600
G. R.
SWENSON
SWENSON:
What is the blanket-like form at the bottom of the picture?
ROSENQUIST:
It is 'a huge arabesque, a huge fold. I painted it as a fold
of aluminum material, an image of aluminum cloth. It appears soft,
like a blanket.
It reminds me of a painter's drop cloth, finishing up the
bottom of the painting, hanging under the painting out onto the
floor, catching the drops and residue of his paint. That's the nature
from the artist's brush. The idea-his art- is on the wall; the junk
or stuff of paint on the floor is nature, and something else. The artist
is like a samurai; he selects something, and his art is what the artist
says it is, it's not something else. The shiny grey arabesque is
an
extension of the relation betwe'en the painter and nature which could
be a drop cloth or paint quality.
Then the arabesque changes into foodstuff, into spaghetti, and
from its grey color into orange. The painting has its ending in
an
orange field, the image of spaghetti.
SWENSON:
Some critics have said you have a love of size for its own
sake. Do you?
ROSENQUIST:
No.
SWENSON:
What about originality for its own sake?
ROSENQUIST:
Not conscious of it- and not of art for its own sake.
I do it for myself, but there is the possibility that it could appeal
to all kinds of people, that it could snag someone into looking. I
thought maybe if paintings were just done very well, the person
could grasp something in one way immediately, the look of it,
visually. After a person has reached a certain thing, after he has gone
through it, then he could discard it.
The fault of this picture may be that it l'ets someone get too
far off the beam ; one person said that I had a love for the billboard
-and damnit, I don't love it at all.
SWENSON:
You were quoted in the
Times
as saying that you wanted
this painting to be an antidote to the new devices that affect the
ethics of the human being. . . .
ROSENQUIST:
Yes. I hope this picture is a quantity that will release the
idea of the new devices; my idea is that a man will turn to sub–
version if he 'even hears a rumor that a lie detector will '
be
used on
him in the normal course of business. What would happen
if
a major
corporation decided to use all the new devices available to them?
I'm sure the hint of this is starting to change people's ethics.
I said this picture was an antidote. To accumulate an antidote
