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Tala Madani: Sketchbooks | Art21 "Extended Play"

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    [Art21 "Extended Play"]
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    ["Tala Madani: Sketchbooks"]
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    When I'm working,
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    I draw in the mornings,
    when I come to the studio
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    --Obama!
    [LAUGHS]
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    There is this great story in Iran--
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    I think it was written in the '60s.
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    This is something that
    every Iranian knows about.
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    It's called "'Shahr-e Gheseh"
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    which means
    "the city of stories".
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    All the characters are animals.
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    And the prettiest character is this cockroach.
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    One of the parts of the story is that
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    this elephant who's new to town--
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    nobody knows her
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    and they are really bewildered by
    its appearance.
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    And they start reshaping it.
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    They cut off the trunk in bits,
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    and then the elephant can't recognize itself,
    of course--
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    it's sort of this loss of identity.
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    A lot of works from this show
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    were worked out more thoroughly in sketches.
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    It's the most immediate record
    of a thinking process, isn't it?
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    This didn't make it.
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    This was too violent.
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    In a year, I'll come to something like this
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    that I didn't really work with in this show.
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    Some things in the sketchbooks
    lead to the future works.
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    I think they're a great way of
    keeping track of your ideas,
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    because you don't necessarily have time
    or the space to investigate each idea
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    as fully as you'd want.
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    It's good to catch them
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    if you're in the space where ideas are flowing.
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    This is a sketch for "Dirty Protest".
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    So, in a way, I kind of knew this painting--
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    the image of it--
    a long time in my head, I think.
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    So, the sketch of it was just, sort of,
    a notation for me,
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    but I knew what I wanted to do.
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    The thing that's different with painting
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    is its materiality.
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    It's not to suggest at all that it's ever
    about paint.
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    It's more about how do you use the material
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    to help you communicate the idea clearer.
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    If there's drips happening,
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    I really engage those drips
    into bringing the audience
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    quite close to where I am.
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    That it's really about this idea again.
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    Let's not get too preoccupied with
    a kind of
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    perspectival concern or depth concern.
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    That this is really paint speaking to you.
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    That messes with your read of space.
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    I really love this idea that
    the painting itself has a life.
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    In a way, it's about transference of energy,
    I really think.
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    There is this seventeenth-century idea
    that paintings actually had souls,
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    and they were given souls by demons or angels--
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    and demons were not necessarily
    a bad collaborator to have.
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    If anyone is interested in
    looking at a painter at work,
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    you just have to follow the brushstrokes.
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    So, you're seeing the action of the hand,
    but also the action of the thought,
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    ideally,
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    in following the brushstroke.
Title:
Tala Madani: Sketchbooks | Art21 "Extended Play"
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"Extended Play" series
Duration:
04:02

English subtitles

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