New Jersey-born painter Philip Taaffe had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1982, and has since had his work included in the collections of Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Yet it is only now that he has
New Jersey-born painter Philip Taaffe had his first solo exhibition in New York in 1982, and has since had his work included in the collections of Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Yet it is only now that he has been given his first solo exhibition in London, with Paintings 2009-2011 opening at the Gagosian Gallery, Britannia Street tomorrow. Drawing on the history of abstract painting, Taaffe employs images from archaeology, nature and architecture, often combining many forms and cultural references, to create his decorative and multi-layered works. Here, Taaffe talks to AnOther about the literary element to his work and why he thinks the collage is the most significant artistic development of the 20th century.
Your paintings appeal to writers – why do you think that is?
I did a studio visit and interview with Colm Toibin a couple of months ago in preparation for the exhibition that I just opened in Dublin, a ten-year survey of my work, and he decided that he would write a story on the basis of coming to my studio. I showed a number of things related to the preparatory studies I make for paintings and a lot of the printed materials I use in the work. He considered it a Borgian experience in terms of the library and reference materials, a compendium of everything that one could possibly bring to a painted situation. The title of my Dublin show is Anima Mundi, touching on the Yeatsian concept of the over-soul, and he was very responsive to this.
And do your decorative works tell a story?
In terms of the internal pictorial narrative, what I try to do is tell a story by incorporating diverse geographical and historical subjects and themes, so there are these references that are brought together in unprecedented ways. I think this is appealing to writers.
What about your working process? Often you combine many mediums, actions and elements in a single work.
I am deeply interested in process, and I like various speeds and velocities in a work. I plan and deliberate a great deal before I apply certain gestures. The beginning result can take a very long time, and I take a long time deciding and trying things out imperially off the painting, outside of the painting. It’s a real process of extended deliberation. I’m always developing languages that I bring to different pictorial situations, in order to conclude the story and in order to make these unprecedented juxtapositions in the work.
Ritualistic and totemic imagery appears frequently in your work. Could you explain this fascination?
I think I have a great fascination with this. Very often painting is made up of repeated lines and gestures, a process of construction. I think there is a shamanistic dimension to what I do in terms of summoning archaic forces, testing the boundaries of every day experience. I am trying to get outside of myself to an ecstatic experience, so that the work transcends its material on a certain level. I think that’s something I am always aiming towards and participate in, so that I am both within and outside of the work.
What is sometimes not apparent in reproductions of your work is that they are often made up of complex layers and assemblages. What do you like about collage as a medium?
I think that the work is very hard to see in reproduction, not only because of the invisible layers but I think it also has to do with the kinaesthetic experience of the work relating to the body of the viewer. I think the collage is the most important artistic invention of the 20th century, and I continue to explore it. You feel liberated through the use of collage. It allows me to work indirectly on a painting, and yet the end result seems as though it has a sleight of hand. I like to bring information to the painting, and collage allows that.
Are you conscious of there being a spiritual element when you’re creating a painting?
This is a hard thing to talk about. I use the word apathetic when I discuss this, which means that I talk about what a painting is not about. It’s a way of describing something in an elliptical way. I think transcendentality creates the peripheral erotic dance around the spirituality, which is the best way of summoning the spiritual in art. Somehow, this indirect sensitivity allows a kind of generosity or a sense of grace to envelop the work. It is something that has more to do with how I exercise these various forces that I bring to a work and the proximity of elements within a work, which creates a kind of erotic spiritual dimension.
What experience would you like the viewer of your work to have?
I think about when a painting has moved me; when I am transported, I feel the experience that the artist lived through in the making of the work, and it’s like going on a journey and coming back with a certain kind of evidence that is being given to the viewer. I want a very generous experience [for the viewer of my work]. I want to give the viewer a lot and I want the viewer to feel transported and to feel that I am delivering something from this journey I’ve been on. I want them to feel that.
This is your first solo show in London, and it seems like it’s been a long time coming! How do you feel?
Yes, it’s incredible to me that this is my first solo show in London, and even though I’ve been in various group exhibitions here, it’s a wonderful time for me. I’ve worked for a number of years on this exhibition and I’m thrilled to present it in this context. We are just going to have the natural light of the gallery in the exhibition — it's the best time of year!
Paintings 2009-2011 at Gagosian Gallery, Britannia Street runs from 7 April – 14 May.
Text by Lola Lalic
