WEBVTT 00:00:10.886 --> 00:00:13.478 IDA APPLEBROOG: My name is Ida Applebroog. 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:18.440 It used to be Applebaum, my maiden name, 00:00:18.440 --> 00:00:21.223 and then when I got married it was Horowitz, 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:25.200 and I really did not want a name that came from 00:00:25.720 --> 00:00:29.720 either my father or from any other male member, 00:00:29.720 --> 00:00:31.694 and so I invented my own. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.480 Andrew, why don’t you line this...this girl. 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:37.810 Line her up on the other end. 00:00:37.810 --> 00:00:38.589 ANDREW: Okay. 00:00:40.733 --> 00:00:42.243 APPLEBROOG: Try and connect the dots, Andrew. 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:50.904 It’s the hand, the other hand. 00:00:50.904 --> 00:00:51.668 ANDREW: This is the other hand? 00:00:51.668 --> 00:00:53.085 APPLEBROOG: Yes. Can’t you tell? 00:00:54.235 --> 00:00:56.171 APPLEBROOG: It’s hard to  say what is your work about. 00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:59.080 But for me it’s really how power works, 00:00:59.080 --> 00:01:02.345 male over female, parents over children, 00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:06.029 governments over people, doctors over patients. 00:01:07.160 --> 00:01:10.000 Coming out of the ’50s,  women were pretty invisible. 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:14.169 And it never occurred to me anything was  wrong, that’s just the way things were. 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:18.791 I used to be very flattered  when a teacher would say to me 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:21.280 oh you’re working is so interesting and good. 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:22.901 It looks just like man’s. 00:01:24.480 --> 00:01:27.834 I have a real problem with feminism and art. 00:01:28.280 --> 00:01:31.286 I never liked the all women shows. 00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:34.584 It labels us, it ghettoizes us. 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:39.220 I hate being labeled. I really hate being labeled. 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:42.850 I came to New York in about ’74. 00:01:43.240 --> 00:01:45.800 And I didn’t know anyone in  New York. I was a New Yorker. 00:01:45.800 --> 00:01:47.390 I’d been away for a long, long time. 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. 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:57.671 I started to go back to my roots. 00:01:58.880 --> 00:02:01.501 Just doing drawings, and  drawing and drawing and drawing. 00:02:03.160 --> 00:02:06.973 And from these drawings I started making books. 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:13.813 I took these books and I would mail  them out to people I did not know. 00:02:18.200 --> 00:02:20.314 I guess I was a nuisance. 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:24.680 I use a lot of repetition. 00:02:24.680 --> 00:02:27.160 Then it becomes a filmic way of talking 00:02:27.160 --> 00:02:29.920 because as you put the same image after the other, 00:02:29.920 --> 00:02:32.360 even though it’s the exact, identical image, 00:02:32.360 --> 00:02:35.575 everyone sees something changing  from one image to the next. 00:02:36.920 --> 00:02:39.880 They’re just really bizarre  because I know what I’ve done, 00:02:39.880 --> 00:02:43.412 but they see actual gestures and they  see actual changes in the expression, 00:02:43.880 --> 00:02:45.119 which I’ve never put there. 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:47.720 And that’s not the reason why I do repetitive, 00:02:47.720 --> 00:02:49.560 it’s just because it’s a performance 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 00:02:55.200 --> 00:02:57.206 without the image actually changing. 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:02.366 When I work with canvases I work  with three dimensional structures. 00:03:04.920 --> 00:03:08.926 And the structure was as important  as whatever it was I was painting. 00:03:10.720 --> 00:03:12.120 And I love the fragmentation, 00:03:12.120 --> 00:03:14.166 because my work has always  been about fragmentation. 00:03:17.520 --> 00:03:22.520 Even though the work is not comfortable work, 00:03:23.160 --> 00:03:26.060 I feel like the paint is absolutely beautiful, 00:03:26.840 --> 00:03:28.259 I love the coloration, 00:03:30.760 --> 00:03:35.520 and it’s almost like I’m creating  fly paper to sort of get you to… 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:37.843 over to look at the kinds of brush strokes. 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:41.720 It’s interesting looking enough  to draw the viewer into it. 00:03:41.720 --> 00:03:42.600 Then once they’re there, 00:03:42.600 --> 00:03:45.760 they’re sort of confronted with  material that they have to think about 00:03:45.760 --> 00:03:47.098 or just walk away from. 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:51.160 I do a lot of work on murders and serial murders 00:03:51.160 --> 00:03:56.969 and rapes and ageism and sexism  and AIDS and child abuse. 00:03:57.320 --> 00:04:00.560 I live in this world, now this  is what’s going on around me. 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:02.025 I can’t change that. 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:06.480 The first time I ever did know I was an artist 00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:08.498 is when I was about five years-old. 00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:11.400 I wanted my father to draw something for me 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:13.548 and what he drew for me was a stick figure. 00:04:14.640 --> 00:04:17.600 And I showed him what I can do 00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:20.497 and at that moment I knew I  was the artist and he wasn’t. 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:24.541 And that was my first  recognition of being an artist, 00:04:25.184 --> 00:04:27.246 and in a way, that’s what these are. 00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:33.540 These are like the first recognition  of making marks with some material. 00:04:34.320 --> 00:04:37.239 And then you take whatever it is that you know 00:04:37.999 --> 00:04:40.670 and bring it down to its most simplistic level, 00:04:41.840 --> 00:04:46.150 and so it becomes a sort of  something that’s a part of you, 00:04:46.520 --> 00:04:48.350 that just pours out and pours out. 00:04:49.520 --> 00:04:52.160 Comes to the point where you  don’t even have to think about it. 00:04:52.160 --> 00:04:53.894 These things just make themselves. 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 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:04.156 and just put out these things. 00:05:05.735 --> 00:05:08.000 They’re crude, they’re weird, 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:09.595 but they’re wonderful to me. 00:05:13.280 --> 00:05:15.419 I’ve been in the art world for a long time. 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:18.320 And yet when I do this, 00:05:18.320 --> 00:05:25.000 it brings me back to just the  basic way of how I might think, 00:05:26.040 --> 00:05:27.261 is who I am. 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:36.040 —Andrew, you’re high on your side if you can lower it to read his lip, 00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:37.318 that will be good enough. 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:43.280 Someone once said this, 00:05:43.280 --> 00:05:47.224 with art it has to be either  too much or not enough. 00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:51.092 There’s so much coming out at one time for me, 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:52.800 that even the sorting of them 00:05:52.800 --> 00:05:54.840 and trying to put it into order 00:05:54.840 --> 00:05:56.740 is something I’ve been unable to do. 00:05:57.520 --> 00:05:59.134 I like that. I like the feeling. 00:06:00.160 --> 00:06:02.320 I don’t consider myself a sculptor or a painter 00:06:02.320 --> 00:06:04.752 or a book artist or a conceptual artist. 00:06:05.200 --> 00:06:06.358 I just make art. 00:06:07.840 --> 00:06:11.132 These little pieces that seem  so ordinary and like nothing, 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:13.494 little mounds of clay 00:06:14.040 --> 00:06:20.880 and if I place it suddenly on  my stage become monumental. 00:06:21.777 --> 00:06:23.518 And you photograph them any way you like, 00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:27.050 and you can zoom in on any  part of the body you like, 00:06:28.278 --> 00:06:30.673 and they become something totally different. 00:06:33.520 --> 00:06:36.224 Best part about these is I  really never know sort of 00:06:36.224 --> 00:06:38.166 what these things are going to morph into. 00:06:39.160 --> 00:06:40.600 I mean you become a hair dresser, 00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:42.401 a stylist, a photographer. 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:46.436 So I’ll start with these little sculptures. 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. 00:06:53.240 --> 00:06:55.897 Everything else has to happen  with the camera at that point. 00:06:56.560 --> 00:06:59.520 In terms of how many ways you can pose it. 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:04.918 Every time you change something the  kind of portrait that I’m doing changes. 00:07:06.400 --> 00:07:11.360 This one is of the Venus de  Willendorf and we give her her hair, 00:07:11.360 --> 00:07:12.842 nice red curly hair. 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:17.177 And we decided to change  the color of her hair where, 00:07:17.840 --> 00:07:19.775 much more of a grayish color. 00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:22.095 And we go closer. 00:07:22.680 --> 00:07:25.879 Looks like her tongue, sort of licking her lips. 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:28.600 You know there are some that someone will look at 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:29.960 and say I can’t stand looking at that. 00:07:29.960 --> 00:07:31.356 Makes me very uncomfortable. 00:07:33.520 --> 00:07:34.530 That’s good too. 00:07:37.240 --> 00:07:39.240 My work is not about beauty, 00:07:39.240 --> 00:07:42.200 and I know it does not hang  over a couch very well, 00:07:42.200 --> 00:07:45.200 matching the burgundy colors on the pillows. 00:07:45.200 --> 00:07:47.650 It’s not work one hangs over a couch in that way. 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:49.049 But I make the work, 00:07:49.400 --> 00:07:51.777 and I make it because for me it’s necessary. 00:07:52.206 --> 00:07:55.920 Other people make work for them that’s  necessary in a whole different way. 00:07:55.920 --> 00:07:57.075 This is just my way. 00:07:59.200 --> 00:08:01.080 I was actually computer illiterate. 00:08:01.080 --> 00:08:03.960 There was no way I was going to  bother turning on a computer. 00:08:03.960 --> 00:08:04.960 I didn’t want emails, 00:08:04.960 --> 00:08:06.920 I didn’t want to have to deal with that. 00:08:06.920 --> 00:08:09.801 I was too old. And this was last year. 00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:13.972 So I start to go to the Apple workshop 00:08:14.440 --> 00:08:17.271 and took everything that they had  on the schedule in the calendar, 00:08:17.680 --> 00:08:21.760 and from that point on I found  someone who I’d known for a long time 00:08:21.760 --> 00:08:24.640 who was very good at working the computer. 00:08:24.640 --> 00:08:27.671 She started to work with me and  that’s how this all came about. 00:08:29.152 --> 00:08:32.580 SPEAKER: I added some yellow, both to  the black and then to the mid tones. 00:08:32.970 --> 00:08:34.552 APPLEBROOG: That’s very, very good. 00:08:36.306 --> 00:08:37.080 APPLEBROOG: So what we’re doing right now 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. 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:44.642 By trial and error we’ve  sort of come to this point. 00:08:51.662 --> 00:08:53.460 APPLEBROOG: Wow, so that’s the cream paper? 00:08:53.460 --> 00:08:54.200 SPEAKER: Right. 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:57.860 APPLEBROOG: It makes quite a difference.  It’s like night and day here. 00:08:58.067 --> 00:08:59.654 SPEAKER: Yeah, I think it looks a lot richer. 00:08:59.869 --> 00:09:02.232 APPLEBROOG: It’s beautiful. It’s  like...it’s lit from inside. 00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:06.688 Uh, I’m going to...I need to  work on her braces right now. 00:09:08.560 --> 00:09:10.760 I will be doing some small editions 00:09:10.760 --> 00:09:13.903 but for the most part they will  be singling at eight pieces. 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:19.680 I don’t feel that’s any  different from doing painting or 00:09:19.680 --> 00:09:21.960 sculpting or drawing or anything else. 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:23.400 That’s just another way of making art, 00:09:23.400 --> 00:09:25.216 using the technology. 00:09:29.600 --> 00:09:34.360 For a while, because of aging and arthritis  and everything else that goes with it, 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:35.909 I was very incapacitated. 00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:39.760 And that’s why doing these  sculptures was an incredible thing  00:09:39.760 --> 00:09:41.560 to happen to me at that point. 00:09:41.560 --> 00:09:43.502 So I ended up on this route. 00:09:44.360 --> 00:09:48.023 No matter what I see, no matter  what I do, it all feeds me. 00:09:48.920 --> 00:09:51.760 Anybody that creates, they’re  going to find a way to create. 00:09:51.760 --> 00:09:52.949 It doesn’t matter how. 00:09:54.080 --> 00:10:01.040 I can not believe there’s a reawakening  of every juice in my body at… 00:10:01.040 --> 00:10:03.691 at this point in my life,  which is incredible for me.