Do It Yourself:
An Interview with Faye Hirsch
by Fanny Horton
Fanny Horton: What is this exhibition about, and have you
been disappointed at all in your first experience as
a curator?
Faye Hirsch: I wanted to get one of Andy Warhol’s ‘Do
It Yourself’ paintings for this exhibition, but we
were told by the Andy Warhol Foundation that they are all
in Europe and worth millions of dollars. Much to my surprise,
however, it turns out there are ‘Do It Yourself’ drawings,
and that Ileana Sonnabend owns one, but she didn’t
want to lend it to the show. The more impossible it grew,
the more I wanted one of the ‘Do It Yourself’ paintings—especially
the ‘Do It Yourself (Landscape)’ listed in the
Ludwig Collection in Rainer Crone’s 1970 book, Andy
Warhol, where it is reproduced in black and white and,
in my copy of the book, on yellowing pages that have grayed
the image considerably. It is evidently large, 72 by 54
inches,
and probably would have been rather expensive to ship,
let alone insure. This landscape is of a barn in the countryside
with a rustic road running past. There is a big, spreading
tree with a gnarled trunk behind it, and a smaller house
in the distance.
FH: What color is the barn?
FH: I don’t know. Red, probably. Anyway, you remember
that many areas are left blank in this painting and in those
blank areas—which I’ll bet are white in the painting,
though in my cheesy reproduction (Crone’s, that is),
they are not really white, though I’m sure they once
were—in those blank spaces are little numbers, which
indicate what color they should be painted, but aren’t,
because that’s the whole point, you see. It’s
all very amusing. You know, once my girlfriend and I tried
to sell that Crone book to Ursus because we had heard that
it was worth quite a lot of money but wouldn’t you
know it, ours was just a little too yellowed and damaged
to get a good price, let alone any price at all! God, did
we need that money. Do you know that a mint-condition first
edition of that book is worth over a thousand dollars? Anyway,
I don’t mean to get off track…I’ve been
very deeply disappointed with the fact that I couldn’t
get even a ‘Do It Yourself’ drawing for my
exhibition.
FH: Why?
FH: I’m sure it’s because it makes me feel very
small and helpless and poor. Perhaps if I had been wealthy
or fashionable I might have been able to get a ‘Do
It Yourself’ for this exhibition, where it might have
had a really significant impact—that is, in my group
show, where its presence amongst all the other works would
have given them, and it, well, a very special frisson,
in a nutshell. Have you ever seen one?
FH: Not in the flesh.
FH: I haven’t either, only in these reproductions I’ve
told you about, which I’m sure do not give a very accurate
impression of the work at all, as reproductions often don’t!
(For that matter, now that I think of it, the reproduction
is only 10 inches high and 7-3/4 inches wide—that’s
quite a big difference from the actual painting!) In the ‘Do
It Yourself (Landscape)’ in the Ludwig Collection,
there are no fewer than 32 areas with the number 9, which
ceases to appear altogether as you move up, so I suppose
that the number 9 is intended in the quote-unquote “original” as
an earth tone, or maybe green, though the tree is just chock
full of 2s (there are 45 of them in the upper part of the
painting…) and four in a bush below (49 altogether)
so I suppose 2 is green. See, this is one of the wonderful
things about color originals being reproduced in black and
white—it makes counting so much easier!
FH: I’m
certainly glad you brought your notebook so you could remember
all those numbers.
FH: My God, Fanny, I never go anywhere without a pad and
paper—I’m a writer, you know, and can be caught
scribbling at all hours in all places. The subway, restaurants… I’m
sure you, of all people, understand.FH: Mmm. One does marvel
that somebody at some point decided both to extend a spectrum
of possibilities to the masses of persons who yearned for
any and all manner of color yet systematized and limited
it inasmuch that it might be transformed into a force of
order, nay control, and eventually something so blank as
to circumvent expression altogether. Not at all like those
wise horticulturists who had a more generous and expansive
attitude toward color: take Mr. Russell, certain of whose
lupins gained wide recognition; many distinct colors are
still in cultivation, such as ‘Limelight’ and
the blue-and-white bicolor ‘Vogue.’ And those
that aren’t? Whence those colors?
FH: Anyway, to continue:
There are plenty of ones in the painting—29 altogether,
and exclusively in the top part. Another tone of green, maybe?
Bits of blue sky peeking through? There are also—and
I think this must be significant—29
numbers 16.
FH: Well.
FH: Yes. I’ll be cool about it if someone
out there with a more scholarly approach wants to do something
with all this raw data. (A footnote would be nice.) The 16s
are all over the painting—maybe they are yellow, representing
the dappling effects of sunshine. One of them is all alone
in the center, near the bottom, amidst a lot of nines and
sixes. Speaking of sixes, there are 19 of them, as well as
six tens and sevens, four 12s, and—get this—one,
single 19.
FH: Are you quite sure?
FH: Absolutely certain. One might
well ask what that is supposed to be! A cherry in the cocktail?—You
know what’s
amazing? This painting was done around the same time that
Johns was making those false equivalencies between colors
and color names. Something must have been in the air. Anyway,
I’ve been very sad about not having a ‘Do It
Yourself’ in my very first show. It could have been
the linchpin.
FH: It would have been the linchpin.
December 1996. |