
- 34.
See for example Martin Harrion, In Camera: Photography , Film, and the Practice of Painting (London: Thames and Hudson, 2006).
- 35.
About the ongoing fascination of the audience for the artist’s studio numerous studies have been published, notably Rachel Esner, Sandra Kisters, and Ann-Sophie Lehmann, eds., Hiding Making—Showing Creation (Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press, 2013); Michael Cole and Mary Pardo, eds., Inventions of the Studio : Renaissance to Romanticism (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).
- 36.
Also see Julia Gelshorn, “Two Are Better Than One. Anmerkungen und seinen Verfahren der Vervielfalchung,” in Diers, Blunck, and Obrist, Das Interview, 263–83.
- 37.
Isabelle Graw , “Reden bis zum Umfallen. Das Kunstgesprach im zeichen des Kommunikations-imperativs,” in ibid., 284–301.
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Kisters, S. (2018). Interviewing the Artist: Richter Versus Bacon. In: Esner, R., Kisters, S. (eds) The Mediatization of the Artist. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66230-5_11
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