Julian Schnabel (center) flanked by two of his masterpieces.
East Village artist paints ‘self portraits’
of other fi gures as famous artists
BY BOB KRASNER
Twenty-fi ve self-portraits of others, as painted by
Julian Schnabel, are now hanging at the Brant
Foundation in the East Village. There are “selfportraits”
of Van Gogh, Willem Dafoe as Van Gogh,
Frida Kahlo, Oscar Isaac as Caravaggio and his son Cy
as Velasquez and Christ.
It’s an interesting concept, which came about as
Schnabel was working on his fi lm about Van Gogh, ‘At
Eternity’s Gate’. Schnabel is obviously an artist who likes
a challenge, having directed a total of six movies, created
artwork that hangs in major museums around the world
(the Whitney, MOMA, Pompidou, Tate Modern etc.)
and recorded an album of mostly original songs (which
was not approved of quite as well as his other work). We
wondered if the painter thought about how this series
would be received and we were quickly apprised of his
state of mind, at the beginning.
“I thought they would think I was pretty stupid,” the
artist replied. “But I know that a great idea might not
make a great painting.”
Not only did Schnabel make his approval of the work
known to a group of 20 or so preview invitees, he spent
about an hour taking them on a tour of the show, explaining
his thought processes, techniques and his love
of other painters while taking the time to evaluate for
himself what he had accomplished.
“The paintings look radically different here than they
did in my studio,” he noted. One reason for that could be
that Schnabel doesn’t just prefer to paint with available
light, he fi nds that the less light he has, the happier he
PHOTOS BY BOB KRASNER
is. “As it’s getting darker, I paint more,” he explained.
“These paintings are happy in the dark.”
To make his point, he had the room lights turned
off, leaving the paintings transformed by the change
in illumination. Periodically Schnabel got close to the
works and took in the results of his work.
“You don’t really know what you’re doing when you’re
painting, you’re not thinking about painting, you’re just
painting,” he explained. “If it’s a good painting, then
every time you see it it’s like the fi rst time.”
Schnabel, who created his signature style of using a
large canvas (the works here are 72x60) covered with
broken ceramic plates in 1978, continues to employ that
method with a minor change in methodology.
“Of course when I started I placed all the plates, but
others prepare the canvas now. Sometimes I think their
attitude is, OK, let’s see you deal with that!”“Every
placement of plates poses a different problem artistically,”
he muses. “It’s an agitated surface – it
surprises you.” And, he notes, “a problem can be an
opportunity.”
Information for viewing ‘Julian Schnabel – Self Portraits
of Others’ can be found atwww.brantfoundation.
org
Julian Schnabel demystifies the process of his
work.
10 September 16, 2021 Schneps Media