1 00:00:10,886 --> 00:00:13,478 IDA APPLEBROOG: My name is Ida Applebroog. 2 00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:18,440 It used to be Applebaum, my maiden name, 3 00:00:18,440 --> 00:00:21,223 and then when I got married it was Horowitz, 4 00:00:22,120 --> 00:00:25,200 and I really did not want a name that came from 5 00:00:25,720 --> 00:00:29,720 either my father or from any other male member, 6 00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:31,694 and so I invented my own. 7 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:36,480 Andrew, why don’t you line this...this girl. 8 00:00:36,480 --> 00:00:37,810 Line her up on the other end. 9 00:00:37,810 --> 00:00:38,589 ANDREW: Okay. 10 00:00:40,733 --> 00:00:42,243 APPLEBROOG: Try and connect the dots, Andrew. 11 00:00:49,280 --> 00:00:50,904 It’s the hand, the other hand. 12 00:00:50,904 --> 00:00:51,668 ANDREW: This is the other hand? 13 00:00:51,668 --> 00:00:53,085 APPLEBROOG: Yes. Can’t you tell? 14 00:00:54,235 --> 00:00:56,171 APPLEBROOG: It’s hard to  say what is your work about. 15 00:00:56,600 --> 00:00:59,080 But for me it’s really how power works, 16 00:00:59,080 --> 00:01:02,345 male over female, parents over children, 17 00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:06,029 governments over people, doctors over patients. 18 00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:10,000 Coming out of the ’50s,  women were pretty invisible. 19 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:14,169 And it never occurred to me anything was  wrong, that’s just the way things were. 20 00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:18,791 I used to be very flattered  when a teacher would say to me 21 00:01:19,200 --> 00:01:21,280 oh you’re working is so interesting and good. 22 00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:22,901 It looks just like man’s. 23 00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:27,834 I have a real problem with feminism and art. 24 00:01:28,280 --> 00:01:31,286 I never liked the all women shows. 25 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:34,584 It labels us, it ghettoizes us. 26 00:01:36,280 --> 00:01:39,220 I hate being labeled. I really hate being labeled. 27 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:42,850 I came to New York in about ’74. 28 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:45,800 And I didn’t know anyone in  New York. I was a New Yorker. 29 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:47,390 I’d been away for a long, long time. 30 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:54,030 So I came back and I really didn’t  know how to enter the art world again. 31 00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:57,671 I started to go back to my roots. 32 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:01,501 Just doing drawings, and  drawing and drawing and drawing. 33 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:06,973 And from these drawings I started making books. 34 00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:13,813 I took these books and I would mail  them out to people I did not know. 35 00:02:18,200 --> 00:02:20,314 I guess I was a nuisance. 36 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:24,680 I use a lot of repetition. 37 00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:27,160 Then it becomes a filmic way of talking 38 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:29,920 because as you put the same image after the other, 39 00:02:29,920 --> 00:02:32,360 even though it’s the exact, identical image, 40 00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:35,575 everyone sees something changing  from one image to the next. 41 00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:39,880 They’re just really bizarre  because I know what I’ve done, 42 00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:43,412 but they see actual gestures and they  see actual changes in the expression, 43 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:45,119 which I’ve never put there. 44 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:47,720 And that’s not the reason why I do repetitive, 45 00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:49,560 it’s just because it’s a performance 46 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:55,200 and it’s sort of my way of animating  one image from one image to the next 47 00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:57,206 without the image actually changing. 48 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:02,366 When I work with canvases I work  with three dimensional structures. 49 00:03:04,920 --> 00:03:08,926 And the structure was as important  as whatever it was I was painting. 50 00:03:10,720 --> 00:03:12,120 And I love the fragmentation, 51 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:14,166 because my work has always  been about fragmentation. 52 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:22,520 Even though the work is not comfortable work, 53 00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:26,060 I feel like the paint is absolutely beautiful, 54 00:03:26,840 --> 00:03:28,259 I love the coloration, 55 00:03:30,760 --> 00:03:35,520 and it’s almost like I’m creating  fly paper to sort of get you to… 56 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:37,843 over to look at the kinds of brush strokes. 57 00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:41,720 It’s interesting looking enough  to draw the viewer into it. 58 00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:42,600 Then once they’re there, 59 00:03:42,600 --> 00:03:45,760 they’re sort of confronted with  material that they have to think about 60 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:47,098 or just walk away from. 61 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:51,160 I do a lot of work on murders and serial murders 62 00:03:51,160 --> 00:03:56,969 and rapes and ageism and sexism  and AIDS and child abuse. 63 00:03:57,320 --> 00:04:00,560 I live in this world, now this  is what’s going on around me. 64 00:04:00,560 --> 00:04:02,025 I can’t change that. 65 00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:06,480 The first time I ever did know I was an artist 66 00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:08,498 is when I was about five years-old. 67 00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:11,400 I wanted my father to draw something for me 68 00:04:11,400 --> 00:04:13,548 and what he drew for me was a stick figure. 69 00:04:14,640 --> 00:04:17,600 And I showed him what I can do 70 00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:20,497 and at that moment I knew I  was the artist and he wasn’t. 71 00:04:21,920 --> 00:04:24,541 And that was my first  recognition of being an artist, 72 00:04:25,184 --> 00:04:27,246 and in a way, that’s what these are. 73 00:04:27,480 --> 00:04:33,540 These are like the first recognition  of making marks with some material. 74 00:04:34,320 --> 00:04:37,239 And then you take whatever it is that you know 75 00:04:37,999 --> 00:04:40,670 and bring it down to its most simplistic level, 76 00:04:41,840 --> 00:04:46,150 and so it becomes a sort of  something that’s a part of you, 77 00:04:46,520 --> 00:04:48,350 that just pours out and pours out. 78 00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:52,160 Comes to the point where you  don’t even have to think about it. 79 00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:53,894 These things just make themselves. 80 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:01,920 It’s a very calming activity to just sit  there and have the clay in your hands 81 00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:04,156 and just put out these things. 82 00:05:05,735 --> 00:05:08,000 They’re crude, they’re weird, 83 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:09,595 but they’re wonderful to me. 84 00:05:13,280 --> 00:05:15,419 I’ve been in the art world for a long time. 85 00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:18,320 And yet when I do this, 86 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:25,000 it brings me back to just the  basic way of how I might think, 87 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:27,261 is who I am. 88 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:36,040 —Andrew, you’re high on your side if you can lower it to read his lip, 89 00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:37,318 that will be good enough. 90 00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:43,280 Someone once said this, 91 00:05:43,280 --> 00:05:47,224 with art it has to be either  too much or not enough. 92 00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:51,092 There’s so much coming out at one time for me, 93 00:05:51,560 --> 00:05:52,800 that even the sorting of them 94 00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:54,840 and trying to put it into order 95 00:05:54,840 --> 00:05:56,740 is something I’ve been unable to do. 96 00:05:57,520 --> 00:05:59,134 I like that. I like the feeling. 97 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:02,320 I don’t consider myself a sculptor or a painter 98 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:04,752 or a book artist or a conceptual artist. 99 00:06:05,200 --> 00:06:06,358 I just make art. 100 00:06:07,840 --> 00:06:11,132 These little pieces that seem  so ordinary and like nothing, 101 00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:13,494 little mounds of clay 102 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:20,880 and if I place it suddenly on  my stage become monumental. 103 00:06:21,777 --> 00:06:23,518 And you photograph them any way you like, 104 00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:27,050 and you can zoom in on any  part of the body you like, 105 00:06:28,278 --> 00:06:30,673 and they become something totally different. 106 00:06:33,520 --> 00:06:36,224 Best part about these is I  really never know sort of 107 00:06:36,224 --> 00:06:38,166 what these things are going to morph into. 108 00:06:39,160 --> 00:06:40,600 I mean you become a hair dresser, 109 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:42,401 a stylist, a photographer. 110 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:46,436 So I’ll start with these little sculptures. 111 00:06:47,040 --> 00:06:52,694 I will have the single figure that I will  pose and place in front of the black curtain. 112 00:06:53,240 --> 00:06:55,897 Everything else has to happen  with the camera at that point. 113 00:06:56,560 --> 00:06:59,520 In terms of how many ways you can pose it. 114 00:07:00,360 --> 00:07:04,918 Every time you change something the  kind of portrait that I’m doing changes. 115 00:07:06,400 --> 00:07:11,360 This one is of the Venus de  Willendorf and we give her her hair, 116 00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:12,842 nice red curly hair. 117 00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:17,177 And we decided to change  the color of her hair where, 118 00:07:17,840 --> 00:07:19,775 much more of a grayish color. 119 00:07:20,360 --> 00:07:22,095 And we go closer. 120 00:07:22,680 --> 00:07:25,879 Looks like her tongue, sort of licking her lips. 121 00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:28,600 You know there are some that someone will look at 122 00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:29,960 and say I can’t stand looking at that. 123 00:07:29,960 --> 00:07:31,356 Makes me very uncomfortable. 124 00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:34,530 That’s good too. 125 00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:39,240 My work is not about beauty, 126 00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:42,200 and I know it does not hang  over a couch very well, 127 00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:45,200 matching the burgundy colors on the pillows. 128 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:47,650 It’s not work one hangs over a couch in that way. 129 00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:49,049 But I make the work, 130 00:07:49,400 --> 00:07:51,777 and I make it because for me it’s necessary. 131 00:07:52,206 --> 00:07:55,920 Other people make work for them that’s  necessary in a whole different way. 132 00:07:55,920 --> 00:07:57,075 This is just my way. 133 00:07:59,200 --> 00:08:01,080 I was actually computer illiterate. 134 00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:03,960 There was no way I was going to  bother turning on a computer. 135 00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:04,960 I didn’t want emails, 136 00:08:04,960 --> 00:08:06,920 I didn’t want to have to deal with that. 137 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:09,801 I was too old. And this was last year. 138 00:08:11,720 --> 00:08:13,972 So I start to go to the Apple workshop 139 00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:17,271 and took everything that they had  on the schedule in the calendar, 140 00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:21,760 and from that point on I found  someone who I’d known for a long time 141 00:08:21,760 --> 00:08:24,640 who was very good at working the computer. 142 00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:27,671 She started to work with me and  that’s how this all came about. 143 00:08:29,152 --> 00:08:32,580 SPEAKER: I added some yellow, both to  the black and then to the mid tones. 144 00:08:32,970 --> 00:08:34,552 APPLEBROOG: That’s very, very good. 145 00:08:36,306 --> 00:08:37,080 APPLEBROOG: So what we’re doing right now 146 00:08:37,080 --> 00:08:42,000 is we’re trying out the new paper to see  what it gives us in terms of the color. 147 00:08:42,000 --> 00:08:44,642 By trial and error we’ve  sort of come to this point. 148 00:08:51,662 --> 00:08:53,460 APPLEBROOG: Wow, so that’s the cream paper? 149 00:08:53,460 --> 00:08:54,200 SPEAKER: Right. 150 00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:57,860 APPLEBROOG: It makes quite a difference.  It’s like night and day here. 151 00:08:58,067 --> 00:08:59,654 SPEAKER: Yeah, I think it looks a lot richer. 152 00:08:59,869 --> 00:09:02,232 APPLEBROOG: It’s beautiful. It’s  like...it’s lit from inside. 153 00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:06,688 Uh, I’m going to...I need to  work on her braces right now. 154 00:09:08,560 --> 00:09:10,760 I will be doing some small editions 155 00:09:10,760 --> 00:09:13,903 but for the most part they will  be singling at eight pieces. 156 00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:19,680 I don’t feel that’s any  different from doing painting or 157 00:09:19,680 --> 00:09:21,960 sculpting or drawing or anything else. 158 00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:23,400 That’s just another way of making art, 159 00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:25,216 using the technology. 160 00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:34,360 For a while, because of aging and arthritis  and everything else that goes with it, 161 00:09:34,360 --> 00:09:35,909 I was very incapacitated. 162 00:09:36,240 --> 00:09:39,760 And that’s why doing these  sculptures was an incredible thing  163 00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:41,560 to happen to me at that point. 164 00:09:41,560 --> 00:09:43,502 So I ended up on this route. 165 00:09:44,360 --> 00:09:48,023 No matter what I see, no matter  what I do, it all feeds me. 166 00:09:48,920 --> 00:09:51,760 Anybody that creates, they’re  going to find a way to create. 167 00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:52,949 It doesn’t matter how. 168 00:09:54,080 --> 00:10:01,040 I can not believe there’s a reawakening  of every juice in my body at… 169 00:10:01,040 --> 00:10:03,691 at this point in my life,  which is incredible for me.