Paul Kobrak: How important is art to you?
Orhan Pamuk: It’s very important for me.
I have no other life than art and literature.
I don’t know what to say.
Orhan: This is Orhan Pamuk.
I’m a fiction writer.
I’ve chosen these two Cornell boxes.
On the righthand, we have a doll covered by
various branches,
which gives an effect of a doll forgotten
in woods, and we feel sad about this doll.
The other one is based on a legend.
It’s a mid-19th Century Italian jewel casket.
Cornell has the power to make everyday objects
shine with poetry,
with an aura that you would not come across
in our normal lives.
Jodi Hauptman: Maybe they’re friendlier
than a painting, because you know,
they look like things that you might have
in your home or in an attic,
or they have a kind of familiarity.
They’re common objects, as we were just
saying.
Orhan: Yes.
Jodi: They’re not valuable, but they become
valuable.
Paul: Do you have an idea as to why Cornell
sort of speaks to you?
Orhan: I do, actually.
It generates a desire in me to be close to
it,
to understand why I like it,
and why it’s so beautiful.
Perhaps that’s the logic of modern art.
We are fascinated by something.
At the beginning,
we don’t know why we are fascinated.
And many times, I thought about how Cornell
put these, his objects, together.
How he continues to look at them, and decided,
this is beautiful, this is not.
That, you can never understand.
That is his secret mystery.
