- Good evening everyone.
I'm Jane Deknatel, the
director of The Broad Stage.
Here to welcome you to
the most amazing evening
as we all know.
I have just a couple of
things I'd like to say.
You may think it's odd
I'm holding a microphone
and a huge silver statue but
last night we were awarded
the Ovation award for the
Best Presented Theater
in Los Angeles.
(audience cheering)
So I wanted to share that with you
because we're all incredibly
proud of ourselves
and very excited.
And hope you will also
come and see theater here.
What you're about to
enjoy and witness tonight
started with a conversation
sometime ago when I was
in Eli Broad's office
and he said to me,
"Have you ever considered visual arching
and we had a long conversation about where
visual art and performing arts intersect.
And as most people here know
that is becoming a reality in both worlds.
So I want to say a
personal thanks to Broads,
to Edy and to Eli.
(audience cheering)
For their incredible support
of us over The Broad Stage
and certainly for me personally.
Thank you both.
I'm gong to hand you
over to William Turner,
another old friend and he will give you
the rest of the evening.
Enjoy.
(audience applauding)
- Thank you, thank you Jane.
And congratulations again
on your Ovation Award.
That's very exciting.
I understand Jane it was
for the production of 1984.
I can only imagine what next year will be.
The Manchurian Candidate, I hope not.
My name is William Turner
and I'm your executive
producer for tonight.
And it's a real honor to be here with you
in this wonderful stage.
I see so many old friends and faces.
The energy is fantastic.
The guys back stage are very excited
that they're finally
getting some recognition.
(audience laughing)
But first I wanna begin by
thanking Eli & Edy Broad.
Not just for this wonderful venue
that you've brought to Santa Monica.
But for everything you've
done for Los Angeles
in so many ways.
(audience applauding)
Your contributions to the
Arts has been extraordinary.
You know when you look
at Los Angeles today,
we're really thriving as a city.
We're one of the most
influential, dynamic,
and creative cities in the world.
And the contributions you both have made
to the arts and culture of
this town are incalculable.
(audience applauding)
This town would not be the town it is
without the two of you.
So please join me in really thanking
and for all you've done
and continue to do.
(audience applauding)
So tonight's talk begins a series of talks
at The Broad Stage as Jane mentioned.
To really foster dialogue
with some of the most amazing talent
that we have in Los
Angeles in the visual arts
and I think when you see the appetite
that's here tonight to
really hear the stories
and histories of our artist,
I think it's fantastic
idea and I'm so glad
that Sotheby's Institute of Art
at Claremont Graduate University
stepped up to really
co-sponsor this series.
Out of that sponsorship,
it also evolved a very
interesting partnership
between The Broad Stage and
Sotheby's Institute of Art
where students at Sotheby's
can participate in programs
here at The Broad Stage
and really explore careers
in the arts with a hands on approach.
So I applaud that.
(audience applauding)
An evening like tonight does
not happen without the efforts
of a lot of people and I wanna
thank everyone who helped
make this happened.
But in particular of note, I
wanna thank my good friend,
unstoppable force of nature,
Director of The Broad Stage
and Ovation Award winner,
Jane Deknatel.
(audience applauding)
Jane, you and your staff have
been fantastic to work with
and this stage is humming along.
Anyone who has only come
here for the first time.
Their programming is amazing
and I can't believe they fit this in
but I'm so glad that it worked out.
I also wanna thank the
Sotheby's Institute of Art
and their vision, for
jumping in full force
in sponsoring this series.
And that goes to their terrific director
Jonathan Neil and to Tori Benoit.
Jonathan, Tori thank you so much.
(audience applauding)
To really pull this off though,
I have to also thank Lyn Winter
and her incredible PR team.
They never cease to amaze
and they really make
this the success it is
and brought the magic to this event.
Thank you so much.
(audience applauding)
The photographs that
you saw as you came in.
These wonderful recent
photographs of the artist
and some of the images
that were on the screen
are thanks to Karen Levin
and please give her a hand.
(audience applauding)
Most importantly, I
wanna thank the artists.
I wanna thank Larry Bell,
Billy Al Bengston, Ed Ruscha
and Ed Moses for taking time
from their busy work schedules
and exhibition schedules
to join us tonight.
And when I say busy,
these guys are working
non stop all the time.
And it's amazing to see
after 50 and 60 years
of steady production
and exhibition history,
that they're still going at it strong.
So thank you guys.
(audience applauding)
Unfortunately Robert Erwin is
not able to make it tonight.
He had an unexpected scheduling conflict
but he sends his best
regards and well wishes
for this evening's event.
Okay, so tonight we have,
I think a sense of how
special this evening is.
We've got a packed house.
The tickets were hotter
to get than Hamilton
and this is not a musical.
(audience laughing)
Although when I told them
that it's a packed house.
They did start singing a
little bit just in case.
These guys came on the scene
before L.A. really had an arts scene.
And they, along with some of the people
in this audience tonight,
I see Irving Blum here.
Frank Gary and some
other artist that go back
pretty much to the dawn of their careers.
They really made the scene.
It's hard to imagine today what L.A.
was like at that period.
Today we have over 200 plus
galleries in Los Angeles.
We have the best arts schools in the world
and we have over 20 world class museums.
Among them LACMA, MOCA,
the Hammer, two Gettys
and the newest jewel to the crown.
The Broad downtown.
Back then there was just one museum.
It was the L.A. County
Museum and it shared space
with the museum of
Natural History downtown.
The highlights of their collection.
The Picassos, the Pollacks
were deemed too controversial
in that conservative climate.
So they stayed mostly in the racks.
So you didn't get to see them.
So they were very few
galleries, very few artists
and almost no collectors
when they started.
It is now my pleasure to
introduce the moderator
for tonight to corral these
guys and keep them in line
and keep their stories
moving and interesting
and, Irving, if they stray
too far let them know.
One of my favorite art historians,
art critics and authors
who has known all of these artists.
He's written books.
Rebels in Paradise is on the
time in the 60s in Los Angeles.
So it's my honor to introduce
our moderator tonight.
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp
and L.A. legends Larry Bell,
Billy Al Bengston, Ed Moses and Ed Ruscha.
Come on out guys.
(audience applauding)
- That's how I know who I am.
- [William] Hunter take it away.
Have fun guys.
- Thank you all for coming.
I thank Bill and Lyn and Eli and Edy
and shot out to all the
people in the audience
who were part of this scene.
And we were backstage,
we thought well we really
don't have anything else to say.
You saw the movie but I'm
sure we'll have something
and I'm gonna start with one
of the younger of this group.
This young Ed Ruscha here on my left.
- [Ed] Younger.
- Younger Larry but it is true.
- [Ed] Start with him.
- He's the child, I know.
As the elder one but I
wanted to start right
what it was like for you
'cause you're good at talking
about this.
1956, you're in your 1950
black Ford with Mason Williams.
You're driving out here to
go to school in Los Angeles.
Can you just do a quick
recap of what you're feeling?
What it was like for you
to come to Los Angeles
as a young Oklahoman.
- Yeah so I was, came from
the dead center of Oklahoma
and it felt like a scratchy
black and white movie
and so coming to California was a deal
and I thought wanted to come
and go to Art Center school.
So I could learn how to be a sign painter
and I applied but I got stopped quickly
because the quota was filled
and so there was another
school I could go to called
Chouinard and that's where I started.
But then I found out
that Arts Center school
had a dress code.
You couldn't have ant
affectations of beatnick
or wear sandals or wear a beret
or no facial hair all of that.
And so I ended up n a school
where all of those things were welcomed.
Matter of fact, it was sort of compulsory.
(audience laughing)
And that's how I got forward motion.
- Forward motion, I like that description.
You're there and at that
time there's some interesting
teachers there.
- I did, I had Emerson Woelffer
and I had Robert Irwin,
who taught water color class
and he made us prepare...
Take a big slab of wood and
put 1000 pieces of paper tape
down on top of itself.
And then you put a piece
of paper on top of that
water colored paper and
then you tape that down.
And then you wet it and
let it dry like a drum head
and then you're staring at this thing
and it's scares the pants off of you.
Because you don't know where
to begin on this surface.
Imagine that, if you'd spent
all this time preparing
to get to begin to go.
Start to begin to get to go.
But anyway Irwin was a great talker
and it was completely worthwhile.
I got a lot from him.
- And we're sorry he's not here tonight
because the other student he had
was Larry who was just,
who also came to Chouinard
and had a sort of similar experience.
But then you came from over the hill.
You came from the valley.
- Yep.
- Not as long a drive.
- No but my parents were
worried about me driving.
They paid for a room by the school.
- Oh yeah, you stayed in a
really interesting place.
You wanna tell me about that?
- What?
- You stayed in the Shalimar.
- The Shalimar to India, right.
- And it was owned by
Charlie Chaplin, right?
Wasn't it?
- Oh I don't know.
I don't know who owned it.
- [Man] Groucho.
- Groucho groucho.
Tell me about your first
experience of Robert Irwin.
- Well I think we might have
in the same water color class.
I found him a very charismatic guy
and I'd never really met anybody like him.
I'm sorry he's not here tonight.
I spoke earlier to him.
He sends his regards to everybody
and apologizes for not being here.
Except that he's got a bad back
and tomorrow he goes to
some kind of procedure,
treatment on his back.
Which he hopes can make
him a lot better so.
- Well we miss him because
he was a huge influence
and a good friend to
everyone on this stage.
- Yes, yes.
Good guy, good guy.
- What do you think you
got the most from him
in your time at Chouinard?
- Well I think Bob's strength
really was in conveying
a sense of how one trusts themselves and
I suspect that rubbed off pretty good.
You know finally if you
don't trust yourself,
you can't do very much and that's,
I'd have to say trust was the thing
that I got more than anything out of him.
- Well that's a good message
and he was a influential teacher there.
And the other influential
teacher was Billy Al,
over there.
Who had the experience of being kicked
out of so many art schools.
By the time he was teaching,
he really knew what he was talking about.
(audience laughing)
- I was kicked out of everything.
- [Hunter] So you came
here form Dodge City.
- With my parents.
- [Hunter] With your parents
but then you were here.
- [Billy] No I was born in Dodge City.
I lived in Buckland.
- [Ed] How square, you came
out here with your folks?
- Yeah.
(audience laughing)
- [Hunter] He tried to
leave them behind but.
- No, no, no that's a defense industry.
- [Hunter] But you went to
Manual Arts, didn't you?
- Yes, I did.
- [Hunter] Which is also
where Jackson Pollack
went to school.
- I didn't know that when I was there.
And I could see why he
would go there because
that's about the only school there was.
Was that and Polytechnic.
There were manual arts in
Manual Arts which was good.
Matter of fact it was excellent.
They had a pot shop,
they had a welding shop,
they had woodworking shop,
they had water color studios,
they had nude models
and you never wanna see those nude models.
And drawing and painting
and da-da-da-da-da.
And I learned absolutely nothing.
(audience laughing)
- But you learnt that you
were gonna be an artist.
- No, no, no that came by accident.
- But by the time these young people
come to Los Angeles, you're
a little bit on your way.
You've already been doing,
you've already transitioned
gone into ceramics with Peter
Voulkos at, what's now Otis,
but then was the L.A.
County Art Institute.
- Well he was great.
He was absolutely amazing.
A real force and without Pete,
I don't think anybody would be anything.
He was the best.
He didn't teach, he did his work
and you tried to be like him.
- [Hunter] Peter Voulkos?
- Yeah and you couldn't be like him.
He was way too good and we appreciated it
and he also took us lunch.
(audience laughing)
- [Hunter] He did what?
He also did what?
- He took us to lunch.
- He took you to lunch?
- [Billy] No took us to lunch.
- [Hunter] He paid?
- Yes.
- [Hunter] For your lunch?
- Yes.
- [Hunter] Well that's a
good quality in a teacher.
- It's a great quality.
And if he got mad at you,
he locked you in the kiln
(audience laughing)
and it's very lonely in the kiln.
Let me out, let me out.
- [Hunter] You didn't get locked in there
with Ken Price though?
- No, Kenny was always good.
And Kenny came from FC so he
was on the tail end of that
and he was very advanced
by the time he got there.
He's a great ceramicist
and he proved that.
I'm sorry he's not here
and a lot of other people
that should be here that aren't here.
- We have lost a lot of people.
- It's inconsiderate of 'em to take all.
Piss me off.
- [Hunter] We agree with that.
So you've gone to manual arts
and you went to quite a few
art schools in Los Angeles
if I remember.
I think you went to USC.
- No, no, not too many.
I went to.
- Was one of those USC?
- No, I lasted one day at USC.
I went on an athletic scholarship
and I realized I was not gonna
be an athletic supporter.
(audience laughing)
And then I dropped out and
went to work in display
at Desmond's and that
was a good education.
Then I went to City College.
Actually, I think I went
to Arts and Craft next
because I wanted to get out of town.
And I did and that was sort of fun.
I study with what would have
been considered at that time,
a serious artist Richard Diebenkorn
and he sort of painted
a so different color.
I came back to California
because Pete said
I could come back.
I was with Pete and that
was really fantastic.
Then I couldn't do that any longer.
Who knows why I became a painter?
'Cause it was easier than ceramics
and we didn't have hemorrhoids.
(audience laughing)
- And you said you became
a painter because people
always thought that painting
was the highest art.
- Well.
- Even though he was a potter.
Or he was not a potter,
he was a ceramic sculptor.
Well, you got, at that time,
and I think it's still the case
you get more money for a
painting than you do for a pot.
- Yeah, you get more money for a painting
than you would for a ceramic sculpture.
- And you don't get hemorrhoids.
- And you didn't get hemorrhoids.
Now, around that time in the late 50s,
we have Ed Moses,
who's almost got the same
sort of educational career.
You came from Long Beach (mumbles)
- [Ed] Long Beach City College, right.
And I thought at that time,
in order to go to a college,
you'd go to a junior college.
And then you could
advance on to a college,
which was UCLA, which was a
terrible conclusion to all that.
(audience laughing)
But I met Craig Kauffman there.
And he was sort of a natural
born genius of an artist.
He just whined all the time.
Look at things and say, "That
guy's gotta be kidding."
He was talking to the faculty members,
who were lecturing, and
he thought it was a joke.
And it was.
(audience and Hunter laughing)
- Well, you also met Walter Hopps there.
- I met Walter Hopps, called
Chico, through Craig Kauffman.
And he was gonna start this
gallery named Ferus Gallery.
And it was named after a guy that he
and Jim Newman killed on the road.
(Hunter laughing)
- [Ed] Roadkill?
- His name was Ferus.
So they titled the gallery
after this guy that they killed.
(audience laughing)
- And no one's been able to
disprove this by the way.
- Right.
No, there was a lot of
interesting factors at that time.
(Hunter laughing)
- So the first Ferus,
you're the first Ferus,
and the first Ferus is
fathered by Walter Hopps
and Ed Kienholz.
- Right.
Called Chico.
- Chico, Chico Hopps.
That's right.
- Yeah.
After he became a gentleman,
he said he didn't want to
be called Chico anymore.
(audience laughing)
He would be called
Walter from that time on.
- I'll bet you didn't do that, though.
- Pardon?
- You didn't do that though.
You kept calling him Chico.
- No, I agreed.
(Hunter laughing)
A guy wants to be called
a different name, why not?
(audience laughing)
- Well, the thing about Ferus is also,
in Ferus one, the first iteration,
don't you have your graduate...
your graduate painting show was at Ferus.
- Yes, I did my graduate painting show
at the Ferus gallery.
And they were less than
thrilled about, the faculty.
But I had one good teacher at UCLA,
Bill Brice was his name,
who was big fan of Rico Lebrun,
who was sort of a joke to all of us.
And he learned to draw around a volume
that would be a human.
So that's what I did.
But I didn't like it.
(Hunter laughing)
I've done a lot of drawings
of little houses I lived in.
With the t-square and a vertical triangle,
lining and keeping all the things aligned.
They had to be aligned for
some compulsive reason.
(audience laughing)
That I have no idea what it was.
I didn't want it to fall over, I guess.
- Yeah, that's the funny thing
about mechanical drawing.
- Yeah, it is.
It keeps you aligned.
So I did a bunch of
little houses like that,
and they looked sort of neat.
When I tried to get into UCLA,
they said I couldn't draw,
because I had done these
little houses like that
with vertical, horizontal line
patterning, with graphite.
I was compelled to put lines on,
and then taken 'em off.
For reasons that are inexplicable.
- But they come to work for
part of your work later.
That becomes a theme --
- Yeah, it was a way, yeah.
It was a way.
I didn't know where I was going.
I was just flopping
around like another fool.
When I was a little kid,
my aunt and my mother didn't hear anything
where I slept in this
little kitchenette area,
that's where the earthquake hit in '33.
I remember, my mother
was coming to the table
with Waldorf salad.
(audience laughing)
And she said, "It's an earthquake."
So she ran and turned all
the burners off on the stove
and grabbed me and we went
down this little hallway
into a big bay window that
faced this high school
that all collapsed, all the
bricks came falling down.
And the earth was going up to meet it.
It was sort of scary.
- I want to go from that.
So your show at the Ferus gallery,
I want to stay there.
Here we are, the late
'50s, and Ferus Gallery
is this unlikely, unlikely
success, I would say.
- Oh, I would say it was
a very unlikely success.
- Yeah, there are really no
art collectors much in L.A.
There are galleries here,
but what's interesting
about Ferus is because, first,
it's started by an artist.
It's started by Ed
Kienholz with Walter Hopps.
And then as it progresses in time,
Kienholz wants to go back
to making his own art.
And so that's when Irving Blum steps in
and starts what we loosely term Ferus two.
These are not official names,
these are just what I'm saying
because some people don't know
there are two iterations
of Ferus in two locations.
And they have sort of separate identities.
But the one thing about Walter Hopps,
sort of starts with, let's see...
- [Ed] Chico.
- With Chico Hopps, is
that he's so enthusiastic.
And somehow acquires all
of you, one way or another.
Not exactly, but over time.
You have a show there,
I think Wallace Berman
recommended you for your show.
- [Ed] Yeah, well.
- Mmhmm.
- Irving Blum came into town from New York
and he walked in and
saw the Ferus Gallery.
And talked to Chico,
who interviewed him to be the director.
And Irving said, "First,
we've gotta get rid
"of about 30 people."
There were all these funny
guys that were in there,
with beards and babies
and wives with babies,
sitting around, nursing their babies.
(audience laughing)
- That could put art
collectors off, I've heard.
- Well, he, Irving got
rid of all these guys,
except he kept Wally Berman.
He kept me and et cetera here.
(audience laughing)
- [Hunter] And Billy.
- And Billy, yeah.
Oh, Billy.
- Billy, Billy, I hear you --
He was Mr. Unpredictable.
He always said the reverse thing
of whatever he was gonna
say about anything.
- Well, you said you were
gonna be the greatest artist
in the world or something.
- [Billy] That's before
I knew there wasn't one.
(Hunter laughing)
- You didn't think you were gonna be it?
- I didn't know the difference
between objective and subjective.
(audience laughing)
How do you go from there?
I didn't know a hell of a
lot, as a matter of fact.
I still don't, but...
- You're a great artist, Billy.
You've done some amazing things.
I remember when you did that Deno show
and he had the perversity,
when something wasn't working
to make it worse.
(audience laughing)
- You can't make chicken
salad outta chicken shit.
- You were working on these metal things,
and you spray painted various objects,
chevrons and pineapples and whatever.
They were really terrific things.
And then he was working
on these aluminum pieces
and made beautiful paintings on them.
But they would get
crimpled, sort of, bent.
And so he just took a hammer
and hit a whole bunch of 'em.
And then spray painted
the image over that,
and he put 'em on a piece of wood,
surrounding the interior of the gallery.
And he had candles down below,
so the candlelight reflected
on the Deno paintings and
it was an amazing show.
- That's Ed's fantasy.
(audience laughing)
- What's that?
- It didn't work that way.
That was 20 years later, at Rico's.
- Oh, was that?
Well.
- Yeah.
(audience laughing)
- Memories, memories.
(Hunter laughing)
- I wanted to be serious at one time,
and then I realized it
was a waste of time.
- Be serious.
- Yeah.
- Well, let's talk about
air brushing, because,
interestingly, all of you have,
let's see, all four of you had jobs
and those jobs actually contributed
to the way your art emerged.
Billy Al was riding motorcycles.
- It was my living.
- Your living, making
money, racing motorcycles.
- Mmhmm.
- You started using the
air brush technique,
used on motorcycles in your paintings.
- Well, if I had the
patience, I'd have done it
the way that early Rolls
Royce people did it,
with lacquering brushes.
But, you get 60 or 70 coats of paint,
after you've rubbed 'em out,
you're too tired to do
any imaging, you know.
Spray gun worked a lot better.
It was modern, worked better,
and didn't waste as much paint.
- [Ed] What was Oklahoma
thinking about at those times?
- Well, we're gonna get to that.
We're gonna talk about that now,
because Ed, in a similar way,
the thing you did to make money sometimes
was graphic art.
- Yeah, I had a job at a
place called Sunset House,
which was on south Los Hienada,
and I would work every year
from around September
through the end of November.
And I was on this painting
line, where I would personalize
people's names on gift items.
And so, I could live the rest of the year,
on what I made in those couple of months.
I just remember painting the
name John John many times.
(audience and panelists laughing)
It was the most popular name, John John.
Named after John John Kennedy.
That dates me, doesn't it?
I mean, that's like 63, 62, 63, yeah.
- But weren't these also like
Mr. and Mrs. toothbrush holders.
- Of course!
- Like odd things.
- Yes, yes.
- Like what were some of the
items you were personalizing?
They were so odd.
- There was a thing called
a Ma and Pa Chopper Hopper.
(audience laughing)
Which was a little ceramic dish,
that you put, I don't know,
water in, and you put
your false teeth in there.
(audience laughing)
I would get a nickel a piece for those.
And they would just sort of be fed to me,
with a piece of paper
that had the name on it.
Another one was a bird house
for children, and I would get the roof.
The roof had a little chimney on it,
and a little plastic bird,
and on the other side of it,
I would letter the kid's name.
And I did 3 or 400 of those everyday.
(audience murmurs in surprise)
I cut my chops.
- You see those things on eBay,
you can have yourself
a real early Ed Ruscha.
- I wish I had one of those, yeah.
- You were in the mirror,
in the framing shop.
You, Larry.
(audience laughing)
Not him, you!
- I had a bunch of jobs, little jobs.
The framing shop was
out in Burbank, and a very
nice guy ran the shop.
I was able to buy my paints at wholesale,
because he sold art supplies too,
and so I bought my stuff there.
It was not what I wanted to do.
I had left school.
I went to Chouinard just for
a little less than two years.
I was not a very cooperative student.
I don't know, somehow,
I wasn't very interested in any of it.
But I was interested in being
around people like this,
that were involved in
the arts, as artists.
I really cherished the
company that I was keeping
at the time.
Another job I had was working
in a little coffee house
on Sunset Boulevard.
- You were the bouncer.
- It was called Unicorn.
- You were the bouncer.
- No, I wasn't the bouncer.
- [Hunter] The Unicorn.
- I stood at the door,
which was different than being a bouncer.
- [Ed] He was also a performer.
He was also a performer.
- On occasion.
I liked to play the guitar
and sing folk songs,
when all my buddies
were interested in jazz
and thought that folk
music was just for wimps,
or something.
Anyways.
- You had a 12-string guitar.
- I loved 12-string guitars.
But that was because I was deaf,
I got into 12-string guitars
because I couldn't hear 6-string guitars.
(Hunter laughing)
- [Ed] You had a history of being deaf.
- Huh?
- You had a history of being deaf.
- Yeah, I was deaf until I was 46,
when my hearing loss was diagnosed.
So I got hearing aids.
I was born with hereditary
nerve degeneration in my ears,
and there's a 40% loss across
the spectrum in both ears.
So I grew up not hearing a
whole bunch of what was going on
in the world.
Including how to tune my 12-string guitar.
(audience laughing)
But the club, it was a great job,
because a lot of girls
would come in the place.
And sometimes they had
fantastic entertainers.
There was one time when Lenny Bruce ...
Lenny Bruce played at
the club several times
during the time I was working there,
and that was great fun.
I always let my buddies in to come and...
There was one evening
that he was really on.
He brought people out of the wood work.
People just came to hear him.
And there'd be long lines around the block
for people waiting outside to get in.
And one night, he came on to do a set
at 8:30 and he was supposed
to be off in a half hour,
40 minutes and they'd turn over the house,
but at 11:30 he was
still on his first set.
So, finally, the owner and the
manager were flashing lights
and trying to get him off,
because the crowd outside
was getting really nasty.
They just went up, turned off the lights,
and dragged him off the stage
where he went into a thing
like he was going to the electric chair.
And then the strangest
thing happened, nobody left.
(Hunter laughing)
So I went upstairs to the office and told
the owner of the place,
a guy named Herb Cohen.
I said, "Nobody's left, Herbie."
So he walks down.
Lenny is sitting in a
chair sort of like this.
We went down, he looks, he says,
"Did you bring your guitar?"
I said, "Yeah, it's in the car."
He says, "Do a set."
(Hunter laughing)
Before the first song was
over, the place was empty.
(laughing)
(audience applauding)
Anyways, it was fun events like that
that kept things going.
Actually, at a certain
point, I just decided,
I had to figure out a way to make a living
that didn't include working.
So I went into the studio
and didn't come out again.
(Hunter laughing)
- Well, that framing
shop gave you the idea
to go into the boxed glass pieces.
- Well, yeah.
I learned how to cut glass
and found it a really interesting
material to play with.
The thing I liked about glass
was that it reflected light,
it transmitted light,
and it absorbed light,
all at the same time.
You could buy it any place,
it was not very expensive.
There weren't too many artists
that I knew of at least
that were using it as a
viable material, and it had
a shelf life of something
like three million years.
(Hunter laughing)
So, it seemed like a reasonable material
to go after and use.
Most of the layout of the
sculptures that I did with them,
were really based on
the corners of the rooms
that was my studio.
That probably was the most
influential thing in my trip,
was I realized the number of right angles
that were impinging on
my peripheral version
were too many to count, in
just about any situation.
I figured that was also a reasonable thing
to use as a kick-off
for the forms and so on.
Just followed the gut, you know.
So the glass became a material
that I could make sculptures
out of, and they played around with light.
I didn't have any philosophical thing.
It was just all very
out front, visual stuff.
There was a sensuousness
to using, to making things.
You know, I enjoyed that,
even though I was very clumsy
on all levels.
But glass was a nice material
to begin to work with
because the surface was so perfect.
You could just go and buy
it anywhere and it was ...
- Ferus was an established
thing, with Ed and Billy Al
showing there, it was
already a hot, well, the hot
contemporary gallery, and
then you joined Ferus,
Ed Ruscha joins Ferus,
and then we've really got
quite a little scene.
- And then I quit.
- Hmm?
And what?
- And then I quit.
- Then you quit.
Well, you quit over a very
interesting little squabble.
- There's always snits.
- You didn't quit because
they lowered the level for me, did you?
(hunter laughing)
- [Billy] How did you guess?
I actually recommended that
you join, so I could quit.
(laughing)
- [Hunter] Which one of you
black balled Richard Diebenkorn?
Who was that?
Was that you?
- It was another era.
He's working in another era.
- Is that a fact?
I never heard that story.
- Billy'll tell you.
- Oh, okay.
- Yeah, he's setting up.
You can have Ed Ruscha,
but you can't have Richard
Diebenkorn, or I leave.
- Diebenkorn was too professional.
- Well, in all fairness, what
was happening in the gallery
at that time was..
It was going a different way.
But I want to talk about
1963, and, let's see,
I think Andy Warhol's opening.
These are the silver Elvis paintings.
Ed was there, I think, Ed Ruscha.
Who was at Andy Warhol's
opening at Ferus, 1963.
- I don't know, but I stretched 'em.
- You stretched them?
- Yeah, they were --
- I thought they were
just cut out.
- Irwin and I did that job.
I think we madE 50 cents a piece.
- For the record, for the
record, this is where he ships
the roll of Elvis.
- Mmhmm, everyone was outraged
that they didn't have any
marks on them.
I said, "It doesn't make any difference.
"They're all crap."
(audience laughing)
- Yeah, Andy Warhol sends a
roll of silver silk screen
Elvises to Ferus and
they haven't been cut up,
because he was saving
money on his shipping.
This is his second show at Ferus.
- [Billy] No, Irving was
saving money on shipping.
- Irving was saving money on his shipping.
So you were one of the
ones who cut it out.
- Bob and I did.
- You and Bob Irwin.
- Yeah, and I can tell you,
we didn't go, "This is right.
"Oh, no, no, that's right.
"No, this is right."
Done.
Get this job over with.
- So this is a big
moment, 1963, Los Angeles,
because we have Andy Warhol
here for his second show,
it's also, a time when Marcel Duchamp
has his first retrospective.
And it's held at the Pasadena Art Museum.
For those of you who don't know,
and it was at that time,
the Pasadena Art Museum
was a Chinese style mansion,
which is still in Pasadena.
It's not the Pacific Asia Museum.
- [Ed] Walter was the director.
- Walter was director,
curator, and chief cook.
- Everything.
- Everything.
The entire international art
world comes to Los Angeles
for this opening.
Ed Ruscha was there with his
girlfriend from Oklahoma.
- Who was that?
- Not the entire art world.
Some didn't come.
- This man on the...
- Some didn't come.
But, Larry and Billy, you went
and shopped for some clothes.
- Larry was certainly there.
He did a Groucho Marx impersonation,
that is beautiful and
cruel at the same time.
It was so accurate that we
knew this guy had a future.
He did Groucho Marx so explicitly.
(audience laughing)
It was fun to watch.
- [Billy] Can you still do that?
- [Larry] Hmm?
- [Billy] Can you still do that?
- [Larry] No.
(audience laughing)
No, I don't do much of
anything, actually, anymore.
(audience laughing)
- [Billy] That's four of us.
- I don't even remember very much anymore.
- [Billy] That's four of us.
- But you remember that Duchamp opening.
- Oh, I do, indeed.
That was great fun.
I also remembered when
he visited my studio.
He and Bill Copley and Richard Hamilton
were given a list of artists'
studios to go and visit,
and there was a knock on my
front door, about that loud.
(knocks on table lightly)
All my friends came to the back door.
Anybody who came to the front
door was a building inspector.
- [Billy] Oh, no, a
drunk or a stoned person.
Asking for money.
- Oh, yeah, yeah, right.
I never had any money to give anyway.
- [Billy] Well, none of
us opened the front door.
- If I had any money,
I borrowed it from you.
- [Billy] And you could give
it back any time you wanted.
(laughing)
- So this knock, about that
loud (knocks on table),
continued for almost 20 minutes.
Just sort of like that.
- Why didn't you just answer it?
- With a little pause.
And then, again. (knocks on table)
I snuck out from the
back, around the side,
keeping close to the wall, going around.
Had a little peek hole on the side window
that was all painted gray.
I saw these three guys
with ties on out there.
Well, they didn't really
look like city people,
but I opened the door, just a crack.
And this short fella,
who introduced himself as
William Copley, Bill Copley,
and said, "Walter Hopps,
told us to come and visit."
Well, as soon as he said
Chico's name, I opened the door.
They came in and I showed
them around what I was doing,
but I was deaf, I didn't
really hear the names
of these people.
I heard Copley because
he forcefully spoke up,
introducing himself, and then
as he introduced the other
guys, his face was turned away,
so I didn't read his lips.
It wasn't until the three of
them had been in the studio
for maybe a half an hour or
something, looking at things,
and the English fella,
who was Richard Hamilton,
was explaining something
about something I was doing
with glass and mirrors and so on.
And I got up real close to hear him,
and he wasn't correct
about what he was saying.
So I began to explain the
procedures involved in this,
and Mr. Copley says,
"Marcel, didn't you do
something like this before?"
And then I realized who that guy was.
(audience laughing)
And I sort of threw myself
back against the wall
and I couldn't talk anymore.
I was 22.
This guy, this legend,
and I didn't even know it,
was there in my studio.
And they realized something had changed
in the social qualities of the visit,
and they thanked me and they left.
- But they gave you $10,000.
- No,
no,
$2,000.
- Oh, $2,000.
- I got a letter the day
before Christmas of that year
from the Copley Foundation,
saying "You've been awarded
"a William and Noma Copley foundation."
And the day after Christmas,
came a check for $2,000.
I'd never seen that kind of money ever.
- [Hunter] That was a
lot of money back then.
- In '62, yes.
It was '62 into '63, yeah.
- 'Cause I think your
rent was $75 a month.
- Less.
65.
- [Billy] It was 45.
- 45.
- 45.
- Thank you, Billy.
Do I still owe you for my rent?
(laughing)
- Kennies and I shared
the studio that was 75,
so we paid 37.50 each.
- [Hunter] And Ed
couldn't even afford that,
he had to live in Hollywood.
- Well, I lived with five
other people in a house near
Barnsdall Park, and the rent was $60,
so that made it $12 a month each.
It was not easy to scrape
that money together.
But that's when we were students.
So after we got out it
was a little easier on us.
- [Hunter] That's still pretty low.
- Low, yeah.
- So did you get to meet Marcel Duchamp?
- Yeah, I met him at the
Pasadena Museum, at his opening.
He had a cigar, and seemed
like he was always dressed
in a suit and tie.
He was unlike any typical artist.
- [Larry] You remember
how he carried his cigar?
- Kind of like European style, maybe.
What's that?
- He had it in between his...
- Oh, that's right.
- I'd never seen anybody
hold a cigar like that.
- [Ed] That's continental.
(laughing)
- [Billy] What kind of cigar was it?
- [Larry] Huh?
- [Billy] What kind of cigar was it?
- [Larry] Roi Tan.
- [Billy] Did you give it to him?
- No, no, I wouldn't
have smoked those cigars.
- [Ed] Good five cent cigar.
- I liked cigars but not those kind.
Can't believe a classy guy like that
smokes one of those things.
(Billy laughing)
- What do any of you most
remember from this Duchamp moment,
if anything?
- [Billy] You asking me?
- All of you.
- [Billy] Not a damn thing.
(laughing)
- We'll have to settle on
pretending to remember,
in any case.
But, no, that was a very lively spark
in the history, was that Duchamp show.
That was one of many, though.
- Back to back --
- Didn't he sit at a table
with Babiar, was that her name?
- With who?
- Playing cards or something like that.
- Eve Babitz?
- Eve Babitz, that's right.
Yeah, playing chess, and
she was bare breasted.
- [Larry] She was lewd,
she was buck ass naked.
- [Ed] Yeah, that's right, she was.
- She'd get naked anytime.
Please, don't take your clothes off.
(laughing)
- You're talking about Ed
Ruscha's good friend there.
- Oh, no, she was an exhibitionist.
No doubt about that, yeah.
- Let's go back, we'll
talk about exhibitionists,
we can talk about the
Sunset Strip, a little bit.
You know, let's see,
I know that while you were at the Unicorn,
Billy Al was dancing on the
Sunset Strip, in the clubs.
He became a dancing, became
very interested in...
- [Billy] Dance hall girl.
- Dance hall girl.
That's right.
- [Billy] Great, great scene.
- Didn't you tell me you
danced with Tina Turner?
- I sure did.
- [Hunter] That might even Trump Duchamp.
- It's intimidating.
- Tina Turner?
- Yeah.
- For you?
- Yeah, you bet.
(laughing)
I was afraid she was gonna step on me
with one of those shoes.
- Hey, watch out those shoes.
The thing about L.A. at that
time that always amazes me,
I want all of you to
kind of talk about this,
is that I know that you went to New York,
you went to Europe and New York,
you all went to Europe and New York,
but you all decided to come
back to Los Angeles to work
and to live.
I'd like --
- We're not stupid.
(audience and Hunter laughing)
- So that's right.
So tell me, what was the draw
of Los Angeles at that time?
There's no museum, like three
galleries, four galleries,
three collectors, what was it?
- The difference is that all of us
wanted to make a contribution
of some type or another.
And you didn't need museums,
galleries, or any of that.
You just need your buddies,
because you didn't give a shit
what anybody else said anyway.
- [Ed] We thought we were great, too.
- Well, we were.
I'd say everyone sitting
here was fantastic.
(audience applauding)
And that's all the support you needed.
You know, you didn't need anything else.
And Barney's Beanery, he'd
give you a beer every so often.
- Ed, I know you went to New York
and I love that story about
meeting Warhol in New York.
- Oh, yeah, well, you
make it sound like I went
to live there, no I didn't.
No, I never lived there.
- No, no, no, just to visit.
Like in '62 or '63.
- Oh, yeah, yes.
For the first time in my life,
and I found it to be exactly
like it was in old movies.
And usually those movies
were made in Hollywood
with Hollywood sets,
but New York City was exactly like that.
I was stunned about how
accurate all that was.
- [Billy] Ed, if you
recall, our hair froze.
- The what?
- [Billy] Our hair froze.
- Yeah.
- Your hair prose?
- Hair froze.
We used to comb our hair with
water and walk down the street
and your head would freeze.
(laughing)
That's a true story.
- Isn't your first trip
there where you meet
with Andy Warhol?
- Yes, I did.
- When you and Joe hitchhiked out there.
- Joe Goodman and I
hitchhiked a couple of times
across country.
I remember one trip getting to Pittsburgh
and we could not get a
ride out of Pittsburgh
and so we had to buy a
ticket, which was $19,
to go from Pittsburgh to New York City.
It was a great time.
Yes, met Warhol, saw the museums there,
so it was a big deal.
But I knew that I didn't have
it in me to live in that city.
I mean, I could see
that to get across town
with a two by four was impossible.
(Hunter laughing)
I thought California was
much more sparkly and...
Chicks in cars.
(Hunter laughing)
That sort of thing.
And I love the weather out here, so,
I never got intrigued
enough to want to live
in that New York City.
This is a better area code.
(audience and Hunter laughing)
Although, it was sort of like
the Australia of the art world, back then.
I mean, not much happening.
There were a fraction
of things happening then
than are actually happening
today in this city.
So, it's almost impossible to remember
how frugal it all was, and how...
I mean, all my friends that
just wanted to make art
that would blow your hair
back, and have fun doing it,
but the idea of having a vocation of it
and making a living at it was nonexistent.
That's just sorta stuff
that happened by accident.
And there were, like you
say, very few art collectors.
I mean, a handful.
I always felt like the movie industry,
why wouldn't they get our message,
while we were able to get their message?
But they never really got our message.
I mean, it's all changed today,
and it seems like the movie
industry is interested,
in general, in the art world,
but back then, no.
Everything was small scale, minuscule.
- One of my favorite
stories is where you go
to meet Warhol, and you
show him your first book,
it's the very first book of
photographs of the gas stations,
isn't that your first book?
- Yes, and so his reaction was...
Let's see if I can do him.
"Oh, I love it, because
there's no people here.
"There's no people in the pictures."
Yeah.
I didn't realize that until he said it.
(laughing)
- I also liked that show
that he did at a gallery,
And you walked in the gallery
and you thought you
were in the wrong place,
because these Campbells
soup cans were on a shelf,
going all around the
perimeter of the room.
Your immediate take was,
"I'm in the wrong place."
(audience laughing)
'Cause it didn't look like
an art gallery at all.
- It wasn't at that time.
- What did it look like, a soup store?
(Hunter laughing)
- No, it looked like it was
where the Ferus gallery existed,
but it was entirely different,
the way it was all cleared out,
and these soup cans were put
up all the way round the room.
And you thought, "I'm in the wrong place."
Your reaction was not to go in.
My reaction was not to go in.
(panelists laughing)
I think, was it Irving that did that show?
- Yep.
- Yep.
Irving and Walter.
- That was Irving.
- Yeah.
- Mmhmm.
- The prices were outrageous.
- That's right.
- 25 bucks a piece.
- Well, no...
- Yes they were.
- 50, you're thinking
about net to the artist.
(audience laughing)
- [Billy] No, at that particular time,
Irving wouldn't have paid that much back.
- [Ed] What's that?
What did he say?
- I didn't hear him.
(audience laughing)
- [Hunter] He said,
"You're thinking about net
"to the artist."
- [Larry] Is Irving here?
- Yeah, Irving is here.
They were $100 a piece.
There he is.
- There he is.
- And he got 'em all back.
- Stand up for a minute, can you?
- There's Irving, there's Irving.
(audience applauding)
- Take your punishment.
- Well, at your own opening --
- $100 dollars a piece!
- $100 dollars a piece?
- $100 dollars a piece.
- $100 dollars a piece.
How much do the artists get?
- What's that?
- How much did Andy get?
- Andy would get half of that.
- Half of 100.
(Hunter laughing)
- [Irving] We kept the rest.
- He came to the gallery one day
and I think Walter was in
there or Kienholz was there
cleaning a pistol, off in
the little office room.
He was always sitting on
his haunches, cleaning guns.
- Who was?
- [Group] Kienholz.
- Was sitting there cleaning guns?
- Yeah.
- He liked to hunt stuff.
- Irving approached
Walter about stepping up
the gallery a little bit.
And, he said, you'd have to
get rid of about 30 people,
it was a huge gallery, all kinds of people
wandering in and out of there.
And you cut it down to how many people?
- [Irving] About 50.
- Yeah.
- But you were still there.
- We were still there.
- But nobody else came in.
(Hunter laughing)
- There was one art
collector named Betty Asher.
And apparently bought one
of your first paintings, Ed,
she bought Annie, I think.
- Yes.
- She did, she bought Annie.
- She never bought anything
of mine.
(Hunter laughing)
- She was the first person
to buy one of my paintings.
- She bought one of your first pieces.
And she would have poker, is that right?
- What?
- She had poker parties, right?
- Oh, yeah.
She was a good poker player.
- John Altoon died in her house.
- Well, yes, and there was another artist,
who's not with us tonight,
who died a long time ago,
and that would be John
Altoon, who was a great force
of energy.
- He was the inspiration.
- Oh, he was great.
Unbelievable.
They found him on the fence,
going over the veteran's burial
site over there, and he had two books,
and he threw them over first.
One was Rembrandt and the
other one was the Bible.
And they scraped him off the fence
and took him to the lock up,
but he soon worked his way out of there.
He was a great artist.
- Yeah, I was gonna say that,
and Irving would remember
this, that I had an exhibit,
my first exhibit there, at the gallery,
and Irving and I had put
all the pictures in place
and John comes in and says,
"Irving, you've gotta close
"this show.
"Don't open this show tonight.
"Because this is not art."
- [Hunter] Oh, dear.
- And Irving said, "Okay, John."
I was in the other room,
not really picking up on
what was said, but I got it right away.
I think I had only met Altoon once before,
but, anyway, he says,
"Irving, you've gotta close
"this show down.
"Don't have this opening tonight.
"This is not art."
And Irving's saying, "Sure,
okay, we'll close it down."
And then he came up and he
kissed Irving on the cheek,
and then he came over and
kissed me on the cheek
and then he wanders down the street
and sits on the lawn
like a disturbed person.
I think Irving called
his sister or a relative,
and she came over and took
John and went back to lock up.
Camarillo.
He had some mental problems.
- That's right.
- But, then, after that, he
became one of my best friends.
He forgot the old incident.
- But you didn't.
- I couldn't forget it.
- And Billy Al introduced him
to his wife, to Babs, I think.
Is that correct?
- Babs was the roommate of
a girlfriend that I was with
at the time.
The fabulous Bobbi Shaw.
(laughing)
- Beach Blanket Bingo.
- That's right.
- Billy's had many exciting girlfriends.
But the Beach Blanket Bingo girlfriend
was one that gets cited quite a lot.
- Whoo.
I'm sure glad them days is over.
(audience laughing)
- I don't have that much more time.
But I didn't want to just completely stay
in Los Angeles, the very
best city in the world,
I did want to mention,
to ask all of you about
now, the now, thanks to
Pacific Standard Time 2011,
and the number of shows
dedicated to L.A. art
between '45 and '80.
We have a lot of attention
brought to Los Angeles
and a lot of exhibitions for these people.
So, in brief, Ed had a
big show, a retrospective,
at Orange County, and he
had a drawing retrospective
at LACMA, and he had Moses at
90 at the Bill Turner Gallery
and he's still making art.
- Everyday.
- Everyday.
- Everyday.
(audience applauding)
- And Larry has a big
show opening this weekend
at Pepperdine at the gallery there,
so that's on Sunday.
(audience applauding)
- Please come.
- Not to mention having had
a lot of success in London
with White Cube and (mumbles)
and international attention
and so forth and so on.
And Ed, who never takes a deep breath,
was the subject of a really terrific
show in San Francisco about On The Road,
that pulled together so much of his focus,
really, on the western
landscape, in an interesting way.
Photography and prints and paintings.
I thought it was pretty good.
- Well, but I'm currently unemployed.
(audience laughing)
Well, self-employed.
- [Larry] Do you pay well?
- And he has a show at Gagosian in London,
with a particularly age-oriented theme.
I like the painting
that says "really old".
I could relate to that one.
(Hunter laughing)
Sort of an upside down triangle.
That's a pretty great show.
- Thank you.
- And Billy Al.
(audience applauding)
Just had a big show in
New York at Venus Gallery.
There's a Venus L.A. and a Venus New York.
He had a show at L.A. at
Sam Freeman in Culver City,
of a sort of survey of work.
And then he also had a
lot of early paintings
that came out of we don't know where.
All these early Billy Al Bengstons
that haven't been seen
by anybody but Billy
for a very long time that Adam Lindemann
seemed to have dug --
- It's because nobody bought them.
(Hunter laughing)
Just simple solution.
- So he's had a big show in New York.
And, just to wrap up, how do you feel...
I know where I'll start.
I'll start with Billy.
What kind of connection do you
feel about your early work,
even looking at it in that
show, and what you do today?
- I don't even think about it.
It just doesn't cross my mind.
I figure it was the best I could do then
and I'll try and do better now.
- Yeah, that's good.
Do you think that way, Ed?
How do you feel when you
look at your work today,
what do you think about
when you're looking back?
- I knew I was next.
(panelists laughing)
I've been doing it, maybe, for so long
that I forget why I'm doing it.
And, that puts me back in a puzzling...
I'm self-puzzled.
I still say that I don't
really know what I'm doing,
but I also employ myself to keep it going.
- [Hunter] That's it.
- [Ed] You get a salary?
(Hunter laughing)
- Is a salary with it?
Well, no, it doesn't come that way.
- [Larry] He works on spec.
- He works on spec, that's right.
Same with you.
Larry works three weeks here,
then works three weeks in Taos,
three weeks here, three weeks in Taos,
then wherever the shows take him.
So, when you make your work now,
do you think about how it
relates to your earlier work?
- No, I don't think about
the early work at all.
The work just seems to happen.
It's always been that way.
It just sort of happens.
If you see something you sort of like,
then you might push a certain
technique or something
and see how much mileage
you can get out of that.
Mileage by meaning how many examples,
how much evidence can you create
that substantiates your
idea of what it was,
whatever it was.
My scene now is three
weeks in Taos, New Mexico,
where I have a studio,
that's equipped to do things
that I can't do here or any other place.
And so I spend three weeks
there preparing materials
and I bring it out here
and improvise with them.
Every once in a while, I
get an idea to do something
that can be fabricated by somebody else.
I'll invest some money in
seeing how good that'll be.
It's a good way of doing my...
Plus, I love to drive.
I mean, I love to drive
from there to Barstow.
Once I get close to
L.A. it's another story.
(laughing)
- And how about you Ed,
when you paint today,
do you think about your earlier work?
Do you think it's connected?
- Yes, it's always
connected in a funny way.
It's all about chance and circumstance.
I never know what I'm
doing or where I'm going.
But, I like getting up every morning
and walking out to my studio
and start pulling canvas out
and putting it on the floor
and riding my, this little
thing, over and drawing on it.
Turning it over.
That's the idea.
What's on the other side?
That's what I like to find.
What's on the other side?
Who's there?
What's there?
Maybe you.
(audience laughing)
- What happens when you
find out who's there?
(laughing)
- You're here out of curiosity, right?
- [Hunter] Mmhmm.
- Me too.
It's all about curiosity.
(audience applauding)
- All about curiosity is nice.
It's a nice way to end.
So let's thank all of our panelists,
and thank you for coming.
(audience applauding)
