March 23 - May 21, 2000

Works by: Emily Mason

Semaphore
1991, oil on canvas
54" x 56"

Refraction
1998, oil on canvas
68" x 50"



Works By: Wolf Kahn

A Steep Bank in Johnson, VT
1999, oil on canvas
36" x 52"



Bright Orange Stripe
1999, pastel on paper
8" x 10"

Interview with the artists:

The following are excerpts from separate interviews with the artists on December 17, 1999 in New York City. I asked them about the evolution of their lives and careers together over the past forty-four years.



Rachel Seligman: What was it like working in the same studio?

Wolf Kahn: Well, it always drove me crazy because Emily had such a different method of work than I do. I think she just kept painting at full throttle, until all of the sudden the thing came together. And if it never came together, that was all right too. I have much more of a preconceived image, and if at a certain point the image is getting realized, then I start doing invisible mending - little adjustments here and there. Emily never does that, even now. No little adjustments.

Emily Mason: It was difficult. The picture in the book (Wolf and Emily in their studio in Venice in 1957, published in Wolf Kahn by Justin Spring) was more posed than anything. The studio on Broadway had two separate spaces but people went through my studio to get to Wolf's and that was difficult. I'm so grateful to have my own studio now. It wasn't so much the working together - because I think we have the ability to concentrate - it was the other people coming through my space.

RS: How would you describe your approach to painting as compared to (Wolf's/Emily's)?

EM: I love to start with a blank canvas and let it take me to another place. Sometimes I work with a collection of colors, very often flat on the floor. Sometimes the colors are very liquid, sometimes not. It's a process. Over the winter I adjust my summer's work, getting that final twist, that final pigment, that final level that you want it to have. But I don't always like to think ahead of time what I'm going to do. Sometimes I jump in and take it all apart - and then work it out on the canvas. I don't think Wolf always wants to know what he is going to do either...

WK: In the beginning I try to start very energetically and I try to keep that way until the very end. But it doesn't always work out that way. Towards the end, I sometimes catch myself slowing down and being careful - and painting around things. Emily would never do that; she doesn't paint around things - or when she catches herself doing that, she immediately works against it. I belong to the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, and they always had the feeling that you should never know too much what you are doing; you should always be surprised by what happens in front of your eyes, and you should be ready to change your mind.

 

RS: In what ways are you aware of having influenced one another?

WK: When I discover a new color of paint or a new kind of medium, I immediately share. We share that stuff a lot. Or a new kind of way of treating the canvas - putting on a size. We exchange the products - that's very valuable.

EM: We share new colors, new ways of preparing the surface; we share materials with each other. Basically I think we're both really interested in color. Or one of us will say, "try this color," and the other will say, "That's not for me!"
 

Since 1980, the artists have had separate studios; they each have a studio in New York, and one in Vermont.
 

RS: What is the extent of your contact with each other's work now that you have your own studios?

EM: We are very formal, "Would you please come" I had two paintings I wasn't sure about - I felt good about them but I wanted a confirmation. And Wolf said, "Yeah, they look good. "Sometimes I'll be working on something and he will see it and say, "Ah - that's finished." That is helpful too. Or else I will think, "I've got this one just where I want it," and he will say, "well, it's moving in this direction too much. "When we exchange studio visits, I tell him exactly what I think.

WK: Our studio visits are not always that formal; sometimes she just comes by, or we meet here. If she's going west, I'll say, "Stop by the studio. "She'll ring the bell and I'll say, "Come on up - I need you. "She gives me her opinion about something that I've been wondering about. For example, if I have a painting I think is finished but I'm not quite sure, I say, "what do you think?" and she'll tell me. And she is very severe with me - much more than with her students!

 

RS: Do you share a similar philosophy of art?

WK: I would say so, yes. I think we're both formalists Our underlying issues are the same - to make coherent structures in which everything that appears on the surface has a meaning in relation to everything else.

EM: Yes, I think basically we are the same, although Wolf uses some kind of recognizable imagery. We both have to work to get to a place where our paintings talk to us.  I have the advantage of being able to turn my paintings upside down - not quite inside out - but on their sides. It enables me to see other possibilities.

RS: What is the relationship of the natural world to your work?

WK: Nature is a pretext. It's just an excuse. It happens to be available - very readily available - and it's also something which I don't think has been worn out, as imagery. So I feel comfortable in it. I'm interested in it; I know the names of the trees; I know the names of the flowers; I enjoy weeding my garden. But Emily is even more into it than I am and her paintings are even less overtly about nature than mine are. I'm much more interested in landscape painting than in the landscape. I start from a formal aspect. I want to put down a relationship. I try to organize the surface in a way that becomes dramatic, interesting, and can be formally controlled.

EM: I think that painting is an analogous process to nature. Especially if you are working flat [on the floor]. Sometimes the chemistry of paint - the way paint moves - something incredible happens, a kind of magic. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does happen, there is a connection. However, I don't say, "I'm going to make a natural process happen today! "I like the way mineral spirits and turpentine repel each other, which causes a glaze-like reaction - that's fun. If I'm asked, "how did you get that? "I say, "I don't really know. "For me, it should not be intentional; I like the idea of getting rid of intention - anything that holds you back.

RS: Tell me about the role of color in your work.

WK: Color is one of the things I have to think the least about. If you have good color sense - it's one of those mysterious things that are very difficult to teach or to talk about - but you sure as hell can tell when somebody has it... Color is an intrinsic element to all formal considerations, but it is also the most mysterious. It is the part that is the least capable of intellectual control. So it's something about which I know very little, except that I know that I can trust myself on it.

EM: I don't separate color and form; that's very important. Albers talks about that - there has to be a relationship. People are uncomfortable with color. It's too psychologically revealing... When color speaks to you - it's just great... It's not exactly a skill - it's more of a sensibility.

Kahn explained in a 1998 lecture to the American Psychiatric Association that he does not find words like creativity and inspiration to be useful, and prefers to think in terms of artistic energy instead. Kahn and Mason agree that inspiration is an outdated concept. Artistic energy is what drives a painter to paint, and as Mason explained, "People say 'how can you go to the studio if you're not inspired?' Well, for both of us, nothing is going to happen unless we're in front of the canvas." Different sources of artistic energy include ego, guilt, anger, sex...

RS: When you were first together, did your relationship generate a new kind of artistic energy?

EM: I don't think there was a sudden change - it was a sort of continuum. We were just always painting. And I really liked the fact that Wolf wasn't doing something abstract the way I was - he had his own vision.

WK: Difficult to say. I was deeply in love and I think I was very comfortable being in that state and relating it to my painting. But one never knows - I think artists who know too well what generates their work are to be regarded with suspicion.

RS: Do you think that your relationship has given you a richer context for creativity or, to use your phrase, an additional source of artistic energy over the last forty years?

EM: It may affect me, but I don't want to be conscious of it. I'm sure it is there. I feel privileged that we have this rapport.

WK: I'm sure it enlarged me - gave me a sense that there were other possibilities that I otherwise wouldn't have had. For our generation, the difference between being an abstract painter and being a representational painter was minimal. We just considered that to be a very superficial distinction. We're both interested in painting as a manifestation of our zest for living, energy, and a celebration of the visual sense.