(11 of 13)
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH:
When you were talking about Maya Lin, and uh, the Vietnam Memorial, it,
it did make me think about, for example, Diego Rivera, and sort of, uh,
the big three, uh, Siguerros(?), and also Orrosco(?), and without them,
uh, we probably wouldn't have the idea of the public mural, right now,
or when you go into these great, big, uh, government buildings, because,
it's my understanding that they, they influenced in part, uh,
Roosevelt's WPA program.
ROBERT HUGHES:
They certainly did, and particularly Rivera, I mean, Rivera executed
some of his biggest projects right here in America, in Detroit and
elsewhere.
NORM PEARLSTINE:
What about Jackson Pollack?
(OVERLAPPING VOICES)
CHARLIE ROSE:
I was going to rephrase the question a little bit differently, if I may.
NORM PEARLSTINE:
Yeah, go.
ROB REINER:
He's the moderator. Do whatever you want.
CHARLIE ROSE:
Uh, exactly. My show, even.
ROBERT HUGHES:
Let's not stop you.
CHARLIE ROSE:
Before you, if Jackson Pollack is your choice, so be it, but who is the
greatest American artist?
ROBERT HUGHES:
Of the 20th century?
CHARLIE ROSE:
Yes, sir.
ROBERT HUGHES:
The most influential? Unquestionably Pollack.
CHARLIE ROSE:
Unquestionably.
ROBERT HUGHES:
Yeah, uh, which is not to say that he's, you know that he's in all
respects the best. I mean he's, his drawing is sometimes unbelievable
cackhad (?), until he found this wonderful way of, you know, draw—,
drawing, the line in air, by spilling it from a brush. Uh, the uh, no,
Pollack has had more influence, both upon America—, other American
artists, and about the way that Americans think about modern art. In
the 20th century, than any other painter that I can think of.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH:
Is it t—, is it true that he had a relationship, a static relation with
Siguerros (?), and that that...?
ROBERT HUGHES:
Yes, he did, as a matter of fact, he learned to great, do, you know, a
number of the abstract expressionists, and then from the Mexican
muralist, because, the Mexican muralists were working on a scale to
which they aspired. And also, you know, I mean, for instance, Philip
Gaston worked as an assistant to Siguerros, we must get into these
footnotes, but yes it's true, he was very influenced by Mexican art.
And uh, and also because he was so interested in the primitive. You
know.
NORM PEARLSTINE:
Bob, I can't believe you're going to let this hour go by without giving
uh, some response on Warhol.
ROBERT HUGHES:
Oh, well, I don't think he belongs there at all. Come on, I mean, you
know, blind Freddie can see that, you know, the, the, the, look.
(OFF MIKE)
CHARLIE ROSE:
Kandinsky, all right. Before we go to Kandinsky, good idea, I just want
to get your, bring you into the...
SHERYL CROW:
Picasso.
CHARLIE ROSE:
So it's a, full...
SHERYL CROW:
You have, could we say, on architecture,
and I actually think his sculptures and his relation to the human body,
was, was very innovative.
CHARLIE ROSE:
Well, I'm glad you opened architecture. Architects? Frank Lloyd
Wright? Who else?
NORM PEARLSTINE:
Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier.
CHARLIE ROSE:
The number one would be Frank Lloyd Wright?
NORM PEARLSTINE:
Le Corbusier, for me. Just, in terms of influence on the culture, yes.
Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE:
Rob?
ROB REINER:
Frank Lloyd Wright.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH:
Frank Lloyd Wright.
CHARLIE ROSE:
Why?
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH:
Well, I think because of his ability for one thing, to include what
is natural, into the whole, scheme of what he's doing. You know,
thinking about falling river...
CHARLIE ROSE:
Right.
ANNA DEAVERE SMITH:
....the waterfall coming through the home, and so forth.
CHARLIE ROSE:
Frank Lloyd Wright, here. The single most influential building of the
20th century.
ROBERT HUGHES:
Oh, influence over what? I mean, the American skyscraper is certainly
the most influential in terms of myth, I mean the genre of the
skyscraper.
CHARLIE ROSE:
Yeah.
ROBERT HUGHES:
Because it's so, it, it for, it's such a powerful image of a certain
kind of Promethean daring, which was held to be at the center of, the
very center of mo—, you know, capitalist modernism. Among the most influential smaller buildings of the 20th century, I
think, undoubtedly, Wright's house in Chicago. There's quite a
list. I wanted to add Wright too, because, you see, he was the first
American architect to really influence European architects. I mean,
say, and some of them through Wright. I mean, if it hadn't been for
Wright's open plan houses, the idea of the open plan would never have
proliferated to the bath house. I mean, he, he published that in 1904,
and that was essentially what Gropius(?) and others were copying. You
know, and he had an enormous impact upon European
modernism. No American architect before that had done so, so I would,
you know, I would definitely put Wright at the top of the totem pole.
CHARLIE ROSE:
Where do put a building Bilbao. Getty Center? Buildings that,
built at the end of this century, were they in sweep of buildings built
in the...
ROBERT HUGHES:
I think Bilbao is a great building, but it's the last, as a museum, it's
the last of what it goo—, is gone into his market, sort of market to
the future, the future museum is probably going to be much more
intimate. And uh...
CHARLIE ROSE:
Intimate?
ROBERT HUGHES:
Yeah, than the, the, the idea of the mega, uh, Metropolitan Museum. Um,
I think very highly of the Getty Center, architecturally. Um, they,
we'll see how it performs as a museum, it's only been open a short
while.
CHARLIE ROSE:
It certainly has the public's attention.
ROBERT HUGHES:
It certainly has the public's attention, we know
one thing for sure, they're going to have to, in the museum of the
future, there must be more lavatories.