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PARTISAN REVIEW
that it is not regiqnal, and that my work will find a response in
people's hearts.
RS:
Are you excited by America, by this New York environment?
EN:
I like being here in Soho very much. I believe that life here is very
interesting and dynamic. I have been quite successful in Europe. I
have had shows in Europe and my work is being sold. Nevertheless, I
want
to
live in the United States because the American rhythm is so
appealing to me. I feel like a native American who has left and has
forgotten the language and now has come back.
You know, all my life, even from childhood, I have had the
feeling that somewhere near me there was a true, intense life. But I
have never been able to live this life, rather I have always felt like I
was living in a dream-a feeling that one day I will wake up and
begin to live this life. I kept trying but I couldn't wake up.
When I went to Europe, this feeling remained. I was received by
the richest people, presidents, cardinals, but all the same I had the
feeling that I wasn't living my own life but was watching a movie.
When I came
to
the United States-I mean only New York, because I
haven't seen the rest of the country-I am delighted in a way that I
hadn ' t imagined with all the bad things and with the good things. I
am a New York drunk, I am a real drunk. A man from Soho is a real
man. He has clothes that keep with the forms of life. Park Avenue,
where I live, is a place for the rich, the very rich. Harlem is a place
where the poor live, the real poor, true to life poor. I do not want to
say that this is socially good, but these contrasts, this rhythm is very
close
to
the rhythm of my nature. And for the first time in my life, I
don 't have an abnormal rhythm.
RS:
Would you describe yourself as a Marxist or an anti-Marxist?
EN:
In the sense that I don 't believe in Marxist utopia, I suppose I am
anti-Marxist. But I deeply respect Marx's analysis. It's just that I am
an artist, and I'm less interested in economy than in the problem of
what we are, where we are from, and where we are headed. Marx does
not answer these questions. But without that answer man cannot
live. I believe that Marxist analytic method has a future if it is
developed. But a method cannal become a religion. And Marxists
have made it a religion. In other fields, say semiotics, where Lhi–
Strauss has invented a great method, that is only a method. And
many have substituted Uvi-Strauss's method for a religion.
RS:
So you think art has a social function?
EN:
Art definitely has a social function: to remind man of his dignity
and his freedom.
