Page 31 - Studio International - March 1967

L'aimable vérité 1966
Oil on canvas
51 1/8 x 35 in.

Something rather miserable which inspires them. I inspiration. One cannot speak about mystery, one must
myself think the present reeks of mediocrity and the atom be seized by it. Otherwise, one is merely talking about the
bomb, but perhaps all times have been more or less the experience without really having it. I was very enthu-
same. I don't want to belong to my own time, or, for that siastic when I painted L'aimable vérité. Now it disgusts
matter, to any other. me: the moment of illumination is very brief. Two
The other day someone asked me what the relationship beautiful ideas in a text someone recently wrote on my
was between my life and my art. I couldn't really think of work are (1) that beauty is not a result of formalist
any, except that life obliges me to do something, so I concerns, and (2) that the future is the end of the world.
paint. I do not believe that man decides anything — either These ideas are not abstract. They are better than talking
the future or the present of humanity. A universe of for two hours about the evolution of the world.
chance? I don't know. Unknown forces? I hate talking Cubism is important (that is, Picasso's Cubism, since he
about that because it doesn't mean anything (like talking invented it) because it marks the end of the history of art.
about symbols). I think we are responsible for the uni- Up until Picasso, painting had been a matter of con-
verse, but this does not mean that we decide anything. struction, using different means. Everything that has
Cause and effect ? That's determinism, and there again, followed since then resembles in some way what went
one would have to believe in it. If one is a determinist, before. The Dadaists, on the other hand, were involved
one must always believe that there is a cause which pro- in destruction. They wanted to destroy the idea of art, to
duces the same effect. I am not a determinist, but I don't take away its importance. That was new. But after that,
believe in chance either. It serves as still another 'explana- people used Dadaist methods to make art. We can't go
tion' of the world. The problem lies precisely in not on destroying the idea of art because it's been destroyed
accepting any explanation of the world either through now. Some people continue to destroy an idea that has
chance or determinism. I am not responsible for my already been destroyed: they call it art. How to go on?
belief. It is not even I who decides that I am not respon- It's a delicate matter. To be in a situation which does not
sible—and so on to infinity—I am obliged not to believe. involve one in destruction, or construction either. When
There is no point of departure. people try to find symbolic meanings in what I paint,
Actually, we're a miserable lot. 'It is necessary to be they are finding a construction. They want something to
interesting.' This idea of being interesting is not interest- lean on. That is what I find so infuriating about people
ing because it is abstract. An image evokes all that by who look for—and manage to find—symbols. They want