1
00:00:58,091 --> 00:00:59,536
Woman on PA:
<i>Ladies and gentlemen,</i>

2
00:00:59,626 --> 00:01:03,506
<i>there is a Brooklyn-bound
focal' train one station away.</i>

3
00:02:45,298 --> 00:02:48,472
I moved from New York
when I was about 12.

4
00:02:51,371 --> 00:02:54,682
But the city really
has been the, um,

5
00:02:54,774 --> 00:02:58,586
I guess, the early inspiration
for a lot of my art.

6
00:02:58,678 --> 00:03:01,284
And the first thing,
of course, in the city

7
00:03:01,381 --> 00:03:04,089
was that, of course, everything
was tall, everything...

8
00:03:04,184 --> 00:03:07,097
So my...
My first impulse was

9
00:03:07,187 --> 00:03:10,361
to get on top of a building,

10
00:03:10,456 --> 00:03:14,632
you know, to...
Oh, can I get to the roof?

11
00:03:14,727 --> 00:03:17,970
It was just a constant
wonderland.

12
00:03:18,064 --> 00:03:22,012
Well, obviously that's what...
I paint what is around me.

13
00:03:37,684 --> 00:03:40,631
Yeah, well, I did...

14
00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:41,830
Joan Cenedella:
I think I was

15
00:03:41,854 --> 00:03:43,390
very worried
about your schooling.

16
00:03:43,489 --> 00:03:45,969
I mean, I think
I really cared about that.

17
00:03:46,059 --> 00:03:49,131
I also think that
I felt competitive with you.

18
00:03:49,229 --> 00:03:50,936
I... you know, I felt that

19
00:03:51,030 --> 00:03:52,941
mother liked you better
than she liked me.

20
00:03:53,032 --> 00:03:55,478
All of that stuff.

21
00:03:55,568 --> 00:03:57,445
Well, I just think during
your whole childhood,

22
00:03:57,537 --> 00:04:00,381
I was very admiring
of you as an artist.

23
00:04:00,473 --> 00:04:03,682
I mean, I understood something
about...

24
00:04:03,776 --> 00:04:06,484
Even... even I worried
about how you were gonna

25
00:04:06,579 --> 00:04:09,685
get through with things
or read books or...

26
00:04:09,782 --> 00:04:11,056
Bob:
There was no time

27
00:04:11,150 --> 00:04:14,393
that I remember
not wanting to be an artist.

28
00:04:14,487 --> 00:04:17,229
As far back
as four or five years old,

29
00:04:17,323 --> 00:04:19,735
I remember looking at
"Moby dick,"

30
00:04:19,826 --> 00:04:22,397
illustrated by Rockwell Kent.

31
00:04:22,495 --> 00:04:25,032
And I could look at
those pictures and thinking,

32
00:04:25,131 --> 00:04:29,375
gee, I want to be able to do
something like that.

33
00:04:29,469 --> 00:04:31,107
Jess Korman:
I have a wonderful little

34
00:04:31,204 --> 00:04:33,980
etching of Bob's of two people,

35
00:04:34,073 --> 00:04:35,984
obviously a married couple

36
00:04:36,075 --> 00:04:38,681
sitting across a table
from each other

37
00:04:38,778 --> 00:04:40,758
and just staring daggers.

38
00:04:40,847 --> 00:04:43,919
I mean, they're probably
screaming at each other.

39
00:04:44,017 --> 00:04:47,226
And the name of it
is "flowers."

40
00:04:47,320 --> 00:04:50,893
It's funny, it's funny,
and it's real, and it's...

41
00:04:50,990 --> 00:04:53,903
I was sitting at the top
of the stairs

42
00:04:53,993 --> 00:04:57,406
in a house
in Wilton, Connecticut,

43
00:04:57,497 --> 00:05:01,775
and my mother and father were
having an argument,

44
00:05:01,868 --> 00:05:03,973
which was nothing unusual.

45
00:05:06,873 --> 00:05:11,288
And, he wanted...

46
00:05:11,377 --> 00:05:14,915
To take my sisters and me
to New York.

47
00:05:15,014 --> 00:05:16,459
My mother said to him,

48
00:05:16,549 --> 00:05:18,756
"well, you're not
gonna take Bobby.

49
00:05:18,851 --> 00:05:21,127
He isn't eve yours."

50
00:05:23,389 --> 00:05:26,768
So, I find this out at six,
and at six, you're not...

51
00:05:26,859 --> 00:05:28,167
You... you know,
you block it.

52
00:05:31,631 --> 00:05:36,080
But I had this recurring dream,
you know, for years,

53
00:05:36,169 --> 00:05:39,946
and it would come back to me.

54
00:05:40,039 --> 00:05:43,145
So, as you grow up,
you're like... you say,

55
00:05:43,242 --> 00:05:46,246
"wow, I'd better watch out
in this family."

56
00:05:46,346 --> 00:05:49,156
It's like, "I'm not really
one of them."

57
00:05:52,552 --> 00:05:56,432
I thought, growing up,
that my deficiency as

58
00:05:56,522 --> 00:06:00,527
a student came from
being switched

59
00:06:00,626 --> 00:06:02,435
from being left-handed
to right-hand.

60
00:06:02,528 --> 00:06:05,873
Then I couldn't read,
and then I had dyslexia.

61
00:06:05,965 --> 00:06:07,945
It was... it was
a nightmare for me,

62
00:06:08,034 --> 00:06:10,514
all the way through school,
absolute nightmare.

63
00:06:12,939 --> 00:06:14,680
Art, from Clay one for me,

64
00:06:14,774 --> 00:06:17,516
was the special part of life,

65
00:06:17,610 --> 00:06:20,921
the... the part of life
that was above the gutter.

66
00:06:30,957 --> 00:06:34,803
Everything about New York
fascinated me.

67
00:06:34,894 --> 00:06:39,434
Every Clay was a experience
that you would enjoy.

68
00:06:39,532 --> 00:06:40,977
And, you...
It was a learning.

69
00:06:41,067 --> 00:06:46,244
I mean, you could learn
so much just by, um,

70
00:06:46,339 --> 00:06:49,149
walking around the city,
by going, you know, not...

71
00:06:49,242 --> 00:06:50,362
You didn't have...
You had...

72
00:06:50,410 --> 00:06:53,448
Neighborhoods had different
kinds of food.

73
00:06:53,546 --> 00:06:57,790
You go down to 42nd street,
which was so fantastic.

74
00:06:57,884 --> 00:07:00,091
It had the penny arcades.

75
00:07:00,186 --> 00:07:03,190
In the old clays,
had a peep show...

76
00:07:03,289 --> 00:07:05,326
Who might be some hookers.

77
00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:10,167
Stephen Geller:
Bob is a denizen of New York.

78
00:07:10,263 --> 00:07:13,403
He revels in, uh,
in the New York scene,

79
00:07:13,499 --> 00:07:17,504
and the different
ethnic diversity.

80
00:07:19,439 --> 00:07:21,817
A New York sense of humor...

81
00:07:22,975 --> 00:07:25,649
The culture of New York.

82
00:07:25,745 --> 00:07:27,190
And, I think it's had

83
00:07:27,280 --> 00:07:30,784
a tremendous
influence on his art.

84
00:07:32,418 --> 00:07:34,125
Bob:
I think that my art

85
00:07:34,220 --> 00:07:38,100
has a lot to do with, uh,
the energy of the city.

86
00:07:39,425 --> 00:07:42,872
And, so, the city was reality.

87
00:08:07,353 --> 00:08:08,423
Man:
<i>Are you a member</i>

88
00:08:08,521 --> 00:08:09,556
<i>of the communist party,</i>

89
00:08:09,655 --> 00:08:11,828
<i>or have you ever been a member
of the communist party?</i>

90
00:08:11,924 --> 00:08:13,801
Bob:
I grew up in a household

91
00:08:13,893 --> 00:08:17,773
fairly well-off until 1950,

92
00:08:17,864 --> 00:08:20,310
uh, I don't know, 1953, or...

93
00:08:20,399 --> 00:08:21,537
Somewhere around there.

94
00:08:21,634 --> 00:08:24,171
My father was the head of
the radio writers guild

95
00:08:24,270 --> 00:08:27,274
and Helen Hayes would only
use his scripts.

96
00:08:28,441 --> 00:08:29,641
So, we were doing pretty well.

97
00:08:32,178 --> 00:08:34,021
Senator:
<i>I have offered to go before</i>

98
00:08:34,113 --> 00:08:36,889
<i>any committee,
do anything you ask,</i>

99
00:08:36,983 --> 00:08:40,021
<i>if I can just get you to come
down here and take the oath</i>

100
00:08:40,119 --> 00:08:41,962
<i>so we can get the answers
to some questions.</i>

101
00:08:42,054 --> 00:08:43,599
<i>Now, you're not... you're not
fooling anyone at all.</i>

102
00:08:43,623 --> 00:08:44,733
- Man: Senator...
- Senator: I'm sure of that.

103
00:08:44,757 --> 00:08:46,998
Bob:
He was asked, "are you now,

104
00:08:47,093 --> 00:08:49,767
or have you ever been a member
of the communist party?"

105
00:08:51,731 --> 00:08:53,506
And he basically said,

106
00:08:53,599 --> 00:08:55,306
"that's none of
your goddamn business.

107
00:08:55,401 --> 00:08:58,382
I'm an American.
I don't have to tell you this."

108
00:08:58,471 --> 00:09:00,280
My father was blacklisted.

109
00:09:00,373 --> 00:09:03,377
He never was a communist,
but that's not the issue.

110
00:09:03,476 --> 00:09:04,750
And because of that,

111
00:09:04,844 --> 00:09:07,051
we went into poverty,
almost immediately.

112
00:09:07,146 --> 00:09:11,617
So, I grew up
in a house where...

113
00:09:11,717 --> 00:09:16,097
The... the strong...
The issue was principle.

114
00:09:16,188 --> 00:09:17,326
It was about...

115
00:09:17,423 --> 00:09:20,131
You talk about justice,
human rights,

116
00:09:20,226 --> 00:09:22,331
about community, all of that,

117
00:09:22,428 --> 00:09:26,774
and I think that was very,
very strong in our family.

118
00:09:26,866 --> 00:09:28,443
The other thing is...
I always felt very secure

119
00:09:28,467 --> 00:09:31,004
about the fact, hey,
that he would never be

120
00:09:31,103 --> 00:09:33,049
on the wrong side of a...
Right.

121
00:09:33,139 --> 00:09:36,177
Of an issue, and...
From my point of view.

122
00:09:36,275 --> 00:09:37,310
And. Uh...
But, he..

123
00:09:37,410 --> 00:09:41,859
And, also, I felt that
he was not, um...

124
00:09:41,948 --> 00:09:44,189
Devious, or...
He was very...

125
00:09:44,283 --> 00:09:45,853
He was who he was.

126
00:09:45,952 --> 00:09:47,898
As a father,
he was like growing up

127
00:09:47,987 --> 00:09:49,489
with Hamlet or something,
you know,

128
00:09:49,589 --> 00:09:52,763
indecisive,
couldn't handle money.

129
00:09:52,858 --> 00:09:55,634
Even when he had money,
we were always having to...

130
00:09:55,728 --> 00:09:58,140
Shell in to keep things going.

131
00:09:58,230 --> 00:10:01,370
His mother, my grandmother,

132
00:10:01,467 --> 00:10:04,744
sent me, over the years,
$2 bills.

133
00:10:04,837 --> 00:10:06,908
I had a collection of them,
on my wall.

134
00:10:07,006 --> 00:10:08,349
I was very proud
of these things.

135
00:10:08,441 --> 00:10:09,651
I mean, when I say a collection,

136
00:10:09,675 --> 00:10:14,215
I mean I had like maybe
$500 worth of $2 bills.

137
00:10:14,313 --> 00:10:16,816
There's a story of,
he was away at camp,

138
00:10:16,916 --> 00:10:19,658
Bob was away at camp.
And he came home,

139
00:10:19,752 --> 00:10:21,754
and his collection of $2 bills

140
00:10:21,854 --> 00:10:26,325
that he had saved assiduously
for a long time,

141
00:10:26,425 --> 00:10:28,170
that he had tacked up
on the wall, had been taken.

142
00:10:28,194 --> 00:10:31,334
And I'm looking at my...
Through, into my room,

143
00:10:31,430 --> 00:10:34,570
and there were no $2 bills.

144
00:10:34,667 --> 00:10:38,376
He went in, and he took
all the $2 bills off the wall.

145
00:10:38,471 --> 00:10:40,542
He took Bob's money
and never paid it back.

146
00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:43,211
It's devastating
if you're, like, 14 years old

147
00:10:43,309 --> 00:10:45,789
and you've now amassed
this whole thing.

148
00:10:45,878 --> 00:10:47,789
But, then again, I suppose
somewhere in my head,

149
00:10:47,880 --> 00:10:51,089
I said, "oh, yeah,
but that came from his mother."

150
00:10:51,183 --> 00:10:55,529
Bob's concern about injustice,
here and there...

151
00:10:57,189 --> 00:11:01,433
Comes out in his work.

152
00:11:01,527 --> 00:11:03,939
There's a painting he did
called "give to Cenedella,"

153
00:11:04,030 --> 00:11:06,442
which is his father
collecting money

154
00:11:06,532 --> 00:11:09,035
in a street fair
in his undershorts.

155
00:11:15,041 --> 00:11:16,645
Bob:
The first "saleable" item

156
00:11:16,742 --> 00:11:19,723
I created was called
the "I like Ludwig" button,

157
00:11:19,812 --> 00:11:23,157
and it was in competition
with the "I love Elvis."

158
00:11:25,317 --> 00:11:28,161
I never responded
to Elvis Presley.

159
00:11:28,254 --> 00:11:29,961
It just didn't ring with me.

160
00:11:30,056 --> 00:11:32,559
Beethoven, you know,
that's what I listened to.

161
00:11:32,658 --> 00:11:34,968
And I had a perfect audience.

162
00:11:35,061 --> 00:11:38,508
The button became
a national seller.

163
00:11:38,597 --> 00:11:40,907
They wrote about it first
in the "new yorker,"

164
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:43,537
and then in places
around the country and so on.

165
00:11:47,807 --> 00:11:49,946
I sold thousands
of these buttons.

166
00:11:53,713 --> 00:11:58,025
So, I... I put myself through
the art students league

167
00:11:58,117 --> 00:12:01,291
with the money I made
from the Ludwig buttons.

168
00:12:03,089 --> 00:12:04,898
I really didn't know what
the league was about

169
00:12:04,990 --> 00:12:06,270
other than it was an art school,

170
00:12:06,325 --> 00:12:07,565
and that they didn't require me

171
00:12:07,660 --> 00:12:09,264
to have a high school diploma.

172
00:12:10,596 --> 00:12:14,134
I walk into the room,
and I see all these

173
00:12:14,233 --> 00:12:16,270
other students with pads.

174
00:12:16,368 --> 00:12:18,348
I had a little pad,

175
00:12:18,437 --> 00:12:20,178
and I had a pencil.

176
00:12:20,272 --> 00:12:23,583
I was probably the youngest one.
I was 17.

177
00:12:23,676 --> 00:12:26,816
And they were 50-year-old,
or 60-year-old.

178
00:12:28,748 --> 00:12:31,922
And all of a sudden,
this man walks in

179
00:12:32,017 --> 00:12:34,930
<i>with a gray suit, vest,</i>

180
00:12:35,020 --> 00:12:38,001
white shirt,
black, polished shoes.

181
00:12:40,092 --> 00:12:41,537
He went around the room.

182
00:12:41,627 --> 00:12:43,300
I remember, he came to me.

183
00:12:43,395 --> 00:12:47,935
He said I need a bigger pad,
I need charcoal, not a pencil.

184
00:12:48,033 --> 00:12:50,741
And he told me just
to make as big a drawing

185
00:12:50,836 --> 00:12:52,236
as I could on this pad,
which I did.

186
00:12:54,907 --> 00:12:57,114
And then, when
he took off his jacket,

187
00:12:57,209 --> 00:12:59,382
and rolled up his sleeves,
ready to work.

188
00:12:59,478 --> 00:13:02,220
But that was very serious.

189
00:13:02,314 --> 00:13:03,725
I had no idea.

190
00:13:03,816 --> 00:13:06,797
Certainly didn't know
who George Grosz was.

191
00:13:06,886 --> 00:13:08,923
I felt an authority was there.

192
00:13:10,890 --> 00:13:14,463
I felt the presence of someone
who was confident.

193
00:13:18,531 --> 00:13:19,566
When I left, I thought,

194
00:13:19,665 --> 00:13:21,736
Hey, I think maybe
I had a great Clay.

195
00:13:21,834 --> 00:13:24,212
Maybe...
I'll be back tomorrow."

196
00:13:27,973 --> 00:13:30,249
This painting is called
"the fight."

197
00:13:32,344 --> 00:13:35,188
I've always like the way
the painting was planned out,

198
00:13:35,281 --> 00:13:39,787
with a circle around
the fighters, and, uh...

199
00:13:41,120 --> 00:13:44,158
This was outside, when I lived
on west 86th street.

200
00:13:44,256 --> 00:13:47,294
It... it had a very
New York moment.

201
00:13:48,994 --> 00:13:51,497
It has an emotional quality,
and yet,

202
00:13:51,597 --> 00:13:53,406
I'm not sure how much is just

203
00:13:53,499 --> 00:13:57,003
the kind of a humorous
aspect of New York.

204
00:13:57,102 --> 00:14:00,379
Here was a street in New York,

205
00:14:00,472 --> 00:14:02,611
and it had obviously been set up

206
00:14:02,708 --> 00:14:04,984
with police barricades.

207
00:14:05,077 --> 00:14:06,954
And there was policemen
in the crowd,

208
00:14:07,046 --> 00:14:09,583
holding people back.

209
00:14:11,584 --> 00:14:14,690
Here's the paramedics
standing by, and...

210
00:14:16,255 --> 00:14:18,565
She's got the bag
flowing in the air.

211
00:14:20,759 --> 00:14:22,761
She's punching him out.

212
00:14:23,896 --> 00:14:25,273
And the crowd is cheering,

213
00:14:25,364 --> 00:14:28,777
and people are
holding babies, and...

214
00:14:28,868 --> 00:14:31,405
It had this great energy.

215
00:14:36,275 --> 00:14:38,186
You look at this, and you say,

216
00:14:38,277 --> 00:14:40,484
"something was going on
in New York."

217
00:14:40,579 --> 00:14:44,083
When I did the drawing
for the painting,

218
00:14:44,183 --> 00:14:47,494
I guess I saw
my parents in this.

219
00:14:47,586 --> 00:14:51,898
It's in keeping that my mother
would be winning the battle,

220
00:14:51,991 --> 00:14:53,993
if that's my father.

221
00:14:54,093 --> 00:14:56,733
That's probably me.
I never even thought of that,

222
00:14:56,829 --> 00:15:00,504
but that's probably me
with my artist's smock.

223
00:15:03,535 --> 00:15:05,572
Jess:
I think Cenedella was aware

224
00:15:05,671 --> 00:15:10,017
that the world was become
a kind of a media circus.

225
00:15:10,109 --> 00:15:12,111
Cenedella just doesn't
do realism,

226
00:15:12,211 --> 00:15:16,682
but he does a realism that is...
Is always journalistic.

227
00:15:16,782 --> 00:15:19,058
It's people's art.

228
00:15:19,151 --> 00:15:21,062
It's people's art
in the same way that...

229
00:15:21,153 --> 00:15:23,292
That it was people's art
in Germany,

230
00:15:23,389 --> 00:15:25,391
in George Grosz's time.

231
00:15:25,491 --> 00:15:28,768
George Grosz was a painter
in the post-world war I period

232
00:15:28,861 --> 00:15:32,866
in Germany, and his use
of satirical elements

233
00:15:32,965 --> 00:15:35,878
in his work to ridicule
the powers that be

234
00:15:35,968 --> 00:15:38,471
really anticipated
the rise of Hitler.

235
00:15:44,310 --> 00:15:46,085
Bob: I had a political bent

236
00:15:46,178 --> 00:15:49,182
from early on.

237
00:15:49,281 --> 00:15:51,283
In high school,
I wrote this article

238
00:15:51,383 --> 00:15:52,418
on the atom bomb drills.

239
00:15:56,755 --> 00:15:58,359
Narrator:
That signal' means to stop

240
00:15:58,457 --> 00:15:59,561
whatever you are doing,

241
00:15:59,658 --> 00:16:02,298
<i>and get to the nearest
safe place, fast.</i>

242
00:16:02,394 --> 00:16:03,805
<i>First, you duck,</i>

243
00:16:03,896 --> 00:16:05,967
<i>and then, you cover.</i>

244
00:16:06,065 --> 00:16:08,636
They had you scared.
The government had you scared.

245
00:16:08,734 --> 00:16:11,578
Hey, you know, you got
the atom bomb, and this...

246
00:16:11,670 --> 00:16:13,946
You gotta watch out for
the communists, and the...

247
00:16:14,039 --> 00:16:15,109
You know, and...

248
00:16:15,207 --> 00:16:17,881
I felt a need
to write this thing

249
00:16:17,977 --> 00:16:22,187
because the atom bomb drills
were so stupid.

250
00:16:22,281 --> 00:16:24,887
I had an A.B. Dick
mimeograph machine,

251
00:16:24,984 --> 00:16:26,964
and I printed 2,000
of these articles,

252
00:16:27,052 --> 00:16:29,794
and I handed them out
to everyone in the school.

253
00:16:29,888 --> 00:16:32,300
And then they had this
special assembly

254
00:16:32,391 --> 00:16:34,371
and one of the heads
of the school said,

255
00:16:34,460 --> 00:16:38,237
"all you students read it,
and you thought it was funny."

256
00:16:38,330 --> 00:16:40,037
He said,
"this is not humor."

257
00:16:40,132 --> 00:16:42,840
He said, "this is propaganda!"

258
00:16:42,935 --> 00:16:46,109
We were supposed to sign
loyalty oaths in those clays,

259
00:16:46,205 --> 00:16:47,912
which I also didn't do.

260
00:16:48,007 --> 00:16:50,817
My father was trying
to get me to sign it because

261
00:16:50,909 --> 00:16:53,082
he wanted me
to graduate high school.

262
00:16:53,178 --> 00:16:56,091
On the one hand,
he stood by me for,

263
00:16:56,181 --> 00:16:58,159
you know, writing this article,
but then he wanted me

264
00:16:58,183 --> 00:17:02,359
to sign a loyalty oath
which he wouldn't sign himself.

265
00:17:02,454 --> 00:17:05,094
And, you know, it, uh...
Well, I...

266
00:17:05,190 --> 00:17:08,728
I couldn't,
I just couldn't do it.

267
00:17:08,827 --> 00:17:10,932
And then I was expelled.

268
00:17:14,767 --> 00:17:16,906
The thing that I would want
most was to have

269
00:17:17,002 --> 00:17:20,848
a painting at
the metropolitan museum.

270
00:17:20,939 --> 00:17:22,350
The metropolitan, to me,

271
00:17:22,441 --> 00:17:25,615
that was more special
than a church.

272
00:17:25,711 --> 00:17:28,885
Right after school,
I went three, four times a week.

273
00:17:28,981 --> 00:17:31,723
In those clays,
there was no fee.

274
00:17:31,817 --> 00:17:34,388
You just walked in.
You had a lot of guards,

275
00:17:34,486 --> 00:17:35,863
and a few people.

276
00:17:35,954 --> 00:17:37,032
And I loved it.
I thought it was...

277
00:17:37,056 --> 00:17:38,536
What a great thing.
And I would go in.

278
00:17:38,624 --> 00:17:40,262
It was never crowded.

279
00:17:41,994 --> 00:17:43,530
I'd go look at Vermeer.

280
00:17:43,629 --> 00:17:46,041
I'd look at Raphael.

281
00:17:46,131 --> 00:17:48,975
My favorite artists, Grant wood,

282
00:17:49,068 --> 00:17:52,845
George bellows,
and they've had legitimacy.

283
00:17:52,938 --> 00:17:54,781
Their art was in books,

284
00:17:54,873 --> 00:17:57,319
in places of respect.

285
00:17:59,244 --> 00:18:02,020
If there's one painting
that I was drawn to,

286
00:18:02,114 --> 00:18:05,061
it was Pieter Bruegel's,
"the harvesters."

287
00:18:05,150 --> 00:18:08,256
Everything about it...
The detail of the wheat,

288
00:18:08,353 --> 00:18:10,924
figures, the way
the figures were done.

289
00:18:11,023 --> 00:18:13,162
I could never see enough of it.

290
00:18:16,962 --> 00:18:18,173
Richard Armstrong:
A museum's role,

291
00:18:18,197 --> 00:18:20,074
and what's historically valid,

292
00:18:20,165 --> 00:18:23,203
it's really a decision
among curators.

293
00:18:23,302 --> 00:18:24,312
And to me, it always looks like

294
00:18:24,336 --> 00:18:27,112
a real exercise in animal behavior,

295
00:18:27,206 --> 00:18:31,677
what's better,
and what's less good, and why.

296
00:18:31,777 --> 00:18:33,814
It's almost inexplicable,

297
00:18:33,912 --> 00:18:37,257
and the conspiracy, I think,
is genetic, not social.

298
00:18:43,355 --> 00:18:44,561
Bob:
The league, you know,

299
00:18:44,656 --> 00:18:46,636
it has a great reputation.

300
00:18:46,725 --> 00:18:48,636
It has history to it,
it has that,

301
00:18:48,727 --> 00:18:52,106
but also, they had nude models.

302
00:18:52,197 --> 00:18:57,010
Aside from knowing that
now I had a place to learn,

303
00:18:57,102 --> 00:19:00,140
but I also knew that I was gonna
walk into a room, and I was...

304
00:19:00,239 --> 00:19:01,274
There was gonna be a,

305
00:19:01,373 --> 00:19:04,820
um, you know, a nude woman.

306
00:19:04,910 --> 00:19:08,517
So, I walk in,
and then I see this...

307
00:19:08,614 --> 00:19:11,823
I do see this nude woman.

308
00:19:15,821 --> 00:19:20,167
Now, here she is,
400 pounds, and...

309
00:19:20,259 --> 00:19:22,296
But, fantastic
in the sense that,

310
00:19:22,394 --> 00:19:26,342
the perfect model
to draw, really.

311
00:19:26,431 --> 00:19:28,138
One of the first things
that Grosz said

312
00:19:28,233 --> 00:19:30,179
that I found startling,

313
00:19:30,269 --> 00:19:32,306
"there's no such thing
as a line, in nature.

314
00:19:32,404 --> 00:19:34,281
It's all in our head."

315
00:19:34,373 --> 00:19:37,752
He used a phrase that
I have always remembered.

316
00:19:37,843 --> 00:19:42,121
He says, "you want to learn
to think with your hand."

317
00:19:42,214 --> 00:19:44,490
How... how wonderful that is.

318
00:19:44,583 --> 00:19:45,926
"Think with your hand."

319
00:19:52,124 --> 00:19:55,367
Talking to Grosz,
it was never small talk.

320
00:19:55,460 --> 00:19:58,839
You always felt you were talking
about something important.

321
00:19:58,931 --> 00:20:02,071
The way we thought was like
a total connection.

322
00:20:02,167 --> 00:20:05,876
He always would say
that age has nothing to do

323
00:20:05,971 --> 00:20:08,315
with how you relate.

324
00:20:08,407 --> 00:20:10,751
You know, I always tell people,
he taught me how to draw,

325
00:20:10,842 --> 00:20:12,602
but he also taught me
how to drink, you know?

326
00:20:13,745 --> 00:20:17,522
I had my first beer with Grosz.

327
00:20:17,616 --> 00:20:20,927
I told people he was the first
adult I ever respected.

328
00:20:21,019 --> 00:20:24,796
Now, I'm sure my parents
were not too happy with that.

329
00:20:26,191 --> 00:20:26,434
We had very intellectual...
Parents.

330
00:20:26,458 --> 00:20:30,531
We had very intellectual...
Parents.

331
00:20:33,498 --> 00:20:35,243
Right? I mean... I mean they...
Well, we had a very?

332
00:20:35,267 --> 00:20:36,905
Intellectual father.
I mean-yeah.

333
00:20:37,002 --> 00:20:39,346
I wouldn't say mother
was intellectual.

334
00:20:40,672 --> 00:20:42,276
You think so?
Um, yeah.

335
00:20:42,374 --> 00:20:45,878
I think she was intellectual
in a very...

336
00:20:45,978 --> 00:20:49,323
More human way.
I mean, when I say "human,"

337
00:20:49,414 --> 00:20:53,055
I mean more, um, gutsy.

338
00:20:53,151 --> 00:20:56,826
You know, a mother,
a... you know, someone who's...

339
00:20:56,922 --> 00:20:58,799
I-I saw two different...

340
00:20:58,890 --> 00:21:00,563
I don't know if
you perceived it that way.

341
00:21:00,659 --> 00:21:02,104
- No, actually, I didn't.
- No.

342
00:21:04,997 --> 00:21:06,476
I look at mother.

343
00:21:06,565 --> 00:21:10,240
When she was drunk,
she was the worst.

344
00:21:10,335 --> 00:21:12,246
And when she was not drunk,
she was the best.

345
00:21:12,337 --> 00:21:13,577
I mean, that's how I...
Mm-hmm.

346
00:21:13,605 --> 00:21:15,915
That's how I see her.

347
00:21:16,008 --> 00:21:18,010
When I was 21, my mother said

348
00:21:18,110 --> 00:21:20,249
I had something to tell you.

349
00:21:20,345 --> 00:21:22,291
She was drunk.

350
00:21:22,381 --> 00:21:25,419
She says,
"daddy is not your father."

351
00:21:27,152 --> 00:21:31,567
And I remember very clearly,
I said, "oh. Is it Russ?"

352
00:21:33,091 --> 00:21:34,536
Jess:
His true father, whom I met

353
00:21:34,626 --> 00:21:37,903
a couple of times,
uh, very, very different.

354
00:21:37,996 --> 00:21:41,808
He was a gentleman,
an English professor, uh...

355
00:21:41,900 --> 00:21:45,404
Intelligent, soft-spoken
way about him

356
00:21:45,504 --> 00:21:46,949
that I...
I liked very much.

357
00:21:47,039 --> 00:21:50,282
My relationship with Speirs

358
00:21:50,375 --> 00:21:54,323
was letters, mostly,
over the years.

359
00:21:56,381 --> 00:22:00,454
He also did doodles
and little cartoons that

360
00:22:00,552 --> 00:22:02,327
he would send me.

361
00:22:04,856 --> 00:22:07,894
I then got a letter from Russ,

362
00:22:07,993 --> 00:22:10,098
and basically what it said,
he said,

363
00:22:10,195 --> 00:22:13,870
"it must have been quite
a revelation to you."

364
00:22:13,965 --> 00:22:15,911
To find out...
But...

365
00:22:16,001 --> 00:22:17,912
and, you know,

366
00:22:18,003 --> 00:22:19,311
and that was the end of it.

367
00:22:19,404 --> 00:22:21,315
And it's bizarre.

368
00:22:24,142 --> 00:22:27,453
To have a relationship
with someone

369
00:22:27,546 --> 00:22:30,857
who is your father but you never
called him your father...

370
00:22:30,949 --> 00:22:32,724
We never even talked about it.

371
00:22:34,519 --> 00:22:36,362
It just gets outrageous,

372
00:22:36,455 --> 00:22:40,460
and it was forcing me...
To be a liar.

373
00:22:41,593 --> 00:22:43,595
So, for him,
it was okay to be a liar.

374
00:22:43,695 --> 00:22:44,833
And I think it...

375
00:22:44,930 --> 00:22:47,103
I think it affected
my painting tremendously.

376
00:23:10,989 --> 00:23:14,994
Boxing, in a way,
is kind of crazy,

377
00:23:15,093 --> 00:23:17,334
when you think about it.
Two guys getting in a ring

378
00:23:17,429 --> 00:23:21,206
and just trying to beat
the crap out of each other.

379
00:23:22,667 --> 00:23:25,113
Then, if you put two older guys,

380
00:23:25,203 --> 00:23:27,342
then it really becomes absurd.

381
00:23:27,439 --> 00:23:29,112
Liz:
Bob puts a lot of his anger

382
00:23:29,207 --> 00:23:33,212
at his family secret
in his work, of course.

383
00:23:33,311 --> 00:23:34,989
And then, of course,
I heard all the stories about

384
00:23:35,013 --> 00:23:36,053
his family and everything,

385
00:23:36,148 --> 00:23:38,788
which was, you know,
pretty amazing.

386
00:23:38,884 --> 00:23:40,921
I started the painting
like all of my paintings.

387
00:23:41,019 --> 00:23:43,556
I make a charcoal drawing.

388
00:23:43,655 --> 00:23:46,158
As I was doing the drawing,
it was quite clear to me

389
00:23:46,258 --> 00:23:49,603
that I had drawn
one of my fathers... Cenedella,

390
00:23:49,694 --> 00:23:52,675
the father that brought me up.

391
00:23:52,764 --> 00:23:56,007
And then, I decided
why don't I put my other father,

392
00:23:56,101 --> 00:23:58,843
my real father, Speirs,
on the other side.

393
00:23:58,937 --> 00:24:00,109
I'm drawing this...

394
00:24:01,273 --> 00:24:06,552
As a satirical piece on...

395
00:24:06,645 --> 00:24:07,680
You know, on boxing.

396
00:24:08,947 --> 00:24:11,655
So now,
they're punching each other,

397
00:24:11,750 --> 00:24:14,060
and I was the one getting hurt.

398
00:24:22,527 --> 00:24:24,404
This was definitely
a painting where

399
00:24:24,496 --> 00:24:27,568
I was doing therapy
on the canvas.

400
00:24:29,701 --> 00:24:31,374
As I did that painting,

401
00:24:31,470 --> 00:24:35,282
I ended up...
You know, I was alone.

402
00:24:35,373 --> 00:24:38,877
I started to...
To cry, you know?

403
00:24:38,977 --> 00:24:41,457
So...

404
00:24:41,546 --> 00:24:43,424
So, what... you know,
what else are you gonna call it?

405
00:24:43,448 --> 00:24:44,722
Yeah.
"father's day."

406
00:24:50,689 --> 00:24:52,669
Marvin Kitman:
Bob is ahead of his times

407
00:24:52,757 --> 00:24:54,395
by five minutes.

408
00:24:54,493 --> 00:24:57,531
They would never show
Bob's stuff.

409
00:24:57,629 --> 00:25:01,167
There's just too much
material in it

410
00:25:01,266 --> 00:25:04,304
and too many
thoughtful things going on.

411
00:25:04,402 --> 00:25:05,847
And we live in a...

412
00:25:05,937 --> 00:25:09,248
In a society
that doesn't like to think.

413
00:25:09,341 --> 00:25:12,151
You know, I think we were
a dysfunctional family.

414
00:25:12,244 --> 00:25:13,244
Do you?

415
00:25:14,412 --> 00:25:17,222
Yeah.
how about it?

416
00:25:23,655 --> 00:25:27,501
I started off painting
exactly when

417
00:25:27,592 --> 00:25:30,573
abstract expressionism
came on the scene.

418
00:25:33,298 --> 00:25:36,745
Abstract art is half of art.

419
00:25:38,169 --> 00:25:39,773
It's all technique.

420
00:25:39,871 --> 00:25:43,148
It's like only part
of what a painting is.

421
00:25:43,241 --> 00:25:46,188
That's the way I see it.

422
00:25:46,278 --> 00:25:49,088
<i>You cannot paint a face.</i>

423
00:25:50,315 --> 00:25:53,057
You have a technique,
which limits you

424
00:25:53,151 --> 00:25:55,927
in so many ways that
certain subjects

425
00:25:56,021 --> 00:25:58,262
simply cannot be portrayed.

426
00:25:59,357 --> 00:26:03,305
In... in the way that,
um... um...

427
00:26:03,395 --> 00:26:04,430
Pollack painted,

428
00:26:04,529 --> 00:26:05,940
which I think is brilliant,

429
00:26:06,031 --> 00:26:08,773
because the way he painted,

430
00:26:08,867 --> 00:26:11,575
you can do no wrong,
basically, in my opinion.

431
00:26:11,670 --> 00:26:13,707
See, in other words,
there's a perfection.

432
00:26:13,805 --> 00:26:17,412
People today WILL say,
well, hey, there's a bad hopper,

433
00:26:17,509 --> 00:26:20,456
or there's a bad El Greco,
or this is a bad that.

434
00:26:20,545 --> 00:26:21,785
But I've never seen anyone say,

435
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:24,087
"oh, this is
a bad pollack."

436
00:26:24,182 --> 00:26:27,322
Either they're all bad,
or they're all good.

437
00:26:27,786 --> 00:26:30,331
That's the beginning of
the marketplace

438
00:26:30,355 --> 00:26:32,494
dictating to artists.

439
00:26:32,591 --> 00:26:34,764
Before, the artist
was reflecting

440
00:26:34,859 --> 00:26:36,099
on what was around him.

441
00:26:36,194 --> 00:26:38,174
And now, the commercial side,

442
00:26:38,263 --> 00:26:39,401
the galleries and so...

443
00:26:39,497 --> 00:26:42,307
Are telling the artists
what's happening.

444
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:44,209
Richard: Collections
can't be sacrosanct,

445
00:26:44,302 --> 00:26:46,612
and yet, they have to
be treated very gingerly.

446
00:26:46,705 --> 00:26:50,118
The museum collection should
always be seen as dynamic,

447
00:26:50,208 --> 00:26:53,121
meaning that it calls
for adjustments,

448
00:26:53,211 --> 00:26:58,456
changing, trading, selling,
adding, subtracting.

449
00:26:58,550 --> 00:27:01,497
In the '50s,
right after the war,

450
00:27:01,586 --> 00:27:04,658
when all of a sudden
abstract expressionism

451
00:27:04,756 --> 00:27:08,533
came on the scene,
you had a form of art

452
00:27:08,627 --> 00:27:12,837
that was like a perfect thing
to completely ignore

453
00:27:12,931 --> 00:27:15,138
what this country
had been going through.

454
00:27:15,233 --> 00:27:17,304
Now, you had an art form

455
00:27:17,402 --> 00:27:21,282
which negated anyone
who had a point of view.

456
00:27:21,373 --> 00:27:24,980
My heroes were guys from
the '20s and '30s,

457
00:27:25,076 --> 00:27:27,488
people like Ben Shahn,
people like,

458
00:27:27,579 --> 00:27:30,651
uh, bellows, Virgil marsh.

459
00:27:30,749 --> 00:27:33,161
You know, they...
They'd paint bread lines,

460
00:27:33,251 --> 00:27:36,027
lynchings in the south,
the depression.

461
00:27:36,121 --> 00:27:37,794
That's what interested me
in art.

462
00:27:37,889 --> 00:27:40,369
So, I follow in that tradition,

463
00:27:40,458 --> 00:27:42,870
and they recorded history.

464
00:27:42,961 --> 00:27:46,135
I don't just talk
about politics and...

465
00:27:46,231 --> 00:27:48,302
You know, it's part
of what I paint,

466
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:50,346
'cause I think it's...
I think it's...

467
00:27:50,435 --> 00:27:53,006
Part of... of the world
that I live in.

468
00:27:54,305 --> 00:27:56,148
The art world doesn't look

469
00:27:56,241 --> 00:27:58,915
to see why that painting
is effective.

470
00:27:59,010 --> 00:28:00,785
It's effective
the way I painted it.

471
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:06,119
"Southern dogs"...
It was reversing

472
00:28:06,217 --> 00:28:08,595
the head of the policemen

473
00:28:08,687 --> 00:28:11,099
with the dog and so on.

474
00:28:11,189 --> 00:28:15,467
I mean, that made it
more than just a copy of a...

475
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:18,700
Um, of a... incident.

476
00:28:18,797 --> 00:28:21,869
When you see that policeman
with a dog's head,

477
00:28:21,966 --> 00:28:24,742
and then the dog
with a policeman's head,

478
00:28:24,836 --> 00:28:27,043
and his genitals hanging
off the back,

479
00:28:27,138 --> 00:28:30,119
and another policeman looking up
the dog's rear end,

480
00:28:30,208 --> 00:28:34,281
you know, that... that hurts
a little bit, you know?

481
00:28:34,379 --> 00:28:37,019
I'd been told by galleries that,

482
00:28:37,115 --> 00:28:38,788
Bob, you've missed the boat.

483
00:28:38,883 --> 00:28:41,193
This kind of art is over with.

484
00:28:41,286 --> 00:28:43,562
No one does this anymore.

485
00:28:43,655 --> 00:28:47,296
Again, I'm not...
I'm not legitimate.

486
00:28:47,392 --> 00:28:51,238
Richard:
It's a very gossamer veil

487
00:28:51,329 --> 00:28:54,936
that separates the inside
from the outside.

488
00:28:55,033 --> 00:28:56,808
And it's permeable.

489
00:28:56,901 --> 00:28:59,541
So, you can move
from being not known,

490
00:28:59,637 --> 00:29:02,379
or not valued,
to the other side.

491
00:29:02,474 --> 00:29:05,318
But I'd say it's a little bit...

492
00:29:05,410 --> 00:29:09,153
About chance, and a great deal
about geography.

493
00:29:09,247 --> 00:29:14,060
I studied with Grosz,
basically, for two years.

494
00:29:14,152 --> 00:29:18,999
And in '59, he was gonna
go back to Berlin

495
00:29:19,090 --> 00:29:20,967
because his wife was sick,

496
00:29:21,059 --> 00:29:23,061
and she...
She wanted to go back.

497
00:29:23,161 --> 00:29:25,801
And, he never wanted to go back.

498
00:29:25,897 --> 00:29:29,106
In the fall of '59,
I was gonna go and, um,

499
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,771
study with him privately.

500
00:29:31,870 --> 00:29:34,646
The last Clay of school,
and he makes sure.

501
00:29:34,739 --> 00:29:38,744
That he comes to class
to say good-bye to the students.

502
00:29:38,843 --> 00:29:42,916
And then he invites me to go
to this party on the ship.

503
00:29:43,014 --> 00:29:45,255
You know, one thing led
to another.

504
00:29:45,350 --> 00:29:49,059
They were serving champagne,

505
00:29:49,154 --> 00:29:51,600
and I-l think...
I don't know when I lost count...

506
00:29:51,689 --> 00:29:55,432
But we had had
over 20 glasses apiece.

507
00:29:56,561 --> 00:29:59,508
So, we were drunk enough
that he decided

508
00:29:59,597 --> 00:30:01,838
that I should come
to Berlin on the boat.

509
00:30:01,933 --> 00:30:05,506
So, I got into this closet
and, you know...

510
00:30:07,272 --> 00:30:12,221
The boat takes... takes off,
and I'm in this closet, and...

511
00:30:12,310 --> 00:30:13,948
In his little room.

512
00:30:14,045 --> 00:30:16,116
And then...
And they discover me.

513
00:30:16,214 --> 00:30:18,820
So, I'm dropped over
the side of the boat,

514
00:30:18,917 --> 00:30:22,091
and taken to shore.

515
00:30:22,187 --> 00:30:23,894
That was the last time
I saw him.

516
00:30:27,091 --> 00:30:29,401
Towards the end of the...

517
00:30:29,494 --> 00:30:34,307
The summer, I got this letter
from his wife.

518
00:30:34,399 --> 00:30:36,811
It was basically a card.

519
00:30:36,901 --> 00:30:40,110
She had got my address wrong,
so I found out

520
00:30:40,205 --> 00:30:44,551
almost a month
after it had happened.

521
00:30:44,642 --> 00:30:47,145
That he died...

522
00:30:47,245 --> 00:30:49,816
Literally a week after
he got back to Berlin.

523
00:30:53,852 --> 00:30:55,729
In the write-up,
there was nothing that said

524
00:30:55,820 --> 00:30:58,926
how he died, so then
there was just speculation

525
00:30:59,023 --> 00:31:01,469
as to whether,
when he went back to Berlin,

526
00:31:01,559 --> 00:31:03,061
he still had enemies,
people he...

527
00:31:03,161 --> 00:31:06,233
This is a man who
had cut apart the society

528
00:31:06,331 --> 00:31:09,471
and seen through it before
anyone else did.

529
00:31:09,567 --> 00:31:13,174
He was found at
the bottom of the stairs.

530
00:31:13,271 --> 00:31:16,775
And I was, you know, devastated.

531
00:31:24,582 --> 00:31:28,621
The title of the painting is,
"the death of George Grosz."

532
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:30,256
And, for a while,

533
00:31:30,355 --> 00:31:34,360
it was sort of the death
of Bob Cenedella.

534
00:31:34,459 --> 00:31:36,598
And the painting...

535
00:31:36,694 --> 00:31:41,143
Takes me right back to 1959.

536
00:31:41,232 --> 00:31:44,076
A lot of the figures
are from his paintings,

537
00:31:44,168 --> 00:31:47,172
and I put it together in
a kind of an allegorical way.

538
00:31:50,942 --> 00:31:54,355
I guess I chose not to think
that he got drunk

539
00:31:54,445 --> 00:31:55,890
and fell down
a flight of stairs,

540
00:31:55,980 --> 00:31:58,221
but at the time,
it was important to me that

541
00:31:58,316 --> 00:32:00,694
that was not the image.

542
00:32:00,785 --> 00:32:02,345
It would be better
if he had been pushed

543
00:32:02,387 --> 00:32:04,230
down a flight of stairs.

544
00:32:08,059 --> 00:32:10,938
In his shadow,
I put my signature.

545
00:32:11,029 --> 00:32:14,602
And even that is symbolic of

546
00:32:14,699 --> 00:32:17,612
would I ever get out
from under, uh,

547
00:32:17,702 --> 00:32:19,306
the shadow of George Grosz.

548
00:32:28,012 --> 00:32:30,049
Man and woman:
♪ detergent scrub bubbles ♪

549
00:32:30,148 --> 00:32:31,320
♪ Scrub bubbles ♪

550
00:32:31,416 --> 00:32:33,953
♪ Scrub's in the bubbles
in Brillo soap pads ♪

551
00:32:34,052 --> 00:32:35,360
Woman:
♪ it's the first... ♪

552
00:32:35,453 --> 00:32:37,694
Bob: There was an artist
named James Harvey.

553
00:32:37,789 --> 00:32:39,860
He was an abstract painter,
but he also worked,

554
00:32:39,958 --> 00:32:42,666
to make a living,
in a packaging company.

555
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:44,467
He designed the Brillo box.

556
00:32:44,562 --> 00:32:45,639
Man and woman:
♪ scrub's in the bubbles ♪

557
00:32:45,663 --> 00:32:46,698
♪ In Brillo soap pads ♪

558
00:32:46,798 --> 00:32:47,975
Ivan Karp:
Even though it represents

559
00:32:47,999 --> 00:32:49,910
sort of a commercial symbol,

560
00:32:50,001 --> 00:32:51,512
that the design itself
is rather attractive,

561
00:32:51,536 --> 00:32:53,538
and Artie... Andy sort of
makes you see it.

562
00:32:53,638 --> 00:32:55,140
That's what his art is about.

563
00:32:56,341 --> 00:32:58,287
Now it was a whole
different world, now.

564
00:32:58,376 --> 00:33:01,118
It was, uh... it was promotion
it was, uh...

565
00:33:01,212 --> 00:33:02,486
Woman:
Andy, do you think that

566
00:33:02,580 --> 00:33:03,791
pop art has sort of reached
the point

567
00:33:03,815 --> 00:33:06,887
where it's becoming
repetitious now?

568
00:33:06,985 --> 00:33:09,124
Uh, yes.

569
00:33:09,220 --> 00:33:11,894
Do you think it could
break away from being pop art?

570
00:33:11,990 --> 00:33:13,128
Uh, no.

571
00:33:13,224 --> 00:33:14,669
Are you just going to carry on?

572
00:33:14,759 --> 00:33:16,170
Uh, yes.

573
00:33:16,260 --> 00:33:17,420
Bob:
So, pop art came, and-

574
00:33:17,462 --> 00:33:18,964
and there's...
There's humor.

575
00:33:19,063 --> 00:33:20,440
But, then, when it became

576
00:33:20,531 --> 00:33:22,340
the thing that people were selling,

577
00:33:22,433 --> 00:33:24,674
then you had to
take it seriously.

578
00:33:27,505 --> 00:33:29,416
The art only meant...
Was like...

579
00:33:29,507 --> 00:33:33,080
Like 1%, and the rest
of it was going to...

580
00:33:33,177 --> 00:33:36,818
To parties, uh, getting
the right people to come

581
00:33:36,914 --> 00:33:38,552
to your show.
We... who really cares...

582
00:33:38,649 --> 00:33:42,062
♪ I'm in with
the "in crowd" ♪

583
00:33:42,153 --> 00:33:46,192
♪ I go where
the "in crowd" goes ♪

584
00:33:46,290 --> 00:33:48,236
♪ I'm in with
the "in crowd" ♪

585
00:33:48,326 --> 00:33:50,499
Jess: There has always
been about the art world

586
00:33:50,595 --> 00:33:53,098
some sort of certain sanctimony

587
00:33:53,197 --> 00:33:55,370
about the way the art world
talks about itself,

588
00:33:55,466 --> 00:33:58,743
with a certain dead...
Dead seriousness.

589
00:33:58,836 --> 00:34:01,282
Bob was not coming
from that place at all.

590
00:34:01,372 --> 00:34:03,113
Bob was looking at the way

591
00:34:03,207 --> 00:34:05,016
the world was really working,

592
00:34:05,109 --> 00:34:07,919
not the way people said
the world was working.

593
00:34:08,012 --> 00:34:09,123
Ed McCormack:
I've said in print that

594
00:34:09,147 --> 00:34:10,285
he's a pain in the ass.

595
00:34:10,381 --> 00:34:11,992
Bob's a pain in the ass.
That's why I'm doing this

596
00:34:12,016 --> 00:34:13,723
right now, because Bob's
a pain in the ass.

597
00:34:13,818 --> 00:34:17,231
He wanted to advertise
his work in... in...

598
00:34:17,321 --> 00:34:18,664
On the back cover
of our magazine.

599
00:34:18,756 --> 00:34:21,100
We told him that we had
a back cover that he could have.

600
00:34:21,192 --> 00:34:23,536
So, he gives us a copy
that he did

601
00:34:23,628 --> 00:34:25,471
of a, uh, a Rothko painting,

602
00:34:25,563 --> 00:34:26,974
and it says "bullshit" on it.

603
00:34:27,065 --> 00:34:29,443
So, Bob put me right away
in the position

604
00:34:29,534 --> 00:34:31,104
of either having to censor him,

605
00:34:31,202 --> 00:34:32,613
and say "we can't run this,"

606
00:34:32,703 --> 00:34:35,650
or having to kind of
endorse this.

607
00:34:35,740 --> 00:34:37,742
So, what I chose to do was,
we're gonna run it.

608
00:34:37,842 --> 00:34:40,186
But I did it with a certain kind
of annoyance, you know?

609
00:34:40,278 --> 00:34:43,555
Like, "what a fucking pain
in the ass this guy is."

610
00:34:43,648 --> 00:34:46,595
Bob was really
a traditional painter.

611
00:34:46,684 --> 00:34:48,459
He understood the basics.

612
00:34:48,553 --> 00:34:50,931
And a lot of the painters
of that era

613
00:34:51,022 --> 00:34:52,933
were really saying things like,

614
00:34:53,024 --> 00:34:57,097
"painting doesn't matter.
It's about... something else."

615
00:34:57,195 --> 00:34:59,436
Bob:
It was 1965.

616
00:34:59,530 --> 00:35:02,204
I said, I'm gonna create
an art show

617
00:35:02,300 --> 00:35:03,870
that WILL get more publicity

618
00:35:03,968 --> 00:35:07,472
than any other artist this year,
including Andy Warhol.

619
00:35:07,572 --> 00:35:09,381
And I did.

620
00:35:09,474 --> 00:35:10,817
And I called it,
"yes art."

621
00:35:10,908 --> 00:35:13,912
♪ I'm in with
the "in crowd" ♪

622
00:35:14,011 --> 00:35:17,618
Whereas Warhol was painting
pictures of green stamps,

623
00:35:17,715 --> 00:35:21,060
we gave out green stamps
with a sale of art.

624
00:35:22,787 --> 00:35:25,358
You got so many books
of sandh green stamps,

625
00:35:25,456 --> 00:35:27,936
and you could get yourself
a TV with them,

626
00:35:28,025 --> 00:35:29,971
or a dog house, or a toaster.

627
00:35:32,163 --> 00:35:33,540
Jess:
His attitude for this-

628
00:35:33,631 --> 00:35:36,009
is a kick in the shins to what

629
00:35:36,100 --> 00:35:39,843
appeared to be a corrupt
system in the art world.

630
00:35:39,937 --> 00:35:41,416
Bob:
The media was looking

631
00:35:41,506 --> 00:35:43,884
to make it into the next
pop art,

632
00:35:43,975 --> 00:35:45,716
and I was trying
to make the point

633
00:35:45,810 --> 00:35:48,154
that something was wrong.

634
00:35:48,246 --> 00:35:49,623
There were people who got it,

635
00:35:49,714 --> 00:35:52,194
and there were people
who didn't.

636
00:35:52,283 --> 00:35:54,263
The show was obviously absurd,

637
00:35:54,352 --> 00:35:57,765
but I had to do it in
such a way that the public would

638
00:35:57,855 --> 00:36:00,028
see no difference
in what was being clone

639
00:36:00,124 --> 00:36:01,967
in a lot of other galleries.

640
00:36:02,059 --> 00:36:03,937
I think it's interesting
that at this late date,

641
00:36:03,961 --> 00:36:06,202
Bob does the Heinz can.

642
00:36:06,297 --> 00:36:07,641
But, in a sense,
I think that's the part

643
00:36:07,665 --> 00:36:10,145
of his work that's,
on a certain level, beneath him.

644
00:36:10,234 --> 00:36:12,145
And I thought it was funny
that he said,

645
00:36:12,236 --> 00:36:15,342
"well, it's actually
a better soup," you know?

646
00:36:15,439 --> 00:36:17,680
Everyone's saying, "oh, Bob,
you've got to continue.

647
00:36:17,775 --> 00:36:20,915
Yes art,
it's a new movement."

648
00:36:21,012 --> 00:36:24,721
For me, to continue that show...

649
00:36:24,815 --> 00:36:27,694
The... the part that
I would be most proud of

650
00:36:27,785 --> 00:36:29,662
is that I said no.
I said, "that's it."

651
00:36:29,754 --> 00:36:31,165
Yes art is over

652
00:36:31,255 --> 00:36:32,529
because...

653
00:36:32,623 --> 00:36:35,399
I would've just been
one of them.

654
00:36:35,493 --> 00:36:37,666
I did this show
as a farewell to art.

655
00:36:37,762 --> 00:36:41,039
And I didn't really paint
for the next ten years.

656
00:36:44,936 --> 00:36:48,782
And finally I get
this job in this agency.

657
00:36:48,873 --> 00:36:52,343
I didn't have any experience.

658
00:36:52,443 --> 00:36:53,854
I guess the agency...
I came in,

659
00:36:53,945 --> 00:36:55,422
and they said,
"oh, who... this is this guy

660
00:36:55,446 --> 00:36:57,016
who's in the newspaper."

661
00:36:57,114 --> 00:36:58,559
Murray Kempton
had written about me,

662
00:36:58,649 --> 00:37:00,322
Dick Schaap.

663
00:37:00,418 --> 00:37:01,920
I called my father.

664
00:37:02,019 --> 00:37:06,399
"Hey, dad, uh,
I just got hired by this..."

665
00:37:06,490 --> 00:37:07,764
He says, "what?

666
00:37:07,858 --> 00:37:09,701
"You mean you have a job?!

667
00:37:09,794 --> 00:37:12,775
"A job like 9 to 5?

668
00:37:12,863 --> 00:37:14,501
And... are you kidding?"

669
00:37:14,599 --> 00:37:17,011
You know, he's like, he was,
like, he was devastated

670
00:37:17,101 --> 00:37:18,774
that I had a job...

671
00:37:18,869 --> 00:37:21,247
A fucking job from 9 to 5.

672
00:37:21,339 --> 00:37:24,650
It was the only job I ever had
9 to 5, by the way.

673
00:37:24,742 --> 00:37:27,552
I thought that, you know,
you came up with the concept,

674
00:37:27,645 --> 00:37:28,749
that you would write it,

675
00:37:28,846 --> 00:37:30,621
that you would do the visuals,

676
00:37:30,715 --> 00:37:31,992
and you'd put
the whole thing together,

677
00:37:32,016 --> 00:37:33,689
which is what I did.

678
00:37:33,784 --> 00:37:36,993
The client bought
the whole thing.

679
00:37:37,088 --> 00:37:38,897
So I am the wonder boy,

680
00:37:38,990 --> 00:37:41,470
but the writer and art director

681
00:37:41,559 --> 00:37:43,869
went to the client

682
00:37:43,961 --> 00:37:46,464
and said, "are you sure?

683
00:37:46,564 --> 00:37:48,840
"Are you sure
this is the right...

684
00:37:48,933 --> 00:37:52,506
You know, we don't wanna..."
Right?

685
00:37:52,603 --> 00:37:55,812
Boom, the rug is
pulled from under me.

686
00:37:55,906 --> 00:37:59,513
It's like I got a knife
right in the back.

687
00:38:01,412 --> 00:38:02,914
When I was in this agency,

688
00:38:03,014 --> 00:38:05,085
I...

689
00:38:05,182 --> 00:38:06,593
Would do these drawings,

690
00:38:06,684 --> 00:38:10,655
these black and white
brush and ink drawings.

691
00:38:10,755 --> 00:38:13,429
I think that
these were in some ways

692
00:38:13,524 --> 00:38:16,801
the most important pieces
of art that I've done,

693
00:38:16,894 --> 00:38:20,307
because people are
compelled by them.

694
00:38:22,066 --> 00:38:26,515
I developed a line from
what I learned from Grosz.

695
00:38:28,472 --> 00:38:32,818
That ten-year period was
lost to painting,

696
00:38:32,910 --> 00:38:36,915
but I had a marriage...
Didn't last too long.

697
00:38:37,014 --> 00:38:38,357
Well, it lasted long enough.

698
00:38:38,449 --> 00:38:42,727
I had a son, I had a business.

699
00:38:42,820 --> 00:38:44,822
I went into the poster business

700
00:38:44,922 --> 00:38:47,459
even though I had,
quote, given up on art.

701
00:38:47,558 --> 00:38:51,267
What I knew was
how to make images.

702
00:38:51,362 --> 00:38:53,433
The images that I put down

703
00:38:53,531 --> 00:38:56,569
were images that meant
something to the public.

704
00:39:00,938 --> 00:39:03,111
I was in that business
at the right time.

705
00:39:03,207 --> 00:39:06,381
We were producing
two, three new designs

706
00:39:06,477 --> 00:39:08,457
sometimes in a week.

707
00:39:08,546 --> 00:39:11,026
But they were political,
they were...

708
00:39:11,115 --> 00:39:12,355
They had a message.

709
00:39:12,450 --> 00:39:14,123
And so that...
That worked for me,

710
00:39:14,218 --> 00:39:15,458
because, you know,

711
00:39:15,553 --> 00:39:17,113
I wasn't doing paintings
with a message,

712
00:39:17,154 --> 00:39:20,431
but I was doing posters with...
With a message.

713
00:39:25,429 --> 00:39:26,499
In the '60s,

714
00:39:26,597 --> 00:39:30,704
there was a lot of animosity
in the country.

715
00:39:30,801 --> 00:39:32,747
So I... I made a target.

716
00:39:32,837 --> 00:39:35,545
The, uh, hostility dartboard.

717
00:39:35,639 --> 00:39:39,314
I actually had...
The CIA came to me,

718
00:39:39,410 --> 00:39:43,051
they said that this was
a violent thing.

719
00:39:43,147 --> 00:39:45,149
I was on the side of,

720
00:39:45,249 --> 00:39:47,354
you know, uh,

721
00:39:47,451 --> 00:39:50,728
slowing down
the violent nature of that time.

722
00:39:50,821 --> 00:39:53,893
I'm taking violence
off the street

723
00:39:53,991 --> 00:39:57,461
and putting it
into your living room.

724
00:39:57,561 --> 00:40:00,599
By the time
the interrogation was over,

725
00:40:00,698 --> 00:40:03,201
they asked if they could have.

726
00:40:03,300 --> 00:40:07,476
A Johnson dartboard
of all things, can you imagine?

727
00:40:08,639 --> 00:40:10,710
The Nixon board wasn't
going that well,

728
00:40:10,808 --> 00:40:12,048
so I wrote him a letter.

729
00:40:12,143 --> 00:40:14,646
"Dear Mr. Nixon,
I make these dartboards,

730
00:40:14,745 --> 00:40:16,281
"and yours is so popular

731
00:40:16,380 --> 00:40:17,691
"I want to give you
an opportunity

732
00:40:17,715 --> 00:40:19,285
to use a better picture."

733
00:40:19,383 --> 00:40:20,418
I got a letter back,

734
00:40:20,518 --> 00:40:23,965
and it was signed by
Rose Mary woods,

735
00:40:24,054 --> 00:40:27,695
the executive secretary
to Richard M. Nixon.

736
00:40:27,792 --> 00:40:31,205
And they sent me
a better picture.

737
00:40:38,469 --> 00:40:41,177
The, uh, people in charge.

738
00:40:41,272 --> 00:40:44,151
It's not what they show
that bothers me.

739
00:40:44,241 --> 00:40:46,551
It's what they don't show.

740
00:40:46,644 --> 00:40:48,453
Mediocrity...

741
00:40:48,546 --> 00:40:52,119
Deciding the fate of genius...

742
00:40:52,216 --> 00:40:56,392
Especially in the case of Grosz,
that's what happened here.

743
00:40:59,590 --> 00:41:01,536
I saw him as...

744
00:41:01,625 --> 00:41:06,096
Clearly, as a brilliant artist.

745
00:41:09,333 --> 00:41:11,973
Grosz, you know,
he felt like a loser.

746
00:41:12,069 --> 00:41:14,379
He said...

747
00:41:14,472 --> 00:41:18,443
That he was a...

748
00:41:18,542 --> 00:41:22,080
A failure.

749
00:41:22,179 --> 00:41:24,955
And you don't like to hear that.

750
00:41:25,049 --> 00:41:27,859
Even with the situation,

751
00:41:27,952 --> 00:41:29,989
you know,
knowing that he's not my...

752
00:41:30,087 --> 00:41:33,000
But I didn't, uh...

753
00:41:33,090 --> 00:41:35,468
I... that always
bothered me.

754
00:41:38,429 --> 00:41:40,932
"George Grosz in America"

755
00:41:41,031 --> 00:41:43,136
was the only painting I did

756
00:41:43,234 --> 00:41:48,149
from 1966 to 1975.

757
00:41:49,507 --> 00:41:52,488
I'm sure that I'm...
I'm painting myself,

758
00:41:52,576 --> 00:41:55,318
I'm feeling...
I'm saying it's George Grosz,

759
00:41:55,412 --> 00:41:57,517
but I'm sort of feeling
like it's me.

760
00:42:01,285 --> 00:42:04,095
I'm looking through
a series of windows,

761
00:42:04,188 --> 00:42:06,759
and I was in a room,
and I'm going through one house

762
00:42:06,857 --> 00:42:08,359
to another house to
another house.

763
00:42:08,459 --> 00:42:10,769
I was trapped.

764
00:42:10,861 --> 00:42:13,273
So that painting, its darkness,

765
00:42:13,364 --> 00:42:18,143
it's probably
a self-portrait.

766
00:42:18,235 --> 00:42:20,306
Not a portrait of Grosz.

767
00:42:21,739 --> 00:42:24,845
George Grosz didn't
consider himself a success.

768
00:42:24,942 --> 00:42:27,923
The guy who did
one career in Germany

769
00:42:28,012 --> 00:42:30,083
and another career in America.

770
00:42:30,180 --> 00:42:32,421
He said that
they cut off his right arm

771
00:42:32,516 --> 00:42:33,722
when he came to America,

772
00:42:33,817 --> 00:42:36,821
and what he meant by that
was that...

773
00:42:36,921 --> 00:42:39,401
You know,
he wasn't being acknowledged,

774
00:42:39,490 --> 00:42:45,065
even for what he had clone
or what he could do.

775
00:42:45,162 --> 00:42:47,802
I was outraged,

776
00:42:47,898 --> 00:42:49,309
furious... I mean,

777
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,176
there's no words to describe

778
00:42:52,269 --> 00:42:55,842
my feeling for the art world.

779
00:42:55,940 --> 00:42:57,920
It... I despised it.

780
00:42:59,677 --> 00:43:00,987
Richard Armstrong:
The very worst fate

781
00:43:01,011 --> 00:43:03,389
for an artist is to be ignored.

782
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:05,756
Same for their work.

783
00:43:05,849 --> 00:43:09,820
If it becomes irrelevant,
illegible, ignored.

784
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:11,399
These are all, you know,

785
00:43:11,488 --> 00:43:16,437
shades of, you know,
permanent disappearance.

786
00:43:20,531 --> 00:43:24,035
Everyone is dealt
a certain deck of cards.

787
00:43:24,134 --> 00:43:26,375
So I was dealt a certain hand,

788
00:43:26,470 --> 00:43:28,780
and I had a number of thing

789
00:43:28,872 --> 00:43:31,250
that I wished weren't true.

790
00:43:31,342 --> 00:43:34,619
If I got depressed,
I would withdraw.

791
00:43:34,712 --> 00:43:37,352
I didn't...
I didn't want to see people.

792
00:43:37,448 --> 00:43:42,056
I had week, two-week
depressions.

793
00:43:42,152 --> 00:43:46,328
So what my mother
often said to me was,

794
00:43:46,423 --> 00:43:50,530
"don't look for the answers
on the outside.

795
00:43:50,628 --> 00:43:54,337
Look... they're inside."

796
00:43:54,431 --> 00:43:56,809
And every time I would
get out of a depression,

797
00:43:56,900 --> 00:43:58,538
I was feeling so good, I said,

798
00:43:58,636 --> 00:44:00,206
"that could never
happen to me again."

799
00:44:00,304 --> 00:44:02,011
And then, who knows?

800
00:44:02,106 --> 00:44:04,347
I came to a point
where I decided

801
00:44:04,441 --> 00:44:06,819
not to be a tragic figure.

802
00:44:06,910 --> 00:44:09,914
I didn't graduate from
high school.

803
00:44:10,014 --> 00:44:11,357
I was illegitimate.

804
00:44:11,448 --> 00:44:14,657
But, in the end,
hey, I have my art.

805
00:44:16,186 --> 00:44:18,564
I would not say that I am...

806
00:44:18,656 --> 00:44:20,465
An expert on music.

807
00:44:20,557 --> 00:44:21,900
I just love music, you know?

808
00:44:21,992 --> 00:44:25,337
I'm one of those people who say,
"I listen to what I like."

809
00:44:32,469 --> 00:44:34,847
My interest was in the audience.

810
00:44:34,938 --> 00:44:36,576
So the painting's not...

811
00:44:36,674 --> 00:44:38,085
It's not of the orchestra

812
00:44:38,175 --> 00:44:41,588
from the audience looking in,
but it's from behind them.

813
00:44:45,716 --> 00:44:47,252
I'm not sure of the year,

814
00:44:47,351 --> 00:44:49,831
but in the late...
Somewhere in the late '70s,

815
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:53,163
I started a series of paintings

816
00:44:53,257 --> 00:44:56,431
using musical backgrounds.

817
00:44:56,527 --> 00:44:58,939
In the balcony,
I'm looking at the crowd

818
00:44:59,029 --> 00:45:02,067
from the point of view
of what a... some guy

819
00:45:02,166 --> 00:45:04,086
who's playing the violin
or the oboe or something

820
00:45:04,134 --> 00:45:06,136
and he's...
He's hearing, you know,

821
00:45:06,236 --> 00:45:08,614
people blowing their nose,
you know, coughing,

822
00:45:08,706 --> 00:45:10,549
all that kind of stuff.

823
00:45:10,641 --> 00:45:13,281
I'm able to express something

824
00:45:13,377 --> 00:45:15,948
that I know must be on the minds

825
00:45:16,046 --> 00:45:18,492
of the poor guys down there
who are slaving away,

826
00:45:18,582 --> 00:45:19,693
you know, trying to make music

827
00:45:19,717 --> 00:45:21,390
and competing with the audience.

828
00:45:24,388 --> 00:45:26,698
Every once in a while,
you're working on something,

829
00:45:26,790 --> 00:45:30,704
and I... I saw the...

830
00:45:32,129 --> 00:45:35,975
The idea of
a political conductor.

831
00:45:36,066 --> 00:45:38,307
Once I had established
Hitler as the...

832
00:45:38,402 --> 00:45:41,576
As the conductor, well...

833
00:45:46,276 --> 00:45:48,586
You know, you can
criticize Hitler and say,

834
00:45:48,679 --> 00:45:49,956
"yeah, but he had plenty
of people

835
00:45:49,980 --> 00:45:52,119
that were
playing ball with him."

836
00:45:52,216 --> 00:45:54,992
So they became-they had
little mustaches.

837
00:45:55,085 --> 00:45:57,998
And then... and then of course
you had to have the people.

838
00:45:58,088 --> 00:46:00,159
They had to kind of go along,

839
00:46:00,257 --> 00:46:02,100
and so they, in the audience,

840
00:46:02,192 --> 00:46:03,637
you see the little mustaches.

841
00:46:03,727 --> 00:46:06,230
So, again,
the art of any painting

842
00:46:06,330 --> 00:46:09,743
is not the commentary,
and that's why I say

843
00:46:09,833 --> 00:46:11,574
I throw the commentary in
at no charge.

844
00:46:11,668 --> 00:46:14,444
I just charge for the color
and the composition.

845
00:46:15,506 --> 00:46:17,486
When I first met Raphael Soyer,

846
00:46:17,574 --> 00:46:20,020
he said to me...

847
00:46:20,110 --> 00:46:22,886
"Where do you get
your ideas?"

848
00:46:22,980 --> 00:46:24,425
And I...
I couldn't believe it.

849
00:46:24,515 --> 00:46:28,292
I couldn't understand
an artist asking me that.

850
00:46:28,385 --> 00:46:30,991
"Where do you get
your ideas?"

851
00:46:31,088 --> 00:46:34,900
He was a guy who would give time
to younger artists.

852
00:46:35,959 --> 00:46:37,961
And he himself said,

853
00:46:38,061 --> 00:46:40,041
well, for him to do a painting,

854
00:46:40,130 --> 00:46:41,803
he had to have a model

855
00:46:41,899 --> 00:46:45,244
or something sitting
in front of him.

856
00:46:45,335 --> 00:46:46,575
Artists are all different,

857
00:46:46,670 --> 00:46:49,207
but, for me, I've never
been in my studio and said,

858
00:46:49,306 --> 00:46:51,582
"oh gee, what am I going
to paint today?

859
00:46:51,675 --> 00:46:53,382
He then said,
"well, where do you get

860
00:46:53,477 --> 00:46:55,479
your ideas from," you know?

861
00:46:55,579 --> 00:46:56,922
I didn't have an answer then.

862
00:46:58,515 --> 00:47:00,859
Painting my painting
or painting in general

863
00:47:00,951 --> 00:47:02,396
is about ideas, you know,

864
00:47:02,486 --> 00:47:05,831
so I did one painting
in the music series

865
00:47:05,923 --> 00:47:10,065
where the... all the players are
fighting each other

866
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:11,160
and, you know,

867
00:47:11,195 --> 00:47:13,835
and crashing a drum

868
00:47:13,931 --> 00:47:14,941
over the other guy's head.

869
00:47:14,965 --> 00:47:17,343
Broken violin.

870
00:47:17,434 --> 00:47:19,607
A conductor running off
the stage.

871
00:47:37,788 --> 00:47:41,065
I was called, by Rosita Florio,

872
00:47:41,158 --> 00:47:43,069
who was the head of
the art students league.

873
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:44,901
"Bob," she said,

874
00:47:44,995 --> 00:47:49,137
"how would you like to teach
the old George Grosz class?"

875
00:47:49,233 --> 00:47:52,612
And, of course, I... you know,
I'd never taught anywhere.

876
00:47:55,372 --> 00:47:56,649
You know,
I walked into this class,

877
00:47:56,673 --> 00:47:59,882
and of course it brought me
right back to 1959.

878
00:47:59,977 --> 00:48:02,685
You know,
you were walking on the floor

879
00:48:02,779 --> 00:48:05,760
that Grosz walked on.

880
00:48:07,251 --> 00:48:09,527
George Grosz was
teaching at the league

881
00:48:09,620 --> 00:48:11,759
because he didn't need a degree.

882
00:48:11,855 --> 00:48:14,028
He couldn't have taught at

883
00:48:14,124 --> 00:48:17,537
one of the lofty
art schools like Yale.

884
00:48:19,930 --> 00:48:21,876
Took off my jacket,
and I rolled up my sleeves,

885
00:48:21,965 --> 00:48:23,842
and I took a piece of charcoal,

886
00:48:23,934 --> 00:48:27,541
and I started to show people
what I knew.

887
00:48:28,939 --> 00:48:30,919
Not just paying back,

888
00:48:31,008 --> 00:48:34,785
but to remember the things
that got you to where we are.

889
00:48:36,146 --> 00:48:38,524
As we...

890
00:48:38,615 --> 00:48:41,528
Continue this, we see...

891
00:48:51,161 --> 00:48:53,198
This little piece of charcoal,

892
00:48:53,297 --> 00:48:55,106
piece of paper,

893
00:48:55,198 --> 00:48:58,873
and your eye and hand
starting to work together.

894
00:48:58,969 --> 00:49:02,542
And it's the greatest discipline
in the world.

895
00:49:08,645 --> 00:49:11,148
All right, hey.

896
00:49:11,248 --> 00:49:13,854
So, when we do spaghetti sauce,

897
00:49:13,951 --> 00:49:16,454
we do it...
We do it big.

898
00:49:16,553 --> 00:49:18,464
In my search to find out

899
00:49:18,555 --> 00:49:19,863
who I am,

900
00:49:19,957 --> 00:49:23,996
the name "Cenedella,"
that's an Italian name.

901
00:49:24,094 --> 00:49:26,540
Certainly no one has
ever accused me

902
00:49:26,630 --> 00:49:28,109
of looking like an Italian,

903
00:49:28,198 --> 00:49:30,644
including my own family.

904
00:49:30,734 --> 00:49:34,841
One of the secret ingredients
in there was celery.

905
00:49:34,938 --> 00:49:37,441
And also...

906
00:49:37,541 --> 00:49:39,316
Carrots.

907
00:49:39,409 --> 00:49:44,017
So that our sauce becomes
like a... almost like a stew.

908
00:49:44,114 --> 00:49:46,151
Some people put sugar
in the spaghetti sauce.

909
00:49:46,249 --> 00:49:47,728
We never do it, that's the...

910
00:49:47,818 --> 00:49:49,889
That's the Cenedella secret.

911
00:49:49,987 --> 00:49:52,900
Or maybe it's...
Well, anyway.

912
00:49:52,990 --> 00:49:55,971
It could be the Speirs secret.

913
00:49:56,059 --> 00:49:58,369
But any... but...

914
00:50:00,130 --> 00:50:03,111
And that's the, uh...

915
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:04,304
Hey, hey.

916
00:50:04,401 --> 00:50:06,642
Oh, is this the...
No, no.

917
00:50:06,737 --> 00:50:08,014
Oh, this is not the good stuff.

918
00:50:08,038 --> 00:50:09,244
It's not the good stuff, no.

919
00:50:10,874 --> 00:50:12,820
I just don't understand

920
00:50:12,909 --> 00:50:15,651
how you could not be
a good father.

921
00:50:15,746 --> 00:50:17,521
You know, I had two fathers

922
00:50:17,614 --> 00:50:21,619
that didn't... together,
they didn't make up one, right?

923
00:50:21,718 --> 00:50:22,958
And then I'm thinking...

924
00:50:23,053 --> 00:50:26,227
And then
I have... David.

925
00:50:26,323 --> 00:50:27,667
Yeah, I was the black sheep
in the family,

926
00:50:27,691 --> 00:50:28,726
because I was a lawyer.

927
00:50:28,825 --> 00:50:29,825
Yeah, right, right,

928
00:50:29,860 --> 00:50:31,066
he actually had a job.

929
00:50:31,161 --> 00:50:33,232
Had a job, you know, hey.

930
00:50:33,330 --> 00:50:35,469
That made him
a black sheep of the family.

931
00:50:35,565 --> 00:50:37,169
You spend time,

932
00:50:37,267 --> 00:50:38,905
and you treat them

933
00:50:39,002 --> 00:50:40,675
the way you would
want to be treated,

934
00:50:40,771 --> 00:50:42,682
you know what,
it's gonna work out great.

935
00:50:42,773 --> 00:50:44,616
A true story.

936
00:50:47,310 --> 00:50:48,948
I grew up in a family

937
00:50:49,046 --> 00:50:50,582
in which my father

938
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:54,218
literally saw losing in sports

939
00:50:54,317 --> 00:50:55,921
as losing in life,

940
00:50:56,019 --> 00:50:59,091
so that there was no separation.

941
00:51:00,390 --> 00:51:02,233
David:
When I was a kid,

942
00:51:02,325 --> 00:51:06,796
we used to go, like,
literally crazy at the games.

943
00:51:06,897 --> 00:51:08,843
Actually, he's not a good sport.

944
00:51:08,932 --> 00:51:10,843
He's actually not a bad loser.

945
00:51:10,934 --> 00:51:13,471
He's actually a really
horrible winner, though.

946
00:51:18,575 --> 00:51:20,316
David:
That is,

947
00:51:20,410 --> 00:51:22,913
he always roots
for the underdog.

948
00:51:23,013 --> 00:51:24,788
Always.

949
00:51:24,881 --> 00:51:27,862
Bob: Losing is like
being a failure in art.

950
00:51:27,951 --> 00:51:31,296
It's like being
a failure at everything.

951
00:51:34,157 --> 00:51:38,367
Not that winning means
that I'm a success.

952
00:51:38,462 --> 00:51:40,032
Doesn't work that way.

953
00:51:40,130 --> 00:51:42,872
Just, winning just means
I didn't lose.

954
00:51:42,966 --> 00:51:44,877
Oh, well...

955
00:51:46,570 --> 00:51:48,447
Yooo!

956
00:51:48,538 --> 00:51:50,279
Whoooo!

957
00:51:50,373 --> 00:51:52,353
Look at that, hey.

958
00:52:00,117 --> 00:52:01,892
Jess Korman:
There's an aspect of violence

959
00:52:01,985 --> 00:52:03,794
in every Cenedella painting.

960
00:52:03,887 --> 00:52:05,560
I mean,
there are people fighting,

961
00:52:05,655 --> 00:52:06,793
and he loves sports,

962
00:52:06,890 --> 00:52:08,767
and so he loves
the... the confrontation.

963
00:52:08,859 --> 00:52:10,668
He's clone many
football paintings.

964
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:12,296
And so, I mean,

965
00:52:12,395 --> 00:52:14,204
I think he's a...
You know, he's a guy's guy,

966
00:52:14,297 --> 00:52:16,709
you know, Bob likes
to mess it up,

967
00:52:16,800 --> 00:52:18,040
and there's drama in that.

968
00:52:18,135 --> 00:52:20,911
And he also sees
comic value in it.

969
00:52:38,288 --> 00:52:40,928
The humor in his paintings

970
00:52:41,024 --> 00:52:45,097
is never ceasing.

971
00:52:45,195 --> 00:52:46,936
No matter how bad things are,

972
00:52:47,030 --> 00:52:48,441
you've gotta have
a sense of humor,

973
00:52:48,532 --> 00:52:50,409
and I recognized the humor,

974
00:52:50,500 --> 00:52:51,672
the whimsy,

975
00:52:51,768 --> 00:52:54,772
and the sardonic gallows humor

976
00:52:54,871 --> 00:52:56,111
which he has in his work.

977
00:52:56,206 --> 00:52:59,153
Humor lives eternally,

978
00:52:59,242 --> 00:53:01,188
you know, in his paintings.

979
00:53:01,278 --> 00:53:03,451
I think my art is very serious.

980
00:53:03,547 --> 00:53:05,493
But it makes people laugh.

981
00:53:05,582 --> 00:53:07,528
My wife and I got

982
00:53:07,617 --> 00:53:10,996
an invitation to an art show.

983
00:53:11,087 --> 00:53:14,296
I remember walking
into this gallery,

984
00:53:14,391 --> 00:53:15,893
and the show was called
"giants."

985
00:53:15,992 --> 00:53:20,168
And it showed a football field
with tiny players

986
00:53:20,263 --> 00:53:22,709
and giant people

987
00:53:22,799 --> 00:53:26,110
in the tradition
of George Grosz characters.

988
00:53:26,203 --> 00:53:28,843
But the odd thing
about the exhibit was

989
00:53:28,939 --> 00:53:30,680
they all seemed to be
the same picture.

990
00:53:30,774 --> 00:53:31,980
You went around, there were,

991
00:53:32,075 --> 00:53:34,282
like, maybe
60 pictures on the wall,

992
00:53:34,377 --> 00:53:35,685
and every one of them
looked like

993
00:53:35,779 --> 00:53:39,420
it was a reproduction of
the same picture.

994
00:53:39,516 --> 00:53:42,690
After about ten minutes there,
someone came up to me,

995
00:53:42,786 --> 00:53:45,733
said,
"have you gotten it?"

996
00:53:45,822 --> 00:53:47,859
I said,
"gotten what?"?

997
00:53:47,958 --> 00:53:50,029
So he said,
"have you found yourself?"

998
00:53:50,126 --> 00:53:51,537
I said, "what are you
talking about?"

999
00:53:51,561 --> 00:53:53,370
And I... I assumed

1000
00:53:53,463 --> 00:53:55,841
maybe I was one of the faces
in the crowd.

1001
00:53:55,932 --> 00:53:57,910
So I looked at the painting
I was standing in front of,

1002
00:53:57,934 --> 00:53:59,845
and I wasn't in there.

1003
00:53:59,936 --> 00:54:01,347
But then it turned out

1004
00:54:01,438 --> 00:54:03,509
that everyone he had invited
to this show,

1005
00:54:03,607 --> 00:54:06,611
he had put their face
in one place.

1006
00:54:06,710 --> 00:54:08,849
And that was the only thing that
was different.

1007
00:54:08,945 --> 00:54:11,391
One face was changed.

1008
00:54:11,481 --> 00:54:14,087
And when you found the one
with your face on it,

1009
00:54:14,184 --> 00:54:17,028
his assumption was
that you'd buy the painting.

1010
00:54:18,955 --> 00:54:20,764
Bob:
It was around 1987.

1011
00:54:20,857 --> 00:54:22,393
Everyone was talking about

1012
00:54:22,492 --> 00:54:23,698
that one day

1013
00:54:23,793 --> 00:54:26,797
the stock market would
go over 2,000.

1014
00:54:28,164 --> 00:54:29,507
I had met a stockbroker.

1015
00:54:29,599 --> 00:54:31,340
He was interested in my art.

1016
00:54:31,434 --> 00:54:33,311
And said you ought
to do a painting

1017
00:54:33,403 --> 00:54:34,575
of the stock exchange.

1018
00:54:34,671 --> 00:54:36,275
He had a seat,

1019
00:54:36,373 --> 00:54:40,287
so he was able to get me
actually on the floor.

1020
00:54:45,081 --> 00:54:48,119
There was more integrity on
the floor of the stock exchange

1021
00:54:48,218 --> 00:54:50,596
than the art world itself.

1022
00:54:50,687 --> 00:54:54,328
It was refreshing to be
with honest crooks

1023
00:54:54,424 --> 00:54:56,135
rather than the kind of
crooks that I deal with

1024
00:54:56,159 --> 00:54:58,070
in the art world.

1025
00:54:59,729 --> 00:55:01,800
I was able to incorporate
a lot of this stuff

1026
00:55:01,898 --> 00:55:04,003
in the painting.

1027
00:55:04,100 --> 00:55:07,946
♪ Easy money,
comes and goes ♪

1028
00:55:08,038 --> 00:55:11,781
♪ You may have it,
you may owe, well ♪

1029
00:55:11,875 --> 00:55:13,445
♪ Everybody dies ♪

1030
00:55:13,543 --> 00:55:15,648
♪ And everybody knows ♪

1031
00:55:15,745 --> 00:55:17,725
♪ If you wanna make
your Mark ♪

1032
00:55:17,814 --> 00:55:19,851
♪ You better
make it show ♪

1033
00:55:19,949 --> 00:55:21,758
♪ My bitty mow mow ♪

1034
00:55:21,851 --> 00:55:23,762
♪ Took your money now how ♪

1035
00:55:23,853 --> 00:55:27,699
♪ Ever WILL you pay the man? ♪

1036
00:55:27,791 --> 00:55:29,702
♪ Skinny Minnie moo moo ♪

1037
00:55:29,793 --> 00:55:32,000
♪ Took it off of mow mow ♪

1038
00:55:32,095 --> 00:55:35,633
♪ Gave it all
to dapper Dan ♪

1039
00:55:35,732 --> 00:55:37,609
♪ Jr. tiny juju ♪

1040
00:55:37,701 --> 00:55:39,578
♪ Can get it off
of Daniel ♪

1041
00:55:39,669 --> 00:55:43,617
♪ 'Cause he's
a heavy-liftin' dude ♪

1042
00:55:43,707 --> 00:55:45,778
♪ But juju's baby mama ♪?

1043
00:55:45,875 --> 00:55:47,821
♪ May cause a bit of drama ♪

1044
00:55:47,911 --> 00:55:51,825
♪ All depending on her mood ♪

1045
00:55:51,915 --> 00:55:53,553
♪ Easy money ♪

1046
00:55:53,650 --> 00:55:56,358
♪ Comes and goes ♪

1047
00:55:56,453 --> 00:55:59,093
♪ You may have it,
you may owe ♪

1048
00:55:59,189 --> 00:56:01,260
♪ Well,
everybody dies ♪

1049
00:56:01,358 --> 00:56:03,634
♪ And everybody knows ♪

1050
00:56:03,727 --> 00:56:06,173
♪ If you wanna make
your Mark ♪

1051
00:56:06,262 --> 00:56:09,175
♪ You better make it show n'

1052
00:56:11,534 --> 00:56:14,276
Let's make it happen.

1053
00:56:21,077 --> 00:56:22,886
People may have
thought it was ironic

1054
00:56:22,979 --> 00:56:25,357
that Robert Cenedella was
doing this drawing

1055
00:56:25,448 --> 00:56:26,722
about the home of capitalism,

1056
00:56:26,816 --> 00:56:29,160
but that's what Cenedella is.

1057
00:56:29,252 --> 00:56:31,994
Ironic, that's a good...

1058
00:56:32,088 --> 00:56:35,763
One-word encapsulation
of everything that he's done.

1059
00:56:35,859 --> 00:56:36,036
People are buying art
only for investment.

1060
00:56:36,059 --> 00:56:38,369
People are buying art
only for investment.

1061
00:56:38,461 --> 00:56:40,737
I can't give you percentages,

1062
00:56:40,830 --> 00:56:43,310
but a high percentage of 'em

1063
00:56:43,400 --> 00:56:44,845
buy a piece of art

1064
00:56:44,934 --> 00:56:47,005
with the hope that
it's going to increase in value

1065
00:56:47,103 --> 00:56:48,548
when they walk out of there.

1066
00:56:48,638 --> 00:56:51,050
The art world really is a...

1067
00:56:51,141 --> 00:56:53,781
Kind of a...
A dreary place right now.

1068
00:56:53,877 --> 00:56:55,220
It's all based on money,

1069
00:56:55,311 --> 00:56:56,483
it's based on collectors.

1070
00:56:56,579 --> 00:56:58,752
It's based on...

1071
00:56:58,848 --> 00:57:01,727
I mean, I don't know how
people are hustling so hard

1072
00:57:01,818 --> 00:57:05,561
and trying so...
So much to get famous.

1073
00:57:11,060 --> 00:57:12,300
Bob:
I consider myself

1074
00:57:12,395 --> 00:57:14,602
a contemporary artist
because I'm painting today.

1075
00:57:14,697 --> 00:57:17,906
So contemporary art...
Who defines what it is?

1076
00:57:18,001 --> 00:57:20,607
And I have a big problem
with that.

1077
00:57:20,703 --> 00:57:22,580
Woman: For the first time
in its history,

1078
00:57:22,672 --> 00:57:25,551
the frieze art fair is
being held in New York City.

1079
00:57:25,642 --> 00:57:28,282
With so much to see
in contemporary art,

1080
00:57:28,378 --> 00:57:30,654
visitors can spend hours
at the fair.

1081
00:57:30,747 --> 00:57:31,857
Kelly crow:
Contemporary art,

1082
00:57:31,881 --> 00:57:32,985
that's the wild west.

1083
00:57:33,082 --> 00:57:35,358
That's where you have a chance
to maybe buy something

1084
00:57:35,452 --> 00:57:36,988
that WILL be worth
millions someday.

1085
00:57:37,086 --> 00:57:39,726
Um, but it also means that
you may lose your shirt.

1086
00:57:41,591 --> 00:57:43,102
Morgan long:
Contemporary art is seen as-

1087
00:57:43,126 --> 00:57:44,332
as pushing the envelope.

1088
00:57:44,427 --> 00:57:46,429
And a lot of times
you can get something

1089
00:57:46,529 --> 00:57:49,942
that's, um, you know,
a pile of garbage, literally.

1090
00:57:50,033 --> 00:57:52,570
But it's an art installation.

1091
00:57:52,669 --> 00:57:54,205
Bob:
I say the establishment is

1092
00:57:54,304 --> 00:57:56,875
narrow-minded about
work that doesn't fit

1093
00:57:56,973 --> 00:57:58,953
their monthly designation

1094
00:57:59,042 --> 00:58:02,819
of who's in and who's out.

1095
00:58:02,912 --> 00:58:05,449
An artist can rise and fall

1096
00:58:05,548 --> 00:58:08,256
in recognition
within the art world.

1097
00:58:08,351 --> 00:58:13,391
There is no one player who can
make an artist.

1098
00:58:13,490 --> 00:58:17,438
You can move from
being not known or not valued

1099
00:58:17,527 --> 00:58:18,870
to the other side,

1100
00:58:18,962 --> 00:58:21,636
but you have to be lucky enough

1101
00:58:21,731 --> 00:58:24,337
or clever enough
or talented enough

1102
00:58:24,434 --> 00:58:26,607
or beautiful enough or...

1103
00:58:26,703 --> 00:58:28,740
The companion
or friend or whatever...

1104
00:58:28,838 --> 00:58:31,148
Neighbor of someone
who can help you do that.

1105
00:58:31,241 --> 00:58:32,584
It can't be done alone.

1106
00:58:32,675 --> 00:58:33,875
Bob:
So we've come to believe

1107
00:58:33,910 --> 00:58:35,454
now that, every month,
there's another great,

1108
00:58:35,478 --> 00:58:37,185
you know, American artist.

1109
00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:41,353
How many great artists
are there?

1110
00:58:41,451 --> 00:58:45,661
Jeff Koons,
he has a vacuum cleaner.

1111
00:58:45,755 --> 00:58:47,359
All right, now it's art.

1112
00:58:47,457 --> 00:58:51,564
At some point, it's gonna become
just a vacuum cleaner again.

1113
00:58:51,661 --> 00:58:53,800
That's really
where we're at at this point.

1114
00:58:53,897 --> 00:58:56,673
It... the question isn't
"what is art?"

1115
00:58:56,766 --> 00:58:59,246
It's "what isn't art."

1116
00:58:59,335 --> 00:59:00,746
Judd Tully:
What's important?

1117
00:59:00,837 --> 00:59:02,612
What's valuable?

1118
00:59:02,705 --> 00:59:04,742
We're not talking
about critical value

1119
00:59:04,841 --> 00:59:06,115
or museum value.

1120
00:59:06,209 --> 00:59:09,122
We're just talking
plain old dollar value.

1121
00:59:11,414 --> 00:59:13,155
Bob:
Everyone has the right

1122
00:59:13,249 --> 00:59:17,026
to make anything they want.

1123
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:19,794
It's not what they show
that bothers me.

1124
00:59:19,889 --> 00:59:22,335
It's what they don't show.

1125
00:59:22,425 --> 00:59:25,338
And that's really a kind of
form of censorship.

1126
00:59:28,765 --> 00:59:30,403
I do not think a work of art

1127
00:59:30,500 --> 00:59:32,260
is worth what someone's
willing to pay for it

1128
00:59:32,302 --> 00:59:35,112
because some of
the most important works of art

1129
00:59:35,204 --> 00:59:37,707
are not for sale.

1130
00:59:46,482 --> 00:59:47,593
Bob:
What I tell my students,

1131
00:59:47,617 --> 00:59:49,790
I said, if you wanna
be an artist,

1132
00:59:49,886 --> 00:59:52,560
don't get rid of your Clay job.

1133
00:59:52,655 --> 00:59:55,101
You can bastardize
everything else in your life,

1134
00:59:55,191 --> 00:59:57,262
but if you compromise
with your art,

1135
00:59:57,360 --> 00:59:59,203
why be an artist?

1136
00:59:59,295 --> 01:00:03,744
You have to remember that,
when we look there at the model,

1137
01:00:03,833 --> 01:00:05,608
there are no lines,
there's no such thing...

1138
01:00:05,702 --> 01:00:07,272
That was one of the first things

1139
01:00:07,370 --> 01:00:10,510
that Grosz said to me
that I found startling.

1140
01:00:10,607 --> 01:00:13,349
He was like,
"oh, there is no such thing

1141
01:00:13,443 --> 01:00:15,889
as a line in nature."

1142
01:00:15,979 --> 01:00:18,255
It's an invention of man, see?

1143
01:00:18,348 --> 01:00:22,694
So use line to make
all these other things.

1144
01:00:24,587 --> 01:00:26,794
."Okay,
so this could have been...

1145
01:00:26,889 --> 01:00:28,459
More this line...

1146
01:00:28,558 --> 01:00:31,129
You look there,
don't look at the page.

1147
01:00:31,227 --> 01:00:32,227
Let it... let it happen.

1148
01:00:32,261 --> 01:00:34,798
Okay, there...

1149
01:00:34,897 --> 01:00:36,740
If you make a foot
that's this big...

1150
01:00:36,833 --> 01:00:38,244
Eventually what happens is

1151
01:00:38,334 --> 01:00:40,575
you see part of this drawing,
you say, oh, wow.

1152
01:00:40,670 --> 01:00:42,843
That really feels like an arm.

1153
01:00:42,939 --> 01:00:44,680
Or that feels like a thigh.

1154
01:00:44,774 --> 01:00:46,776
The rest of it,
you forget about it.

1155
01:00:46,876 --> 01:00:48,981
I always tell this story
about this girl.

1156
01:00:49,078 --> 01:00:50,656
I said, "how long
have you been drawing?"

1157
01:00:50,680 --> 01:00:52,751
"Oh, I've been drawing
for three years."

1158
01:00:52,849 --> 01:00:54,590
So I handed her
a piece of charcoal.

1159
01:00:54,684 --> 01:00:56,493
And she said,
"what's that?"

1160
01:00:56,586 --> 01:00:58,224
Then I realized

1161
01:00:58,321 --> 01:00:59,921
that she had been drawing
with a computer

1162
01:00:59,956 --> 01:01:02,766
and got herself an MFA.

1163
01:01:02,859 --> 01:01:04,805
By the end of the Clay,

1164
01:01:04,894 --> 01:01:07,704
she was so mad

1165
01:01:07,797 --> 01:01:10,334
that she had spent
three years in an art school

1166
01:01:10,433 --> 01:01:13,380
and never held
a piece of charcoal...

1167
01:01:13,469 --> 01:01:15,608
Right, and thought
she could draw.

1168
01:01:18,708 --> 01:01:20,415
In 1988,

1169
01:01:20,510 --> 01:01:22,956
I had my Saatchi and Saatchi show

1170
01:01:23,046 --> 01:01:24,684
right at their headquarters.

1171
01:01:24,781 --> 01:01:26,954
And this was a major show.

1172
01:01:27,050 --> 01:01:29,656
Saatchi, of course, is known for

1173
01:01:29,752 --> 01:01:32,198
their, um,

1174
01:01:32,288 --> 01:01:34,825
sensations show.

1175
01:01:34,924 --> 01:01:37,131
The Brooklyn museum
gave Saatchi-

1176
01:01:37,226 --> 01:01:39,672
they allowed him
to put his private collection

1177
01:01:39,762 --> 01:01:42,003
into a public museum.

1178
01:01:42,098 --> 01:01:43,907
Just on the face of it,
it's like,

1179
01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:46,207
what the hell is that all about?

1180
01:01:46,302 --> 01:01:48,304
They called it "sensations."

1181
01:01:49,672 --> 01:01:52,744
So I had planned the show out
pretty carefully.

1182
01:01:52,842 --> 01:01:55,288
The lobby has
white marble on both sides,

1183
01:01:55,378 --> 01:01:56,721
but at the very end,

1184
01:01:56,813 --> 01:01:59,692
there's a fantastic
white marble square

1185
01:01:59,782 --> 01:02:04,094
for the painting that
I had built the show around.

1186
01:02:04,187 --> 01:02:06,224
This would've been almost like

1187
01:02:06,322 --> 01:02:08,097
being in a church.

1188
01:02:12,995 --> 01:02:14,804
I think I had the idea

1189
01:02:14,897 --> 01:02:17,639
of putting Santa Claus
on a cross

1190
01:02:17,734 --> 01:02:19,236
from the early '60s.

1191
01:02:19,335 --> 01:02:22,145
I must've had trouble as a kid
with Christmas.

1192
01:02:25,942 --> 01:02:27,785
Everything was going fine

1193
01:02:27,877 --> 01:02:29,982
until they looked at my work.

1194
01:02:30,079 --> 01:02:32,525
Santa Claus hanging on a...
On a cross.

1195
01:02:32,615 --> 01:02:36,222
That was more
than they could take.

1196
01:02:36,319 --> 01:02:38,128
The Santa Claus painting,

1197
01:02:38,221 --> 01:02:42,692
I don't think it ever really
made it to the wall.

1198
01:02:42,792 --> 01:02:45,500
The powers that be
at Saatchi and Saatchi

1199
01:02:45,595 --> 01:02:47,597
saw it, and they said,
"oh, my god."

1200
01:02:47,697 --> 01:02:49,142
They... you know,
they...

1201
01:02:49,232 --> 01:02:52,270
And they just literally took it
out of the show.

1202
01:02:52,368 --> 01:02:54,370
I attempted to show
this painting

1203
01:02:54,470 --> 01:02:55,847
for the next ten years.

1204
01:02:55,938 --> 01:02:58,214
Never could get into a gallery.

1205
01:02:58,307 --> 01:03:00,583
Never could get into anyplace.

1206
01:03:00,676 --> 01:03:03,054
Getting people's attention

1207
01:03:03,146 --> 01:03:05,319
in New York
and other places today

1208
01:03:05,414 --> 01:03:07,553
is really a job unto itself.

1209
01:03:07,650 --> 01:03:09,152
And the thing you recognize

1210
01:03:09,252 --> 01:03:11,391
in working inside this world

1211
01:03:11,487 --> 01:03:13,489
is that recognition is
the only thing

1212
01:03:13,589 --> 01:03:15,364
we can really offer one another.

1213
01:03:22,265 --> 01:03:24,006
Bob:
A lot of people including,

1214
01:03:24,100 --> 01:03:27,980
I guess, my wife think
I spend too much time in bars.

1215
01:03:28,070 --> 01:03:32,985
But the truth is I seem to have
a pretty good time in bars.

1216
01:03:38,514 --> 01:03:40,050
What happened to my drink?

1217
01:03:40,149 --> 01:03:41,287
Oh, here we are.

1218
01:03:41,384 --> 01:03:43,421
I thought you took my drink.

1219
01:03:43,519 --> 01:03:45,760
It would be just like you,
you know?

1220
01:03:45,855 --> 01:03:46,890
I see bars as

1221
01:03:46,989 --> 01:03:48,991
little one-act plays.

1222
01:03:49,091 --> 01:03:50,399
You might meet someone

1223
01:03:50,493 --> 01:03:52,700
that you like
or that you don't like.

1224
01:03:52,795 --> 01:03:54,775
I see people who I might...

1225
01:03:54,864 --> 01:03:58,243
Disagree with in politics,
this, that, and the other thing.

1226
01:03:58,334 --> 01:04:02,305
And yet most people you can
really find a camaraderie with.

1227
01:04:02,405 --> 01:04:03,941
And where...
Where do you live now?

1228
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:05,178
- Boston.
- Boston!

1229
01:04:05,274 --> 01:04:06,652
- Yeah.
- oh, that's where I was born.

1230
01:04:06,676 --> 01:04:08,053
I was born in Boston.
Really?

1231
01:04:08,144 --> 01:04:09,748
Are you a Red Sox fan?

1232
01:04:12,515 --> 01:04:13,926
♪ Howling everywhere ♪

1233
01:04:14,016 --> 01:04:17,225
♪ And no one's
going down ♪

1234
01:04:21,023 --> 01:04:23,299
♪ Lost inside
the memories ♪

1235
01:04:23,392 --> 01:04:26,339
♪ Of this lonely town ♪

1236
01:04:28,764 --> 01:04:30,471
♪ So many things ♪

1237
01:04:30,566 --> 01:04:33,672
♪ That can make
a man feel this way ♪

1238
01:04:36,672 --> 01:04:38,879
♪ You might win
sometimes ♪

1239
01:04:38,975 --> 01:04:42,013
♪ But then you're gonna
have to pay ♪

1240
01:04:44,847 --> 01:04:47,293
♪ But keep rollin" on ♪

1241
01:04:47,383 --> 01:04:48,885
Backing singers:
♪ rollin' on ♪

1242
01:04:48,985 --> 01:04:51,363
♪ Keep rollin' on ♪

1243
01:04:51,454 --> 01:04:53,593
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1244
01:04:53,689 --> 01:04:56,363
♪ Lived our life ♪

1245
01:04:56,459 --> 01:04:58,905
♪ Just keep rollin' on ♪

1246
01:05:02,398 --> 01:05:04,105
♪ Future come along ♪

1247
01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:07,704
♪ It can bring you
right to the ground ♪

1248
01:05:11,107 --> 01:05:12,586
♪ Keep on laughing ♪

1249
01:05:12,675 --> 01:05:15,656
♪ There's enough laughter
to go around ♪

1250
01:05:16,913 --> 01:05:18,358
♪ Rollin' rollin' ♪

1251
01:05:18,447 --> 01:05:21,087
♪ You keep rollin' on ♪

1252
01:05:21,183 --> 01:05:22,753
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1253
01:05:22,852 --> 01:05:24,129
♪ Keep rollin' on ♪

1254
01:05:24,153 --> 01:05:25,153
♪ Keep rollin' on ♪

1255
01:05:25,221 --> 01:05:26,666
♪ Just keep rollin' ♪♪

1256
01:05:26,756 --> 01:05:28,064
Bob:
Russell Speirs was

1257
01:05:28,157 --> 01:05:30,364
a friend of Cenedella
and my mother

1258
01:05:30,459 --> 01:05:31,631
when they were married.

1259
01:05:31,727 --> 01:05:34,333
So he was always in the picture.

1260
01:05:34,430 --> 01:05:37,001
Russ had been sick
for quite a while.

1261
01:05:37,099 --> 01:05:40,478
And I had been going up
to see him in the hospital.

1262
01:05:40,569 --> 01:05:43,072
I got this call
from Jim Stafford,

1263
01:05:43,172 --> 01:05:45,209
who was his personal lawyer.

1264
01:05:45,308 --> 01:05:49,347
He wanted to acknowledge me
in writing.

1265
01:05:49,445 --> 01:05:51,425
I hardly knew what that meant,

1266
01:05:51,514 --> 01:05:55,087
but, uh, I thought
it was maybe a good idea.

1267
01:05:55,184 --> 01:05:57,255
So we're in Stafford's office,

1268
01:05:57,353 --> 01:05:58,661
and he said,

1269
01:05:58,754 --> 01:06:01,735
"Bob, why don't we go
have some lunch?"

1270
01:06:01,824 --> 01:06:03,735
So here we were in this bar,

1271
01:06:03,826 --> 01:06:04,964
and he ordered a scotch,

1272
01:06:05,061 --> 01:06:06,734
and so I said, "well, I guess,"

1273
01:06:06,829 --> 01:06:10,436
you know, a little early,
but I had one also.

1274
01:06:10,533 --> 01:06:11,978
So we drove to the hospital.

1275
01:06:12,068 --> 01:06:16,380
And in the backseat he had
an Olivetti typewriter.

1276
01:06:16,472 --> 01:06:17,746
So he sits on the bed,

1277
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:19,581
and he had one piece of paper
with him.

1278
01:06:19,675 --> 01:06:20,915
Now he's gonna...

1279
01:06:21,010 --> 01:06:22,216
Start asking questions.

1280
01:06:22,311 --> 01:06:25,121
"Russ, are you,
um, here to state

1281
01:06:25,214 --> 01:06:26,488
"that you are...

1282
01:06:26,582 --> 01:06:31,088
"The father of your said son?

1283
01:06:31,187 --> 01:06:33,599
Are you aware of his birth?"

1284
01:06:33,689 --> 01:06:35,498
So Russ said, "well, yeah,

1285
01:06:35,591 --> 01:06:37,127
of course
I was aware of his..."

1286
01:06:37,226 --> 01:06:38,728
"Ahh, good.“

1287
01:06:42,631 --> 01:06:45,976
he stamps it, he signs it.
My father signs it.

1288
01:06:46,068 --> 01:06:47,877
And he spelled
"affidavit" wrong.

1289
01:06:47,970 --> 01:06:49,677
And he spelled her mother's
name wrong.

1290
01:06:49,772 --> 01:06:52,685
And my last name
was spelled wrong.

1291
01:06:52,775 --> 01:06:55,415
And he got the date of
my birth wrong.

1292
01:06:55,511 --> 01:06:57,322
But other than that,
the thing is like, you know,

1293
01:06:57,346 --> 01:07:00,486
it's pretty, pretty, uh, pretty,
pretty accurate.

1294
01:07:02,918 --> 01:07:07,196
He was commissioned
to do a mural

1295
01:07:07,289 --> 01:07:09,826
for this fancy lunch place

1296
01:07:09,925 --> 01:07:11,996
on Madison Avenue.

1297
01:07:12,094 --> 01:07:16,406
And the owner of it told him
to do all the celebrities

1298
01:07:16,499 --> 01:07:18,638
that patronize Le cirque.

1299
01:07:18,734 --> 01:07:23,945
Le cirque was, oh,
just about as popular

1300
01:07:24,040 --> 01:07:26,111
and as famous and as exciting

1301
01:07:26,208 --> 01:07:29,849
as any restaurant could ever be.

1302
01:07:29,945 --> 01:07:32,221
I... well, I said,
"I've never been there.

1303
01:07:32,314 --> 01:07:34,590
I don't know what..."
So I got to go to Le cirque.

1304
01:07:34,683 --> 01:07:38,859
And the owner, Sirio, said,
"it's not possible to..."

1305
01:07:38,954 --> 01:07:39,955
Um!

1306
01:07:40,056 --> 01:07:42,502
So I said I'd do it on a dare.

1307
01:07:42,591 --> 01:07:44,093
And if they didn't
like the painting,

1308
01:07:44,193 --> 01:07:45,501
they wouldn't buy it.

1309
01:07:45,594 --> 01:07:48,734
And if they, uh, if they did,
we'd come up with a price.

1310
01:07:48,831 --> 01:07:51,107
And so I said yes.

1311
01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:53,976
Sirio not only had the rich
and the famous

1312
01:07:54,070 --> 01:07:55,481
and the recognizable.

1313
01:07:55,571 --> 01:07:57,107
There were a couple of people,

1314
01:07:57,206 --> 01:07:59,117
well, more than
a couple of people,

1315
01:07:59,208 --> 01:08:02,417
that he wanted to have in there,
including his doctor.

1316
01:08:04,280 --> 01:08:05,816
Bob:
I just ate anytime

1317
01:08:05,915 --> 01:08:07,326
I would go there.

1318
01:08:07,416 --> 01:08:09,919
It was on the house, you know.

1319
01:08:10,019 --> 01:08:13,262
Sirio never told me
what to paint or how to paint,

1320
01:08:13,355 --> 01:08:16,529
and I didn't tell him how
to make his sauces.

1321
01:08:16,625 --> 01:08:19,037
Bob didn't have
a list to begin with.

1322
01:08:19,128 --> 01:08:21,130
He really had to sit there

1323
01:08:21,230 --> 01:08:23,039
and watch when people
would come in

1324
01:08:23,132 --> 01:08:25,271
and someone would say,

1325
01:08:25,367 --> 01:08:27,608
"that's Dr. Henry Kissinger."

1326
01:08:27,703 --> 01:08:31,207
Or
"that's Barbara Walters."

1327
01:08:31,307 --> 01:08:35,517
And he would study them and,
and, and do the sketching.

1328
01:08:35,611 --> 01:08:37,249
Bob:
So I think it was

1329
01:08:37,346 --> 01:08:40,190
about 50 meals later
that I told him that

1330
01:08:40,282 --> 01:08:43,991
I was gonna start the drawing.

1331
01:08:44,086 --> 01:08:46,692
And maybe it was another
50 meals later

1332
01:08:46,789 --> 01:08:48,427
that I had the drawing clone

1333
01:08:48,524 --> 01:08:50,231
and I had actually clone
some painting

1334
01:08:50,326 --> 01:08:52,135
on this thing, you know?

1335
01:08:52,228 --> 01:08:54,108
And the only thing
that he really directed me on

1336
01:08:54,196 --> 01:08:59,145
was who was in the painting,
not where they were.

1337
01:08:59,235 --> 01:09:02,512
Liz Smith, I put her next
to Nixon, right?

1338
01:09:02,605 --> 01:09:06,451
And then she was astounded when
she saw herself next to Nixon.

1339
01:09:06,542 --> 01:09:08,715
So she wrote
an article about it.

1340
01:09:11,680 --> 01:09:14,991
Woody Allen is way in the back,

1341
01:09:15,084 --> 01:09:19,555
'cause I never saw him
as a hero of mine.

1342
01:09:19,655 --> 01:09:22,135
The portrait is not only
a family portrait,

1343
01:09:22,224 --> 01:09:25,000
but it is emblematic of an era.

1344
01:09:25,094 --> 01:09:27,370
And Sirio wanted
to capture that.

1345
01:09:27,463 --> 01:09:30,239
And Bob Cenedella did
exactly that.

1346
01:09:30,332 --> 01:09:32,539
You feel it when
you look at that mural.

1347
01:09:32,635 --> 01:09:35,275
You know what
it must've been like

1348
01:09:35,371 --> 01:09:39,683
to be there at that time.

1349
01:09:39,775 --> 01:09:41,550
Bob:
I was interviewed by

1350
01:09:41,644 --> 01:09:42,918
"New York magazine"

1351
01:09:43,012 --> 01:09:45,686
I said, "if you do
a write-up of this thing,

1352
01:09:45,781 --> 01:09:47,259
I'll... I'll put you
in the painting."

1353
01:09:47,283 --> 01:09:48,887
So he said, "definitely."

1354
01:09:48,984 --> 01:09:51,988
Sol put him in the painting,

1355
01:09:52,087 --> 01:09:54,328
and, um, it's now finished.

1356
01:09:54,423 --> 01:09:55,766
He was the last guy to go in.

1357
01:09:55,858 --> 01:09:59,328
And I'm waiting for
the "New York" article

1358
01:09:59,428 --> 01:10:00,930
to come out.

1359
01:10:01,030 --> 01:10:02,202
And when it came out,

1360
01:10:02,298 --> 01:10:03,642
there was no picture
of the painting.

1361
01:10:03,666 --> 01:10:06,806
There was no...
But there's nothing I could do.

1362
01:10:06,902 --> 01:10:10,577
However, Philip Roth was
writing a book

1363
01:10:10,673 --> 01:10:13,552
on sons and daughters
of blacklisted parents.

1364
01:10:13,642 --> 01:10:16,020
He came to interview me.

1365
01:10:16,111 --> 01:10:18,148
I decided to take out the writer

1366
01:10:18,247 --> 01:10:19,988
for "New York magazine."

1367
01:10:20,082 --> 01:10:23,291
And I put Roth in the painting.

1368
01:10:25,154 --> 01:10:26,827
On opening night,

1369
01:10:26,922 --> 01:10:30,267
the painting was hung
at the new Le cirque,

1370
01:10:30,359 --> 01:10:33,863
and the writer
for "New York magazine"

1371
01:10:33,963 --> 01:10:36,307
comes with his wife,

1372
01:10:36,398 --> 01:10:39,572
his mother-in-law,
a child,

1373
01:10:39,668 --> 01:10:41,875
and comes to show them

1374
01:10:41,971 --> 01:10:45,384
that he's where he is
in the "Le cirque" painting.

1375
01:10:45,474 --> 01:10:47,112
And he-
and he's kind of...

1376
01:10:47,209 --> 01:10:48,483
He can't find himself.

1377
01:10:48,577 --> 01:10:51,922
And he finally asks Sirio,
"Sirio, where am I?

1378
01:10:52,014 --> 01:10:54,620
I don't understand."

1379
01:10:54,717 --> 01:10:59,132
So I got my revenge
in the most amazing way.

1380
01:10:59,221 --> 01:11:03,727
But it's all because I was
the son of a blacklisted writer,

1381
01:11:03,826 --> 01:11:08,036
and that Philip Roth was
doing a book.

1382
01:11:12,134 --> 01:11:16,276
I never really have the instinct
to do a political piece.

1383
01:11:16,372 --> 01:11:20,149
I'm much more taken by
what's around me.

1384
01:11:22,344 --> 01:11:25,086
You're surrounded by trees.

1385
01:11:25,180 --> 01:11:27,820
You know, you're always aware
of these slivers.

1386
01:11:27,916 --> 01:11:31,955
I did a series
of very narrow paintings.

1387
01:11:32,054 --> 01:11:34,295
Some of them
two and a half inches wide

1388
01:11:34,390 --> 01:11:37,599
and maybe five feet high.

1389
01:11:37,693 --> 01:11:40,867
I call them
"slices of Maine."

1390
01:11:40,963 --> 01:11:42,567
By making this shape,

1391
01:11:42,665 --> 01:11:45,236
you go endlessly back.

1392
01:11:45,334 --> 01:11:47,541
Do you really have to see
what's on the left

1393
01:11:47,636 --> 01:11:49,707
and what's on the right?

1394
01:11:57,613 --> 01:11:58,757
George Hudson:
When we learned that

1395
01:11:58,781 --> 01:12:00,283
Russ was dead, and suddenly

1396
01:12:00,382 --> 01:12:02,692
the news came out
that he'd left things

1397
01:12:02,785 --> 01:12:06,961
to this son that
nobody knew he had,

1398
01:12:07,056 --> 01:12:11,300
we surmised that this was
Russ's last practical joke.

1399
01:12:11,393 --> 01:12:13,634
That he didn't
really have a son,

1400
01:12:13,729 --> 01:12:17,336
but that he just picked somebody
out of the clear blue sky

1401
01:12:17,433 --> 01:12:21,347
and just gave him
everything, you know?

1402
01:12:21,437 --> 01:12:24,475
Russ was as...
As full of tricks

1403
01:12:24,573 --> 01:12:27,850
and as much a prankster
as anybody I've ever known.

1404
01:12:27,943 --> 01:12:31,413
His sense of humor was
famous around here.

1405
01:12:31,513 --> 01:12:32,890
But they didn't
tell you about that

1406
01:12:32,981 --> 01:12:35,621
until you'd fallen victim to it.

1407
01:12:37,019 --> 01:12:39,499
Russ was perpetually impish.

1408
01:12:39,588 --> 01:12:42,000
I mean, he looked
as if he had a secret.

1409
01:12:42,091 --> 01:12:43,968
All these years, I thought

1410
01:12:44,059 --> 01:12:46,596
"was that kid
really Russ's kid or not?"

1411
01:12:46,695 --> 01:12:48,333
He walks in the room,

1412
01:12:48,430 --> 01:12:50,603
and he's the living
image of Russ.

1413
01:12:50,699 --> 01:12:53,509
So you think,
"there goes that idea."

1414
01:12:53,602 --> 01:12:55,013
He's Russ's kid.

1415
01:12:55,104 --> 01:12:57,778
Couldn't be anybody else's
in the whole world.

1416
01:12:59,508 --> 01:13:00,680
Bob:
When I found out

1417
01:13:00,776 --> 01:13:02,517
who my father was, I mean,

1418
01:13:02,611 --> 01:13:04,955
humor was his great weapon.

1419
01:13:05,047 --> 01:13:07,391
So genes has a lot to do
with everything,

1420
01:13:07,483 --> 01:13:09,292
I'm convinced of that.

1421
01:13:14,623 --> 01:13:16,967
Now, you got a...

1422
01:13:17,059 --> 01:13:18,561
You got a...

1423
01:13:18,660 --> 01:13:20,071
Interesting all right.

1424
01:13:20,162 --> 01:13:22,665
So all these little details.

1425
01:13:22,765 --> 01:13:25,541
Okay, so now you have this...

1426
01:13:25,634 --> 01:13:26,908
This string here, right?

1427
01:13:27,002 --> 01:13:30,814
So, if we have...

1428
01:13:35,911 --> 01:13:37,686
Again, better than a ruler,

1429
01:13:37,780 --> 01:13:39,123
better than tape,

1430
01:13:39,214 --> 01:13:41,592
it's a visual straight line.

1431
01:13:46,388 --> 01:13:48,231
I often tell my students

1432
01:13:48,323 --> 01:13:51,532
I used to take
a cutout of a Rembrandt,

1433
01:13:51,627 --> 01:13:53,163
Holbein,

1434
01:13:53,262 --> 01:13:54,536
El Greco,

1435
01:13:54,630 --> 01:13:56,268
And you put these figures
in one room.

1436
01:13:56,365 --> 01:13:58,003
And nothing looks real.

1437
01:13:59,168 --> 01:14:02,206
Because those worlds are
all distinct.

1438
01:14:02,304 --> 01:14:04,375
They're... every painter,
every great painter,

1439
01:14:04,473 --> 01:14:05,781
he creates

1440
01:14:05,874 --> 01:14:08,115
this world that you believe in.

1441
01:14:10,212 --> 01:14:12,488
And a painting,
it's... a drawing,

1442
01:14:12,581 --> 01:14:14,426
you wouldn't even think
about the background, right?

1443
01:14:14,450 --> 01:14:15,690
No.
'OK,

1444
01:14:15,784 --> 01:14:17,092
but now that it's a painting,

1445
01:14:17,186 --> 01:14:18,995
the background becomes,

1446
01:14:19,087 --> 01:14:23,160
you know, it's half...
It's half the canvas, so.

1447
01:14:23,258 --> 01:14:26,796
He doesn't tell me
what to paint or how to paint,

1448
01:14:26,895 --> 01:14:29,398
but he'll find something
which is not working properly

1449
01:14:29,498 --> 01:14:31,500
within the composition
and the color

1450
01:14:31,600 --> 01:14:34,103
or in the drawing
or whatever it happens to be.

1451
01:14:34,203 --> 01:14:35,841
And he's very pointed.

1452
01:14:35,938 --> 01:14:37,576
And his critique.

1453
01:14:37,673 --> 01:14:39,550
And his intervention is minimal.

1454
01:14:39,641 --> 01:14:43,214
Which is marvelous,
as far as I'm concerned.

1455
01:14:47,416 --> 01:14:48,952
The art students league

1456
01:14:49,051 --> 01:14:51,292
give the instructors
a window for a month

1457
01:14:51,386 --> 01:14:52,763
to hang a painting.

1458
01:14:52,855 --> 01:14:54,095
They came to me, and they said,

1459
01:14:54,189 --> 01:14:56,965
"gee, Bob, do you have
a Christmas painting?"

1460
01:14:57,059 --> 01:14:58,265
I said,
"a Christmas painting."

1461
01:14:58,360 --> 01:15:01,068
I said... yeah, I said
I have a Christmas painting.

1462
01:15:01,163 --> 01:15:02,733
I said...

1463
01:15:02,831 --> 01:15:04,367
I said,
"but it's not framed."

1464
01:15:04,466 --> 01:15:06,468
I said, "so let... so...

1465
01:15:06,568 --> 01:15:09,447
"Uh, if you just hold the space

1466
01:15:09,538 --> 01:15:10,710
"on a Saturday morning,

1467
01:15:10,806 --> 01:15:12,945
"and I'll... I'll, you know,
I'll have it framed.

1468
01:15:13,041 --> 01:15:15,681
"I'll have it... make sure
that it gets put in the window,

1469
01:15:15,777 --> 01:15:17,484
and don't worry
about it, right?"

1470
01:15:17,579 --> 01:15:19,388
Reporter:
<i>Outside the art students</i>

1471
01:15:19,481 --> 01:15:21,620
<i>league in Manhattan,
a painting on display</i>

1472
01:15:21,717 --> 01:15:25,597
<i>pictures a crucified Santa
with gifts at his feet.</i>

1473
01:15:25,687 --> 01:15:28,600
<i>Here's a look at Santa like
you have never seen him before.</i>

1474
01:15:28,690 --> 01:15:31,364
<i>This untitled painting
by artist Robert Cenedella</i>

1475
01:15:31,460 --> 01:15:34,031
<i>has sparked quite a controversy
in New York City,</i>

1476
01:15:34,129 --> 01:15:36,871
<i>where it sits
in a midtown window.</i>

1477
01:15:41,069 --> 01:15:42,447
William Donohue:
I'm not questioning

1478
01:15:42,471 --> 01:15:44,041
<i>the motive of the artist,</i>

1479
01:15:44,139 --> 01:15:45,982
<i>but this is a very special
time of the year.</i>

1480
01:15:46,074 --> 01:15:47,576
<i>This is a holy season.</i>

1481
01:15:47,676 --> 01:15:49,314
<i>You have to take
into consideration</i>

1482
01:15:49,411 --> 01:15:50,688
<i>the number of people,
including children,</i>

1483
01:15:50,712 --> 01:15:52,282
<i>walking down the street
who might be</i>

1484
01:15:52,381 --> 01:15:53,951
<i>unwittingly offended by it.</i>

1485
01:15:54,049 --> 01:15:56,723
<i>I mean, it's not empirically
obvious to everybody</i>

1486
01:15:56,818 --> 01:15:58,764
<i>what the intent is.</i>

1487
01:16:00,989 --> 01:16:02,297
Bob:
When people say, oh,

1488
01:16:02,391 --> 01:16:03,665
I was making fun of religion.

1489
01:16:03,759 --> 01:16:06,296
I didn't replace Christ
with Santa Claus

1490
01:16:06,395 --> 01:16:07,772
as a symbol of Christmas.

1491
01:16:07,863 --> 01:16:10,867
They just say, "Santa Claus
does not belong on a cross."

1492
01:16:10,966 --> 01:16:13,640
No, a good old human being.

1493
01:16:13,735 --> 01:16:16,773
Is what belongs on a cross.

1494
01:16:16,872 --> 01:16:18,351
<i>I have a moral obligation</i>

1495
01:16:18,440 --> 01:16:21,182
<i>to paint what I feel is correct.</i>

1496
01:16:21,276 --> 01:16:23,620
<i>That's“ that's what I have
a moral obligation to do.</i>

1497
01:16:26,615 --> 01:16:29,357
<i>I don't consider myself
a political artist.</i>

1498
01:16:29,451 --> 01:16:32,625
<i>I'm an artist that does
a lot of political' stuff.</i>

1499
01:16:35,691 --> 01:16:37,432
"Battlefield of energy"

1500
01:16:37,526 --> 01:16:39,028
is the name of this painting.

1501
01:16:39,127 --> 01:16:43,041
Is actually the title
Jimmy Carter came up with

1502
01:16:43,131 --> 01:16:45,611
when he was concerned
about oil prices

1503
01:16:45,701 --> 01:16:47,942
and... and conserving oil.

1504
01:16:48,036 --> 01:16:51,017
<i>On the battlefield of energy,</i>

1505
01:16:51,106 --> 01:16:53,347
<i>we can win for our nation</i>

1506
01:16:53,442 --> 01:16:54,853
<i>a new confidence.</i>

1507
01:16:54,943 --> 01:16:58,220
Jimmy Carter was
the first president to...

1508
01:16:58,313 --> 01:17:02,022
Deal with the scarcity of oil

1509
01:17:02,117 --> 01:17:04,358
that didn't exist.

1510
01:17:04,453 --> 01:17:08,902
The idea being
that the corporations

1511
01:17:08,991 --> 01:17:10,698
were...

1512
01:17:10,792 --> 01:17:12,362
Somehow running the country.

1513
01:17:12,461 --> 01:17:14,668
And that was in 1979.

1514
01:17:14,763 --> 01:17:16,674
<i>Energy...</i>

1515
01:17:16,765 --> 01:17:17,971
<i>Will be the immediate test</i>

1516
01:17:18,066 --> 01:17:20,740
of our ability
to unite this nation.

1517
01:17:20,836 --> 01:17:24,409
Sometimes I really get
a kick out of

1518
01:17:24,506 --> 01:17:25,666
some of the things that I do.

1519
01:17:25,707 --> 01:17:27,209
I thought
the Coca-Cola tank...

1520
01:17:27,309 --> 01:17:29,346
That was the first tank.

1521
01:17:29,444 --> 01:17:32,323
Then, of course,
I had a Mobil tank

1522
01:17:32,414 --> 01:17:34,724
and a Chasel-Manhattan tank.

1523
01:17:34,816 --> 01:17:39,765
An army that's
a bank of America army.

1524
01:17:39,855 --> 01:17:41,129
We now know that

1525
01:17:41,223 --> 01:17:44,136
corporations are people.

1526
01:17:44,226 --> 01:17:46,399
Something that didn't
exist even then.

1527
01:17:48,563 --> 01:17:50,702
I think that you become
a painter of history

1528
01:17:50,799 --> 01:17:53,245
just by painting,

1529
01:17:53,335 --> 01:17:55,906
you know, the world around you.

1530
01:18:51,426 --> 01:18:51,569
The last taboo in art right now

1531
01:18:51,593 --> 01:18:54,130
the last taboo in art right now

1532
01:18:54,229 --> 01:18:56,231
is the kind of sincerity
that Bob has,

1533
01:18:56,331 --> 01:18:57,810
the kind of directness.

1534
01:18:57,899 --> 01:18:59,810
You know, everything's
supposed to be ironic.

1535
01:18:59,901 --> 01:19:01,812
And it's uncool

1536
01:19:01,903 --> 01:19:03,780
to have the kind of passion
that he has.

1537
01:19:03,872 --> 01:19:05,232
And he's just
anti-establishment.

1538
01:19:05,273 --> 01:19:07,048
He calls it like it is.

1539
01:19:07,142 --> 01:19:09,645
And people like
to smooth things over.

1540
01:19:09,745 --> 01:19:11,486
Not Cenedella.

1541
01:19:11,580 --> 01:19:14,254
He's a chronicler of his time.

1542
01:19:14,349 --> 01:19:15,521
And he...
When he says it...

1543
01:19:15,617 --> 01:19:17,358
He's a truth-teller
in many ways.

1544
01:19:17,452 --> 01:19:19,728
Various museums and...

1545
01:19:19,821 --> 01:19:21,528
Collectors in the establishment

1546
01:19:21,623 --> 01:19:23,068
decided...

1547
01:19:23,158 --> 01:19:25,104
That this is not art.

1548
01:19:25,193 --> 01:19:28,265
I see him as this kind of
pugnacious character

1549
01:19:28,363 --> 01:19:30,240
rushing through,
you know, he's...

1550
01:19:30,332 --> 01:19:32,869
He's kind of, you know,
like a Don Quixote.

1551
01:19:32,968 --> 01:19:36,643
The art community as a whole

1552
01:19:36,738 --> 01:19:40,049
has always rejected him.

1553
01:19:40,142 --> 01:19:41,314
Not because of his talent,

1554
01:19:41,409 --> 01:19:43,548
but because of his message.

1555
01:19:43,645 --> 01:19:45,784
This is a form of censorship

1556
01:19:45,881 --> 01:19:48,760
they, um, they exert on him.

1557
01:19:48,850 --> 01:19:51,524
Bob Cenedella's got
a hard-on for the world

1558
01:19:51,620 --> 01:19:53,361
and is not afraid to show it.

1559
01:20:01,196 --> 01:20:02,607
I can go to bed at night,

1560
01:20:02,697 --> 01:20:05,405
and I think I feel pretty secure

1561
01:20:05,500 --> 01:20:09,209
in what I've clone
as a... as an artist.

1562
01:21:07,195 --> 01:21:08,606
♪ Howling everywhere ♪

1563
01:21:08,697 --> 01:21:11,906
♪ And no one's
going down ♪

1564
01:21:15,704 --> 01:21:17,980
♪ Lost inside
the memories ♪

1565
01:21:18,073 --> 01:21:21,020
♪ Of this lonely town ♪

1566
01:21:23,445 --> 01:21:25,152
♪ So many things ♪

1567
01:21:25,247 --> 01:21:28,353
♪ That can make
a man feel this way ♪

1568
01:21:31,353 --> 01:21:33,560
♪ You might win
sometimes ♪

1569
01:21:33,655 --> 01:21:36,693
♪ But then you're gonna
have to pay ♪

1570
01:21:39,527 --> 01:21:41,973
♪ But keep rollin' on ♪

1571
01:21:42,063 --> 01:21:43,565
Backing singers:
♪ rollin' on ♪

1572
01:21:43,665 --> 01:21:46,043
♪ Keep rollin' on ♪

1573
01:21:46,134 --> 01:21:48,273
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1574
01:21:48,370 --> 01:21:50,441
♪ Live your life ♪

1575
01:21:50,538 --> 01:21:53,212
♪ Just keep rollin' on ♪

1576
01:21:56,244 --> 01:21:58,554
♪ Well, keep rollin' on ♪

1577
01:21:58,647 --> 01:22:01,253
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1578
01:22:01,349 --> 01:22:04,330
- ♪ Rollin' on ♪
- ♪ just keep rollin' ♪

1579
01:22:04,419 --> 01:22:06,421
♪ Oh, the world may change ♪

1580
01:22:06,521 --> 01:22:09,730
♪ But life keeps
rollin' on ♪

1581
01:22:13,194 --> 01:22:14,901
♪ Future come long ♪

1582
01:22:14,996 --> 01:22:18,443
♪ It can bring you
right to the ground ♪

1583
01:22:21,836 --> 01:22:23,315
♪ Keep on laughing ♪

1584
01:22:23,405 --> 01:22:26,784
♪ There's enough laughter
to go around ♪

1585
01:22:29,611 --> 01:22:31,352
♪ Give your love
to a woman ♪

1586
01:22:31,446 --> 01:22:34,950
♪ And she break
your heart in two ♪

1587
01:22:38,620 --> 01:22:39,655
♪ Don't give up ♪

1588
01:22:39,754 --> 01:22:42,701
♪ I tell you
what you gotta do ♪

1589
01:22:45,694 --> 01:22:48,334
♪ Keep rollin' on ♪

1590
01:22:48,430 --> 01:22:50,000
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1591
01:22:50,098 --> 01:22:52,374
♪ Keep rollin' on ♪

1592
01:22:52,467 --> 01:22:54,071
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1593
01:22:54,169 --> 01:22:56,581
♪ Don't be insane ♪

1594
01:22:56,671 --> 01:22:58,878
♪ Just keep rollin' on ♪

1595
01:22:58,974 --> 01:23:02,183
♪ Rollin' rollin'
rollin' rollin' ♪

1596
01:23:02,277 --> 01:23:04,587
♪ Keep rollin' on ♪

1597
01:23:04,679 --> 01:23:06,352
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1598
01:23:06,448 --> 01:23:08,792
♪ Well, keep rollin' on ♪

1599
01:23:08,883 --> 01:23:10,556
♪ Just keep rollin' ♪

1600
01:23:10,652 --> 01:23:12,654
♪ Well, the world
may change ♪

1601
01:23:12,754 --> 01:23:15,530
♪ But life keeps rollin' on ♪

1602
01:23:37,712 --> 01:23:40,090
♪ Keep rollin' on ♪

1603
01:23:40,181 --> 01:23:41,558
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1604
01:23:41,649 --> 01:23:43,925
♪ Well, keep rollin' on ♪

1605
01:23:44,019 --> 01:23:45,726
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1606
01:23:45,820 --> 01:23:48,824
♪ Oh, live your life ♪

1607
01:23:48,923 --> 01:23:50,664
♪ Just keep
rollin' on ♪

1608
01:23:50,759 --> 01:23:54,036
♪ Rollin' rollin'
rollin' rollin' ♪

1609
01:23:54,129 --> 01:23:56,507
♪ Well, keep rollin' on ♪

1610
01:23:56,598 --> 01:23:58,134
♪ Rollin' on ♪

1611
01:23:58,233 --> 01:24:00,804
♪ Well, keep rollin' on ♪

1612
01:24:00,902 --> 01:24:02,506
♪ Just keep rollin' ♪

1613
01:24:02,604 --> 01:24:04,447
♪ Oh, the world may change ♪

1614
01:24:04,539 --> 01:24:07,110
♪ But life keeps
rollin' on ♪