Seeing Something Awful

“People don’t realize that when you are working on a painting, every day you are seeing something awful,” Albert Oehlen said in an interview with Peter Schjeldahl from the New Yorker. I burst out laughing when I read that. I don’t mean, that Oehlen was joking, not at all. What he said was funny because it’s the truth, but so awful a truth, that nobody wants to come out and say it. Once you hear somebody say that, you have to admit it’s true. It has to be true. If a panting looked wonderful after the first splash of paint, it would be done. While that can happen once in a rare while, we know that artists work on a painting for hours, days, sometimes weeks and months. During all that time, they would have to be dissatisfied with what they’re looking at, otherwise….it’s obvious. So, what drives the artist is that, as Oehlen says, he’s looking at something awful.
This is not how the public sees artists’ work. The public prefers the kitschy, idealized image of the smock wearing, beret topped artist who merely channels “inspiration.” Ha.
The dramatic mood of the work is comic, beset by existential worry, Oehlen continued. It’s as if each picture wondered, “What am I? Am I even art? O.K., but what does that mean?”
The article by Peter Schjeldahl appeared in the New Yorker, June 22, 2015, p82.
More paintings by Albert Oehlen at https://www.google.com/search?q=albert+oehlen&biw=1321&bih=796&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0CI0BEIkeahUKEwirxaLszdHHAhVKeT4KHWRkBpQ
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