The Artist Project: Wangechi Mutu

My name is Wangechi Mutu.
I'm an artist.

[Piano music]

I make drawings in my sketchbooks before
I get into larger paintings.

When I discovered Egon Schiele,
I realized that actually a lot of his

work was just on small
sheets of paper.

The power, the simplicity,
and the clarity in his line

is absolutely dumbfounding.

There's nothing
easy about that pose.

In fact, it's very complicated to
make believable with just line.

She's got her head twisted away.
Her hand is between her legs.

There is no background,
there's no seating.

He can imply the delicacy in her
fingers, this tension and movement,

with this one simple, simple material.

I love accessories—shoes, stockings,
the flourishes of human vanity.

Things that describe a person's
choices outside of being born.

What would they wear, how much
money they have to spend on their teeth,

on their hair. These things say a lot
about us as social beings.

But I'm also fascinated by the nude
female body.

I've been studying fertility emblems that
express the power of female creativity.

I think in this case, in her
pose, in the line, in her coyness

—it's tender, but then of course
there's nothing coy

about sitting in front of a man
with your knees up in the air.

Inside her is this sexuality and
potency that he's trying to

I think draw out in the most
humble, pared-down way.

As a result, I think something
massive happens.

He's really empathizing with poor
people, with women

who don't seem like they're have
great stature,

and I just think two minutes he
completed this, you know.

And how many people can do that
and just move on to the next thing—

not worry about it, not go back and
try to improve on it?

I think it's also this indication
of a very young soul, young mind.

This is an artist who died young.

This is a person who was doubted
as a master.

You know, he would draw
if no one ever knew who he was.

But his signature is right up
next to his work, he's almost like a

graffiti artist, his little tag
is, like, super territorial:

he knows he's doing something
special. He's not full-on

abstracting, and he's not a Cubist,
and he's not breaking up the figure

violently, he's just giving the minimum
amount of information to guide your eye.

It's nothing proper about it: it's raw.

It's raw the way sex is raw,
the way relationships are raw.

What I have noticed in my work is if
I'm seeing things that disturb me, those

things come out of my work, in an
unedited and unfiltered manner.

Egon Schiele's work, he's observing
cruelty humans have

for one another. This emaciated
self-portrait—I don't know if

he was this skinny, but I think he's
trying to think about that idea of the

body pushed to its extremes.

It's all about this human condition, of

asking, "Why we here
when life is so rough?"

These are not oil paintings,
they're not being painted or drawn

with the idea of infinite life.

He has clarity in his humanness, in
his present-ness.

"I'm here, right now.
Not for long."