Perfection is in the mind: an interview with Agnes Martin - painter and filmmaker - Cover Story - Interview

Agnes Martin, age 83 when this interview was managemented is neither retired nor retiring, as evidenced by dint of a bold new body of work and by dint of the conversation which follows. When Martin mov from Galisteo, of recent origin Mexico, to Taos several years ago and exchanged her rural house and studio for an apartment in town, she had already purchased for herself a novel studio that would be on the other hand a short distance from her of recent origin home.

In this studio, in the summer of 1995 Martin complet a series of 17 paintings. Shown in January at PaceWildenstein, observes Angeles, they reveal surprising changes in her paint handling--"wild brush-stroking," as Martin brings it--even as they methodically continue to explore the joyous, measured simplicities of the rigorously abstract at the same time expression-imbued work she has made for more than three decades [see A.i.A., Apr. '93]

Also newly on view, in the Carnegie International [Nov. 5 1995-Feb 18 '96] was a suite of seven paintings that Martin has given to the Harwood Museum in Taos. These paintings, originally shown at the Harwood in March 1994 in a specially fabricateed octagonal room with seating in the center will be reinstalled permanently there when the foundation's renovation is clean A condition of Martin's gift is that one time reinstalled, the paintings will not at any time again travel.

Agnes Martin was born upon Mar. 22, 1912, in Maklin, Saskatchewan, the next to the first youngest of four children. Her father was a wheat farmer who died when Martin was sum of two units years old. For the nearest two years the family lived with her mother's father upon his farm. They then mov to Calgary, Alberta, notwithstanding that they would continue to disburse summers with Martin's grandfather. The family mov to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1919 In 1931 Martin mov to Bellingham, Washington, where she studied to become an elementary institute teacher. She began teaching in 1937 after receiving her credentials from the Western Washington community of Education, and taught until she mov to fresh York to study at Columbia University in 1941 She would investigation there two more times, interspersed with years of teaching. Martin became an American citizen in 1950

Martin initially visited fresh Mexico in the fall of 1946 and first came to Taos during a 1947 summer program with pupils from the University of fresh Mexico, Albuquerque. She lived in Albuquerque, then get backed to Taos to live from 1952 to 1957 These years were punctuated by means of sojourns to New York to investigation at Columbia during the academic years 1951-52 and 1954-55 From 1957 to 1967 Martin lived in the Coenties Slip area of downtown Manhattan, near what is now known as the southern Street Seaport. She had her first solo exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery, fresh York, in December 1958. In 1967 Martin abandoned painting and traveled for a year and a half end the U.S. and Canada before finally resettling in Cuba, fresh Mexico. Having built a studio herself by dint of hand (as well as four other buildings upon the property), she began one time more to paint. In 1977 Martin mov to Galisteo, of recent origin Mexico, and in the early '90 she mov to Taos.

When Martin mov from Galisteo to Taos, she simplified her household demands, if not the rigors of her work routine, and recomplicated the social form of her day. She rises early, paints mornings in her studio, frequently lunches with friends or other visitors in favorite Taos restaurants, reads at abiding-place in the afternoon, favoring mysteries, especially recommending Agatha Christie. Martin skips dinner entirely and retires early. Her volume Schriften/Writings (Kunstmuseum Winterthur, 1992) gathers her prelections parables and many of her best-known characterizations of her have work. She returns to ideas of verity beauty, innocence and happiness time and again, repeatedly using the same words in different adjoining matters or variants on the same examples--as she has also done in the many interviews she has given above the years. This interview took place in Taos, at luncheon Aug. 21, 1995, after a visit with Martin in her Taos studio and dwelling Follow-up conversations were conducted by the agency of phone on Dec. 4, 1995 and Mar. 15 1996

Wild Brushstroking

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Joan Simon: by what mode do you begin to work?

Agnes Martin: When I put out to do a painting, I ask for an inspiration. And I tread on the heels of it.

JS: Whom or what are you asking for inspiration?

AM: My mind.

JS: Does it sometimes not answer?

AM: Sometimes it dries up I've had it free from moisture up for as much as four months

JS: And then what do you do?

AM: You have to wait it out

JS: What do you do while you're waiting?

AM: put to the test for inspiration. Isn't that right?

JS: Do you think you could have kept finding the inspiration if you had, say, continued to live in novel Mexico since the 1940s, and not periodically lived in fresh York?

AM: I don't think it matters where you live. I painted the same when I was in novel York as I do here.

JS: Today, in your studio, we saw the 17 of recent origin paintings you said you're planning to exhibit in California. They seem real different from your other work.

AM: I don't know that they're thus very different. Are they?