Listening In on a Painter’s Dialogue

When artist Ross Bleckner arrived in Manhattan in 1973 clutching his newly minted degree from the California Institute of the Arts, painting was widely dismissed as deader than a doornail. Bleckner paid no attention to popular opinion, however, and set to work hammering out a style of abstraction, at once somber and ornate, that frequently explored the theme of death.

Bleckner’s gravely beautiful canvases are credited with playing a crucial role in the revitalization of painting, and he’s cited as an influence by many painters in the generation of artists that followed him. The subject of a retrospective last year at New York’s Guggenheim Museum, Bleckner unveils his first post-retrospective body of work today at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills. Chatting at the gallery, the 48-year-old artist reflected on the Guggenheim show, the evolution of his work and the meaning of life.

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Question: What’s the most widely held misconception about the art world of the ‘80s?

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Answer: There were several, but the main one was that artists became incredibly wealthy during those years. The ‘80s are getting slammed now, but all artists living or dead go in and out of fashion. My bet is that in 10 years people will reevaluate the ‘80s in a positive light because that decade produced lots of interesting work and revitalized the concept of painting.

Q: What did you learn about yourself and your work from the Guggenheim show?

A: Seeing the show was a real turning point. My work is about light and it’s always been my intention that the light in my work be emotional as opposed to theoretical. In other words, I wanted it to be the light of pleasure, and the show struck me as a little on the dark side--which surprised me. People had said that about me and my work for years, but it took seeing all the work together for me to see it. It made me realize I was being limited and that it was time to inject more of the pleasure and optimism I feel as a person into my work.

Q: What’s the central challenge an artist faces at mid-career?

A: Mid-career is the time to push because you finally have the control you need. Technique or talent don’t make an artist--it’s much more to do with sheer force of will and the need to express something you feel only you can express. By mid-career most artists have hammered out a language for themselves and the challenge then is to use it to express something of value.

Q: You’ve been closely involved with the AIDS epidemic, having lost friends to the disease, and as a high-profile AIDS activist. What has this experience taught you about death?

A: Being close to death has taught me the importance of living with a degree of moral conscience. I’ve also learned that I’m a resilient person, and that we all are essentially. I mean, what are you gonna do? Most of us do carry on, and I’m fortunate in that I have an optimistic attitude and don’t waste time being gloomy. That doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t reflect on a condition I’m witnessing or that I shouldn’t attempt to put it in my work.

Q: Having witnessed some very difficult things, what conclusions have you drawn about who or what is running the universe?

A: When you think about why things happen to people, and who dies when and why, it’s highly arbitrary. The problem with looking for grand schemes that tie everything together is that takes you down the road of ideologies.

There are many people you can give power to who will take it and tell you how to construct meaning, but in the end we have to patch it together ourselves with whatever tidbits and clues we have. People have an innate need to formulate systems of belief that prove that life adds up to more than the sum of its parts, but these systems are always arbitrary fictional constructs. Moreover, there are intense emotional needs shaping how we patch it together, so if you don’t have a calculated way of dealing with information you end up with all kinds of fundamentalisms. And zealotry of that sort is always driven by the fear that nobody’s in charge.

Q: You recently commented, “What I’m trying to do as my life goes along is to not have to make paintings out of dire emotional circumstances.” Why is that a goal?

A: What artists do is invent a language to communicate the feelings and insights they’ve had in their lives. You have to find a way to talk in that language without having to be in a state of emotional crisis or be cued by external forces. You can’t lead a productive life if you live in reaction to your emotions because it’s too exhausting.

Q: What’s the most one can hope for with a work of art? Can it affect the direction the world takes, or is art destined to merely comment on life as it is?

A: There are art forms that are essentially a form of commentary, but one should never underestimate the potential of work made by any individual who takes responsibility for the content of what they produce.

Q: What’s the chief occupational hazard of being an artist?

A: Loneliness, especially at the beginning. We’re all searching for meaning and that search requires that you deal with periods of loneliness. They’re difficult for all of us and I think one of the reasons painting continues to be valued so highly is because at its most basic level, it’s a singular practice that pivots on what one person does with their hands, alone, in dialogue with themselves.

* “Ross Bleckner: New Paintings” at Gagosian Gallery, 456 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills. Tuesdays-Fridays, 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Saturdays 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Closed Sundays and Mondays. Ends Nov. 2. (310) 271-9400.