Category: NFN

One of the true joys of my life is watching desperate staff while their thoroughly briefed leaders obliterate months or even years (or centuries…) of careful work. It reminds me of what feels like a former/different incarnation: You brief the guy in detail what to say, what not to say, and why. Then you watch in disbelief that same person forgetting everything on stage, rambling away for 50 minutes about things that he agreed beforehand must not even be hinted at under any circumstance whatsoever. Then he comes back, looks you in the eye, and proudly asks, “Did it go well?”

Apparently, such things happen in all quarters. Friday is upon us, so I recommend a very well written piece in the Economist (of all places): “Sins of omission: Pope’s visit to the Holy Land adds another public-relations disaster to the string that already exists.”

I am all for artists writing up project statements in the greatest detail and, listen up, then have the whole thing notarized. You never know! It might be that otherwise someone else defines your project for you. With a notarized statement, that can never happen.

And make it a little less lame than this fella:

Interviewer: “What’s your role in making the paintings?”

Artist: “I just selected the subjects, things that I didn’t have to change much.”

Interviewer: “With such a lack of involvement in your own work, what value if any could your painting hold for you?”

Artist: “I don’t know.” [turns to someone else]

Interviewer: “When you paint these objects, do you have a specific audience in mind?”

Artist: “No.”

Interviewer: “What is your feeling then? Do you want anyone to react to them, or do you paint them just to please yourself?”

Artist: “It gives me something to do.”

Interviewer: “As opposed to what? Nothing to do?”

Artist: “Yes.”

(taped for the magazine Cavalier at “The Factory” in 1966)

When I first saw the insides of my own apartment walls, I was a little shocked… this is what an entire floor looks like in a modern high rise building in Manhattan.