00:00:01.131 --> 00:00:06.126
(gentle music)
(waves crashing)

00:00:16.125 --> 00:00:18.297
(gentle music)
(waves crashing)

00:00:18.297 --> 00:00:19.550
(gulls squawking)

00:00:19.550 --> 00:00:23.157
- My work has always been
interested in history

00:00:25.814 --> 00:00:29.354
and how history never really leaves.

00:00:30.519 --> 00:00:33.067
You are shaped by history,

00:00:33.067 --> 00:00:37.236
even though your interest
and your ideology is the new.

00:00:40.260 --> 00:00:43.327
But the new is always predicated

00:00:45.415 --> 00:00:46.752
on the past.

00:00:46.752 --> 00:00:51.747
(gentle music continues)
(waves crashing)

00:01:02.033 --> 00:01:05.446
(gentle music continues)

00:01:13.083 --> 00:01:16.080
(jazz music in the background)

00:01:25.844 --> 00:01:29.171
Those containers, those ships,

00:01:29.171 --> 00:01:32.258
started to become really
interesting to me

00:01:32.258 --> 00:01:35.105
because they reminded me

00:01:35.105 --> 00:01:40.100
of how history operated
in the 15th century,

00:01:40.649 --> 00:01:44.435
when bodies and goods
were transported

00:01:46.014 --> 00:01:49.610
throughout the world

00:01:49.610 --> 00:01:52.221
to fuel economies,

00:01:53.357 --> 00:01:56.956
and that we're right
back there again.

00:02:00.190 --> 00:02:02.527
In that way, it's not so far

00:02:02.527 --> 00:02:06.694
from what I was doing
when I was a youth.

00:02:06.694 --> 00:02:08.342
(upbeat jazz music)

00:02:08.342 --> 00:02:11.668
Part of my interest in history came

00:02:11.668 --> 00:02:16.663
because I wanted to disprove
what I thought made me a freak,

00:02:17.003 --> 00:02:20.213
which, of course, was
that I could make art,

00:02:21.109 --> 00:02:24.289
and I didn't see any other
Black people doing it.

00:02:25.964 --> 00:02:30.250
And so my engagement in the
civil rights movement led me

00:02:30.250 --> 00:02:34.239
to a concern about African
Americans in the arts.

00:02:35.914 --> 00:02:36.783
And to know

00:02:36.783 --> 00:02:41.778
that there were African
American artists making art

00:02:42.264 --> 00:02:44.644
was so revelatory and extraordinary

00:02:47.144 --> 00:02:48.976
that I just ran to it.

00:02:48.976 --> 00:02:52.889
(rapid jazz drumming)

00:03:02.964 --> 00:03:07.959
And so I began making
works that could inspire

00:03:08.881 --> 00:03:12.643
and speak to
African American audiences.

00:03:12.643 --> 00:03:16.556
(jazz music continues)

00:03:20.869 --> 00:03:25.864
And the Black Panther
Party wanted to get artists

00:03:26.683 --> 00:03:29.923
to go into the community
and make imagery.

00:03:31.688 --> 00:03:35.794
So, mural-painting became
an important aspect,

00:03:35.794 --> 00:03:38.734
putting into practice the
things I had learned in school,

00:03:39.570 --> 00:03:43.077
to take that education and
bring it to the streets.

00:03:43.077 --> 00:03:48.072
Because in 1968,
the streets were ablaze.

00:03:48.505 --> 00:03:52.418
(jazz music fades)

00:03:53.596 --> 00:03:55.964
At the time, I was being trained

00:03:55.964 --> 00:03:58.182
to make art for its own sake,

00:03:58.182 --> 00:04:02.078
and because I lived in
a time of rebellion,

00:04:02.078 --> 00:04:03.666
I rebelled against that.

00:04:03.666 --> 00:04:07.173
(bright jazz music)

00:04:07.173 --> 00:04:11.278
I didn't want anything
to do with making art

00:04:11.278 --> 00:04:13.496
that was not didactic.

00:04:13.496 --> 00:04:17.842
I didn't see Black people in
museums that weren't didactic.

00:04:17.842 --> 00:04:20.509
I didn't see any Black
people in museums anyway,

00:04:20.509 --> 00:04:21.648
didactic or not.

00:04:21.648 --> 00:04:24.240
So, why shouldn't I do
what I wanted to do?

00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:28.070
(bright jazz music continues)

00:04:37.926 --> 00:04:41.755
(bright jazz music continues)

00:04:51.746 --> 00:04:54.198
(bright jazz music ends)

00:04:54.198 --> 00:04:57.445
(street noise humming)

00:05:04.955 --> 00:05:08.221
Although I was making a
decent living making murals,

00:05:08.221 --> 00:05:11.494
they did not really communicate me.

00:05:11.494 --> 00:05:13.736
(frantic jazz music)

00:05:13.736 --> 00:05:17.063
And I began to listen more to music

00:05:17.063 --> 00:05:22.058
which challenged my very
idea about what music was.

00:05:22.098 --> 00:05:24.555
Very abstract music.

00:05:24.555 --> 00:05:29.550
Stockhausen, Monk, Bela Bartok.

00:05:29.860 --> 00:05:32.644
You know...
(imitates discordant music)

00:05:32.647 --> 00:05:35.561
(discordant music)

00:05:36.873 --> 00:05:40.715
That's why abstraction
became so important to me.

00:05:40.715 --> 00:05:44.461
(discordant music continues)

00:05:52.105 --> 00:05:54.855
But I didn't believe
that abstract paintings

00:05:54.855 --> 00:05:56.681
were different from realism.

00:05:56.681 --> 00:06:00.189
(shimmery music)

00:06:00.189 --> 00:06:03.364
Multiplicity is what we are.

00:06:03.364 --> 00:06:05.432
We are never one thing.

00:06:05.432 --> 00:06:10.369
Even as a kid, I never subscribed
to this idea in the West

00:06:11.728 --> 00:06:14.425
that you have to figure
out what you want to be.

00:06:14.425 --> 00:06:17.332
Do you want to be a abstract artist

00:06:17.332 --> 00:06:19.041
or do you want to be a realist?

00:06:19.041 --> 00:06:19.873
Or do you...

00:06:19.873 --> 00:06:20.705
No, I don't.

00:06:21.858 --> 00:06:23.746
I'm a maker.

00:06:23.746 --> 00:06:26.206
I'm not an artist, I'm a maker.

00:06:28.691 --> 00:06:31.631
And as a maker, I don't have bounds.

00:06:33.996 --> 00:06:36.786
I can make anything that I can make.

00:06:39.840 --> 00:06:44.835
And therefore,
anything is available to me.

00:06:45.043 --> 00:06:47.623
(accordion music)

00:06:54.509 --> 00:06:59.171
On my first trip to Europe,
I went to Keukenhof Gardens,

00:07:00.579 --> 00:07:03.606
and the tulips really
flipped me out.

00:07:03.606 --> 00:07:05.497
Oh, I'll be right that way.

00:07:06.543 --> 00:07:09.394
I just wanted to get the
light on these flowers.

00:07:09.394 --> 00:07:12.808
(accordion music continues)

00:07:17.419 --> 00:07:19.730
I started trying to
understand those tulips.

00:07:21.078 --> 00:07:22.847
And so I took out my notebooks

00:07:22.847 --> 00:07:25.934
and I start filling them
up with imagery,

00:07:25.934 --> 00:07:29.460
just pouring out this flower.

00:07:29.460 --> 00:07:32.874
(bright music continues)

00:07:40.469 --> 00:07:43.949
In the 15th, 16th century,

00:07:44.815 --> 00:07:49.490
the Dutch began to sell
and use this flower

00:07:49.490 --> 00:07:52.157
and that flower got cultivated

00:07:52.157 --> 00:07:55.394
through certain biological processes

00:07:55.394 --> 00:07:58.091
that changed its form,

00:07:58.091 --> 00:08:01.838
trying to get a perfected
kind of flower.

00:08:01.838 --> 00:08:05.074
And the way that came into my work,

00:08:05.074 --> 00:08:06.813
like, when I saw the flower,

00:08:06.813 --> 00:08:09.000
that made me think about the history

00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:12.027
of the movement of
bodies, Black bodies,

00:08:12.027 --> 00:08:14.395
but also of the tulip.

00:08:14.395 --> 00:08:19.100
And that parallel was so striking

00:08:19.100 --> 00:08:24.095
because, of course,
Africans were bred later

00:08:24.405 --> 00:08:28.751
and they were created into varieties

00:08:28.751 --> 00:08:30.432
of which I'm a product.

00:08:31.268 --> 00:08:35.584
And so the tulip became
the perfect vehicle

00:08:35.584 --> 00:08:37.988
for my inquiry.

00:08:37.988 --> 00:08:41.068
(upbeat jazz music)

00:08:42.757 --> 00:08:47.752
What attracted me to this
flower was how I associated it

00:08:48.331 --> 00:08:52.227
with how Black folks
had made their way

00:08:52.227 --> 00:08:55.164
through the psychosis
of American culture,

00:08:55.164 --> 00:09:00.023
designed to repress their
every desire as slaves.

00:09:01.009 --> 00:09:03.379
But just like this flower,

00:09:04.335 --> 00:09:07.932
they push through into the heavens,

00:09:07.932 --> 00:09:10.326
pointed toward the light of the sun.

00:09:10.326 --> 00:09:14.239
(frantic jazz music)

00:09:15.454 --> 00:09:20.339
A human being is in a
constant war with gravity.

00:09:20.339 --> 00:09:25.943
From the moment you move your
head upright as an infant,

00:09:25.944 --> 00:09:30.939
trying to resist the
tendency of gravity

00:09:31.218 --> 00:09:33.289
to lock you in.

00:09:34.245 --> 00:09:37.991
And that flower is
demonstrating to me

00:09:37.991 --> 00:09:40.119
in that undulation that I saw

00:09:40.119 --> 00:09:42.607
that it was resisting,

00:09:42.607 --> 00:09:47.602
which is both
difficult... and joyful.

00:09:48.060 --> 00:09:51.140
(frantic jazz music)

00:10:01.048 --> 00:10:04.961
(frantic jazz music continues)

00:10:18.016 --> 00:10:21.263
(waves crashing)

00:10:29.121 --> 00:10:34.116
(ship horn blares)
(gulls calling)

00:10:38.631 --> 00:10:42.710
I grew up in an area
called Hunters Point.

00:10:45.704 --> 00:10:49.061
My parents wanted to leave Arkansas,

00:10:49.061 --> 00:10:51.192
where both my parents lived.

00:10:52.627 --> 00:10:54.965
My father came to work

00:10:54.965 --> 00:10:58.172
with a large number
of African Americans

00:10:58.172 --> 00:10:59.880
coming from the South,

00:10:59.880 --> 00:11:01.999
migrating in the 1940s

00:11:03.761 --> 00:11:08.364
'cause the shipyards
were absolutely teeming.

00:11:09.497 --> 00:11:12.347
(children shouting)

00:11:12.347 --> 00:11:14.928
But we went back to
Arkansas all the time.

00:11:17.742 --> 00:11:22.360
My father bought Cadillacs
when we drove to Arkansas.

00:11:23.257 --> 00:11:24.815
It wasn't until I got older

00:11:24.815 --> 00:11:28.082
that I understood the
reason he bought Cadillacs

00:11:28.082 --> 00:11:30.989
was because he wanted his
family to ride in comfort,

00:11:30.989 --> 00:11:33.000
because they couldn't
stay in hotels.

00:11:34.205 --> 00:11:37.284
(car engine rumbling)

00:11:39.201 --> 00:11:40.732
And he never stopped.

00:11:42.168 --> 00:11:44.685
It took my father
just under two days

00:11:44.685 --> 00:11:47.233
to get from
San Francisco to Arkansas.

00:11:47.233 --> 00:11:49.545
That generally took three days.

00:11:49.545 --> 00:11:52.792
(street noise humming)

00:11:53.766 --> 00:11:55.957
We couldn't go to grocery stores.

00:11:56.913 --> 00:11:57.995
It was sick.

00:11:58.831 --> 00:12:02.188
We had to go around to
terrible looking places

00:12:02.188 --> 00:12:04.196
to go use the toilet,

00:12:04.196 --> 00:12:07.282
and often we would have
to pull off the road

00:12:07.282 --> 00:12:08.394
and use the toilet.

00:12:11.029 --> 00:12:12.317
I think part of the reason

00:12:12.317 --> 00:12:15.674
I wanted to never go
back to Arkansas

00:12:15.674 --> 00:12:19.900
was because of those
experiences down there.

00:12:19.900 --> 00:12:23.197
Like, one of the words
I heard most often

00:12:23.197 --> 00:12:27.975
when my father would pull
into a gas station is,

00:12:29.467 --> 00:12:33.656
"Where'd you get
this Cadillac from?"

00:12:33.656 --> 00:12:36.024
They would not pump the gas.

00:12:36.024 --> 00:12:38.271
So, he would have to get his own gas

00:12:38.271 --> 00:12:42.704
'cause, "We don't see no
Cadillacs around here."

00:12:44.176 --> 00:12:47.539
Man, you know,
that's what I grew up in.

00:12:49.631 --> 00:12:52.628
(bright jazz music)

00:13:07.043 --> 00:13:09.560
While studying Western art,

00:13:09.560 --> 00:13:14.555
I started a deep search to try
to understand where I fit in,

00:13:15.404 --> 00:13:18.881
both my own history here
in the United States,

00:13:18.881 --> 00:13:23.220
but as Malcolm articulated,
we left our mind in Africa.

00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:26.044
How do we recover it?

00:13:26.044 --> 00:13:29.101
And we could only do it
through a deeper knowledge

00:13:29.101 --> 00:13:32.547
of what African thought was.

00:13:32.547 --> 00:13:35.784
And I began to try to integrate

00:13:35.784 --> 00:13:38.394
this way of thinking into my work.

00:13:40.020 --> 00:13:44.935
And I saw an image of
this in a book on slavery.

00:13:44.935 --> 00:13:49.930
And this was used to
collar Black people

00:13:50.329 --> 00:13:55.324
as they clamp this permanently,
because it opens up,

00:13:55.664 --> 00:13:56.956
on their neck.

00:13:58.032 --> 00:14:02.407
But in Africa, this was used

00:14:02.407 --> 00:14:04.895
as an instrument of dance

00:14:04.895 --> 00:14:06.696
that was worn on the body.

00:14:08.162 --> 00:14:10.468
And not only that, it's sonic.

00:14:10.468 --> 00:14:13.047
(collar clanking)

00:14:13.047 --> 00:14:14.335
But because it made noise,

00:14:14.335 --> 00:14:16.883
it could be used to subdue Blacks,

00:14:16.883 --> 00:14:20.599
a practical instrument
to let them know

00:14:20.599 --> 00:14:24.795
when the Black body was moving
too far in an environment.

00:14:24.795 --> 00:14:26.953
The very opposite of what this was.

00:14:26.953 --> 00:14:30.429
This is an object to
expand the person

00:14:30.429 --> 00:14:35.335
into its universal relationship
to a cosmic consciousness.

00:14:35.335 --> 00:14:38.731
(rhythmic percussion)

00:14:38.731 --> 00:14:42.357
And it was the void
that really got to me

00:14:42.357 --> 00:14:46.137
because that is
exactly African stuff.

00:14:47.272 --> 00:14:49.763
Potentiality is in the void.

00:14:53.206 --> 00:14:56.893
That's when I started
to paint this object,

00:14:56.893 --> 00:14:59.770
squeeze it and manipulate it,

00:14:59.770 --> 00:15:02.022
to transform this object.

00:15:02.022 --> 00:15:05.435
(rhythmic jazz music)

00:15:13.436 --> 00:15:18.112
And then I went into that room
where my son was standing,

00:15:18.112 --> 00:15:22.277
and he had thrown a hoodie
up against the wall,

00:15:22.277 --> 00:15:26.716
and it looked like something
was in this empty form.

00:15:27.732 --> 00:15:32.727
Then I thought immediately
of this, and that hoodie.

00:15:33.396 --> 00:15:37.375
So, this form created the hoodie.

00:15:37.375 --> 00:15:39.956
(jazz music continues)

00:15:45.125 --> 00:15:48.841
So, the hoodie is like
the trickster figure

00:15:48.841 --> 00:15:50.013
among the Yoruba.

00:15:51.119 --> 00:15:54.119
And this trickster figure
is called Eshu.

00:15:56.064 --> 00:15:58.881
In African form,

00:15:58.881 --> 00:16:03.645
there is this tendency to shapeshift

00:16:03.646 --> 00:16:05.837
and double sync forms.

00:16:06.703 --> 00:16:11.698
And Eshu is really a bringer
and a carrier of truth,

00:16:13.296 --> 00:16:14.645
just like the hoodie

00:16:14.645 --> 00:16:20.001
trying to undo some of
the deification of art.

00:16:22.617 --> 00:16:25.944
And therefore, the trickster carries

00:16:25.944 --> 00:16:29.780
many different components,
many different aspects,

00:16:29.780 --> 00:16:31.668
many different possibilities.

00:16:31.668 --> 00:16:36.863
That's why the hoodies are
entities of consciousness.

00:16:37.782 --> 00:16:39.916
They're pure energy.

00:16:39.916 --> 00:16:43.146
(jazz music continues)

00:16:43.146 --> 00:16:45.994
The Chicago Art
Ensemble had a record

00:16:45.994 --> 00:16:48.601
called "Certain Blacks."

00:16:48.601 --> 00:16:52.854
♪ Certain Blacks do
what they wanna ♪

00:16:52.854 --> 00:16:56.924
♪ Certain Blacks groove on love ♪

00:16:56.924 --> 00:17:00.113
♪ Certain Blacks, certain Blacks ♪

00:17:00.114 --> 00:17:03.562
♪ Dig they freedom,
dig they freedom ♪

00:17:03.562 --> 00:17:07.542
(singers screaming)
(drumming)

00:17:07.542 --> 00:17:10.776
- Now that, "Do what they wanna,"

00:17:12.307 --> 00:17:14.258
always stuck with me.

00:17:16.233 --> 00:17:20.462
And so I wanted whatever
comes out of this form.

00:17:21.344 --> 00:17:23.225
♪ Do what they wanna ♪

00:17:23.525 --> 00:17:25.264
♪ Do what they wanna ♪

00:17:25.264 --> 00:17:28.412
(discordant music)

00:17:28.412 --> 00:17:32.207
- Join them...(bold shout)

00:17:33.857 --> 00:17:36.604
(waves crashing)

00:17:38.108 --> 00:17:40.939
(gulls squawking)

00:17:44.768 --> 00:17:49.613
- Looking at the seas
and those great ships,

00:17:51.079 --> 00:17:55.967
I started to think about
shipping and its history.

00:17:59.350 --> 00:18:02.947
And then I started
walking around in Oakland

00:18:02.947 --> 00:18:06.573
along the piers for many years

00:18:06.573 --> 00:18:10.289
before I understood why I
kept coming down here to walk

00:18:10.289 --> 00:18:14.069
and be around all this chaos.

00:18:15.684 --> 00:18:19.610
And it turned out to be
the colors and the light

00:18:19.610 --> 00:18:23.719
and all fitting into
this sort of system.

00:18:24.855 --> 00:18:29.211
Like, how do you make
something so efficient

00:18:30.220 --> 00:18:32.977
but beautiful at the same time?

00:18:32.977 --> 00:18:37.922
And when you make it
ominous, huge, powerful,

00:18:37.922 --> 00:18:41.338
it represents something
psychologically.

00:18:41.338 --> 00:18:43.050
And so it's bigger than you.

00:18:43.916 --> 00:18:46.886
And so you become small in it.

00:18:50.779 --> 00:18:54.199
That whole thing about stacking,

00:18:55.934 --> 00:19:00.252
like stacks of money,
stacks of class.

00:19:02.078 --> 00:19:04.580
Where you are in that stacking.

00:19:04.580 --> 00:19:08.494
(helicopter blades whirring)

00:19:18.999 --> 00:19:21.999
(waves lapping)

00:19:22.517 --> 00:19:25.637
And then when their
contents spill out,

00:19:27.073 --> 00:19:30.699
all those bananas and
shoes and detritus

00:19:30.699 --> 00:19:33.606
from our cultural excess

00:19:33.606 --> 00:19:35.347
winds up going somewhere.

00:19:36.483 --> 00:19:38.701
But we don't see it,

00:19:38.701 --> 00:19:40.882
'cause they spill out in the ocean,

00:19:41.908 --> 00:19:44.126
like all those dead Black bodies

00:19:44.126 --> 00:19:46.703
during the Middle Passage,

00:19:46.703 --> 00:19:50.601
floating in the ocean,
washing ashore.

00:19:50.601 --> 00:19:53.926
(waves crashing)

00:19:53.926 --> 00:19:57.100
And then I saw "The Slave Ship."

00:19:58.145 --> 00:20:00.609
(gentle orchestral music)

00:20:00.609 --> 00:20:03.636
And like going to the
Keukenhof Gardens,

00:20:03.636 --> 00:20:07.505
I was once again stunned,
unable to move,

00:20:08.821 --> 00:20:12.297
because Turner had infused

00:20:12.297 --> 00:20:15.894
a kind of deep spiritual power

00:20:15.894 --> 00:20:18.316
in the face of horror.

00:20:18.316 --> 00:20:22.345
(orchestral music continues)

00:20:24.195 --> 00:20:28.331
So, I paid attention to
every mark that he had made.

00:20:28.331 --> 00:20:30.729
I saw the way he built it,

00:20:30.729 --> 00:20:35.994
the way he enveloped the work
with a kind of translucency.

00:20:40.509 --> 00:20:43.306
I knew I had to find a way

00:20:44.166 --> 00:20:47.372
to do what he was doing with light

00:20:47.372 --> 00:20:49.144
with these container ships.

00:20:51.568 --> 00:20:53.429
So, what could I use?

00:20:57.053 --> 00:21:02.448
The answer was in icon
paintings, gold leaf.

00:21:04.096 --> 00:21:09.758
So, in this piece,
at first it looks like a ship

00:21:09.760 --> 00:21:12.158
with its containers falling off,

00:21:12.158 --> 00:21:15.337
and then it could be bullion, gold.

00:21:18.122 --> 00:21:22.999
The only real God in
the capitalist modality.

00:21:24.215 --> 00:21:28.544
(orchestral music continues)

00:21:31.723 --> 00:21:34.303
When I was young, I had no hope

00:21:35.294 --> 00:21:37.902
of being in a gallery or a museum.

00:21:37.902 --> 00:21:42.367
Now, of course,
you can't have a museum

00:21:42.367 --> 00:21:46.173
that doesn't reflect to some degree

00:21:46.173 --> 00:21:47.855
the diversity of the country.

00:21:48.841 --> 00:21:52.170
The 21st century will
not look like the 20th.

00:21:53.306 --> 00:21:55.554
And, therefore, I'm hopeful

00:21:55.554 --> 00:21:59.513
because I know change is
inevitable in that way.

00:22:00.379 --> 00:22:05.374
But the art world is always
going to serve ideology.

00:22:06.313 --> 00:22:08.741
It serves the wealthy.

00:22:08.741 --> 00:22:10.929
Like right now, it needs the work

00:22:10.929 --> 00:22:13.027
of African Americans and Asians

00:22:13.027 --> 00:22:14.865
and the diversity of the world.

00:22:14.865 --> 00:22:19.860
The arts need it in order
to facilitate commerce

00:22:19.923 --> 00:22:22.767
(orchestral music continues)

00:22:22.767 --> 00:22:26.936
because art is a
powerful instrument,

00:22:28.251 --> 00:22:30.382
and that's why power uses it.

00:22:33.226 --> 00:22:35.297
It's the first thing they use.

00:22:36.463 --> 00:22:39.999
And then it's the first
thing they attack.

00:22:44.695 --> 00:22:48.411
But as an expressive person,

00:22:48.411 --> 00:22:52.967
the freest you will ever be is
making what you want to make.

00:22:52.967 --> 00:22:55.937
So, your role is to make.

00:22:56.816 --> 00:22:59.480
(rhythmic music)

00:23:15.624 --> 00:23:18.231
Every little while and again,

00:23:18.231 --> 00:23:21.621
I wind up putting
something else in it.

00:23:22.547 --> 00:23:25.424
Like, I didn't mean to
put those crows in there,

00:23:25.424 --> 00:23:29.440
but a black bird landed on my deck

00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:31.988
and that meant to me

00:23:31.988 --> 00:23:36.323
that the black bird wanted
to be in the painting.

00:23:36.323 --> 00:23:39.420
(music continues)

00:23:46.449 --> 00:23:49.443
They're coming to take
these to New York,

00:23:50.479 --> 00:23:54.016
so I'm trying to finish them up

00:23:54.016 --> 00:23:56.936
to just see if they do
what they need to do.

00:23:57.969 --> 00:24:02.743
And I got about nine
or ten hours to do that.

00:24:02.743 --> 00:24:06.001
(music continues)

00:24:18.519 --> 00:24:20.735
Okay. Well....

00:24:22.984 --> 00:24:25.999
(indistinct chatter)

00:24:38.540 --> 00:24:41.537
(upbeat jazz music)

00:24:45.288 --> 00:24:49.891
(indistinct chatter)

00:24:49.891 --> 00:24:52.896
(jazz music continues)

00:24:52.896 --> 00:24:57.141
(indistinct chatter)

00:25:11.008 --> 00:25:14.837
(jazz music continues)

00:25:24.737 --> 00:25:28.566
(jazz music continues)

00:25:32.953 --> 00:25:35.999
(indistinct chatter)

00:25:39.022 --> 00:25:44.017
(soft music)
(birds chirping)

00:25:47.596 --> 00:25:52.591
I'll show you some ideas that
I have for some newer works.

00:25:54.010 --> 00:25:55.950
You make this stuff,

00:25:55.950 --> 00:25:57.559
but you don't know

00:25:57.559 --> 00:26:02.164
how people are going to
deal with it. (laughs)

00:26:02.164 --> 00:26:03.840
It's not that you're painting

00:26:03.840 --> 00:26:06.777
to elicit a particular response.

00:26:06.777 --> 00:26:08.065
You don't know.

00:26:08.065 --> 00:26:11.882
But you can feel the
energy in the piece

00:26:12.938 --> 00:26:14.729
'cause you know it's right.

00:26:14.729 --> 00:26:17.296
Like, the minute I saw that,

00:26:17.296 --> 00:26:19.633
I knew I could do something with it.

00:26:19.633 --> 00:26:22.599
(lyrical clarinet music)

00:26:22.601 --> 00:26:27.596
Picasso explored the
transformation of the human form

00:26:28.265 --> 00:26:32.858
that African art had been
exploring thousands of years ago.

00:26:35.488 --> 00:26:37.736
Because when you
see something freaky,

00:26:37.736 --> 00:26:41.242
something that you can't
get out of your brain,

00:26:41.242 --> 00:26:43.032
that means that that thing

00:26:44.539 --> 00:26:48.075
is so profoundly interesting

00:26:48.075 --> 00:26:52.361
that it's re-forming
the way you think.

00:26:52.361 --> 00:26:54.942
That's why you're following it.

00:27:00.423 --> 00:27:04.839
The very act of painting or dance

00:27:05.728 --> 00:27:07.716
or literary utterance

00:27:08.875 --> 00:27:10.676
is a resistive.

00:27:11.512 --> 00:27:15.118
Resistance is your
absolute willingness

00:27:16.217 --> 00:27:18.645
to speak your tongue.

00:27:18.645 --> 00:27:23.640
And therefore, as a maker,
you have a special obligation

00:27:25.354 --> 00:27:27.739
to live through the materials.

00:27:28.415 --> 00:27:30.306
But whichever way, it's a portal.

00:27:32.221 --> 00:27:34.492
And painting is my portal.

00:27:36.448 --> 00:27:39.862
(clarinet music fades)

00:27:44.014 --> 00:27:47.094
(upbeat jazz music)

00:27:56.879 --> 00:28:00.792
(jazz music continues)

00:28:24.444 --> 00:28:27.193
(jazz music continues)

00:28:40.023 --> 00:28:43.853
(jazz music fades)