Episode X: Agnes Martin - I paint with my back to the world

00:00:04: Welcome to Art Unquoted, I'm Charlotte de Saga.

00:00:07: And i am Isenia Benin.

00:00:09: We are two billion based art professionals who think that in a world of noise revealing things can sometimes be found in few words.

00:00:19: In each episode we take single quote and see where it leads us.

00:00:23: This is Spark & Friction.

00:00:34: Back To Art.

00:00:35: Unquote It!

00:00:37: What's our quote for today?

00:00:40: Agnes Martin The painter who said, I paint with my back to the world.

00:00:45: Ah great!

00:00:46: A quote

00:00:50: from a super famous and extremely elaborate painter.

00:00:53: What's your first thought?

00:00:55: Hmm...I think that statement is often misunderstood.

00:00:59: People thinks she's rejecting the word but it's more subtle than that.

00:01:03: Hmm gone.

00:01:05: She isn't rejecting the words.

00:01:06: she turns away from representing them.

00:01:10: She's not painting landscapes or objects, she is painting her inner state.

00:01:16: Her emotional landscape?

00:01:17: Yeah and the way she expresses it is through very subtle colors lines fields grits hand drawn lines repetitive imperfect And the grid becomes a container for emotion in a way.

00:01:32: Her paintings have a very distinctive style.

00:01:36: You know, to this day I remember seeing her with respect if it luck my in two thousand sixteen and i was struck by something.

00:01:43: I couldn't quite Put into words.

00:01:46: Remember standing in front of those paintings?

00:01:49: I felt something that was both Familiar And at the same time completely foreign like she was showing me a part of the world That I didn't know existed but still felt comfortable In and recognize it.

00:02:04: That foreignness, that otherness is part of what makes her work so unique I think.

00:02:10: and it's just not about turning inward.

00:02:13: It's about what she finds there.

00:02:16: Whether you hint at that Martin had a mental sickness she struggled with?

00:02:21: Yes, and I think that's important to know not because we need to psychoanalyse her work or idealize our judgmental state but Because it probably explains something about the quality of her paintings in the extreme sensitivity in hers perception Inwards and outwards.

00:02:40: The foreigners maybe they way he agrees feel both mathematical and deeply emotional.

00:02:46: at the same time, it is a very special duality don't you think?

00:02:51: Yeah.

00:02:51: A very specific strict order.

00:02:54: most people when they turn inwards find familiar territory.

00:02:58: but Martin found something else Something that most of us do not have easy access to for instance a very refined extended awareness...

00:03:08: ...a different kind of inner world Especially when it comes down to the New Mexico Paintings, which is a cycle of six works titled With My Back To The World.

00:03:18: Which is directly associated with the quote we're talking about today... ...which was took from an interview by Chuck Smith in nineteen ninety seven.

00:03:27: Yes and I don't want to elaborate on pathological inner world but on different one One that had its own logic and poetry And That Is So Focused On Beauty

00:03:39: Yeah, and when she painted it.

00:03:40: She brought the beauty to this surface.

00:03:42: And so in that sense her grits aren't just containers for emotion there are containers for specific kind of Consciousness that reveals aspects of reality.

00:03:53: they're not visible Not visible in the first place It's says Beauty is an awareness In the mind.

00:03:59: she once stated mm-hmm.

00:04:01: That statement revealed So much about the paintings um?

00:04:05: That's where their soul strange and so beautiful at The same time.

00:04:08: They are not trying to be beautiful in a conventional sense, they're trying to true what she was experiencing.

00:04:17: Yeah the poetry of the non-visible world

00:04:19: really?

00:04:20: Isn't it that makes her work so outstanding?

00:04:23: In a way yes and... It is fascinating how artists can make the invisible visible.

00:04:30: Something through certain principles where an atmosphere can arise from for instance The Grid in Martin's case.

00:04:37: It is so precise, so mathematical but with the human touch.

00:04:42: it's like she saying that in a world I'm experienced has its own order.

00:04:46: Its not chaotic.

00:04:48: Same for the hand-drawn lines.

00:04:50: Do you remember?

00:04:50: they are so imperfect because their hands can't be perfect?

00:04:54: And in that imperfection where emotion lives... ...it's the trace of her presence at work.

00:05:00: Yeah!

00:05:02: As if this is real.

00:05:06: So the grid is both a container and a kind of evidence?

00:05:11: Yeah,

00:05:11: an evidence for consciousness that most of us don't experience.

00:05:16: And yet when we stand in front of her paintings recognize something in them We feel something but we can't quite name

00:05:24: That foreigners again.

00:05:26: Is it alienating?

00:05:27: I don't know what you think.

00:05:29: It's very much about beauty i guess and its also like she saying there are other ways of being in the world.

00:05:39: So no wrong or right, and they're valuable.

00:05:42: And worth paying attention to...and worth bringing to the surface!

00:05:46: On top of that her works are highly elaborate on a painterly

00:05:50: level.".

00:05:51: When she said I paint with my back to the World She wasn't rejecting The World.

00:05:56: She was saying i have access something That the World doesn't usually see.

00:06:02: I have a window into different kind of consciousness and access to see and perceive beauty.

00:06:06: I'm going bring that back, create beauty not explain it or justify.

00:06:12: just show what is real matters.

00:06:15: She's no trying be universal.

00:06:17: she isn't trying speak all us everyone being radically direct about her experience in that radicality naturally becomes Becomes universal.

00:06:31: Yeah, in a way everyone is familiar with the feeling where the world doesn't make sense at least for tiny short moments and Martin is saying that's okay It's even worth painting these moments.

00:06:43: So In a way the grid is a way of saying I understand this?

00:06:48: Can contain this

00:06:49: yes Way of saying i'm not lost i am NOT confused i'm right here.

00:06:56: i think That Is quite A fantastic gift of her words.

00:07:00: Yeah, she brings the poetry off a non-visible world into visibility and in doing so She gives us permission to do the same To stop pretending that what we see is all there?

00:07:12: To acknowledge That they are other ways of being unseen.

00:07:16: Oh And but it truly matter anything.

00:07:19: There was quite an enlightening walk with our backs to the world than back.

00:07:24: yeah One quote two perspectives along

00:07:27: for grits And that's all the time we have for today.

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00:07:43: We'll be back soon with more ideas to unpack.

00:07:47: Thank You For Listening.