WEBVTT 00:00:01.640 --> 00:00:03.260 [Art21 "Extended Play"] 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:09.060 ["Tala Madani: Sketchbooks"] 00:00:16.140 --> 00:00:17.140 When I'm working, 00:00:17.140 --> 00:00:20.100 I draw in the mornings, when I come to the studio 00:00:21.660 --> 00:00:23.280 --Obama! [LAUGHS] 00:00:26.180 --> 00:00:30.060 There is this great story in Iran-- 00:00:30.520 --> 00:00:32.500 I think it was written in the '60s. 00:00:33.500 --> 00:00:36.440 This is something that every Iranian knows about. 00:00:37.060 --> 00:00:39.080 It's called "'Shahr-e Gheseh" 00:00:39.080 --> 00:00:41.620 which means "the city of stories". 00:00:41.620 --> 00:00:43.460 All the characters are animals. 00:00:44.140 --> 00:00:46.540 And the prettiest character is this cockroach. 00:00:47.040 --> 00:00:49.300 One of the parts of the story is that 00:00:49.300 --> 00:00:52.109 this elephant who's new to town-- 00:00:52.109 --> 00:00:53.309 nobody knows her 00:00:53.309 --> 00:00:57.560 and they are really bewildered by its appearance. 00:00:57.560 --> 00:01:00.120 And they start reshaping it. 00:01:00.120 --> 00:01:03.329 They cut off the trunk in bits, 00:01:03.329 --> 00:01:06.500 and then the elephant can't recognize itself, of course-- 00:01:06.500 --> 00:01:08.260 it's sort of this loss of identity. 00:01:13.700 --> 00:01:17.160 A lot of works from this show 00:01:17.160 --> 00:01:20.120 were worked out more thoroughly in sketches. 00:01:23.000 --> 00:01:26.060 It's the most immediate record of a thinking process, isn't it? 00:01:28.820 --> 00:01:29.940 This didn't make it. 00:01:29.940 --> 00:01:31.480 This was too violent. 00:01:32.520 --> 00:01:35.680 In a year, I'll come to something like this 00:01:35.680 --> 00:01:38.280 that I didn't really work with in this show. 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:43.140 Some things in the sketchbooks lead to the future works. 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:50.560 I think they're a great way of keeping track of your ideas, 00:01:50.560 --> 00:01:55.259 because you don't necessarily have time or the space to investigate each idea 00:01:55.260 --> 00:01:56.800 as fully as you'd want. 00:01:56.960 --> 00:01:58.680 It's good to catch them 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:01.620 if you're in the space where ideas are flowing. 00:02:03.340 --> 00:02:06.080 This is a sketch for "Dirty Protest". 00:02:08.100 --> 00:02:10.679 So, in a way, I kind of knew this painting-- 00:02:10.679 --> 00:02:13.330 the image of it-- a long time in my head, I think. 00:02:13.330 --> 00:02:16.510 So, the sketch of it was just, sort of, a notation for me, 00:02:16.510 --> 00:02:19.180 but I knew what I wanted to do. 00:02:20.940 --> 00:02:23.040 The thing that's different with painting 00:02:23.040 --> 00:02:25.020 is its materiality. 00:02:26.260 --> 00:02:29.800 It's not to suggest at all that it's ever about paint. 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:32.760 It's more about how do you use the material 00:02:32.760 --> 00:02:35.360 to help you communicate the idea clearer. 00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:39.940 If there's drips happening, 00:02:39.940 --> 00:02:43.909 I really engage those drips into bringing the audience 00:02:43.909 --> 00:02:45.700 quite close to where I am. 00:02:45.700 --> 00:02:48.190 That it's really about this idea again. 00:02:48.190 --> 00:02:51.550 Let's not get too preoccupied with a kind of 00:02:51.550 --> 00:02:54.010 perspectival concern or depth concern. 00:02:54.010 --> 00:02:56.160 That this is really paint speaking to you. 00:02:57.740 --> 00:03:00.700 That messes with your read of space. 00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:08.940 I really love this idea that the painting itself has a life. 00:03:11.200 --> 00:03:14.720 In a way, it's about transference of energy, I really think. 00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:22.140 There is this seventeenth-century idea that paintings actually had souls, 00:03:22.159 --> 00:03:26.689 and they were given souls by demons or angels-- 00:03:26.689 --> 00:03:30.160 and demons were not necessarily a bad collaborator to have. 00:03:30.900 --> 00:03:34.120 If anyone is interested in looking at a painter at work, 00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:36.600 you just have to follow the brushstrokes. 00:03:37.440 --> 00:03:40.700 So, you're seeing the action of the hand, but also the action of the thought, 00:03:40.709 --> 00:03:41.709 ideally, 00:03:41.709 --> 00:03:43.260 in following the brushstroke.