♪ [Opening music] ♪
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>> Brian Butler: Welcome
to the annual Dorr lecture.
Joyce and Larry
Dorr I saw earlier.
I'd like to thank
them directly.
Jim -- excuse me, I'm
trying to get it all together.
James Topp and Paula
Grillot , I didn't see them.
I want to thank both of them for
creating this great lecture
series and I think this year
we have an excellent speaker
that I'm looking
forward to.
I could read his list
of accomplishments,
 an incredible artist.
 The way I would put it is that
 when I walk around to museums,
I'm kind of of an addict of
going to museums and galleries;
whenever I see his work I
go, "Damn, that's alive!"
To me, strangely enough,
I'm a bad philosopher
because I'm supposed to give a
big theoretical explanation
for why I like
his work.
And yet, when
I see it,
the "damn" is the most
important part of that.
"That's alive!"
But I would like to say
what's also great is,
of course, he's from Asheville
and usually when you host a Dorr
lecturer you end up giving
them a little tour of Asheville.
Today was the opposite.
I got an incredibly gracious
tour of Asheville that I really
appreciate and I'm just going to
get out of the way and thank you
 for being here, Donald.
I appreciate it, I'm
looking forward to it.
[applause]
>> Donald Sultan: Can you put
on the first slide?
I need to go back to the first
slide. That's it, okay.
I guess as it was
explained to me,
the purpose of this lecture was
for me to give the philosophical
explanations of the work
and why you should like it.
It was an interesting
idea, I thought,
and it's something I kinda
thought I would do is show you
the first works I made and take
you through a little tour of
what I'm
doing now.
And talk a little bit about what
drives an artist to make certain
kinds of art and certain kinds
of imagery and how you apply it
to the works that
you're going to see.
First of all, when an artist
begins to make a drawing or
begins to approach
a blank canvas,
every stroke he makes, whatever
image he's using is ideological.
You have a point of view about
what you want art to be
and you strive to make
that object real.
So consequently, Picasso didn't
really see twisted people,
but he had a point of view as
to what he thought that painting
should do and what
painting can do.
I come from a period of painting
where my influences probably
started with my father whose
influences were Manet and
 Matisse and then later
 Jackson Pollock.
 So my first exposure really
 was to abstract painting.
I grew up working here in
Asheville in the theater,
so I brought to the act of
painting a desire to do highly
theatrical works that contained
both the act of making the
creation: writing the
play, acting in the play,
and performing
it all at once.
So I was more comfortable making
paintings that were not on
canvas but that were on hard
surfaces like a stage floor
or a floor or
a ground.
That also came to me when I was
at the art institute and I was
involved with arte povera which
was a movement from Italy and
Europe that used
simple materials.
They were very ideological in
their use of simple materials,
 bottles, glass, and found
 objects, things like that.
 There was an artist in America
 called Gordon Matta Clark who
 made sculpture by sawing
 buildings in half
 and deconstructing
 architecture,
 which also was quite
 an influence on me
 and I knew him quite well
 when I moved to New York.
I had always felt that I wanted
to create works of art that were
physical, that had their own
physical presence and I was more
comfortable, instead of drawing
or illustrating something,
I was more interested
and felt more
comfortable working with
it. And actually making it.
One of the ways of which I
carried through was to change
the notion of being totally
abstract and started to use
imagery in my work.
And the imagery I wanted to
use was the imagery around me.
And the landscape
that I knew.
So I had to combine all my
interests and all that I knew
about art and all the
surroundings that I had that
were making me
into an artist.
And one of the problems
that we have today,
and I just want to
say this very briefly,
I feel that there's so many
things going on in the art world
now that to say definitively
what art is or what it is not is
pretty hard to do.
So there are different camps
and they approach it
very differently.
One of the problems that we
have right now is that people,
especially young artists, have
confused what pop-art is
and what it was.
When Andy called his studio "The
Factory" it didn't really mean
that it was literally a factory,
he meant that it was a studio
 that was producing art and
 he approached it as a job,
 as Frank Stella
 did as well.
 It wasn't really about making
 everyday objects into design
works, he made paintings and
objects out of everyday objects,
imagery not the reverse.
Instead of being a
kind of sign of design,
he really was an artist that was
influential to me but I think to
a certain extent, pop-art is a
real problem and for a serious
artist I think it's one to
wrestle with and try to save
your way of looking at the
world not doing just that.
Rothko, Pollock, the great
abstract painters were involved
with spirituality and action;
bringing things together right
out of the earth and painting
is really like that.
One of the things that makes
painting work is that it's the
only object that can contain
the spirit of the artist
and hold it, and give it
back. If it doesn't lose it.
So if you're walking by stones
that were placed as art,
you're going to
see it as art.
You're not going to
just see it as stones.
It will contain some
kind of idea and spirit.
 But to get back to what I was
 saying about the work I was
 doing, the living in the city
 and working in construction,
my landscape consisted of the
studio, the studio table
and the linoleum floors
that I was standing on.
I was in an elevator coming
down from a job and I saw some
workmen laying linoleum
flooring in the elevator.
And in the middle of the
elevator is a round metal circle
which is where the key
to the elevator break is.
I said to them, "You know
that's pretty hard material.
How do you cut it?"
And they said, "Well, you just
heat it with a blowtorch and it
gets very soft." So I said,
"Well give me some tiles."
So I went home to my studio
and I put it on the stove and I
started cutting it and this is
the first tile piece I made.
And in that it contained just
one square - black square of
 tile with a white tile
 underneath it and the only
 things I had around
 were tables to work on,
things to cut on. So I made the
 table, and I cut it in half,
 and I put those two
 little negatives
 - those are the two negative
spaces put together on the top.
 And that was the beginning of
sort of combining the floor and
 the studio.
 The next ones, I started to
 peel it apart and there were
 different objects, one of
 them I had on the table,
 you can see the
 coffee cup and a vase.
 When I pulled the
 table out of the square,
 I had a factory building
 with smoke stacks.
 The first works that I did
for people actually was I would
 inlay linoleum
 floors in their kitchens.
 This was in 1976, this is
 my first year in New York.
 These were the paintings
 that I was making.
That led to my love of the city,
 using the factories and using
 the flooring and the skies
 and so on, the buildings.
I noticed the space between the
 buildings became solid and you
have these called "Building
canyon paintings"
which I made quite a few of. In
the other ones that you saw,
if you turn them in different
ways they became either the
factory or the table
or the building.
If you turn this around you've
got one building surrounded by
the sky, and if you
look at it this way,
you have negative
space between.
Then I started getting involved
with striated linoleum and
making that into landscapes, and
it's an old technique actually.
 Linoleum is a cheap,
manufactured version of marble.
 Originally, it mimicked
 the colors of marble.
 If you go to the Vatican and
look at the great Saint Peters,
 you'll find beautiful murals
 made of inlaid stone that has
 all the landscape capabilities
 that you would see,
 but it's just a flat stone, so
 I used linoleum that way too.
I made this
the sky.
You see this quite
a lot in New York,
it strikes you when
you go up the avenues.
Originally when New
York was laid out,
nothing was to
block the avenues,
 all the tall buildings were to
 go up the avenues and nothing
 would be built
 across them.
 The PanAm building above
 Grand Central was the first
destruction of that idea, so you
used to be able to look all the
way down Park Avenue, Broadway,
 any of the other ones without
 any obstructions,
 but that's changed.
 But these views are real
views that you can see next time
 you're in New
 York, you'll see them.
 I think part of the idea that
 I had was to keep using simple
 materials to make things that
 you couldn't really forget.
 I was talking to a student in
 Canada, and they were talking
 about how their work
 really was
 about their memory and I said
"Well, your job as an artist is
 to get inside other people's
heads, it's not to get
them inside your head.
So you want people
when they see something.
You want a person to see
something that you've made or
you see something on the outside
like a road with a yellow line,
you want them to
think of you,
you don't want to
think of a road.
You want to say "Ah yes I
remember that in a painting."
Now they start seeing
them as my paintings.
There's a photographer named
Rudy Burckhardt who also took
 pictures of these in the 50s
that are just marvelous as well.
 And then, because we had the
 smoke stacks all around us,
 I had them in Gary, Indiana, I
 had them when I was living in
Chicago, you see them on the way
to the airport in New York and I
 began to think of
 them as urban flowers.
 So the first ones of these I
 called Irises, Urban Irises.
 And the fire coming
 out of the barrel shape,
 was sort of like
 the little bud.
 I started going up
 with the paintings,
 the first ones you saw
 were one foot square,
 some of the later ones
 were four foot square,
 everything is based on
 the system of the square.
 The one foot, four
 foot, eight foot,
four by eight, eight by
eight, so on and so forth.
And I started just using
color only as a signifier;
so fire is yellow,
skies are blue,
the stacks and things
were black tar.
The black tar came from the glue
that I used to put the linoleum
down, glue it down on, and they
fell off the wall because they
weren't meant to be vertical but
I'd see the black goo behind it
and I thought well I'll
just put that on top.
So partially part
of painting is to
find your way through it
as you're making it.
And uh, all the
work that I do
even to this day involves
only about four materials.
There's linoleum, the
structure that it's on,
panels, the squares, plaster,
and the signifying color.
But if you'll see, hopefully
by the time we're through,
you'll see quite a range of
work from just a few elements.
Then I took the
smoke stacks
and I started making them
into fire paintings.
 And the way that happened was
 using the linoleum as I was
 making the cuts to
 put the tar in,
 I was painting the fire with
 yellow paint and I started to
 put turpentine on to clean the
 tar off after I had spread it
 over to fill in the black,
 you have to use a trowel
 to spread the tar and
 it was just kind of
 went everywhere so I had to
 wipe it off with solvent.
 And as I was wiping it off I
realized the solvent was giving
it this incredible smoky, fiery,
 color and the drama that I
 wanted so I just left
 it all goopy like that.
 And so that's this yellow
 paint and tar and blue tile.
 I learned that the color sepia
 comes from seepage of the tar,
 that's where the
 color comes from.
Because even in 19th and 18th
century they used bitumen for
paint, the black is
made out of a kind of tar.
And the "Wrath
of the Medusa",
they have to take down about
every fifty years
and turn it around because
that bitumen never dries.
It keeps moving but this
is really a kind of rubber,
which my father
had a tire shop
and I suppose my interest
in rubbers never stopped.
Then I took from a series of
those forest fires I went to
 using, turning the shape of
the tree which had mimicked the
 smoke stack, I fluctuated
 between nature and industry.
And then in this series, I'm not
 showing you all of it but some
 of it, this is
 called "Plant".
 And these began to take on
 a kind of story in that the
 fragility, not only
 the fragility of plants,
 but the fragility
 of architecture.
And so I started looking at the
 abandoned steel mills
 and the industrial rust
 belt of America.
 And all these huge
 cities, there's oil rigs,
there's vast steel plants and
warehouses and all these things
that are dead, they're
not used anymore.
So I began to think of them
as the might of that kind of
seemingly permanent structure
was now like a plant,
it was just dying.
I also felt that the
architecture of the plants was
similar in a way to the
architecture of the paintings
I was using, so they had this
incredible structure of wood and
linoleum and rubber and all
these things, but in truth the
meaning in
a painting,
what you're trying to say,
is actually quite fragile.
These have an incredible
power largely because of the
sculptural quality of them,
but the surfaces of them,
what really engages you in what
you really see is quite thin.
So I left the backs
of these open,
and I'm sorry I don't
have a picture of them,
you can see through the backs
that they really are platforms
so you have the backstage area
when you look at a painting.
But I wanted the paintings to
have an internal dialogue with
 the materials that
 I was using.
So I had this incredibly strong
 structure and I began to use a
 lot of gesture and smoke
 and wind and soot
 and things that were
 seemingly permanent.
 And the dialogue between the
 viewer and the painting is
 contained by the paradox
 of strength and weakness.
And with these, I began to focus
in on the fires that were going
 on in New York
 City at the time.
 There was quite a lot
 of them in the paper.
 And of course there's a
 lot of fireman paintings,
 and before firemen became
 the national role model,
 I had a lot of
 paintings of them.
And this one -- you can't really
 see it so well because of the
 light, but there's a ladder
 over on the far left.
 You're looking up at a
 fireman with this little tank,
 a little circle -- it's not
 important but he's there.
 Anyway, so Rococo
 view, like you,
 would see of an Angel
 in a Rococo painting.
 And I started using the fire
escapes drawn the way you would
 see them in the Goya paintings
 or the Manet paintings,
 the decorative balustrades
 that were in French painting.
 And using the the fireman
 largely like you'd see,
 the cypress trees,
 or the smokestacks,
 or you'll see
 there's airplanes.
 There's a lot different
 things were done this way.
I wanted the imagery of figures
 to also be somewhat generic so
 that you recognize it
 only from its uniform.
 It's not an
 individual, per se,
 not for the purpose
 of the painting.
 It's the
 introduction of the
 element of humans' structure
 for dealing with chaos.
 So you have chaos and
 then you have order,
 is introduced
 into the paintings.
 And there's a
 lot of that.
They're always between
you and the disaster.
Some of them actually
get so complicated,
it was almost hard to make
out what you were seeing,
and I felt that that was
important because
in some kind of
active catastrophe,
 it might not be clear
 what you were seeing.
 And this was kind of
 brought home to me.
 I know everybody's tired of
hearing this but I was standing
 a few blocks from 9/11
 when the planes hit.
 I heard
 them hit.
 And we all went out, we were
 watching but none of us really
 could understand what
 was going on exactly.
 And I felt these paintings
 at the time were like that,
 they were meant
 to be like that.
 They were meant
 to have people.
 There's always some system
 to deal with chaos and while
 they're quite
 beautiful,
 there's a lot going on in
 these paintings of firemen.
Then I decided to take the -- I
 moved away from those pictures
 to a certain
 extent,
 and I started to use
 images from old paintings.
 And again, these are
 the same materials.
 This is a piece from a Manet
painting called "Moonlight over
 Boulogne Harbor," and I wanted
 to to to sort of juxtapose the
 structures between
 you and the landscape
 and bring to mind also
 a tangle of masts.
 Like if you had a
 tangle of cypress trees,
of the burning
trees, of the firemen,
of the hoses, of the
imagery of the fire escapes,
and the
balustrades.
There was a lot of
involvement with that.
And these have actually
quite a romantic depth to them.
And this is exactly looks like
-- I have a house in Sag Harbor
 that looks just
 like this.
 This was actually the
 oldest house in Brooklyn,
which some homeless people lived
in and burned it to the ground,
 so it was the last surviving
 18th century structure in New
 York, of a little house,
 a real farm house.
 It's gone now, so these things
began to also take on the aspect
 that what is
 gone is gone.
 It's not there anymore,
 it's finished.
 And like the plants
 and like the
 -- even the smokestacks
 are beginning to go now.
 Though if you go out to
 different parts of the country
 where there's steel
 still being made,
 you'll still see
 some of that burn off.
 This is a train wreck in Texas
where sulfuric acid -- the cars
 carrying it --
 collided,
 and caused an evacuation
 of about 10 square miles.
 And so -- what interested
 in me in this one was again,
 the power of a train being
 destroyed and the destruction
 being somewhat invisible as it
 spread out further and further
 from the actual scene, you had
 this kind of creeping dread.
 This was a Coptic Church in
 Cyprus that have been looted.
 This was a ferry boat that
 I think it was going from
 Amsterdam --
 coming from England,
 it was leaving Amsterdam and
 going across to Germany,
 I believe. I'm not quite sure
 where they're headed.
 I don't remember,
 but he forgot
 to shut the door and the
 whole thing capsized.
 You may have read about that
 and all the people drowned,
 and this is an image of
 them raising this huge ship.
If you -- I'll show -- this ship
 reappears in another painting,
 I'll show you how
 all these things
 kind of morph into
 different things.
This is a part of the New York
where they tore down all the
tenements and place where
everyone was living and they
 build this beautiful, it's
 called a maintenance center.
And I like to use the telephone
 lines and the lines from all
 these things as
 kind of like gestures.
 Now you use that maintenance
 center idea
 to put at the
 end of this.
 This is called
 "The Battery."
 And again, there's
 art influences in here,
 you have Edvard Munch,
 "The Kiss" in the middle.
 And you have the
 figures walking around,
 you have the feeling
 that that's a building
 you don't want
 to go into.
 And you have the the street
 lights going back and forth.
I did a lot of series of street
lights are earlier and they-- I
 used these because they
 were fake versions of French,
 old French steel
 street lights.
 They tried to make "The
 Battery," these street lights
 look like an old,
 French promenade.
 And so you've got all these
 kind of official versions of
 grandeur, both sort of playing
 or going about their business.
 This one's called,
 "Drought Relief."
This was up when there was great
 droughts in the Midwest and
 every -- all the farms
 were starting to fail.
 And that they were
 waiting for some rain,
 which finally did
 happen, then it flooded.
 But what I liked about this
 particular one is you have the
 man, you have the tractor,
and then you have these Barnett
 Newman zips that
 go through it.
 So you have a lot of
 references
in all these paintings to
earlier paintings.
This one's called,
"Lines Down."
This was my homage
to Pollock.
I did two of these,
I did this one,
I did a rig, an oil rig that had
burned down and was all tangled.
 And I wanted all the lines and
everything to remind you of the
 drips and the movements
 of Pollock's paintings.
 And here in the
 front you have trucks,
 these trucks that have come to
 deal with sabotage
 during the El
 Salvadoran wars.
 They, one side, blew
 up the power lines
 and so they were trying to
 come and repair them.
 So, you see palm
 trees over here,
 kind of the
 paradise.
 You see the destruction
 and then you see,
 again, the version of the
 firemen in the front
 coming here to
 try to fix it.
And while I was doing those
landscapes and using a lot of
imagery from older paintings, I
thought at this time I wanted to
put still life painting
back into painting,
I wanted to put imagery that
have been thrown out of painting
for so long back into
the Lexicon of Art.
And I started doing
it in different ways.
I don't believe that I'm
showing you the small ones,
but I wanted to
make paintings that,
instead of having you drawn into
them I wanted them to be -- sit
there like a lead
weight, like a sculpture.
So I wanted it to have
not only physical weight,
but to give you
a visual weight.
The way to do that, I thought
was to make a void
and a solid at
the same time.
I've been making drawings of
tulips and black lemons and I
began to incorporate
those into the paintings.
And I also like
to use color.
So I wanted to use yellow
which is a sort of an acidic
 and difficult color to use
 but what color are lemons
 so that solved
 that problem.
 I took a polaroid and I did
 setups of still lives where I
 painted a lemon black and I
stuck it in there and then I had
 this little square that was
 lit up by a single flash.
 So there's nothing
 natural about it,
 it was very artificial, and
 again it was quasi-industrial.
 So, I wanted to make these
 paintings that had volume and
 flatness and
 blocked you,
 you can see again like
 the fireman in here.
 The black lemons kind
 of serve as a block
 to the to the
 image behind it.
 These were black eggs I
 found at this Chinese market.
Hundred-year-old eggs that were
packed in black dirt and so they
 can serve perfectly --
 and they really existed,
 that's the funny
 thing the lemons didn't.
 But then when I was
 in Israel last year,
the guy I was working with said
 you know we have black lemons,
 and I said
 "really".
 And he brought me
 from the market,
 a pile of
 black lemons.
And I said, "what are these" and
 they're dried lemons that are
 dried and they
 use them in tea
 but they turn black and
 they're almost hollow.
 And they're just like the ones
 I was using but I was painting
 mine, I didn't know
 they really had them.
 But I wanted to
 use flowers too
 'cause I started making
 flower paintings.
 I wanted to put back in the
 three great themes of art.
 I wanted to put
 back in landscape,
 still life,
 and florals.
 Since I was using
 bitumen as a background,
 and tar, I thought
 what would be better,
in a way, Cotan in Spain the
18th century was painting fruits
that were hanging
on strings
against a solid
black background.
I thought well, I'll bring that
back in because it fits with the
materials
I'm using.
So, I actually didn't
hang strings on them,
but I use the idea of volume
and weight and have them support
 each other and they're
 hanging on the wall.
 And that's heavy and they're
heavy and the background is tar,
 so it fit with
 the whole kind of
 Northern Dutch still life
 tradition of color.
 But the scale is huge, and one
 of the things that I thought
 about when making, especially
the first lemons which were just
 big yellow lemons, I was
 concerned that people would
 say that's a
 giant lemon.
 But then I realized that when
you're going down a highway and
 you see a billboard with a
 lemon or an orange or some
advertisement, you don't think
that's the biggest lemon I've
ever seen in my life.
Your mind makes it a
lemon, so it worked here too.
So, instead of just making it a
lemon I wanted to make it yellow
and I wanted to
make it heavy.
Those were dried limes
that got all grey and nasty.
And this
is squash.
This one was my ode
to Clyfford Still,
 that had meant so much to me
when I was at the art institute.
 They had the most
 beautiful Clyfford Still.
 I used to walk through it
 and the Museum everyday.
And it was solid black actually
 with just a little white chalk
 line through
 all that chark,
 choppy way that
 Clyfford Still painted.
 So I made this one sort of
 an homage to Clyfford Still.
 And when I was in Fort Worth I
went to the Museum and I saw the
 Remingtons and
 I realized
 the way Remington painted
 shades and shadow.
 That's where Clyfford
 Still got the idea,
 to make those craggy sharp
juxtapositions in his paintings
 that came from Remington, it's
 a very unlikely source and I'm
sure if he knew that I said that
and he was still alive he would
 come down here
 and kill me.
 But that's absolutely
 where it comes from.
 So I started using the flowers
and I started using the eggs to
 nestle in there
 and to block it.
 And using the spots of the
 centers of the flowers as
 little versions
 of those objects.
This one was another version of
the yellow roses and eggs and I
call these paintings my Spanish
paintings because they reminded
 me so much of the colors of
 the great Spanish painters,
 the yellows and dark
 colors and the big blacks.
 And then the
 floral paintings.
 This was the first big
 floral painting by itself.
 These are not in chronological
 order so you just have to
 suspend some
 disbelief.
This was done before I did those
 big black eggs in the flowers.
 The flowers in the background
 came from these paintings.
 This one came from the
smokestack and the fire and the
vase I used was the
balustrade on a house
I had in the
south of France.
It was the way they did the
Italian eight bannisters,
these are the balustrades
as a vase motif.
I used that, just lifted
it from the balcony
and stuck these
mums in it.
And just used those like
the fire coming out of the
smokestacks as a kind of
gesture versus the stack
which was
industrial.
And so the series
of all of these,
 this one was made by
 just simply carving away
 all the black tar off
 the white linoleum.
 You can see the squares
 in there and the grid.
 In all of these paintings, the
 bottom half is the industrial
 and the top half
 is the gestural.
 Like the smokestack
 and the fire,
 or the firemen and
 the fires behind them,
 you have the manufactured
 and you have the expressive.
 This sort of came from all the
 different -- is that in focus?
 These came from
 my garden when
 I was living in the
 south of France.
 I just took all
 these vases
 and I tried to bring them
 into the paintings.
 These terra cotta vases.
 This was the pots of geraniums
 that were out in
 front of the steps.
 But of course, this is called
 "Dead Geraniums"
 because they hadn't
 been watered
 and they turn that funny
 little brown color.
This one was "Wild Roses"
and I used a brass paint
to make the
brass pot.
The reason I call it --
they were wild roses,
 but the way that I
 attacked them with a trowel,
 I didn't clean
 them up.
 So I left them sort of
 gestural and smudgy.
 This one is called
 "Matisse, Flowers and Vase".
I took the vase out of a Matisse
 painting and then I drew the
 tulips out of the
 top with chalk.
It's a very big painting, but it
looks like a very small drawing.
 I did several odes to
 Matisse and his paintings.
 This painting, if you
 remember the ferry disaster,
 I turned it into
 a tourist pot.
 So I silkscreened the image
 of the disaster on the pot and
 stuck some
 flowers in it.
 Now it's something you
 could put on the table.
 Again, it was another sign of
 how things can slip away and
 become something
 quite different.
 Since I started screening
that one -- I think that was the
 first one I decided I would
 start to screen -- instead of
 make the pots clay I would go
 and get some Chinese vases and
 stick those in the studio and
 put flowers in them and then
 have the manufactured
 image on the pot,
 which is the manufactured pot,
and then let the flowers in the
top kind of go the
way they're gonna go.
 The result, what you see
 streaming down the pot,
 is the result of working into
the flowers to clean up all the
 places where the paint had
 been troweled on to bring
 out the flowers, and
 it runs down and
 dissolves part of
 the screening ink.
 I loved these flowers -- I
 started using more
 of these
 flowered vases.
 Here, let me go back.
 Will it go back?
 I started using more of these
 vases because these contained
manufactured images of flowers
that were once hand painted.
I did a number of vases where I
took drawings of mine and
I made them into
silkscreens and
I screened them on
these vases like this.
So I had a manufactured
version and
a drawn version
jammed into it.
So again there were two
elements in the painting.
This is called "Acanthus", which
was a flower that was in the
 garden in Saint Tropez and I
 just loved the way it looked.
 It's so spiky and it just
 looked like a tree again.
 I discovered that all
 of our money was
 decorated with
 acanthus flower.
 Which is now eliminated,
 we got rid of
 the decoration
 on the money.
 But at the time it was a
 very classical motif for
 architecture, the acanthus,
 those big leaves you see is
 the leaf of
 that flower.
And then I decided I would just
 eliminate the flower like what
you saw in the building canyons,
 where you just had a central
 image really, and use the pot
 and use it to stack it and to
 just mimic it
 over and over again.
 Now it's again back
 into just industry.
I let the kind of funny
drawing -- these I picked up in
Chinatown, they
weren't very expensive.
I didn't want an important vase
just so that the drawing that
were on them was not
particularly important but that
it had flowers and
different things going on.
I used the structure of the
painting itself to be like a box
 where you'd pack these things
 in there and ship them off.
 The idea was to use the edges
 of the painting to hold the
 different vases, see how
 many I could cram in
 there in
 different ways.
And also these were again a sort
of homage to Barnett Newman and
 Brancusi's
 "Endless Column".
 I could keep going with these
 things as high as I wanted to.
This one I used the edges of the
painting to kind of jam them in
 there and hold
 themselves together.
 It's kind of like the
 still lives where
 they would rest on
 each other.
 And then, this would probably
 more go with the acanthus.
 These were the
 morning glory paintings.
When I first finished
this one I thought,
"You know that looks remarkably
like what Captain Kirk would see
out the window of the
starship Enterprise."
But the color of the paint, like
when I would clean off the tar
of the disaster paintings
and it made that smoky soot,
when I started to work into
these the blue became this
beautiful
electric blue.
It just made so much sense to
just make morning glories which
have that same kind
of power to them.
So I made a whole series of
paintings with this color and
for some reason it went
away. I never could do it.
After I made a bunch
of these I tried to
make some other ones
and I couldn't do it.
I don't know if they changed the
paint but the color is really
the color of
morning glories.
The spots in the
center, you'll see,
become quite
important.
I start using the center of the
circles over and over again as I
 progressed through there.
Using those circles and then to
start to come out and using the
 cross-hatching to
 be the leaves.
 I decided to put things on
 branches rather than be setups
in the studio to be still-lives
these were actually things that
 you would see on a
 landscape through a tree.
 But much more
 abstracted.
 These are all quite big, these
 are 8 foot square paintings.
 All of the paintings you are
 seeing are the same size,
 more or less.
 There's the center of
 the morning glories,
 I thought since I had
 been doing all these again.
Doing expressive works, I wanted
to go back to manufactured like
 the vases or the
 building canyons.
 I began to think what was a
 logical way to do it since I'm
 using systems of 1
 foot squares, 4x8s,
8x8s and
so forth.
What would be
better than a domino.
So I started making domino
paintings and I realized,
it's hard to see in here,
but there's a flat - there's
divisions that
define the dominos.
I didn't put them together the
way you play dominos because I
didn't really
know how to play.
 I just wanted to put them
 together in different ways.
 The variety was
 pretty much endless.
 And then I was showing
 these and people from
 all over the world were
 sending me dominos.
 And somebody sent me a box of
 the ivory ones with the ebony
 pips and I wondered what
 they were and someone said,
 "Well, European dominos
 are ebony and
 ivory with the white ivory
 with the black dots and
 Asian ones are black
 with white dots."
 I thought East
 meets West.
 I did a number of
 these paintings.
 This was the complete
 pack, 28 of each.
Again, it was the perfect system
 for the work I was doing.
 It rhymed with the standard
 forms I was using it,
 rhymed with the materials
 of black and white,
it rhymed with the materials of
 tar and it became - it rhymed
with the circles of the morning
 glories and the orange.
 All these circles became
 so many different things,
 fish eyes, oranges, there's
 lots of paintings of
these kinds of things.
Generally a whole series
will start with just one.
This is the first
big domino.
I sort of didn't
go in order.
They usually start with one
and then goes on to make more.
I realized that I could have
made these for five years and
never repeated
the same patterns,
especially if you
change the scales.
And then of course, I was in
Florida and there was an auto
 show and I thought
 fuzzy dice.
 And I thought this
 is a perfect image,
 I only made
 two of these.
 It was the perfect image for
 me because it was a painting
hanging on a wall of
an image that is
hanging on a
rearview mirror.
So it was two things being hung
at the same time and meant to
dangle, be up
in the air.
I thought, "What should
I do to make it fuzzy?"
 So I came up with the
 idea of flocking it,
 which is a kind of fabric
 that you put down as a powder.
 You've probably seen them on
 those bobble head dogs on the
 back of the
 car; trinkets.
Originally it was - flocking was
 the linoleum version of felt -
 I'm sorry,
 of velvet.
Originally they used velvet for
patterning with a thing called
gaufrage, which was - they'd put
a pattern down and iron it and
then you'd have the
relief of the velvet,
and then the flattened velvet
which you used for furniture or
the walls of chateaus which
later became flocking and
wallpaper in Tad's
Steakhouses.
You see it all the time in
steakhouses and
things
like that.
It was another good material for
me because it was easy to apply
and it was fuzzy
and it worked.
And I began to use that for
millions of other things.
Someone gave me a set of street
dice and this is exactly the
 color they are and
 they're quite large,
 they're from
 New Orleans.
They're about 1950's, bakelite,
 and they were meant to play on
 the streets so
 you could see them.
 I had this particular color I
had used in a early pictures of
 bosc pears, which is a
 kind of translucent color.
And when I put it on here it was
exactly the color of those dice.
And for some reason, this little
 painting - this is a 4 foot
 painting - has
 enormous weight to it.
 And yet the paint
 is translucent.
 So it was really a
 successful picture for me.
 Then I went
 to buttons.
 Buttons were fascinating to
 me because they were a very
 Southern image
 in a way.
 There was a lot of traditions
 with sewing buttons on the
 bottom of clothes in
 case you lost one or
 having an extra
 button somewhere.
 It's an image that's
 meant to conceal
 things, keep things
 closed. I thought it's
 a great image
 and with the material
 I was using I
 could sand down and make a
different level where you'd have
the recess part where
the button would be made.
And I started using a very shiny
paint which we could sand and it
became very hard plastic.
It really became like making an
actual button and also it is a
very highly industrial image.
It could be a cog,
it could be a gear,
it could be a number of things.
And you can see the edges
of those cut out like that.
They're very minimal
too, which I liked a lot.
 And I could repeat them, I did
quite a few of these paintings.
And then, because they were hard
 edge I decided I would go back
 and do big paintings of
something even more gestural and
 ephemeral and I did smoke.
 And I made these by
 taking photographs of smoke,
 which I've done a
 lot of these things.
 I did prints of them, I did a
 series of photographs of them.
 And what I loved
 about them was that,
 in a way, for me it was like a
 different image of how to look
 at photographs.
 Because it was a black field
 with the smoke and they were
 very hard like that.
 It didn't have any depth
 but it was an actual thing.
 And it wasn't abstract per se
because it was exactly what the
 smoke looks like.
 It was floating, but you
 couldn't tell it was floating.
 So in a way,
 something that was so wisty,
 became a sculpture.
 So I wanted to capture that in
 painting so I started to make
 these and with the tar I
just used spackle that I use on
 everything else and I just put
it on with a sponge really fast
 and drew it in really quickly
 and then sanded it so it would
get smoky.
It did pretty much
what I wanted it to do.
I had taken something very, very
ephemeral like the fire and the
wind and the things that I had
used in the others and I had
made a sculpture
out of it in a way,
a visual sculpture.
And as I got better at it, I
started to be able to sand
enough to where the tar would
start to bring the sepia of the
tar out into the white painting
 so you started to see color
 almost like a brown, like
 real smoke
 and real tarry, sooty color.
 The feel to these, it's
 spackle, so it kind
 of hangs off the surface.
 It's a little bit strong.
 It's not just flat.
 But it has that
 flat quality to it.
 It also had beautiful gesture.
I apologize that all the slides
 aren't the perfect - thing,
 but that's the way they are.
 So you can see the brown
 color in there and
 they started to get
 quite colorful.
 And there were smoke
 rings that I blew.
 Here's a white version
 of flowers in a field.
 And then I decided that I
 would combine the buttons,
 go back to the hard edge,
 combine the buttons and the
 flowers and initially I made
red flowers which I got from the
veteran's day poppies that were
in Europe which are flat plastic
 with a real big black center
 which is the pin
 that holds it in their lapel.
We have the crepe paper poppies
 for the fields of flanders,
so I wanted to make poppies that
were artificial and plastic and
hard, but still had the
kind of shape of that.
That's just green linoleum that
I left with the black paint.
And this one, I don't
know why it's so dark,
 I have a better one.
 This is a blue one, this is
 actually at the Mint Museum,
 they bought that painting,
 so it's down there.
 These I started
 making 8x12 feet,
 so these are quite
 large paintings.
The blue is the same blue I used
 in the buttons and it has that
 same plastic quality.
 It's very, very shiny
 and very manufactured.
 But again, like all the
 others, I left the edges,
 which are made by troweling,
 just the process of making it.
 The drawing through
 there is just the tar
 scraped away with a chisel.
 I used a lot of
 different high-gloss
 colors and sand them down.
 They're very smooth, the
 black is almost like a piano.
 And the red is like a
Chinese - I call it Chinese red.
 I did a blue version of this
 so I had the boy and the girl,
 pink and blue.
 This one I made the
 flowers are all flocking.
 The green is that green
linoleum that you see in all the
 elementary schools with the
 little white flecks across it.
 And then the colors
 are all polished.
I kind of thought of this
as making an ode to Mireau.
This one is all the
colors they make in flocking,
it's a color chart
made out of flowers.
And then butterflies.
I picked butterflies because
they're symmetrical and if they
 open their wings it's
 the same on both sides.
 I took these out
 of butterfly books.
 I did a series of
 prints of these too.
 I did a lot with
 butterflies like the vases,
 they had a pattern
 to them that was
 symmetrical and
 otherworldly in a way.
 But it was perfect for
 what I was trying to say.
And then, from the vases I had
in my garden over the years in
 Long Island, I had bought some
 of these in Chinatown that had
lights in them and I thought "oh
those are great because there's
flowers that I don't make again
so it's like the Chinese vases".
 So I made lanterns, and again
these are the same ideas as the
 vases but they're
 light so they can float.
 They don't have to touch.
 And it goes to that big one,
 and that's the last slide,
 so if you can imagine because
 we started with the two little
 white table and I ended up in
 the woods which is where I am,
 and I'll see where
 it goes from there.
[Applause]
>>Donald Sultan:
If anybody has questions,
I'd be happy to answer them.
Because I've probably left out
half of everything. Yeah?
>> [Audience member]: Do you
think there's a difference
between decorative art and fine
art, and where would you say
that separation starts and ends?
 >> Donald Sultan: Well,
 decorative art is meant to be
decorative and fine art is not.
But fine art is decorative.
A Mondrian painting in
a white room is as
pretty as it's going to get.
But the intent is not for that.
It's a contained unit.
Decorative art is meant to
be seen in a different way.
It's meant to be decoration.
>> [Audience member]: Do you
think that in your later work,
does it start bordering the
decorative art?
Donald Sultan: Not really,
because the
intention isn't to do that.
So they're contained,
they move around.
They're not meant
to be decorative,
but they're meant
to be manufactured.
They're meant to kind of play on
the paradox of the natural and
the unnatural so
something that looks decorative,
if it's intention isn't
to be a decorative art,
it isn't to be a decorative art,
that's why they call them two
different things. Yeah?
 >> [Audience member]: In
 your firemen painting,
you describe the tension of
ordered chaos and you said you
pointed out the
firemen have to be opaque,
there's no face.
Why can't they be individuals
and still perform that?
 >> Donald Sultan:
 Well, they can be,
and they are in real life.
But in the painting
that wasn't the intention.
The intention was
really to draw,
because for the
purposes of the painting,
any fireman would have done.
It didn't have to be
any particular one,
any particular guy.
It didn't have to be
involved with his emotions.
He was there to do a job.
I did figures in the
rain that had no face,
they were protective, they were
holding the hat down and they
were holding their coats closed
and they were just a standard
repetitive image that one had to
adopt against the wind
and the pelt of rain.
I used generally with the work
I've been doing - I don't use
portraiture, it's
not about portraiture.
They're pretty much meant to
be like the cypress trees.
 They're meant to be
 a rock solid entity. Yeah.
 >> [Audience member]: You made
 reference to being able to see
behind your work and I
was curious about that,
how are you know mounting these?
 >> Sultan: Well
 that's a good question.
I really need to just get
some side pictures of them.
The early ones - there were some
of the flower paintings in the
vases that by making
them, the edges rolled over.
So when I would cut
through to make the plaster,
it would make a sharp edge
against the corner and the tar
 edge would still be loose.
They would rest on each other
and you would look through the
front of painting
and there'd be a gap.
Then later when I'd put them
together for the landscapes I
decided that I wanted that to
continue so I took a stretcher
bar that I bought at
an art supply store.
Anybody can buy - all the
materials are standard.
They had to be standard
materials that anybody could
buy, they weren't made
for that particular thing.
They were generic.
So I took a stretcher bar and I
took some steel gas pipe that I
was using when I was doing
gas plumbing and I put them to
 separate the platform from the
 stretcher bar and that had the
 added metaphorical aspect of
saying that even though this is
made out of all these materials,
 it's still on a stretcher bar,
it's still painting.
It leaves a gap of
about two inches,
so you can see the wall, you
can see the hanging devices,
you can see the
back of the painting,
you can see everything
through there as well as
you can see the front
of the painting.
Again, the idea was that
this structure is very solid,
but what you're looking at
is the image on the front.
So that gives it a kind
of lightness and
heaviness at the same time.
>> [Audience member]:
[indistinct]
>> Sultan: Oh! Yeah.
 >> [Audience member]: I was
 going to ask you [indistinct].
You started with a lot of black
and white and pretty neutral and
then you progressed into
really a lot of full color.
Do you work more in color now
than you did when you first
started painting?
Or do you find it
goes back and forth?
 >> Sultan: I think it
 goes back and forth. Yeah.
I think there's more color.
The flower paintings in
the middle range there.
There was a lot
of color in those,
even though it was
the black backgrounds.
This last one, the vase and the
multicolored flowers and those
 things have
 gotten more colorful.
 I'm not doing that
 right now, anymore.
 But that group was like that.
The newer ones are
actually getting to be
more black and white again.
 I'm working through things, I
 find it easier to limit the
colors to get where I want to
go before I start thinking why I
would use color here. Yeah?
 >> [Audience member]: I
 noticed that your
 duplications were identical.
And I was wondering, did you
have a pattern that you used for
all the identical duplications?
 >> Sultan: On the vase
 ones or on which ones?
>> [Audience member]: On the
vase ones and on the lamps.
 >> Sultan: Yeah.
 It's a silkscreen.
 It's screened on.
And the vases were screened
on with multi-colored screens.
Almost, starting the
black lemons in the 80s,
I made stencils.
So that each one I didn't
have to draw separately.
I could trace an outline and
that's how the
 smoke rings were done too.
I blew up from the photographs.
I blew it up onto the canvas and
 then I would just make a quick
outline of where I was
going to put the smoke rings.
So I knew what I was doing
when I confronted the canvas.
When I confronted the image I
knew basically what I was going
to do and where it
was going to go.
Although it doesn't necessarily
 follow that perfectly.
 I found that with
 the black lemons,
which I didn't show to
much here with drawings;
the material that I
used so much of it
that no two were ever alike.
But again, I thought of it
the same way you think of a
sun-kissed, or the way we do
industrial fruits and I did
steers, they're all
raised for production,
they're all made
to be all the same.
The fruits are
made to be the same.
It's all generic.
So I used generic fruits,
I used generic animals,
I used generic firemen.
 The idea is that
 this is a system.
 These are systems.
The stretcher bars are standard,
the construction materials are
standard, the
linoleum is standard,
the paint you buy is all
the same manufactured colors.
It's a consistent image.
The vases are standard
the lanterns are standard.
It's just a repetition, looking
at the repetition of kind of the
industrial and natural world.
Even the butterflies in a way,
I'm sure they have their own
personalities, but I can't
tell one from another. Yeah?
 >> [Audience member]: Just to
 clarify in terms of materials
that you're using, you talked
about the structure behind and
then you have, what, plywood or
something that's attached to the
structure behind it?
And then you have
the linoleum tiles.
Do you carve into the linoleum
and then do you
fill that with a plaster?
 >> Sultan: Yeah.
>> [Audience member]: Okay.
 >> Sultan: It's the
 wall and the floor.
The tar is like what you have on
the road so it's like drawing on
an asphalt road, the black.
The linoleum is the floor but
then it's filled with plaster
and the color goes in the
plaster which is like a mural.
So the whole structure is
basically architectural and the
way of approaching the
painting is architectural.
>> [Audience member]: So is
it like plaster of Paris?
 >> Sultan: I use spackle
 because it's stronger.
 Plaster is very soft and
 it tends to break too much.
 >> [Audience member]:
 Like joint compound then?
>> Sultan: I use DAP spackle.
 It's more for -
 you're filling holes.
The mud is probably
good, it's just thinner.
It tends to shrink more.
This is a vinyl paste really.
So everything is
kind of plastic.
In fact, when I was spreading
the tar in the early 80s I kept
thinking I was going to run
across Jimmy Hoffa's ring.
 I figured that was thrown into
 one of those vats
 somewhere in New Jersey. Yeah?
 >> [Audience member]:
 In the case of the 8x12,
 biggest one we've ever seen,
 you have a couple of sheets of
plywood that you bring together?
 Or what's the structure?
>> Sultan: They're made of 4
foot squares of - 4x8 pieces.
So there's six in a 8x12
and there's four in an 8x8.
>> [Audience member]: Do you use
2x4s or other building materials
to hold it together?
 >> Sultan: Well, the structure
 is masonite
linoleum on plywood stretcher.
And then the pipes are bolted to
the stretcher bars in the back.
So they're very sturdy.
They need to be sturdy
because they can't wobble.
And somebody was saying,
"Well, does this
really last a long time?"
And i said, "Well we know
that canvas is no good."
Because any painting
you've seen on canvas
 you've seen cracks eventually.
>> [Audience member]:
What does an 8x12 weigh?
>> Sultan: Well, they're in
pieces so they don't weigh - if
you had to lift it all at
once it'd be pretty heavy.
I think each panel's
about fifty pounds. Yeah?
 >> [Audience member]: What
 are you working on right now?
 What's in your studio that
 you're going to go
 back tomorrow and work on?
>> Sultan: Well the last thing
I did was from the vase here.
I made an 8x12 black and white
pattern out of the flower that I
took off the vase.
It's a kind of
funny Chinese flower.
I just took that out and
made something out of that.
I'll see where that goes. Yeah?
 >> [Audience member:]
 I couldn't remember.
 Which painting did you say
 belongs to the
 Asheville Art Museum?
>> Sultan: Oh, it's
not the Asheville one.
It's the Mint
Museum in Charlotte.
It's Aqua Poppies.
>> [Audience Member]: I was just
wondering which
painting will eventually...
 >> Sultan: They're very
 different when you see the
 paintings from the imagery.
 This is the best I can do.
With imagery it's kind of
complicated if I don't show
details and things.
Which I probably should do, but
I don't do so much educational
things with them
so I don't do that.
But I really should
when I give lectures.
Because it would be
clearer if you could see
what I was talking about.
 >> [Audience member]: To
 be clear,
would that be the
Asheville museum?
[laughter]
 >> Sultan: That would be
 clearer, that's right.
Yeah. Well. Better fundraise.
[laughter]
 >> [Audience member]:
 I haven't read that article
about you 12 years ago.
It as you and an investor.
 >> Sultan: Ah yes,
 yes! Arnold Wingrove.
>> [Audience member]: But it's
funny how the artist
moved in that direction.
These expensive pieces and then
more and more into investing
[indistinct].
 >> Sultan: Well I
 think that's a problem.
That's why I brought up
the problem of pop-art.
I think that people are
too involved in that.
I'm not - I think that the
problem started in the 80s,
it started with our generation.
Where the dealer started
making it at stocks and bonds.
And it's been
damaging I think to art.
It's been damaging to the
artists and it's made kind of a
mess of everything.
It's made it different the
way that people
are looking at paintings.
People will go out and buy a
Lamborghini and drive it around
they don't worry about
what they could sell it for.
The fact is that you don't
want us to make a change from
something that you buy because
you love it or you want it or
you have to have it to something
like "We wanna know what its
resale value is going to be."
That doesn't really work that
well and it's pretty damaging to
the way people look at art.
And the way they
look at artists.
I dunno, I find it disheartening
to a certain extent.
But that's the way the world is.
Disheartening,
don't forget that.
[laughter]
>> Sultan: Yeah?
 >> [Audience member]: On some
 of the poppy paintings I was
noticing where the poppie
were breaking the border.
Are you taking another
tile and then cutting
it and layering it on?
Where is the painting coming in?
 >> Sultan: Which one
 are you talking about?
>> [Audience member]:
Some of the floral pieces.
 >> Sultan: The one
 with repetition?
>> [Audience member]: I'm
not sure.
There were a few where they
broke the boundaries of the
format that you've designated.
Where the flower
actually comes off...
 >> Sultan: Oh yeah!
That's because of
the way it's made.
It's not - it's drawn on is one
thing and then it's filled in.
So the edges, the way that they
fall on the edges is a product
of the process of making it.
When you drag your trowels
across it builds up on the edges
and just breaks and makes
that edge of its own accord.
 >> [Audience member]:
 Problem with the plaster?
>> Sultan: Yeah. And the tar too
 will make a fold over.
They have different edges.
The edges are the
part of the process.
>> [Audience member]: I can
see the integrity of the edges
around the piece but there were
some that actually looked like
they were cut out pieces that
were displaced intentionally off
of the canvas... no? Okay.
>> Sultan: I don't
know which ones you mean.
If I could...
 >> [Audience member]:
 [Indistinct]
>> Sultan: No, there not.
They're just drawn on
the square and then they
build out the edge. It's not
placed that way. Oh! Yeah?
 >> [Audience member]:
 I was going to ask.
When you are
drawing into the square.
I was wondering if that just
came from the linoleum or if you
have other [indistinct] square.
There are some,
maybe that's just,
there's a chance you showed us.
 >> Sultan: No. I
 usually did squares.
I did squares because as I
showed you in the very first
piece, the idea was that it
could be moved in any direction.
And I just kept that conceived.
 It also helped me eliminate
 trying to make the aesthetics.
 What size to make something,
 it has its natural scale.
If it becomes horizontal it
does so because there's an extra
panel on one side or vertical
because I've added another one.
But it's not just to fit
it in any particular way.
The squares are actually in
some ways for reproductions and
things like that are
not good because
most things are not square.
 But it's standard,
 it's the way I work.
 Rather than try to fit it
 into something else
I'd rather have them
fit it into that.
And there's something
nice about a square.
>> [Audience member]: It seems
like in some ways it's in line
with - you talk about the
heaviness of your piece and
wanting to make them seem
sculptural and I was thinking
about a square that
kind of makes itself that.
>> Sultan: It's kind
of like a platform,
it's like the stage.
It's like a boxing arena.
Things are square.
I mean they're raised up, they
could be - they're a platform.
Yeah? Did you raise your hand?
>> [Audience member]: Do you
tend to stay with a series for
about the same amount of time
or do some of them last months,
weeks, days, years?
 >> Sultan: Sometimes
 they last for long times,
 sometimes I revisit them.
What happens is I'll start
working on a series or start
working on a
painting and I'll think,
"Well I should do this one.
I should do this with it."
And so it'll take me
to the next painting.
And then when I'm doing that
I'll think well that
looks like something else.
But if I start that, I'm
going to have to quit
doing this for a while.
And so it gets torn.
I can't make everything at once.
I do generally have two or
three things going on
at the studio at one time.
I have the flowers
from the vase,
this one going now, then I have
these - when I was in Israel and
 I was doing a set of prints.
The guy took a little drawing I
 made and he blew it up and he
 made a really big print
 from a little drawing.
It was about 9 feet tall and
the drawing was so nice blown up
that I went back and
started making that.
So I have a different
shape going there.
I was working on these Chinese -
Japanese pine paintings which I
took from the No theater sets,
which is just a Japanese pine
and all the theater,
they only have one set.
 And that's where
 the tree came from.
The lanterns came
from that No big pine.
Also the way that it's carved.
If you notice in the pine trees,
the ones I've been doing in
those the carving is horizontal.
So when you look at
them it's like a wood cut.
But it has an almost
looking behind water waves.
That's an interesting thing to
me because as I was talking to
some students in Calgary and
I was telling them how I was
affected by painting and
how one is affected by it.
And I told a story
of being about 20,
 maybe not even 20
 maybe 18 or 19.
 I was traveling in Europe by
 myself and I wandered into the
Stedelijk and I went downstairs,
and I was just wandering around
and wasn't even
painting at this point,
I was still fiddling around.
I looked up and saw this
painting and it seemed like
water was just
slowly lapping into it.
And it just struck me and
I was dumbfounded by it.
And it was Rousseau's
Snake Charmer.
I just fell in love with
painting and that was it.
Those kind of have a little bit
of that if you can catch it at
the right light. Yeah?
>> [Audience member]: What kind
 of paintings or what kind of
 artwork were you making when
 you were at the
 Art Institute in Chicago?
 And does that still - do you
 still reflect back on that or
 are you influenced by anything
that you did during that period?
>> Sultan: Well sure. When
I first got to the art
institute I was making kind of
expressionists paintings with
very thick paint and kind of
raking through it on the floor.
I was making just
straight abstract paintings.
 And I thought that
 if I kept doing that,
I wouldn't ever be able to see
any improvement in what I was
doing because once you
made paintings like that,
that was as good as
it was going to get.
I started trying to figure out
how to put imagery and different
kinds of color into the work.
So I got some big paintings and
canvases and I made platforms
out of those and I poured
polymer - I set up a trough and
I poured plastic lakes onto
the canvas and I started making
 little things in the wood shop
 and throwing them in there and
 then throwing in
 different things I'd find.
 It looked almost like stuff
that would wash up on the lake.
But there were
images, drawn, painted,
little animals, little stuff.
When I got to New York I didn't
want to lug that polymer up the
stairs so I had to
find another way to work.
Again, it always had a
really heavy feeling to them.
I still have some of
those in the warehouse there.
Yeah, they're
kind of interesting.
When you're a student you try
all kinds of stuff and you don't
- you're not supposed to
know what you're doing.
 >> [Audience member]: Okay...
[laughter]
>> Sultan: Yeah. Well
the first thing
I tell people is that
you can never
think up a new idea, you're just
going to have to discover it.
Nobody thinks up a new idea.
Nothing is thought up,
it's all discovered.
Sometimes you don't know what
you're looking for but then you
can find something.
I was just looking at David
Mamet's new play and they were
talking about we are a nation of
shade tree tinkerers and Henry
Ford sat there and
thought, "I can do this,
and I can do that."
and then he says,
"Jonas Salk sat under that
tree and thought, 'Fuck polio!'.
But basically, you find
- it's revealed to you.
You just have to
keep working at it.
The more you try and just work.
Showing up is
about 80% of the job.
You never know what
you're going to do.
When I was making
those abstract paintings,
if somebody told me I would
do a big landscape of Manet's
"Moonlight over Boulogne Harbor"
I would have laughed at them.
And suddenly I find
that I'm doing that.
That's what happens.
One thing leads to another.
Anything else?
Oh, okay.
He said stop so.
Thanks!
[applause]
>> Butler:
Thank you all for coming.
Thank you Donald.
I appreciate it, that was great.
♪ [music] ♪
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