[Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn]
[New York Close Up]
[Daniel Gordon, Artist]
[SOUND OF CELL PHONE VIBRATING]
--[GORDON] Hello?
["Daniel Gordon Looks Back"]
--Yeah, this is he.
A few weeks ago,
I was here working
and I got a call from somebody
who had bought a work that I made in 2004
and the picture was damaged
and they were wondering if they could have it reprinted.
So I started looking for the negative
and it was really great to
step back twelve years ago
and see what I was making then.
It's shockingly kind of similar
to what I'm doing now.
I really like that plant-- it’s so weird--
and I think that's the clue into the fact that it's
a constructed tableau.
Back then I was trying to
figure out what my voice was
and I was also just kind of learning how to make stuff physically.
I really was trying to mimic reality
which is something that I have become
less and less interested in.
Not that there's not
a version of reality in my pictures now,
but instead of trying to hide all of that work
I think it became more interesting to show
the crumpled paper
and the handmade stuff
to show that Photoshop is, like,
really present in the process.
Changing a watermelon to be blue
or a peach to be green...
Pixelating things.
Adding noise to stuff.
[Sound of keys jingling off-screen]
[Danny moved to a new studio]
[next to his wife Ruby.]
[RUBY SKY STILER] I thought we needed more space away from each other,
but maybe what we really needed
was some more time together.
[BOTH LAUGH]
[GORDON] Ruby probably likes my past work
more than I do,
and I like Ruby’s past work
more than she does.
It's pretty rare that we would look back
and we're like,
"That was so great, what I was doing."
No.
[STILER] As I get further from the thing,
I dislike it more and more. [Ruby Sky Stiler, Artist]
[GORDON] But then sometimes, you go,
"It's so long ago..."
that you really are so detached...
[STILER] I've heard you say that before
and I've never felt that.
[GORDON] You haven’t?
[STILER] No.
[GORDON] Every now and then, you...
...like what about, um...
[STILER] Oh God, don't even say a thing.
[GORDON] What about the vase?
That was so cool!
[STILER] Okay, that's the one thing...
[GORDON] See.
[STILER] ...that I think is okay.
[GORDON] Okay, what about, um...
[STILER] Okay, stop!
[GORDON] In a lot of ways, the more work you make,
the more there is to make.
You make a lot of work
and then you hang on to a few,
and I find myself looking back
at a few pictures
and wanting to expand on those.
For example, I found that picture when I was moving.
It was made around the same time
as some of these other pictures.
And I was re-inspired by it
and wanted to see what it would be like
if I took that as a starting point.
I was interested in what happened if I took out
the identifiable parts of a face.
Kind of, like, how far I could push
the idea of a portrait.
Kind of, how far I could go
away from what an eye is--
or what a nose is,
or what a mouth is--
and still hopefully have it read as a portrait in someway.
Like, for example, just talking about these pictures.
They're so new that I don’t know
the answers to them.
Like, I think it takes a long time to,
kind of, understand what it is you're doing.
[STILER] I've been in a stage for a couple of months
where, like, I haven’t been able to figure out
where I want to go.
And it's, like,
you have to be delusional to, like,
keep coming back everyday
to make more failures.
I just feel like I'm never satisfied with my work.
And I think that's good--
like, I'm always antsy.
I just want to keep growing and making things
that are beyond my expectations
and making things that are ambitious
and terrify me.
[GORDON] I think I'm, like,
right in between, generationally.
I lived half my life before the internet
and half my life after.
So, I think that there's
a really interesting conflict between
the analog versus the digital.
And I love both.
[Camera shutter clicks]
You know, for example,
like, this really large still life.
I made a quick selection of watermelon,
the green jug,
the blue plum,
and the orange peach.
And then created a new canvas,
and, kind of, stamped those...
that selection into the new canvas.
I was curious--and still am curious--
if there was a way to make
non-representational images
but also, still, in some way,
are related to my photographs--
that they're, kind of, an in-between thing.
I'm just kind of interested to see
where the line between a photograph,
and a painting, and a sculpture lies.
I think the real question is
how can you continue to work
and continue to be truly invested
and truly interested in what you're doing.
And, for me, the only way to do that
is to try new things--
to invent new ways of making pictures.
So that, eventually,
maybe those questions will have answers.
But, like, right now, I'm just, kind of,
asking the questions, I think.