Muse
>> welcome back. p.s.-1’s mission is to showcase talent of don laurie, known for his music. p.s. 1 discovered he had another talent all along, painting.
>> i had a band for a long time, which was the primary thing i did. i acted in some movies but through all that time, i was painting. i knew that the art world was not waiting for them. towards the end of the night, i started my own record company. i had an office with five people working in it. i had the van and was doing hollywood sub floors to fund this. my health was going weird. i wasn’t feeling right. i could function but didn’t feel right, and well, i couldn’t take it anymore, and i pulled the plug. one day i went to get something to eat and i had this attack.
>> i couldn’t walk straight and went to the hospital. i couldn’t leave the house. my visual disturbance was so great. i was stuck. i wrote in my memoirs, my brain is starting to go. i started to write a word and then somebody bought me art supplies. i thought, hey, i had beening ng it but stopped in the late 90’s because i got so busy.
>> with his world out of whack came a f frenzy of paintings.
>> nine out of ten times i do not have a subject in mind when i start.
>> i’m influenced by everything from a bar of soap in the chinese store on the corner to a condom package in japan. i try to look at whatever presents itself. i try to kind of blend it and make it, you know, one deal. i have a good line. i have a good feel when i’m not tremoring. i have these two different styles, depending on what is happening with my body. i try not to do animals and they come. we all have that. people relate to it. i don’t want to analyze it. at a certain point hey they were sort of good but not great, their titles would save them. now everybody says i should stop writing on the paintings, they are too good. i guess i don’t need a title anymore.
>> how did his work find its way to p.s. 1?
>> it came up by accident. my friend lisa rosen was at a dinner party and my name came up so she said, okay, we want to do a show in three months.
>> off the gallery is the intimate group.
>> the private room is a compilation of a ton of my music and we put it together in three c.d.’s that we will be playing constantly in that room. i couldn’t put it together. i create ed this spot for this character because i was too shy. the edge dairy marvin gaye.
>> how does he compare music to art?
>> i was one of the gr groovy people, arrogant people. i would walk down 34 the street, and i wouldn’t even see the people. i wouldn’t see the guy in the wheelchair. then you go and then you become one of them and say there is a certain amount of light. this is for real. i don’t want to get new age, but in a way, it is the best thing that happened to me. i miss music where i get goose bumps but that’s, you know, that’s something that is almost too much to ask for, like that moment, you know, or that hour or whatever where your heart is wide open and creative, you don’t get that exalted chill from doing art. on the other hand, you can do it at 5:00 in the morning and no one is yelling out of the phone. you can’t wreck it. if you don’t so it to anyone, it will be right here. there is something in your essence that gets bigger, and i nailed it, yeah!
>> in “muse new” the louvre will end atlanta’s hyde museum beginning in october. most of the works have not been seen in the united states. the louvre will raise $7 million to pay for the renovation of its furniture rooms. the first and biggest show is called kings as clock tores, including one of the treasures from the louvre’s permanent collection.
>> in rehearsal, man dance, king dance, at the joyce theater.
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>> welcome to “muse.” today we are at p.s. 1 outside manhattan in long island city, a showcase for a burgeoning talent will the arts. this is the museum of modern art celebrating its 3 ogth year in the public schools. summer is the favorite season. on the other side of this wall, every weekend, p.s. 1 becomes and your ban beach party. we will go in and see the paintings of don laurie but david scriewl ya is a prize-winning poet and chairman of the national undo youment for the arts. they are the largest national contributor to the arts. we talk about the role of art and government art funding.
>> art is this mysterious enterprise that has been around since the earliest notion we had of what humanity was. it combines enchantment and entertainment with illumination, with delight, enlightenment and consolation. when people have a death in the family, art consoles them. in moments they are changing, art provides wisdom about what the next step is. taking a real beating during the culture wars, how are things going?
>> very well. i have been chairman three years, we have been able to get the budget raised every year plus extra money. we have federal partnerships. the department of defense is giving us a million toll bring exhibits to military bases. we have reaffirmed the nea’s place as an important institution whose role it is to bring the best of the arts to the broadest you audience possible. we have the shakespeare program, the jazz program, the masterpieces program. i think that we have filled it with hope about, you know, the upside of the positive nature of public leadership in the arts.
>> that would also include transgressive or controversial arts?
>> it is a false debate, because what the nea does, we are the only institution in the united states which covered all the arts, in all the states and all the jurisdictions as ale was arts education. that means we have an enormously wide range of arts we cover, from the most provocative to traditional and comforting. it’s our job to do the range of american arts.
>> you’re also an be a blished poet. as a creative artist, you hold this chairmanship. how does that position as a creative artist come with the nature of your role?
>> i look at problems differently. many of the chairmans have been lawyers and political people. a lot at what i do is look at arts from two perspectives -- the audience and artists. how do you give artists meaningful work so they can develop their craft, like an actor. this country is full of under en employed artists. i try to do programs that gives these a chance to make a living. the best thing we can do is create demand and talk to the people that want to go to museums. we are making that enormous investment in education. for example, we have jazz in schools, a one week introduction to jazz, that will be made free available to any american high school teacher to introduce a generation of americans both to jazz as an art form and a positive social force. jazz provided the first place in america where the races met equally in a positive atmosphere. it has transformed this country for the better.
>> how do you deal with market forces, which keep certain arts out of the public ear and eye and promote others.
>> the market is good in so far you are creating a demand for things and paying people, which you want to do. you have to adjust it. on the shakespeare program or jazz program where we’re touring, the presenter would love to show other stuff but don’t want to lose money or produce something that nobody shows up. we’re able to get small grants which assure the presenter that he or she is going to break even or make a profit, and then they get very adventurous. in a small town, they will book shakes pier for the history of the town. they will bring jazz in. we try to bring a small cat lithic grant to adjust to the market forces so that basically everybody can profit by bringing the best art to the broadest audience.
>> would you care to recite one of your poems for us?
>> i won’t resist the temptation. i will give
>> short one, six lines long and talking about the lives we live are invisible to anyone but ourselves. so much of what we live goes on inside. the diaries of grief. the tongue-tied aches of unacknowledged love are no less real for having passed unsaid. what we conceal is always more than what we dare confide. think of the letters that we write our dead.
>> the nea provides less than 1% of arts funding. next on “muse” don laurie of p.s. 1, his music and art.
