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Speaker 1: dot com. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of
Speaker 1: this podcast is Joy. I talk to interest in people
Speaker 1: about what brings them happiness. This episode is a conversation
Speaker 1: with Eric Murlow, which if you are any way attached
Speaker 1: to the art world, you will know exactly who he is.
Speaker 1: And if you're not, then you're about to find out
Speaker 1: Eric Murlow.
Speaker 2: Full disclosure ary.
Speaker 1: You're French, so that that's going that's not going to
Speaker 1: be an issue, but it's very much part of our
Speaker 1: story today.
Speaker 2: That's right, Well, the Old Alliance though you're.
Speaker 1: Scottish, Scottish and French, that's true. You know why though,
Speaker 1: It's because they were Catholics, That's right.
Speaker 2: I think, at least I think they were Catholic originally
Speaker 2: until they killed your queen.
Speaker 1: Now, who killed the Queen Mary, Queen of scott She
Speaker 1: was French, though, isn't She's yeah, she.
Speaker 2: Was Catholic, and so Elizabeth made sure that. That's right.
Speaker 1: But Elizabeth was English, that's right. Okay, But that's what
Speaker 1: we're not talking about this. They were talking about the
Speaker 1: we're talking about your the story of the Merlau family
Speaker 1: from wallpaper makers in the nineteenth century to being a
Speaker 1: dynamic force, a dynamic force eric in the twentieth century, masters.
Speaker 2: As well.
Speaker 1: Let's start, okay, So who started making that? Your family
Speaker 1: began making wallpaper in Paris in the eighteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty So it's just it was like it wasn't
Speaker 1: an artistic in day. Well, it was artistic in the
Speaker 1: sense of wallpapers.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, but it was commercial, You're right. I mean,
Speaker 2: we were doing also wine labels, chocolate labels, ledgers. Eventually,
Speaker 2: my great grandfather, who was the son of the previous owner.
Speaker 2: Right he started he bought, i should say, a print
Speaker 2: shop that was printing those geographical maps that you're had
Speaker 2: at school, that you would pull.
Speaker 1: Tool down maps in the world, right and during colonial time,
Speaker 1: so everything said either France, Breton or exactly this is
Speaker 1: French and this is British. So what happened then? Who
Speaker 1: made the change into the birth? Because it was the
Speaker 1: birth of the lethographic is lethographic movement? Is that a
Speaker 1: movement or is it a.
Speaker 2: Well it's a medium, right. It was started in Germany
Speaker 2: by Cenefelder in the mid eighteenth century, right, so just
Speaker 2: about a century before, and it was the easiest way
Speaker 2: to print color.
Speaker 1: Right, So talk me through. Imagine, I don't know what
Speaker 1: a lithograph is right now. I'm not saying I don't,
Speaker 1: but imagine I don't. Imagine you're talking to someone who
Speaker 1: doesn't know what a lithograph is, or what it would be,
Speaker 1: or what or how it came about.
Speaker 2: What is a lithograph? It's actually a really funny story.
Speaker 2: So this gentleman Cenefelder was trying to find a way
Speaker 2: to reproduce his plays in a cheaper manner because before
Speaker 2: then you would have to go to a printer that
Speaker 2: would do topography, right, like Guttemberg. Right. And he was
Speaker 2: trying to find a way to publish his works. And
Speaker 2: I think his wife was serving him some kind of soup,
Speaker 2: some fatty soup outside on his limestone table, right, And
Speaker 2: suddenly he discovered that after he had washed the table,
Speaker 2: the soup had been spilled. And he washed the table,
Speaker 2: he started putting the paper in. He had a zinc
Speaker 2: He spilled some of his ink, and the ink actually
Speaker 2: was stayed in the areas that had been previously absorbed,
Speaker 2: had absorbed the grease from the soup.
Speaker 1: Oh, so this was born of a drunk playwright spilling
Speaker 1: his soup.
Speaker 2: And then got all right, I better get out of
Speaker 2: it and whine and well, okay, good. He made his
Speaker 2: fortune actually from lithography, not from his writing. Well, what
Speaker 2: is it? Then this happened? So it's really based on
Speaker 2: the repulsion of water and grease. So the grease basically
Speaker 2: that is absorbed by the lithographic by the limestone. Right
Speaker 2: later on we'll be able to retain the printing ink.
Speaker 2: All right, So once you have the ink on the
Speaker 2: stone that's been retained in the areas that have been
Speaker 2: drawn by the artist. Then you ply the paper and
Speaker 2: you apply pressure and the ink is transferred from the
Speaker 2: stone onto the paper.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a print, right, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: but it's a stone printing blog exactly right. And so
Speaker 1: how does your family get involved in this? Because this
Speaker 1: starts the invent this German bloke invents a new form
Speaker 1: of printing, right, and.
Speaker 2: It's got its heyday really in the late well when
Speaker 2: we're basically doing it commercially. At that point you have
Speaker 2: a lot of artists like Chere and Toulusula Track, right,
Speaker 2: and all these muka that are artists that are doing
Speaker 2: these big big posters posters, right, like the mul Rouge
Speaker 2: posters that you got Trek was doing and that was
Speaker 2: that was lithographs, then, yeah, absolutely it was lithographs. And
Speaker 2: as a matter of fact, when John Ford does his
Speaker 2: movie Mulla Rouge, the studio where Tulusla track at work
Speaker 2: does not exist anymore. So he came to do it
Speaker 2: at our studio and he took over the studio and
Speaker 2: there are several scenes where Jose Ferrer is in there
Speaker 2: and pretends to be work king in our studio printing
Speaker 2: his lithographs. Oh right, So what happens is is your grandfather,
Speaker 2: is it, your grandfather, your great grand my grandfather.
Speaker 1: Right, so your grandfather decides I'm gonna get in touch,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use this lithograph stuff that we've used for
Speaker 1: wallpaper year.
Speaker 2: So his grandparents, his grandfather and his father. By then,
Speaker 2: we have about four print shops. They are two in
Speaker 2: Paris and two in the suburbs. We did. We ended
Speaker 2: up losing the two in the suburbs because the railroad
Speaker 2: took it by eminent domain. They needed the land land
Speaker 2: grab right exactly so, and then basically World War One
Speaker 2: takes place, and my grandmother passes away, my grandfather dies,
Speaker 2: and my great grandfather sorry dies in nineteen twenty one. Right,
Speaker 2: so my grandfather and his brothers and sisters take over
Speaker 2: the studios. And my grandfather had gone to the decorative
Speaker 2: of art school in Paris called the Al Decartif, and
Speaker 2: he's the one that basically started bringing all the artists
Speaker 2: over there. Does he know Picasso and those guys from
Speaker 2: that time? So he knows some of the artists like
Speaker 2: Matiz had taught at the school that he went to.
Speaker 2: He knows Braque, he knows some of the people, but
Speaker 2: he doesn't he knows some of them from his regiment
Speaker 2: in World War One because he did really four years,
Speaker 2: so did his brother actually right, and we lost one
Speaker 2: of one of the one of the brothers did die
Speaker 2: during the war in the war. So he he he
Speaker 2: comes back from the war and he had known he
Speaker 2: had met lege actually in the war for no Ja,
Speaker 2: but mostly he ended up knowing some of the people
Speaker 2: that worked for the National Museums and they put him
Speaker 2: in touch with the artists. So he had an idea.
Speaker 2: They were at lunch and they were complaining that they
Speaker 2: were not getting enough traffic in the museums. They said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we're putting bylines in the paper and people
Speaker 2: are not coming. But that's because it's not visual enough.
Speaker 2: You should do what theaters used to do. Make prints,
Speaker 2: print of the art that's on display, put them all
Speaker 2: over the streets of Paris, and just advertise your exhibitions.
Speaker 1: So where did the where was the idea born that
Speaker 1: an artist would create lithographs as just a piece of art.
Speaker 1: I mean, the idea is that an artist like Pocastle.
Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking that I say,
Speaker 1: Pocastle creates an image that is going to be printed
Speaker 1: on limestone, right, and then you print out a bunch
Speaker 1: of lithographs. Then you destroy the original piece of limestone,
Speaker 1: and then these pieces are numbered and they're like original pieces,
Speaker 1: is that right?
Speaker 2: So it really started with etchings, if you're talking about
Speaker 2: Durera and Rembrandt, So we're talking back in the sixteenth century, right,
Speaker 2: they were interested in etchings and doing these works, so prince,
Speaker 2: so they would go to the printer and they would say, listen,
Speaker 2: you give me a copper plate, you pay for the paper,
Speaker 2: you pay for the ink, right, I'll do the work
Speaker 2: and then we split it. We have artist Bruce and
Speaker 2: we have Printerspruce. Right, it would sort of be fifty
Speaker 2: to fifty.
Speaker 1: Re brand did a ton of those, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: like back in the day, and at least we're done
Speaker 1: in copper plate, exactly right.
Speaker 2: Okay, And rehn Brand probably did his Durera, I think
Speaker 2: used more craftsman to help him do his, right, But
Speaker 2: they're all, you know, they're all.
Speaker 1: So if you if you have a Rembrandt eitching, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not going to cost you a ton of money
Speaker 1: for a rem brand edching depends which one right, But
Speaker 1: say say you have as the self portrait, the famous
Speaker 1: self portrait of rembrand rem Brandt.
Speaker 2: If you use an etching of that, what would that be?
Speaker 2: It depends. It depends on if you have the one
Speaker 2: that was printed in if it was printed in the
Speaker 2: fifteen hundreds. What if you go it was sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: if it was printed in the seventeen hundreds, or if
Speaker 2: it was printed the eighteen hundreds. All right, I'm asking
Speaker 2: for a friend.
Speaker 1: Well, if you go one in Target, if you I
Speaker 1: wouldn't Target and it went on Alex Nice or Rodeo
Speaker 1: and Rodeo driver or on Rodeo drive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever it would be, it would be fine. So
Speaker 2: who started the idea?
Speaker 1: Because there was a thing like Picasso was doing this,
Speaker 1: that he was making lithographs.
Speaker 2: And then adding to them once they were done. Right,
Speaker 2: So he hadn't had such great luck. He had tried
Speaker 2: it in the twenties before even my grandpa got to
Speaker 2: know him. We knew him through printing posters for the museums,
Speaker 2: and so he hadn't really he might have come to
Speaker 2: the studio, We're not really sure at that point, but
Speaker 2: he was working with other printers, and he didn't like it,
Speaker 2: so he dropped it. And it's not until probably was
Speaker 2: after the war. It's like nineteen forty five. We had
Speaker 2: worked already for Matisse and Brock and other artists before
Speaker 2: the war, and then the war, of course was quite
Speaker 2: complicated look at it. Yeah, and then it's not until
Speaker 2: nineteen forty five where basically he is interested in doing
Speaker 2: it again. And it's because Picasso, because Brock and Matista
Speaker 2: tell him, listen, you should really try to go see
Speaker 2: more low. He's different than the other ones. He'll let you,
Speaker 2: he'll give you more leeway. And I think that's the
Speaker 2: thing with my grandfather. He was able to let the
Speaker 2: artists do what they wanted in the studio. He gave
Speaker 2: them more freedom that a lot of the other printers.
Speaker 2: You know, when it was four o'clock, everything had to
Speaker 2: be locked up. You left everything there, and then after
Speaker 2: that you go home. But the employees go home and everything.
Speaker 2: My grandpa was basically willing to say, I'll send a
Speaker 2: couple guys to bring you whatever you need in your home.
Speaker 2: Because you know, Picasso came the first time he came,
Speaker 2: the first day he started working at like noon, and
Speaker 2: he didn't stop until eight pm, right, and all the
Speaker 2: employees were like, uh.
Speaker 1: Time, come on then, sir, let's get out of there.
Speaker 1: No more square faces out your cup. When you were
Speaker 1: a child growing up there, you run into all of
Speaker 1: these people, is that true?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean in the fifties. I wasn't born in
Speaker 2: the fifties. Yeah, dies in fifty four, so I can't
Speaker 2: really say. And then I you know, I was ever
Speaker 2: did you ever see his ghost? Oh? Not because he
Speaker 2: died in his home, but when I was giving a
Speaker 2: lecture at at this museum which is in your neck
Speaker 2: of the wood, at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: that's famous. Yes, it's quite a beautiful building. Yeah it is. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it was a show of Picasso's works on paper and.
Speaker 1: You were given the lecture. I was giving a lecture.
Speaker 1: Very swanky, Eric, that's that's like you're like a proper
Speaker 1: art guy. I mean, you're like really arty.
Speaker 2: I don't know. You want to ask the little old
Speaker 2: lady in the first row that probably had just you know,
Speaker 2: finished a couple of pints and she was like falling asleep.
Speaker 2: But well that happens to everybody, So that happens advice,
Speaker 2: so was Eric. But it was really interesting and and
Speaker 2: and so I was telling them, you know a lot
Speaker 2: of these stories about how you know Picasso and actually
Speaker 2: Percassa was a lot of fun to work with. But
Speaker 2: he was basically taking all these things back home and
Speaker 2: working on them, and then in the morning, my dad,
Speaker 2: my grandpa would send someone to go pick it up.
Speaker 1: So net brown A, Pocasso says, and get that stuff
Speaker 1: and bring it around and we'll print it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then well Pericassa would show up probably around
Speaker 2: you know, one o'clock or you see.
Speaker 1: That's where I think Picassa was going wrong. He was,
Speaker 1: you know, the sleeping in every day he would get
Speaker 1: much more done, but he was working until three four
Speaker 1: in the morning. Yeah, okay, I wonder why that is
Speaker 1: a strange man by all the kinds they say.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so my my joke when I was at
Speaker 2: the oh yeah, yeah, sorry, well it's not really, it's
Speaker 2: not really, Joe. I'll let you, I'll let you do
Speaker 2: the fun. No, come on. So I usually basically put
Speaker 2: a picture up at the beginning of the lecture of
Speaker 2: Picasso and my grandfather on the beach holding me as
Speaker 2: a baby, and I'll start by saying, you know, as
Speaker 2: you can see, Picasso and I had many very intellectual
Speaker 2: conversations about art and put on pump and eventually, once
Speaker 2: I take that out, we can discuss. Basically, they understand
Speaker 2: that I'm just repeating the stories that my grandfather and
Speaker 2: my father told me, because really, I was three years
Speaker 2: old when you passed away, really when Picasso passed away. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I mean, I mean, I'm good friends with Poloma.
Speaker 2: I was friends with also Agilo his Olmah's mother, his
Speaker 2: ex partner. Yeah. Were they ever married, No, never married.
Speaker 2: They had two kids. Clode right also unfortunately passed away
Speaker 2: also last summer. Oh dear, and they were together for
Speaker 2: about ten years, and she also worked with us. She
Speaker 2: was one of the future. I think she was probably
Speaker 2: the first woman that came to work at the studio.
Speaker 2: She's a pretty impressive customer, was she.
Speaker 1: She was she kind of look maybe I'm I'm talking
Speaker 1: to turn here, but she wasn't particularly uh enamored with
Speaker 1: her time with Picassa, was she? She She felt like
Speaker 1: it was a very kind of restrictive relationship for her.
Speaker 2: Is that right? But that is that? Yeah? I mean
Speaker 2: she was really she's she was an incredibly sweet woman.
Speaker 2: I owe her a lot. When I got a second
Speaker 2: divorce and I was really bummed, she caught me up.
Speaker 2: She said, Eric, you don't even know what a sociopath is.
Speaker 2: I was with one for ten years, let me tell you.
Speaker 2: But but on the other hand, she was a sociopath.
Speaker 2: You think, well again, you know I was three years.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I'm not. I'm not talking about personal experience.
Speaker 1: But but but the but the idea that you know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't mean you you you know, the
Speaker 1: people involved, you know, the circles I do.
Speaker 2: I it's hard. Also, what is a sociopath? Yeah, that
Speaker 2: is you know, I was sort of thinking about that.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of different kinds of them. As a
Speaker 2: matter of fact, artist a lot of artists are at
Speaker 2: least narcissistic. Well I think that, but some are more
Speaker 2: narcissistic than others. I go into sociopathy, but he said,
Speaker 2: by the way, sooth sociopathy? I don't know.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, I I, you know, I can
Speaker 1: only talk about it so long before I start thinking
Speaker 1: about myself. So I but I don't I think that
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's a buzzword right now as well.
Speaker 1: It comes in a broad spectrum of different things. So
Speaker 1: he's a very complicated man. And but first of one,
Speaker 1: she Lowe is a very gifted artist herself. I've seen
Speaker 1: some of her what it is amazing.
Speaker 2: She's incredibly talented. She was incredibly she was a great lethographer. Also,
Speaker 2: she really did a lot with us. And my grandfather
Speaker 2: was the only man or the only business person that
Speaker 2: was allowed to still work with her because you know,
Speaker 2: once she left Picasso and she's the only woman who
Speaker 2: ever left Picasso. Once she left Picasso, that was it.
Speaker 2: He sued her for her book. He tried, he tried
Speaker 2: to he tried to Harvey Weinstein her. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: It was like, yeah, she was he was trying to
Speaker 2: cancel her, Oh my god. So even his dealer, Conviler
Speaker 2: right was not allowed to where he called Fonso, I'm
Speaker 2: very sorry, fan Swas, but you know, obviously I cannot
Speaker 2: work with you anymore. And she couldn't have really dealers
Speaker 2: working with her, but my grandfather for some reason, and
Speaker 2: that's why I think fal So has always said your
Speaker 2: your grandfather. With his you know, he had a profile
Speaker 2: of a Roman senator. He was able to sort of
Speaker 2: finesse it, and Picasso was totally fine with him continuing
Speaker 2: to work with her.
Speaker 1: I have a theory about this as well that I
Speaker 1: think because your grandfather is an alpha personality himself, as
Speaker 1: Picasso is right, and your grandfather also has the He's
Speaker 1: got a lucrative wallpaper, but it doesn't need Picasso in
Speaker 1: the same way that the other people need because he's
Speaker 1: still living off of them. It's like if Picasso walks,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. He's still his business. He's still independently, you know, wealthy.
Speaker 2: He can do his thing. Am I right? Yeah. The
Speaker 2: only thing is, uh, the funny bet about that is
Speaker 2: we always say in the family, you know when we
Speaker 2: say why, you know, why did this person come? Why
Speaker 2: did this? Oh? Well, because we were the best printers
Speaker 2: in the world. And you know, I think we're more
Speaker 2: realistic than that, because I think my grandpa once said,
Speaker 2: you know, the thing is, we printed Picassos so everybody
Speaker 2: wanted Yeah. Yeah, I mean they did like Mirror, they did,
Speaker 2: like Mereau, they did like Metist, they did like all
Speaker 2: these other famous Henry Moore. We even it wasn't just
Speaker 2: Kerwin in England. We actually printed also Henry Moore in
Speaker 2: Grham Sutherland, and a lot of you know, Marino Marini,
Speaker 2: so artists from everywhere. Chagall especially because what we did
Speaker 2: in World War two. Shagall when he came back from
Speaker 2: New York only printed with us. What did you do
Speaker 2: in World War two? So we my grandpa helped a
Speaker 2: lot of our colleagues that were Jewish and that had
Speaker 2: print shops, and and we also printed a lot of
Speaker 2: fake papers.
Speaker 1: Oh really, so you printed fake ideas for their resistance
Speaker 1: and stuff and for people to get out, right, because
Speaker 1: the Nazis were were very funny ideas about art, didn't they.
Speaker 1: The Nazis are they? I mean, obviously you know there's
Speaker 1: the anti Semitism. But the idea that they they talked
Speaker 1: about modern art is being degenerate, right, but they were
Speaker 1: collecting into yeah, of course, because they were pragmatic as
Speaker 1: well as evil. But they had this they what was
Speaker 1: that exhibition they had in Berlin. It was I think
Speaker 1: it was before the war. It was the Degenerate Art
Speaker 1: Exhibition or something, and they showed all they were showing
Speaker 1: Picasso's and modern art and a gallery next to you know,
Speaker 1: proper as they said, Teutonic art.
Speaker 2: Which was like, you know, stags and rehatos and stuff.
Speaker 1: And everybody went to see the degenerate art. They're like, oh, boobies,
Speaker 1: where do you come down on your p taste? Where
Speaker 1: do you find yourself drawn more to modern contemporary pop art?
Speaker 2: Or you a traditionalist? So because you're an art dealer,
Speaker 2: right right? Yeah? So yeah, for me, listen, I'm not
Speaker 2: one to tell people what is art where they should like,
Speaker 2: you know, art is basically an expression of someone, you know,
Speaker 2: someone's thoughts and feelings, usually through creative mediums. So it
Speaker 2: could be music, it could be words, it could be
Speaker 2: you know, visual anything, right, So who am I to
Speaker 2: tell people what is good and what is not? I
Speaker 2: know what I like. Well, that's that's more of what
Speaker 2: I mean. What are you drawing? Yeah, so I'm drawn
Speaker 2: to I'm very Catholic in my taste, and I don't
Speaker 2: mean that in religious way. I mean I'm really open
Speaker 2: to a lot of things, and I like certain classical
Speaker 2: Aboriginal art, for example, is really interesting to me, and
Speaker 2: it was interesting to Matisse and Picasso. And what I
Speaker 2: like is that these people kept on renewing themselves. Not
Speaker 2: crazy about see, I think there was some interesting pop
Speaker 2: part in the sixties. I think that some of it
Speaker 2: a little ridiculous though, and I think unfortunately it was
Speaker 2: supposed to be kind of like a small closet, and
Speaker 2: people made it kind of a big pathway, and now
Speaker 2: it's that closet is getting really packed with people that
Speaker 2: don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, Andy bears a sentiment of
Speaker 1: responsibility for that, for saying stuff like, you know, are
Speaker 1: what you can get away with and like, no, no,
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol is not. Although I have to say, if
Speaker 1: you've been in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: No I haven't been.
Speaker 1: It's sensational, yeah, you know, the thing is about it
Speaker 1: as well. It has all these Andy Worl pieces in it.
Speaker 1: But the most Andy Warhol, the most Warholing in part
Speaker 1: of the whole place, is the gift shop. Like this
Speaker 1: is this is exactly where the epicenter of Warhol is
Speaker 1: an advertising Yeah it is. He was a graphic designer, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so by the way, the thing that's interesting
Speaker 2: to me is, you know a little bit and it
Speaker 2: kind of relates. My taste relates a little bit to
Speaker 2: what you do in the sense that if I have
Speaker 2: to see one more political piece of artwork, or if
Speaker 2: I have to see one more sort of commentary on
Speaker 2: social whatever, right frankly, right now, I'm a little tired
Speaker 2: of it. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: So art is that is like art that is being
Speaker 1: made and sold right now in New York City there,
Speaker 1: I see, I'm not really aware of current working artists.
Speaker 1: All the artists I know or are dead, and I've
Speaker 1: been dead for some of them, the ones I like,
Speaker 1: I'm be dead for quite a long time. But are
Speaker 1: artists working there with kind of like look out for Trump,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's horrible, that kind of stuff that people are
Speaker 1: doing that, Yeah, I mean probably more the first one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I thine, you know.
Speaker 2: You see a lot of that. And I'm not only
Speaker 2: just talking about that. I'm talking about these pseudo social
Speaker 2: commentaries on today's society and consumption or whatever. And I'm
Speaker 2: looking at it, I'm going, that's exactly what you are. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not really making a non moral judge about it.
Speaker 2: You're at least make a moral judgment about it.
Speaker 1: It's funny because sometimes the esthetic attraction of art can
Speaker 1: supersede the political I mean, if you look at some
Speaker 1: of those old Soviet posters.
Speaker 2: They're like, they're amazing that the scope.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a statue in Moscow the Heroes of Space,
Speaker 1: the Soviet Heroes of Spaces, the most amazing statues I've
Speaker 1: ever seen.
Speaker 2: But that is propaganda. Well yeah, but I mean the
Speaker 2: Nazis certainly understood. Yeah they did, that's true. But for example,
Speaker 2: I like when Phrenology walks into the Matist Chapel and
Speaker 2: vaunts in the south of France. He goes inside the
Speaker 2: chapel and he looks and he says, Matis has invented
Speaker 2: the religion of beauty. Oh okay. And so this is
Speaker 2: interesting because it's the end of Metisa's life and suddenly
Speaker 2: he's become closer to his religion, his you know, he
Speaker 2: becomes he believes.
Speaker 1: Well, that's inevitable. I think if you live long enough,
Speaker 1: you start kind of going.
Speaker 2: I'd like to get in.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not even so much that, it's the more
Speaker 1: of the kind of you know. I was talking to
Speaker 1: someone else about this today. I sually that C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis said, the thing about death is a horseman who's
Speaker 1: easy to ignore when he's you know, two valleys away
Speaker 1: and just a figure on the horizon, but when he's
Speaker 1: close enough for you to hear the hoof prints, you
Speaker 1: may change your opinion. And and I think that that
Speaker 1: that happens to people as they go older. Has it
Speaker 1: happened to use your older you started to be a
Speaker 1: bit more? I mean, am I hearing those?
Speaker 2: Do you hear the hoose? I'm not much younger than you. Careful?
Speaker 2: Do you do you find that does your taste in
Speaker 2: art change? Does it become? Yeah? I think it does, right,
Speaker 2: it does absolutely. I think that there are certain things.
Speaker 2: I mean, I will always love because I'm very optimistic,
Speaker 2: and I find it very joyful to Fornolge's work is
Speaker 2: to me happiness because it glorifies the working man, It
Speaker 2: glorifies industry. It looks set the world that we live
Speaker 2: in as optimistic people got you know they now in
Speaker 2: France they were able to have paid vacation, paid holidays.
Speaker 2: So you would see these workers with their bicycles those as.
Speaker 1: Well, didn't they There was RAPHAELI who was He was
Speaker 1: in the first French Impressionist exhibition and then he was
Speaker 1: kicked out because he would draw like like a lovely scene.
Speaker 1: But he was the guy that the absence drinker exactly right.
Speaker 1: But he did the he would do like a lovely
Speaker 1: scene but also maybe a factory on the edge of it,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. They're like, no, you kind have factories
Speaker 1: and French Appressionism. I liked him too, Yeah, but that
Speaker 1: those things when you get movements like that, like Impressionism
Speaker 1: for example.
Speaker 2: Who wasn't there was It wasn't the guy with the garden.
Speaker 2: What's his name? But mo name? He was the kind
Speaker 2: of boss, wasn't he.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean because I think he had an argument
Speaker 1: with Raphaeli and kicked him out.
Speaker 2: He's like, get up, you get up? Yeah. No, It
Speaker 2: was kind of like, yeah, his his thing. But there was,
Speaker 2: you know, and there was some interesting interesting relationships. I say,
Speaker 2: there were older artists and then younger artists, and then
Speaker 2: some of these artists ended up going into Fauvism or
Speaker 2: something different after Fauvism is kind of la Mank and Matisa.
Speaker 2: At the beginning, there was a great show and Durant.
Speaker 2: There was a great show at the met that just
Speaker 2: I think it just ended. And it was Metisa and
Speaker 2: Durant in Coulio, which is a little town in the Mediterranean, right,
Speaker 2: and they basically paint with these very wild colors, these
Speaker 2: these it's it's a little bit like Sarah in the
Speaker 2: sense that you have it's not dots, but it's these
Speaker 2: like patches of color. So it comes from the Impressionism.
Speaker 2: But then you have these really bright colors. So when
Speaker 2: they do each other's portraits, that might be green and red,
Speaker 2: and so everything is kind of connected, interconnected. Actually a
Speaker 2: little van goes as well. There is a little bit
Speaker 2: of everything. You know. Listen, they all look at each
Speaker 2: other and look at you know, I mean the father
Speaker 2: of the art is that Picasso looks up to probably
Speaker 2: the most, and he looks at everyone of course, right,
Speaker 2: but I think the one that he really loves the
Speaker 2: most is Seisan. And Saisan to me, is very much
Speaker 2: like Bach is to music. There's no jazz without Bach, right,
Speaker 2: there's no modern art without saysan Sisan. Because of the
Speaker 2: way that he applied the pain to the cantry, it
Speaker 2: is really the beginning. He just really takes everything upside
Speaker 2: down and it just really reinvents everything so that he opens.
Speaker 2: He's one of those watershed moments. So he allows Picasso
Speaker 2: to start doing Cubism.
Speaker 1: For example, what situation or what is it like in
Speaker 1: the art world now because of a lot of the
Speaker 1: personal lives of the artist who are still selling for
Speaker 1: bas sums of money, Picaso being one of them, have
Speaker 1: them come under scrutiny of the lens of modern sensibilities,
Speaker 1: and people get upset about me because the treatment of
Speaker 1: women is not you know, it's not a stalar story.
Speaker 1: It's not great, you know, and the other artists behavior.
Speaker 1: Does that affect a piece of value in modern no?
Speaker 2: I think for for a couple of reason. Unfortunately, I
Speaker 2: think that there isn't one art market, and there isn't
Speaker 2: one art pillar of the art market. Right. What I
Speaker 2: do I find is getting smaller and smaller, which is
Speaker 2: to deal with with actual collectors or museum collections. But
Speaker 2: even then it's very difficult to get material nowadays. What
Speaker 2: happens is there's a lot of tax evasion, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of money laundering. There's a lot of these things
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 1: But buying art is a way to hide money. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's in speculation also, well yeah, but I mean that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people think like that, Like, well,
Speaker 1: I wonder if my grandpa's portrait I found in the
Speaker 1: attic is worth a million, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think you know again, and and that's
Speaker 2: why probably I'm still happy. By the way. I mean,
Speaker 2: most art dealers have you know, are famous for successful
Speaker 2: art dealers are famous for having no sense of humor
Speaker 2: because they're mostly the ultimate con artists. Really, you're not
Speaker 2: a con artist.
Speaker 1: One of the nicest people I've met in New York,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit right, but they still let no.
Speaker 2: But I think this is not I think that the
Speaker 2: business has changed tremendously and we're no longer talking about
Speaker 2: just building collections for people that are really truly madly
Speaker 2: in love with art. We're also manipulating money. And so
Speaker 2: the problem is I made a conscious decision that I
Speaker 2: cannot deal with these people.
Speaker 1: So is there a because I feel that sometimes when
Speaker 1: I look at where I don't hate the single letter,
Speaker 1: because look, an artist is an artist, But when I
Speaker 1: look at the work of Jeff Coons and I think,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is that? You know, I mean that
Speaker 1: like it's like a balloon animal. It doesn't make any
Speaker 1: fucking sense to me. Jeff Coons is a very nice person. See,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he is. The that's I don't know Jeff Coons.
Speaker 1: But I do yeah, oh do you Well, I'm terribly sorry,
Speaker 1: but I don't own anybody right wisely. Well, no, the
Speaker 1: thing is that there were tons of money. I look,
Speaker 1: a lot of people disagree with me. People, but they're
Speaker 1: all that stuff. They're amazing contemporary artists, even if they are,
Speaker 1: you know, for example, contemporary are I'm just like but
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, I get it. And that you have, for example,
Speaker 2: amazing artists and sometimes like Cecily Brown, I think is
Speaker 2: an amazing artist English English artists, but you know she
Speaker 2: was at Goegosi and of course she started selling for
Speaker 2: huge amounts of money. That doesn't take away from the
Speaker 2: quality of her work. But to go back to what
Speaker 2: you were saying about how do we judge Picasso? Well,
Speaker 2: you know what, how do we judge history? I mean,
Speaker 2: that's alway, that's something that just keeps on happening. And
Speaker 2: and now we were going to go back and we're
Speaker 2: gonna look at history, and no, there's no issue, for example,
Speaker 2: with Harvey Weinstein, because that happened yesterday. You're right, so
Speaker 2: we know that guy was a monster. He's a monster.
Speaker 2: Now I don't know of any situation really where Picasso
Speaker 2: raped anyone. No, but he was certainly you know, false,
Speaker 2: I said, he was certainly psychologically abusive.
Speaker 1: I wonder it's an interesting thing because, of course, if
Speaker 1: you're talking about the manipulation of art and the manipulation
Speaker 1: of history. You know, Orwell's famous, he who controls the
Speaker 1: past controls the present. Right, So if you can write
Speaker 1: a new story about an old about an old story,
Speaker 1: you can manipulate it into the presence. So, for example,
Speaker 1: if you want to devalue or revalue a piece of art,
Speaker 1: maybe you can tell a new story about about the artist.
Speaker 1: I sometimes think about. You know, if you take the
Speaker 1: most expensive art in the world is probably Van Go right,
Speaker 1: you know, Starry Knight or something like that, like a
Speaker 1: ridiculous amount of money, more money than anybody has. Now,
Speaker 1: if you say Van God probably probably was mentally ill
Speaker 1: in a way that nowadays we would treat chemically. We
Speaker 1: would say, look, you know, you take you know this,
Speaker 1: Zacha Pazen, and you'll feel a lot better. And he
Speaker 1: probably would felt a lot better, and his art would
Speaker 1: have changed. And maybe as you look at Starry Knight, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm fucking around here, right, but maybe as
Speaker 1: you look at Starry Night, you're enjoying the mental illness
Speaker 1: of a man who's in anguish. So therefore you're a
Speaker 1: monster and you shouldn't enjoy that art, and we should
Speaker 1: rethink how we look at it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying we should do that, but I'm just
Speaker 1: fucking around with the idea of it.
Speaker 2: No. Absolutely, And for example, Edgar Allan Poe was drinking
Speaker 2: absent but right, the thing is he also had alcohol allergy,
Speaker 2: so it could have just one glass of wine and
Speaker 2: then you know, you see what he was writing about
Speaker 2: all these murders.
Speaker 1: Or the painter of Hieronymous bosh Yes, who was the
Speaker 1: Garden of Earthly Delights, where the like horror and this
Speaker 1: is the thirteenth century, things like you know, monsters and
Speaker 1: you know, guys with faces in their bodies and crazy stuff.
Speaker 2: He apparently, I don't know if this is true. That
Speaker 2: what I'd heard about it was.
Speaker 1: They used to like to paint for long periods of time.
Speaker 1: And he would take this rye bread and go to
Speaker 1: a shed at the end of his garden. But the
Speaker 1: rye bread he was eating at the time, after a
Speaker 1: couple of days, it forms a little mold on it,
Speaker 1: which is a lucinogenic. And so after a couple like
Speaker 1: he's starting to First off he'spent, oh, paint a meadow,
Speaker 1: and you know, here's God, obviously because it's the Middle Ages.
Speaker 1: Early Middle Ages want to paint God. And then after
Speaker 1: a time he's like, oh, going to a ride. Did
Speaker 1: you never think about painting yourself?
Speaker 2: I did. I tried, you know. Picassa sorry not Percassa
Speaker 2: Moreau bought me a box of paint when I was
Speaker 2: six years old. Nice. And that weekend I went back
Speaker 2: to our country house with my grandma and my grandpa
Speaker 2: and my uncles and aunts, and I took my little
Speaker 2: box and I disappeared while everybody was meeting, and I
Speaker 2: started a mural in the kitchen. Oh they did not
Speaker 2: amuse anyway. Six year old stuff did not amuse anyone.
Speaker 2: And and so both my kids have done that, and
Speaker 2: that box disappeared. But my grandma was not into that
Speaker 2: at all. Yeah, and uh, and I realized that I
Speaker 2: absolutely had no talent. Oh, come on, it's six years old.
Speaker 2: How can you make that decision? I don't know. I
Speaker 2: got yelled at enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, it's funny that though, if you think
Speaker 1: of a family, which is so I mean your your
Speaker 1: godfather is Alexander Calder, for God's sake, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's a Do you remember him?
Speaker 2: You know, so I was a little bit older than
Speaker 2: than with Picasso, but it was I was still sort
Speaker 2: of in you know, before I was ten years old.
Speaker 2: So I have great pictures. Yeah, I have a few
Speaker 2: pieces that he signed to me. One of them is
Speaker 2: actually the at uh Cafe Blue, the new restaurant that
Speaker 2: oh yes we went to the other night. Well we
Speaker 2: went to the other one. But and so I Danielle
Speaker 2: asked me to loan him a few pieces. So I've
Speaker 2: put some some Lige, some Calder. A lot of them
Speaker 2: are signed to me or to my grandfather and so
Speaker 2: so I I do have some of these things. But
Speaker 2: I do remember him being, you know, this mountain, this
Speaker 2: sort of Irish mountain with big bushy eyebrows, and but
Speaker 2: he was really sweet and really nice, and he loved kids,
Speaker 2: and you know, he did all these amazing circus. There's
Speaker 2: a great movie that that was at the Whitney, and
Speaker 2: I think it was another museum around here where he
Speaker 2: did this entire circus with a little wire and everything
Speaker 2: goes into each other.
Speaker 1: The Whitney, Yeah, it was printed these little bits of paper. Fantastic.
Speaker 2: Everything is sort of like this giant He just made
Speaker 2: this gigantic little circus with all this and and it
Speaker 2: really artists.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me, the world of the artistic world,
Speaker 1: particularly in New York. I did not grow up in it,
Speaker 1: and but I will happily walk through it unaffected by
Speaker 1: it because for me, it feels to me unaffected is
Speaker 1: the wrong word, not intimidated by it, because it seems
Speaker 1: it seems to me a little bit like the world
Speaker 1: of fashion, or indeed show business, which is it's only
Speaker 1: dangerous if you take it seriously, but if you don't
Speaker 1: take it seriously, it's quite interesting and fun.
Speaker 2: Right. So, but there's a lot of money involved in
Speaker 2: all of these things. Well, but I think that's not
Speaker 2: what makes it important. Okay. I feel definitely older than fashion.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm art.
Speaker 1: It starts a very attractive turtleneck. You're thank you, No,
Speaker 1: you you're talking about art is older than fact. I
Speaker 1: don't know if art is older than fashion. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I agree with that.
Speaker 2: So, you know, you have the guys in the caves
Speaker 2: start painting right what they wear? Enough? Boy, they were
Speaker 2: well I don't know, that's what was it? McQueen, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know. But anyway, so art by the way,
Speaker 2: some fashion is art. I will not deny it totally. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was saying McQueen for example, right again, I don't
Speaker 2: think that McQueen is someone who did it for the money.
Speaker 2: The same with Vivian Westwood. She created created a movement.
Speaker 2: I mean, punk rock is Vivian Westwoods in creation.
Speaker 1: The idea that it's something to do with music came
Speaker 1: later with with Malcolm Malcolm and Vivian Westwood for sure,
Speaker 1: but mostly Viviane Westwood.
Speaker 2: I prefer Malcolm's music. Yeah, well yeah she wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: she has a different scent. But yeah no, but you
Speaker 2: see that to me and all the punk movement, that
Speaker 2: makes sense. And I think that's what we're missing nowadays,
Speaker 2: is we have a lot of famous artists that are
Speaker 2: in these stables of big galleries, but they hardly really
Speaker 2: see each other. The print shop was amazing in that way,
Speaker 2: is that you could have have in the studio in Paris,
Speaker 2: and in the fifties you could have Matis, Picasso, Brock,
Speaker 2: Mirro Cocteau, any of these writers, actors would come and
Speaker 2: visit them chanare you know Ali Ti. All these different
Speaker 2: people would come and you know, Gary Cooper went to
Speaker 2: visit Picasso in the South of Francs. There was people
Speaker 2: were meeting each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go to Vidal used to have that thing that
Speaker 1: salon environment house in Italy as well, that people would
Speaker 1: go there. And I wonder if the idea behind it
Speaker 1: that is digital, that people that people do it digitally.
Speaker 1: But I suspect no.
Speaker 2: I think it's very difficult because it's very tactile. Yes,
Speaker 2: you're there and you really see and and the beauty
Speaker 2: of the print shop is it was a neutral ground.
Speaker 2: It wasn't somebody's studio, right, So they would go and
Speaker 2: visit each other like sometimes, you know, Picasso would go
Speaker 2: visit Matise. Sometimes you know, they would go to each
Speaker 2: other's homes. But this was great because they could go
Speaker 2: work and they had a little different booths like this,
Speaker 2: so just a little bit larger than this. We had
Speaker 2: about six or seven of them on the third floor.
Speaker 2: The printing presses, the large printing presses, were on the
Speaker 2: ground floor. There were some offices on a mezzanine and
Speaker 2: then they had those booths, and they all had the
Speaker 2: trial proof presses that were on the same floor, so
Speaker 2: they could go try different colors, rework on the stone erase,
Speaker 2: add do all that stuff. Then they could go at
Speaker 2: lunch time across the street to the little it was
Speaker 2: a little Italian we said, get little Italian restaurant. Though right,
Speaker 2: not much to ride home at the beginning, But because
Speaker 2: quickly everyone saw that all of these famous started. By
Speaker 2: the time we closed the studio there and moved it
Speaker 2: somewhere else. The guy owned the entire block. It was
Speaker 2: called the Chateau Brion, and it was like two stars
Speaker 2: and it couldn't have happened to nicer people. It was
Speaker 2: Jean Fondo, a really nice gentleman and so and he
Speaker 2: had quite a nice collection. But I think that he
Speaker 2: did with all these guys going, oh, you need to
Speaker 2: draw you this for lunch. No, they never did that. No, no, really,
Speaker 2: they really didn't they And naturally Brock always said, for example,
Speaker 2: he said, no, I'd rather spend twenty thousand francs in flowers,
Speaker 2: but I live off of the artwork. So if they
Speaker 2: give you something, it's because they really love. So it
Speaker 2: was a personal thing. Then it was nice.
Speaker 1: I think the idea, you know, going back to we
Speaker 1: were talking about these artists all being in an unutral environment,
Speaker 1: it also creates a place where speculation is possible in conversation.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that that's that's possible digitally, because
Speaker 1: if you write something down, there's still this idea that you, well,
Speaker 1: you must believe that, whereas if you say say, say hey,
Speaker 1: maybe and then you say something like I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: agree with this, but you speculate, you think out.
Speaker 2: You can't think out loud.
Speaker 1: Think it loads not not a lowed, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a Is there a political correctness in the art world
Speaker 1: now that artists must be weary of? Must they must
Speaker 1: they protect their public personas is there is there a
Speaker 1: kind of branding you've got to be careful about?
Speaker 2: I think I think so, I think, and I think
Speaker 2: there's a fake outrage, and I think there's all sorts
Speaker 2: of you know, I think that everything is very much calculated.
Speaker 2: And I think that when they try to be wild,
Speaker 2: and you know, they try to be you know, the
Speaker 2: ones that are not politically correct, they're extra politically correct.
Speaker 2: So like guys like I'm trying to think of. You know,
Speaker 2: like I saw a Banksy to me, is you know,
Speaker 2: totally politically correct. I guess it is, isn't it. It
Speaker 2: seems to have a polemic about it and a kind
Speaker 2: of yeah it does. It's interesting as well, the banks
Speaker 2: you thing, because it's like the acceptable face of it.
Speaker 2: It has a which was when it started, it was
Speaker 2: absolutely real. You know, you you actually couldn't go and
Speaker 2: buy the the Kansas of Spray when you were living
Speaker 2: in these village. There were places in the East Village.
Speaker 2: I lived in the East Village also, not at the
Speaker 2: same time, but close to it. But you know, cops
Speaker 2: would actually come and and you know, stock the people
Speaker 2: just to make sure that you know, you couldn't. They
Speaker 2: would arrest people.
Speaker 1: Yeah for tagging. Sure, yeah, yeah, you can't be doing that.
Speaker 1: I remember the East Village in the in the eighties
Speaker 1: is very different place than it Isn't that it was
Speaker 1: seventh and see please, Oh my god, it was. It
Speaker 1: was a wild time, I think, I mean, my memory
Speaker 1: is so lazy, but I think I think it was
Speaker 1: a little wild.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 1: I was in the restaurant the other night and the
Speaker 1: manager I came over and she gave us a free deserve.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's great.
Speaker 1: Why she said, I remember you being the dormant saved
Speaker 1: the robots the club in the village. I'm like, you
Speaker 1: really remember that the robots?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that is crazy, that club. But at
Speaker 2: least kicked me out of there. I wasn't the dormant.
Speaker 1: I was there at the door, kind of going, I'm
Speaker 1: part of this, but any acts of violence. Word, I
Speaker 1: was not qualified for enery of that. But like Vin Diesel,
Speaker 1: he was a dormant. He was like a hey, get
Speaker 1: out of here.
Speaker 2: I wasn't. Ever he's a big guy.
Speaker 1: He's a big guy, and he works out and stuff
Speaker 1: and you know, takes care of himself. No, I do
Speaker 1: that a little bit.
Speaker 2: But see I would have gone to you with like
Speaker 2: a fifty.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, easy that you're read. Oh you go, that's
Speaker 1: about fifty you kidding me? A cigarette? But I got
Speaker 1: you fine. So what is the future that of the
Speaker 1: art world? Have you?
Speaker 2: Do you think about that? Yeah? I think it's cyclical.
Speaker 2: I think that, But like everything else, I think we're
Speaker 2: at a point where everybody's divided. Everything is like oh
Speaker 2: yeah and everything and everything. Yeah, yeah, So there is
Speaker 2: going to be some kind of reckoning. I mean, it
Speaker 2: is unsustainable the way it is right now, because thankfully
Speaker 2: a lot of the great art is in museums, right
Speaker 2: but if they don't have money to stay open, and
Speaker 2: some of them are in financial trouble, not all of them,
Speaker 2: and a lot of them have a lot of you know.
Speaker 2: But for example, in France, if you think that the
Speaker 2: major museum art museum in Paris, which is the Pompidou
Speaker 2: right now, it has quite a large administrative budget, but
Speaker 2: its acquisition budget for the whole year is two million euros.
Speaker 2: What the hell are you going to do nowadays with
Speaker 2: two million euros? So that's why, and you cannot as
Speaker 2: a you know, wealthy such as Bernalo or Pino, all
Speaker 2: these people they've they've started their foundations because they don't
Speaker 2: get a tax break if they give to a national museum.
Speaker 1: Oh right, so we don't have that in doesn't have
Speaker 1: charitable state, does not have charitable state, does it doesn't
Speaker 1: America though, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: In America it's much better, and so that's why museums
Speaker 2: are still and also yeah, you can actually really deduct
Speaker 2: from your taxes and and it's very it's part of
Speaker 2: the fabric of the United States.
Speaker 1: It is, actually that's true. I mean they're they're every
Speaker 1: time you go to uh and I go all over
Speaker 1: the place. Yeah, there is always something and some of
Speaker 1: the times, like Louisville, Kentucky has an amazing contemporary art scene.
Speaker 2: It's it's like, I don't know why I didn't think
Speaker 2: it because it wasn't done yesterday, it was done several
Speaker 2: decades ago. Detroit, you know, Detroit was incredibly wealthy, of
Speaker 2: course when you had all the car companies that are
Speaker 2: just roaring. So yeah, so what will you do then?
Speaker 2: So I think what I'm trying to do is completely different.
Speaker 2: I'm trying not to really be in that in that
Speaker 2: sort of well, I'm not in the same kind of world.
Speaker 2: The idea has always been for me to be a
Speaker 2: good steward to my family's history, right to organize exhibitions
Speaker 2: to continue. You still have a lot of these pieces, then,
Speaker 2: I have, Yeah, I have quite a few. I also
Speaker 2: have collectors that are entrusting me with their collections. I
Speaker 2: may not have a large Picasso print collection anymore because
Speaker 2: because I unfortunately got divorced several times, but I'm familiar
Speaker 2: with that. I figured and and but I do have
Speaker 2: a beautiful one that we've been traveling through the country, right,
Speaker 2: and uh, and I have other exhibitions, and I have
Speaker 2: all the shows. And the idea is to be a
Speaker 2: good steward and whatever we can make out of that.
Speaker 2: I reinvested with young artists that I believe in that
Speaker 2: I feel are not getting the chance to really show
Speaker 2: their work in other places, and hopefully at some point
Speaker 2: people will will pay more attention to them and and
Speaker 2: they'll feel attracted. I mean, but then again, it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's very much my taste.
Speaker 1: It's funny though in the in they are they are
Speaker 1: world as well, because you can be unsuccessful until well
Speaker 1: after you're dead, and then your career can really take off.
Speaker 2: Right, But then again, how do you qualify success? I mean,
Speaker 2: I'll know I'll never be a billionaire because if I
Speaker 2: take all the money that I make with this and
Speaker 2: I put it back with these young artists, it doesn't
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get money. But yeah, but the
Speaker 2: only thing as well is that I see a though
Speaker 2: I'm still very successful. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: The success is a very antizing definition because the the
Speaker 1: idea that like who you want to be Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 2: I know, clearly no disrespect to.
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezels, but I don't want to be you, you know,
Speaker 1: none at all, certainly not Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, none at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, do you want to be It's interesting,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's like, well, i'd be all
Speaker 1: right if I had their money.
Speaker 2: You don't really have already, are they. I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't want that, Okay, as long as I can buy
Speaker 2: a Scotch pack of cigarettes and your friend.
Speaker 1: Scotch cigarettes, cheese wine, I need, geez, a bit of wine,
Speaker 1: some nice conversation.
Speaker 2: But I like working on projects with artists, and so
Speaker 2: I work with a lot of printers here. But while
Speaker 2: we don't print ourselves anymore, I still have a few
Speaker 2: presses in a warehouse in case I ever want to
Speaker 2: reopen a print shop.
Speaker 1: Oh, like King Arthur for the Britons, when you're called again,
Speaker 1: you will stop the presses again, start the presses. Eric,
Speaker 1: there's something that sounds quite like it's time you have
Speaker 1: to start the presses. We have to print giant pineapples
Speaker 1: and put them all over the world to calm everyone.
Speaker 2: Do exactly, but you know, truly again a little less politics,
Speaker 2: a little less religion, more love. I think the world
Speaker 2: needs more love. I can't argue with that. We got
Speaker 2: to get out of here High