ART, WHATEVER IT TAKES

Since the early pandemic in 2020, Rome Art Program has conducted a series of interviews, “Art, Whatever It Takes.”
Artists, Art Critics, and Art Historians living in Italy, the U.S., and U.K., share their insights during these powerful times.

Interview with George Negroponte

George Negroponte is an American artist living in New York. He studied at Yale University with Bernard Chaet and William Bailey, has had eighteen solo-shows at numerous galleries. His work has been included at galleries and museums worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.   George has taught painting and drawing for over two decades at The Studio School, Parsons School of Design, The School of Visual Arts, and Princeton University. He was Co-Chairman of the Board of the Drawing Center from 1997-2002 and was appointed first President of the institution in 2002. Negroponte works as a fundraising consultant with several non-profit organizations in NYC and makes art in his studio in East Hampton, NY.

 

RomeArtProgram: What is your definition of “Art” today?

George Negroponte: I like thinking about “culture,” and more specifically, as it relates to painting: I am dedicated to the meaning of painting as a visual language: absorbed and learned over time. I write about painting a lot, and I admire Fairfield Porter as a critic and painter. He wrote intimately about it. Beautifully. Porter saw painting as a manifestation of desires, urges, and needs arising from the deepest realms of the psyche. Equally important was his belief that painting has its own terms. It is not programmed, nor can it be imposed upon.

RAP: Art is dynamic and regenerates itself… how does it change, and how did it change us?

George: Not sure. Your question suggests an endless supply of it (art). I don’t see it as a given; it’s earned or warranted only when our highest aspirations mysteriously come together without reason. I see it as disruptive, even chaotic. The art world I know is wildly competitive and aggressive. Noisy. But the fundamental nature of art is uncompromising. It does not tolerate manipulation.

RAP: When (and how) did you understand that art was becoming very important in your life?

George: When I was five or six, my father started to paint as a hobby. He was a weekend painter, wore a blue beret, and copied Cezanne. Eventually, it made him miserable because he didn’t think he was improving. It was too bad because he poured his heart into painting.

RAP: What role does art play today? What are the “great figures” who have recently changed it? Do you feel close to any of these figures?

George: I’m still grappling with what Cezanne did to painting. Pollock gave painting gravity in every sense of the word. Brice Marden is a painter I have always admired.

RAP: Are there traditional figures such as collectors, muses, mecenate, and patrons, in today’s art and society interaction model?

George: The interaction between artists and society is now the business of galleries and museums. It is not found in the studio or the street. Artists appear to be prized when the market necessitates it. However, we know that the arc of art history is under review, and rightfully so: we are much more sensitive to the artists who have been ignored or marginalized. We are hopefully steering ourselves towards more just/responsible outcomes. This chapter on re-imagination and re-invention is uplifting.

RAP: How to have the new technologies and media culture changed art today, improving or worsening it…? What do you feel are your biggest challenges?

George: I don’t use /participate in social media at all.

RAP: Art as a mirror of man, in this moment of emergency, seems to be shattered …what do these fragments reflect now?… Shadow or light of the moment?

George: We continue. We are obliged to do so. Miro completed 23 small works on paper (gouache) between 1940 and 1941 while in exile in France during the second world war. He worked at a kitchen table. He wrote to Matisse and said he had made his most poetic works. I’m struggling to stay focused in the studio. The horrors of the war in Ukraine are unsettling and frightening. I’m doing my best.

RAP: Understanding, interpreting, and possibly judging the work of art; which is the right path when we are in front of a piece of art?

George: Authentic interpretation can only come from a history that has been internalized over time. You go back again and again until you can hold an image in your head. It is a construct. Cezanne’s Bather at MoMA. How many times have I seen it since I was six years old? Yikes. I’m always surprised. Robert Hughes was right: the image of a painting is not grasped like an advertisement. It’s too complex. It’s filtered by time and space.

RAP: What is the real role of Academies and Art schools today? What can artists learn from these institutions today?

George: I don’t teach anymore. Art schools appear distressed. The need to provide a more public stand on injustice and inequality is exceptionally admirable. But the common experience is now more valued than a subjective one. My view of painting, studio life, of personal invention looks at a loss in the face of these significant political issues. Introspection has different needs. Incidentally, drawing in the streets of Rome seems like the perfect antidote to art schools in the USA. I applaud the idea! And, I would urge every art student to read and become acquainted with Freud’s concept of “object constancy.”

RAP: Art too has undergone a complex process of globalization; can having an authentic and genuine style be an advantage or a drag for an artist?

George: Not sure what to say. An artist does not have “a style” but has a vision. If that vision accommodates a global platform, tremendous. If not, so what? Imagine a painter who only leaves his country of origin once. He lives with his mother and sister and paints bottles and objects on a table his entire life. Does that painter exist on a global stage? I hope so. Morandi did pretty well in the universe.

RAP: How do Art Galleries and Museums position themselves today, and, in your opinion, how should they?

George: Be creative. I lived an institutional life at The Drawing Center for almost thirty-five years. I continue to be surprised by the uniformity of it all.

RAP: “Figuration” vs. “Abstraction”: which of the two is better descriptive of the period we live in? Which one will have a better future?

George: Not the correct terms. Richard Tuttle told me years ago that the real distinction was “front-lit” vs. “back-lit.” He nailed it.

RAP: Today, we often speak of “emerging artists”; what advice, based on your experience, do you feel you can give to young artists?

George: Oh lord. It’s an arduous road. So, stay dignified, keep breathing, and keep your head up.

RAP: Art as a lens for reading the present, can it modify the space and time we pass through? …will art save us?

George: We are saturated with information. How can anyone get through to anyone? I want to believe that history and the past shape us. When was art meant to save us? Art is a tiny glowing ember. And because it is fragile, our responsibility is to sustain it, to keep it going. Bill de Kooning summed it up: “If I stretch my arms and wonder where my fingers are – that is all the space I need as a painter.”

www.georgenegroponte.com