In Defense of Himself

The merits of Julian Schnabel’s art have been a subject of debate for 15 years, but one thing’s for sure--everybody’s interested in it. When a selection of his work of the past 14 years opened last week at PaceWildenstein, the Beverly Hills gallery was a mob scene of collectors, curiosity seekers, art students and power brokers. Schnabel’s first L.A. exhibition in 10 years, the show also attracted several actors whose presence may have to do with the fact that the artist’s filmmaking debut last year, as director and screenwriter of “Basquiat,” earned him good reviews. A biography of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat who died of a drug overdose in 1988, the film is but the latest installment in a career even Schnabel’s detractors concede is unfolding with bravado and daring. In a conversation with the 44-year-old artist at the gallery, Schnabel reflected on sticks and stones and beauty.

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Question: Of all the artists who established their careers in the ‘80s, you seem to have been given the hardest time by the critics; why do they pick on you?

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Answer: People say I was part of the Reagan era, but I had nothing to do with Ronald Reagan. Whenever the ‘80s come up, people start talking about money, but how much a painting sells for doesn’t change the painting, and if it sells for a lot that doesn’t make it a scam. I’ve never tailored my work to other people’s expectations--I have too much respect for people to insult them that way--and have always believed that if you make your work to please yourself you might be wrong, but at least you’re not lying.

I wouldn’t say I’ve had a particularly hard time--criticism comes with the territory. It does seem, however, that some people are given more leeway than others. If you’re successful as a painter it means you’ve sold out. Actors, on the other hand, have their faces reproduced everywhere yet nobody attacks them as egomaniacs. I recently did a junket for “Basquiat” and a journalist asked me if Jean-Michel was a product of the hype of the ‘80s art world. I said, “You want to talk about hype? This is hype. I’ve talked to 200 people in two days, there’s a marketing mechanism at work here, and I’m talking to you because you’re selling tickets.” That’s hype. The point being, that different rules apply to different fields of endeavor.

Q: You recently made a series of paintings, “The Conversion of St. Paolo Malfi,” in homage to a friend who was struck by a car and killed in 1995. What was the genesis of that work?

A: Malfi was like an idiot savant who could say things that were incredibly pure and touching. He worked for Francesco Clemente and he loved Francesco and me, and loved painting very deeply. The car that hit him dragged him for 300 meters, so his death really was a kind of a martyrdom. I heard there wasn’t anybody at his funeral, and it struck me that there would be no record of his life, and that’s what moved me to make the paintings.

Q: Why is it important that lives be remembered?

A: Because that’s at the core of the continuity of humanity. People leave things around that enable us to connect with them after they’re gone, and it’s a privilege to know some of these people. Jean-Michel Basquiat is in his paintings, and Beethoven’s music enables him to remain eternally in the present. Art can touch the soul in ways that are unexplainable.

Q: Religion is a recurring theme in your paintings, which often pivot on themes of martyrdom and redemption. What draws you to this subject matter?

A: Art history is filled with religious imagery and it’s a tradition I respond to. However, I don’t believe in organized religion or God, nor do I think this is a particularly just universe we’re living in. But I don’t think that’s a reason not to fight for justice.

Q: How do you see your work evolving?

A: The early work felt like a Whitmanesque cataloging of things, but the more recent paintings compress the whole catalog into one image. I used to work the paintings through in my mind before I began them, but I no longer have a preconception of what the picture will look like before I begin--I just decide it’ll be a certain size and deal with specific materials, and the image evolves out of that. My paintings have always existed in a kind of time warp, and I’m always looking for ways of drawing that conjure up something in the memory. The plate paintings, for instance, were about trying to find a way to make a stroke that would convey a sense of things breaking up at the same time they were congealing.

Q: You recently commented that making “Basquiat” gave you a better understanding of what his contribution was; precisely what was it?

A: Jean-Michel made paintings the way a great musician makes music. He cataloged language in a completely original way, and had a belief in his sense of language that enabled him to say, “This is my version.” If people looked at paintings the way they listened to music and surrendered to it to the same degree, they’d be very moved by his work. Jean-Michel wasn’t a novelty act, and it’s not because he was black or took heroin that we know about him; we know about him because he was talented. Making the film about him was a good experience for me and I’m working on another script, but I’m in no rush to do it because I’m still the custodian of this last film.

Q: Describe a few of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen.

A: The first thing that comes to mind is my wife, but I can’t restrict my answer to visual things because the question makes me think of Miles Davis and Henryk Gorecki’s Third Symphony. There are so many different faces of beauty. There are images in [Truffaut’s] “The Four Hundred Blows”; seeing the Eiffel Tower as you drive by in a car; the opening sequence of the Andrei Tarkovsky film “Andrei Rublev”; Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull,” jumping up and down in slow-motion to [Pietro Mascagni’s] “Cavallari rusticana”; language when it’s used with great eloquence; Ayers Rock at sunrise; surfing 30 years ago in San Blas, Mexico, at sunset in pitch-black waves. So much in life can move you if you’re open to it.

* “Julian Schnabel: Selected Paintings” is on view through April 19 at PaceWildenstein, 9540 Wilshire Blvd. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (310) 205-5522.