My Painting comes from Nature:
A Conversation with
Brice Marden
The Hamburger Bahnhof is currently devoting
a major retrospective to Brice Marden. The show encompasses the most
comprehensive selection of his work ever to be shown in Europe, covering
the entire spectrum of his oeuvre, from his early minimalist works to his
most recent series The Propitious Garden of Plane Image. On the
occasion of the show, sponsored by Deutsche Bank, Brigitte Werneburg
met the charismatic American star painter and had an animated discussion
with him about light, numerology, and rock stars.
Brice
Marden at the Hamburger Bahnhof
Photo:
Achim Drucks
"I run into Bob
Dylan occasionally, and he always asks me: 'And what are you up to?
Still painting?' He has no idea what's become of me", laughs Brice
Marden. And Marden certainly has a lot to laugh about. After all, he's
one of the best-paid artists or our era. Four years ago, a version of his
six-part Cold Mountain cycle (1988-91) raked in over 10 million
dollars. The only other living artists who can garner such high sums are Jasper
Johns, Richard
Serra, Lucian
Freud, and perhaps Cy
Twombly.
Brice
Marden: Bear Print, 1997-98/2000
Collection
Peter Morton, Los Angeles
©2006
Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
That's
what's become of Brice Marden, the young artist who in the early 1960s was
married to Pauline Baez, Joan Baez
' sister; the painter who dedicated The Dylan Painting (1966/86) to
his friend Bob; whose picture titles often alluded to pop music, if only
because he had many musician friends. One monochrome work is called Nico
(1966); the paintings For Otis (1967/68) and For Pearl
(1970) are dedicated to Otis Redding
and Janis Joplin; the
black-gray-black picture Star (1972/74) is made more concrete in
parentheses (for Patti Smith). And with his androgynous beauty and
long mane of curls, Brice Marden looked back then like the epitome of a
rock star.
Brice
Marden: For Pearl, 1970
Private
Collection
©2006 Brice
Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Bob
Dylan might have noticed that he had become a star painter. Still, Dylan's
reaction isn't that surprising. When he encounters Brice Marden (who is
still attractive at 69), he meets a friend from the old days whose cool,
relaxed appearance gives no indication that he is one of the most
celebrated contemporary artists and a top seller on the art market.
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Brice Marden
Photo:
Sidney B. Felsen © 1999
A version
of Cold Mountain is currently on display as part of the large Brice
Marden retrospective in the Hamburger
Bahnhof. After New York and San Francisco, Berlin is the only European
city to host the show. For this reason, I sit across from the artist (who
has come to the German capital for the opening) in Sarah Wiener's
Gartencafe, with the Berlin-Spandau canal in the background. On the table
is a Sony, which dutifully records our conversation. Later, however, the
device will refuse to play back all of Marden's short, dry, yet extremely
precise, and at times self-deprecating replies to my questions. Brice
Marden does not hold monologues, he answers. He doesn't have a repertoire
of prepared responses for the same old questions; he listens to your exact
words. And so it is an immense pleasure to talk with him.
Brice
Marden: Cold Mountain 6 (Bridge), 1989-91
San
Francisco Museum of Art. Purchased through a gift of Phyllis Wattis
©2006
Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Naturally,
he talks about experiences he has had, tells stories, and discusses ideas
that are important to him. For example, he relates an anecdote about the
number six being a propitious number for him, the reason why his current
large work The Propitious Garden of Plane Image consists of six
panels. He says that he doesn't really know what the "propitious" means.
He goes on to say that after he had told a numerologist
at the opening of the exhibition at the Museum
of Modern Art "Jeffrey, I did this painting because you said six is my
number", the numerologist replied, to Marden's great astonishment, "Your
number isn't six, it's 15."
Brice
Marden: The Propitious Garden of Plane Image, Second Version
(Photographed
unfinished in May 2006), 2000-2006
Collection
the artist.
Courtesy Matthew
Marks Gallery, New York
©2006
Brice Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
So
will his next project be a fifteen-part painting? He laughs. It becomes
apparent that Brice Marden has no reservations about entertaining
questions that must seem very far-fetched to him. Like my question about
the connection between painting and the weather. Don't painting and
weather both concern light? Don't we often define weather based on the
prevailing light conditions? Did he ever think about relating his colors
and their light to certain weather conditions? After all, he has painted
certain landscapes, such as Nebraska
(1966), and certain places, such as Towards Brindisi (1972)? Yes,
he says, he always wanted to paint a picture called "Coming Spring", as
well as an autumn picture. But he paints it too slowly, and before he's
finished spring is over.
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Brice Marden: China Painting, 1995-96
Private
Collection
©2006 Brice
Marden/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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