dogmatika
The Air is on Fire
25 February 2007
'Do you find this disturbing?' he asks quietly. I nod in the affirmative. 'Me, too,' he says, sounding almost relieved. 'I find it really disturbing.'
Sean O'Hagan talks to David Lynch, in situ at the Fondation Cartier where his retrospective exhibition of paintings, photographs and short films runs until 27 May
We stare at another big recent piece called Do You Want to Know What I Really Think? The words are coming out of the mouth of a squat, evil-looking man holding an object that might be a tiny gun. He is standing opposite a seated woman who is naked save for what looks like a pair of men's underpants wrapped around her knees. Formally, it is what used to be called a mixed-media painting: the backdrop is a photograph which has been digitally manipulated, and on which Lynch has placed the two photographed figures. They, in turn, have then been painted on, as well as having bits of actual fabric glued to their bodies. 'Lotta glue,' says Lynch by way of elucidation.
[..]
Lynch's paintings and drawings are strangely lacking any discernible style, unlike his photographs which have his definable signature. Some paintings seem almost constructivist in their deployment of geometric shapes and random squiggles, while others seem simply to be frames from the story boards of films such as Blue Velvet and Fire Walk with Me. They are unified only by the strangeness of their subject matter, and, in places, recall the work of Outsider artists such as Henry Darger or Bill Traylor. Lynch obsessives will love them, but I much preferred his photographs, particularly the beautiful and disturbing Distorted Nudes series. As a photographer, at least, he is a surrealist.
I ask him whether he finds painting and film to be almost contradictory processes, the one intimate and singular, the other collaborative and doggedly single-minded.
'Well, to me, they're both intimate and singular. With film, you just have a crew and actors around you all the time, but the thing is to bring them along with the idea that is driving you. You stay true to the idea the same as you do with a painting. With film, you fall in love with an idea, you stay true to it, and you translate it into cinema, and you don't walk away from any element of it until it feels correct. Then, you just hope it feels correct to others, too.'
A flurry of David Lynch activity: Jennifer Dawson, [In]accessible: On the art of David Lynch and Lynch is the cover feature in the current Art Review. A catalogue of The Air is on Fire, containing 400 reproductions of the work and an audio CD of a conversation with Lynch, is distributed by Thames & Hudson.
[..]
Lynch's paintings and drawings are strangely lacking any discernible style, unlike his photographs which have his definable signature. Some paintings seem almost constructivist in their deployment of geometric shapes and random squiggles, while others seem simply to be frames from the story boards of films such as Blue Velvet and Fire Walk with Me. They are unified only by the strangeness of their subject matter, and, in places, recall the work of Outsider artists such as Henry Darger or Bill Traylor. Lynch obsessives will love them, but I much preferred his photographs, particularly the beautiful and disturbing Distorted Nudes series. As a photographer, at least, he is a surrealist.
I ask him whether he finds painting and film to be almost contradictory processes, the one intimate and singular, the other collaborative and doggedly single-minded.
'Well, to me, they're both intimate and singular. With film, you just have a crew and actors around you all the time, but the thing is to bring them along with the idea that is driving you. You stay true to the idea the same as you do with a painting. With film, you fall in love with an idea, you stay true to it, and you translate it into cinema, and you don't walk away from any element of it until it feels correct. Then, you just hope it feels correct to others, too.'
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