"It's good to watch you working like that. in silence." "02 00:03:45,108 -- 00:03:47,668 It reminds me of that canvas of yours." "a big canvas with "silence" written on it." "There are people who work with music but I can't do that." " You prefer silence." " Yes." "I do." "That is very understandable." "It's like a garden here with all these canvases so different from one another." "It's as if they were growing at night and in daytime." "It's as if they grew on their own." "You saw what I was doing." "Like a flower growing on its own." " And you are the gardener amongst it all." " Yes. as you can see." "You saw that canvas I was working on?" "well." "I was working on it as if I were pruning a rose or pulling up a radish." "And there's everything in your garden." "fIowers. fruits. weeds ..." "Yes. you have to pull out the weeds ..." "I pull out the weeds that aren't doing any good." "I destroy or repaint those which are not working." "They're like the things in the kitchen garden that you throw out." "That's where you finished "The Farm". isn't it?" "Yes. that's it." "And I did "HarIequin's carnival" there. too." "And that canvas with the number 48 has been exhibited in London." "I used the number 48 because we lived in Rue BIomet number 45." "The opposite house was number 48." "so that's why ..." " You mean it struck you." " Yes. coming out every day I saw 48." "So it was about that time that you met all the surrealists?" " Yes." "Through Masson." " Breton and all the others." "Masson introduced me to the surrealists and the people who came round." "He was always very decent to me." "If people came to him." "he'd bring them to me." "But they still didn't give a damn for me." "Perhaps they didn't understand what you were doing." "You and the others nearly starved ..." "My words. yes." "We were hard put to it to earn enough to buy a croissant." "Yes. you were practically dying of hunger then." "AII the same." "I think you told me that hunger inspired you." "That to be starving like that was good for your imagination and your work." "Yes. it gives you ideas." "Painting with all those rules got on my nerves a bit." "I wanted to go beyond that." "You see?" "Cubism opened a Iot of doors." "but after Cubism painting became a very static thing." "It was just concerned with pIasticism and I wanted to leap ahead of that." "It seemed very limited to me." "In the surrealists I found what I was seeking." "I couId get past strict pIasticism and go beyond it." "And it was strange that among those surreaIist poets there were so many who appreciated painting." "Like Breton and EIuard ..." "They were mad about painting." "Yes. but not so much painting itself." "For exampIe." "I remember well that they spoke of Cezanne with contempt." " really?" " Yes." "For my part." "I used not to like Cezanne but now I am overwhelmed looking at a Cezanne - it seems prodigious." "But Breton and EIuard found all that very limited." "To them he was simply a man who painted apples and water jugs." "At that time I was rather of that opinion myself." "But now I have an enormous admiration for Cezanne." "I think he was a marvellous man." "And why have you had this change in your ideas?" "That's just one of those things in life!" "Yes." "I suppose it is." "One's appreciation changes." "Now I'm more mature. it allows me more flexibility in my judgements." "I can't just be rigid." "I must have a suppleness of spirit." "You've got things here from the four corners of the world." " And you found this one in America?" " Yes." "well." "I was attracted. for example." "by those stripes ... very crisp and angular." "It's very like my latest things." "And with the colour applied flat in patches like that." "it's just like what I'm doing at the moment." "And the eyes sticking out like that ..." "That's it. they're like accents." "Just look at the beauty of this shell." "It is wonderful." "Its like a GaudI." "It's all that modern architecture hasn't yet been able to attain." "that purity and force." "Look at the beauty of that!" "Isn't it monumental?" "It could be from the Parthenon." "Yes. it could be any size." "Imagine if in New York they had skyscrapers like this with people living in there!" "That would be grand." "Much more fun than those square boxes they've got." "Yes. those terrible matchboxes." "And there are some things like toys." "I meant that figure over there." "They do these for the tourists now." "so they're very carelessly made." "These were originally for children at village fairs." "They were used ..." "Sorry." "The arm must have been stuck on." "That is very fine." "and it is an old idea. isn't it?" " Yes. it goes back to ancient times." " And it's been modelled with the fingers?" "Yes. while the clay is still soft." "It's the women that do it." "With their fingers." "It's all done with the fingers." "That's how it has such vitality." "Yes. it is very beautiful because it ... very nice." "So you consider these a series?" "Yes. they are a series." "For exampIe. these three paintings here ... and those two down there." "WeII. an idea came to me." "I had woken up early and was thinking about work." "And so I thought. this is what I couId do." "Squeeze the colour straight out of the tube onto the canvas." "and work on it as though I were playing the piano." "Do you see?" "And you work on two or three at a time?" "AII five beginning with the black." "You see that there were five." "three and then two." "I always look for odd numbers." "even numbers are no good." "Here there were four. but I found another to make an odd number." " You prefer odd numbers?" " Oh yes. even numbers give me pain." "really?" "That is funny." "So I began with the black." "putting the colour on straight." "and the next day." "when I couId see things more clearly." "I worked over the black again." "And the following day." "when the paint was already dry." "I began to make those marks. which are simply scratched with a pen-knife." "And then the colours." "The colour is put there to balance the composition." "But the start of this little painting was purely instinctive." "In later stages. reflection played a part." "For exampIe. the shape of the black led me to draw a trident with my knife and the colours to create a balance." "The red to balance the black." "the green to balance the red ..." "That was all considered. but the initial impulse was entirely instinctive." "As I say." "I just squeezed the paint onto the canvas and began exactly as if I were playing the piano with all ten fingers." " wonderful." " exactly." "Just like a pianist." "I had a pianist in mind." "And you have used black and white." "like the piano." "Just like that." "And all your children over there with their backs to us ..." "They all have titles." "Yes. very poetic. but very basic ones." ""Woman". "Bird". "Moon" and so on." " very tangible titles." " Yes. indeed." "You've seen that I work with my fingers very often." "Yes. and I see a hand on the canvas over there." "And there. too." "It wasn't planned." "My hand had paint on it and I just put it on the canvas." "Yes. and even in cave paintings you get that sort of thing." "That's how they began - by printing their hands." "Thinking of the meaning of the word "CIaca" ..." "What you've done here is like a hand clap on the canvas." "very nice." "We've changed it." "We have joined the three pieces for you to see." "This thing belongs to the character which later changes into Ubu." "It's a cross between a sceptre and a club which he carried in the procession." "But I need to do something aggressive and very simple which makes it look like different weapons." "But don't colour that object!" "A shoe on it's side for instance." "Look." "We could fix the shoe like this." " Anywhere round here?" " But at an angIe. not straight." "We'II do it later." "Let's see about the comb you want." " Like this?" " Yes. a little more this way ..." "Yes. across the beam." "... more slanting." "Let's see it the other way round?" "No ..." " How do you want to put the fork?" " The prongs should stick up." " We'II make a hole for that." " Yes." "And the comb up here." "So we'II use these three objects." " I'II put that up here." " So. what do we have?" "A black one. a pink one." "and that's it." "And the fork. very good." "What often astonishes me in your work is how you take ordinary things." "even stupid things." "and you transform them." "Of course." "Nothing is stupid or banal." "Not quite. it can all be transformed." "It can become something marvellous." "the most banal thing." "So with your collages and so on." "you've taken ordinary materials and changed them completely." "And for the things I'm preparing at the moment for the Pompidou Centre." "I'm using waste paper." "If my wife has been shopping and has any bits of paper stained with fat or whatever." "I use those." "And at the same time I use beautiful Japanese papers alongside paper spattered with mud and so on." "Or there. for example." "you used a hammer on that one." "Yes. to hammer in the nails." "and it became a singing bird." "So all of that is a single canvas or rather composition?" "It's astonishing because of the mixture of materials in it." "Sandpaper. planks of wood. nails." "This." "I think. will be shown at the Pompidou Centre because you can look at it as a drawing or a graphic." "Yes. true. in some ways it's like a drawing." "Something really struck me yesterday." "You spoke of Turner when you saw that canvas." "Yes. exactly." "It seems to me that there are always bold signs and figures on your canvases." " but there's also a background." " Yes. there is." "That's what gives them depth." "Like that figure there." "It springs out of nothing." " A good example." " Like a rocket." "Yes. of course." "Turner liked rockets very much. and fire." "Water and fire." "Yes. that's it." "And things on fire." "And the sea at the height of a storm." "This is a fibre-board painting on the floor." "I poured a can of petrol over it." "which made the colours run and gave me those marks. which led me to the rest of the composition." "They drove me to it. instinctively." "I was drawn by those marks." "magnetised by them. you see?" "Like an electric current." "you are seized by it." "I couldn't do otherwise." "so that's what gave me the rest of it." "And that thick white there ..." "I put that in to set off the rest." "It brings out the force of the painting." "That's why I Iike to have in my studio all sorts of things that make a mess." "My wife can't bear it but that's how it is." "Because marks and stains like that excite me. give me ideas." "For me it becomes a person or a bird." "but it all stems from the magic qualities of the mark." "It's the mark that leads me to the person or the bird." "It's as if here were hills all over it." " And it takes the paint marveIIousIy." " Yes. a lovely material!" "But when you were starting this." "did you already have a title for it?" "Oh no. that came on its own." "only now the title has come." "when I see that that's a person or a bird." " I never start with titles." " The titles come afterwards." "It's like when you have a child." "You get together with the wife or the grandmother or whoever and choose a name. but not before!" "Yes." "I see." "You see. the elements stay the same." ""Woman". "Bird". "Star"." "But the signs of these elements are always changing." "That's what gives your work such variety." "That's it." "It's still just "Woman"." ""Bird". "Moon". and so on." "but each time it's different." "When you do this with the CIaca. the monsters." "are they part of your morning dreams?" "Yes. exactly so." "Because there is. in your work." "a side which is so marvellous." "the flowers and so on ..." "And then this sinister side." "It's hard sometimes to see." "these could come from the same person." "Yes. it's because despite everything." "we are living in a monstrous age." "And one's spirit can't help reflecting that." "It's not among the flowers that we live today." "Are you optimistic about the future of catalonia and do you think painting plays an important part in it?" "Of course. yes." "It's not simply a form of expression which depicts things." "it's a form of expression that frees the spirit." "And freedom of the spirit is obviously what CataIonia is all about!" "So the future will benefit?" "Of course. our future is bound up with liberty." "And liberty of expression is what we painters deal with." "Free expression in painting as in life?" "Free expression in painting has to be combined with free expression for our people here in catalonia." "You can't separate the one from the other."