{"id":13526,"date":"2015-05-11T18:09:34","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T22:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=13526"},"modified":"2020-03-30T18:39:05","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T22:39:05","slug":"a-brush-with-painter-david-salle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/a-brush-with-painter-david-salle","title":{"rendered":"A brush with Brooklyn painter David Salle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first thing I noticed when I walked into David Salle\u2019s studio<\/a> in Downtown Brooklyn were his brushes. There were so<\/em> many of them\u2014big ones, small ones, long ones, short ones, skinny ones, chubby ones, fat ones. Wood stained handles, in vintage looking coffee cans of various sizes, leaning against one another like lovers, tips a rainbow of colors.<\/p>\n

Heralded \u201cthe worst painter in America\u201d by Hilton Kramer, the once infamous lead art critic for the New York Times<\/em>, Salle is now widely considered one of the major American painters of the past 40 years, responsible for, amongst other things, redefining neo-expressionism (For the record, Kramer said the same thing about Roy Lichtenstein.)\u00a0Though Salle grew up and attended an art school in the middle of the \u201cprairie land\u201d of Wichita, Kansas, he had marvelous teachers whom he still remembers fondly as \u201can older couple named Bill and Betty Dickerson.\u201d Coming to New York City was a thrill, he remembers. But it was also a mandatory move that would require great dedication and a life of poverty.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was always clear in those days that to pursue a serious career as a painter, one had to be in New York City,\u201d he told me, as we sat down for a chat. \u201cIt was an article of faith in the years when I just starting out that no one would have any money, that survival would be hard scrabble at best, that there was a community of peers and colleagues that supported one another and that is what got people through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salle can (and does) explain his art in the simplest terms possible: \u201cMy work is about putting things together.\u201d But one doesn\u2019t need Salle to understand that. It\u2019s the rest of him that\u2019s fascinating to me. What do you first think when you wake up in the morning? How do you drink your coffee? What clothes do you paint in? Do you stretch your own canvases? Do you know how <\/em>to stretch a canvas?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Most of all, I was fascinated by those brushes. I imagined them coming to life in some sort of Mannequin<\/em>-esque movie, fighting amongst each other, vying to be the one used to make his next masterpiece. David, use me!<\/em><\/p>\n

I had so many questions: Where do you get them? Do you use all of them? Do you enjoy buying them? Are you constantly on the hunt for the perfect one? How do you decide which one to use?<\/p>\n

David, who is quite reserved to begin with, seemed genuinely perplexed by my fascination\u2014it was clear no one had ever interrogated him about his brushes before. He looked at me almost pityingly. \u201cDon\u2019t you want to ask me about art criticism?\u201d<\/p>\n

Now it was my turn to be taken aback. I was like, Why would I want to ask you about art criticism? Everyone <\/em>asks you about art criticism. If I wanted to know about art criticism, I would just Google your name followed by the words \u201cart\u201d and \u201ccriticism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFair enough,\u201d said Salle, \u201cI suppose it\u2019s not that interesting, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

But these brushes, tho. They\u2019re uh-mazing.<\/em> I felt myself getting angry. You don\u2019t even think about them, do you? David looked around his studio, nodding. I\u2019ve never thought about it, but I guess there really are. And then, he looked at me again, realizing that relatively speaking, this was possibly the stupidest question anyone could ask him.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

Paintings are made with a brush, he said.<\/p>\n

I was clearly not going to budge.<\/p>\n

Sighing, he acquiesced. There is a famous art store in Rome (of course it would have to be in Italy) called Poggi<\/em>. It is the <\/em>place to go for brushes. The owner Mimeo, makes them by hand.<\/p>\n

You didn\u2019t think he was making those masterpieces with some piece of junk made in China, did you?<\/p>\n

By the way, David Salle has the most incredible hands I have ever seen. And, of course, some serious style. Other than talent (which should be obvious) painting is really about style. He takes his coffee with milk and a little sugar. He wears his regular clothes, which then get covered in paint and become his painting clothes.<\/p>\n

I came away from our meeting thinking about some of the more interesting things he said, like the idea that the discourse of art has become totally focused on intentionality and is divorced from human agency. That premium is put on content rather than form. That there is a de-emphasis on the fact that this is something that someone has actually made. <\/em>And that because it\u2019s true that someone <\/em>has actually made <\/em>these things, it\u2019s kind of thrilling to know a little more about that person.<\/p>\n

Which is why my interest in David Salle\u2019s brushes maybe isn\u2019t so trivial after all.<\/p>\n

Photos\u00a0courtesy of David Salle Studio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first thing I noticed when I walked into David Salle\u2019s studio in Downtown Brooklyn were his brushes. There were so many of them\u2014big ones, small ones, long ones, short ones, skinny ones, chubby ones, fat ones. Wood stained handles, in vintage looking coffee cans of various sizes, leaning against one another like lovers, tips […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1506,"featured_media":13540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA brush with Brooklyn painter David Salle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"David Salle is considered one of the major American painters of the past 40 years, responsible for, amongst other things, redefining neo-expressionism.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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