Rooms for the Misbegotten
A Conversation between Eric
Fischl and Cheryl Kaplan
Eric Fischl
Photo: Cheryl Kaplan, ©
Copyright 2006 Cheryl Kaplan. All rights reserved.
His paintings have a clammy atmosphere, a kind of somnambulist detachment.
Eric Fischl’s figures could easily spring from a
John Updike story. Torn between a bored middle-class existence in an
American suburb and clandestine desires and fears, they can be seen on
beaches, hanging around the swimming pool, or relaxing in the modernist
ambience of their homes. In his paintings and prints, the New York artist
reveals the dark side of private lives that otherwise seem quite casual on
the surface. The Museum
of Fine Arts in Houston is currently showing Fischl’s work on the
occasion of the Peter Blum Edition "Singular Multiples."
Cheryl Kaplan met with the artist in his studio.
Untitled no. 125, 1986, Oil on Kromecoat
Courtesy Eric Fischl and Mary Boone Gallery
A
David Salle painting is crated and sitting at the bottom of the stairs
when I arrive at Eric Fischl’s
New York studio in SoHo. The elevator is out, so the men will have to carry
the painting up several flights of stairs. Salle and Fischl went to school
together at Cal Arts at just the
right moment in the early 70s. The school was founded in 1961 by
Walt Disney to bring the visual and performing arts together. Fischl, like
most of his generation at Cal Arts, grew up in the suburbs. It was soon to
become his central subject, loaded as it was with sexually powerful and
emotionally disturbing imagery. No one had seen the suburbs like that,
certainly not in painting.
Todd Solondz did it much later in his films, but Fischl was the first to
expose its clandestine language, transforming the utterly familiar into
something uncanny and shocking.
Krefeld Project, Sunroom Scene 3, 2002
Courtesy Eric Fischl and Mary Boone Gallery
Fischl’s work combines a stunning privacy with an invasive and eerie
irreverence. His cast, sometimes petulant, sometimes numb, is always on
the prowl. Fischl dulls the senses and then accelerates the pitch, using
the light in his work to erase a lifetime or see right through it. His
characters are laconic and tense, but when they turn towards each other,
an operatic saintliness can be felt in the room.
Fischl’s work has
been exhibited internationally, from the
Whitney Museum of American Art and
Mary Boone in New York and the
Smithsonian to his gallery in Cologne, the
Jablonka Galerie. Fischl and I spent the afternoon talking about his early
drawings on glassine, his paintings, and the monoprints to be seen at the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston as part of the Singular Multiples exhibition
organized around the
Peter Blum Edition.
Study for Sleepwalker, 3 pieces, 1979
Courtesy Eric Fischl and Mary Boone Gallery
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CHERYL KAPLAN:
Sleepwalker, painted in 1979, was incredibly shocking at the time. It
launched suburbia as a genre. What’s your reaction when you see the
suburban used in contemporary photography like the work of
Gregory Crewdson?
ERIC FISCHL:
Crewdson has more of a relationship to David
Lynch’s cinematic and psychological sensibility, that’s more
explicit than my work. Until the 80s, suburbia wasn’t seen as a legitimate
oeuvre. Cindy Sherman, Salle,
and Kruger grew up in the
suburbs. I was dealing with the suburb as an archetypal and psychological
situation that could happen anywhere.
Krefeld Project, Living Room Scene 1, 2002
Courtesy Eric Fischl and Mary Boone Gallery
How do you decide who gets in your paintings and who doesn’t?
I try to triangulate something believable into a dramatic moment where
something stands back to observe.
What was it like directing
actors for the
The Krefeld Project in Germany?
I’d never worked with
actors before, only models. I watched and took photographs. I asked
playwright, actor, and director friends what you do with actors. The best
advice was to give them problems like "she wants $500 and won’t tell him
why." Often I was so riveted I wasn’t photographing.
Krefeld Project, Sunroom Scene 1, 2002
Courtesy Eric Fischl and Mary Boone Gallery
Are there characters who’ve remained for the long haul?
Early on, it happened frequently. There was a painting that started as a
wedding, and then I realized it wasn’t a wedding. I thought, what am I
doing with all these people? I ended up with a nocturnal scene by a pool
with a woman in a butterfly chair, a black man next to her.
The Brat II, 1984
Courtesy Eric
Fischl and Mary Boone Gallery
Your work has a strong sense of oppositional tension. The scale establishes a
psychological polarity.
The painting Cargo Cults takes
place on some exotic beach. In the foreground there’s a bag and crew from
Love Boat hanging around, some in uniforms… one guy’s naked, hollering at
two nude women walking along the shoreline. In the background there’s a
shaman trying to put a spell on them. A maniacal character screams at the
center of two different worlds. I didn’t follow those worlds going in
opposite directions but I should’ve followed the shaman to his village,
where his power was in context. The painting is situated precisely in that
polarity you’re talking about. I was putting worlds together that can’t be
joined, despite their simultaneous existence. When the resort life winds
down to a terrifying ennui, you long for the drama that drove you crazy.
You have to respect wanting art to have that quality.
Cargo Cults, 1984
Courtesy Eric
Fischl and Mary Boone Gallery
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