Students often have the chance to sit through lectures on an artist’s work given by their art history professor, but rarely from the artist himself. On Wednesday the third lecture in the Samuel Silipo Lecture Series gave students this exceptional opportunity to see and hear about works from one of America’s leading contemporary artists himself, Eric Fischl.
“Art is a desperate attempt to make friends,” Fischl began, before launching into a thoughtful lecture on his works, attempting to make a friend out of the whole audience.
Known for his paintings featuring nude figures in both ordinary and bold situations, Fischl works have been shown widely over the past couple decades, both nationally and abroad.
“[Fischl is], more than anyone, responsible for and associated with the return of figurative form in American painting,” said Professor of Art Jeffrey Schiff in his opening remarks.
As a young artist in the 1970s, Fischl found himself among a generation of artists struggling with and against the idea that painting was dead, paired with a widespread movement away from representation. Fischl worked to produce paintings that proved otherwise. His lecture covered works from his early career to the present day, allowing him to walk through his creative process and development as an artist.
The first work Fischl showed and discussed, “Praying Daughter (1977),” characterized an early series of experiments in which he painted with oil paints on glassine paper. The smooth, translucent qualities of the paper allowed Fischl to truly experiment with his compositions as he could layer sheets on top of each other and easily wipe away marks.
As Fischl guided the audience through his interior dialogue while starting a painting, he revealed his process of construction and association. He reflected on his growth and development at that time.
“I discovered deeper relations to body language [and] psychological content that began to focus me,” he said.
As he became more focused, and his fluid manner of working more fixed, Fischl felt ready to create a paintings on a traditional canvas. It was then that he began the work that he is recognized for today.
“[I realized that] if I could actually make a painting, it would be more heroic,” he said, acknowledging that greater risks equaled greater rewards.
What resulted was his 1979 painting “Sleepwalker,” in which he captured an intimate moment of a boy standing in a kiddie pool.
“I had to look into areas I knew were loaded [and] into subject matter powerful enough to convey, at the very least, sincerity,” Fischl said.
Engaged in a struggle with personal and social taboos, Fischl commented that giving this work its title helped him to finish it, viewing it as an unconscious act.
On a visit to the beaches of southern France in the early 80s, Fischl found himself confronted with public nudity, which he admitted “freaked me out in a kind of compelling way.” Fischl then began exploring the socialized body language of a nude figure in public, realizing that he could take his figures off the beach and put them anywhere.
“[Fischl’s work] is presenting us with situations or setups that are supposedly socially ‘ugly,’ or at least banal, yet his technique is so beautiful […] that the image visually seduces you while the content repels you,” said Sara Swetzoff ’07. “It plays with your head. I like that.”
Returning to a discussion of his creative process, Fischl explained why he prefers to paint from collages of photographs rather than models.
“I make a distinction between posture and pose and I learned very early that I don’t like poses,” he said, explaining that he looks for a moment of body language that particularly strikes him.
This process was manifested in Fischl’s recent body of works, “The Krefeld Project,” in which he furnished a Mies van der Rohe house in Germany and hired two actors to improvise scenarios. He photographed their interactions and used the pictures to create a series of paintings.
Aside from his creative process, Fischl also highlighted common themes and preoccupations in his body of work including time and the creation of a moment that contains meaning.
“I liked how he discussed his use of diptychs,” said Andy Vernon-Jones ’05. “He described the relationship between the two images as one of time. You get the first picture, then the second, and what’s in between is time.”
Many students came to the lecture as part of a studio art class, while others were attracted by Fischl’s reputation alone.
“When I first saw the list of artists who were coming to campus for this series of talks, Fischl’s name was the one that immediately stood out to me,” Vernon-Jones said.
Fischl projected slides of his work on the large screen of the CFA Cinema. He spoke slowly and thoughtfully, often pausing between images to collect his own thoughts and allow the audience to observe.
“He was mildly self-deprecating, which is always a good way to be when you know your work can speak for you in regards to your skill,” Swetzoff said. “His tone and relaxed attitude made him accessible and kept the focus on his work.”
“I liked that he was casual with out being shtick-y,” said Jake Levin ’06. “His paintings aren’t about big ideas or anything, they’re about tone, mood, ambiance. They are figurative and narrative and as self-explanatory as they can be.”
Fischl delivered his lecture evenly, not even showing a change of emotion when discussing his controversial 2002 sculpture, “Tumbling Woman,” created for the anniversary of Sept. 11. Ironically, this work’s figure representation became contentious as the commemoration of the events shifted from individual victims to abstraction and architecture.
Fischl’s talk gave students the invaluable opportunity to hear an artist discuss first hand his relationship to his works and his work process. For students interested in seeing Fischl’s work, an exhibition of his recent works stemming from the Krefeld Project will be opening at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York on March 5. For the chance to hear an artist talk, the last lecture in the series will be given Tuesday, March 1 by Ben Lifson, known both for his own photographs and writings on photography.
“It is always interesting to hear an artist talk about his work,” Levin said. “It’s always fun to see a hot shot artist. Fischl is the closest thing artists have to a rock star.”
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