1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,000 2 01:00:31,625 --> 01:00:34,000 Looking at a painting 3 01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:35,416 is not a passive act. 4 01:00:36,041 --> 01:00:37,833 The aesthetic experience arises 5 01:00:37,833 --> 01:00:39,708 from a dialogue 6 01:00:39,708 --> 01:00:41,208 between the spectator 7 01:00:41,250 --> 01:00:42,541 and the work. 8 01:00:43,083 --> 01:00:46,416 In modern art, from Cézanne to Picasso 9 01:00:46,666 --> 01:00:49,875 and the different forms of abstract art, 10 01:00:50,666 --> 01:00:53,458 this dialogue instated itself as the confrontation 11 01:00:53,458 --> 01:00:55,375 of two freedoms: 12 01:00:55,791 --> 01:01:00,250 that of the creator of a unique work 13 01:01:00,250 --> 01:01:03,541 and that of the observer who approaches to explore 14 01:01:03,541 --> 01:01:05,541 and interpret it. 15 01:01:06,291 --> 01:01:09,291 And while it can be said that the artist 16 01:01:09,291 --> 01:01:11,583 plants the seeds of how the painting 17 01:01:11,583 --> 01:01:15,416 is to be understood by the spectator, 18 01:01:15,416 --> 01:01:18,833 it can also be said that it is in the act of looking at it 19 01:01:18,833 --> 01:01:21,250 that the work truly manifests itself. 20 01:01:22,041 --> 01:01:25,875 The spectator complements the artist. 21 01:01:26,750 --> 01:01:29,250 The willingness to interact 22 01:01:29,250 --> 01:01:31,625 that marks the coming together of both, 23 01:01:31,791 --> 01:01:35,000 of the work and the spectator in the terrain of vision, 24 01:01:35,541 --> 01:01:39,041 has a lot to tell us about the role of art 25 01:01:39,041 --> 01:01:41,458 as an exercise in freedom, 26 01:01:41,458 --> 01:01:45,666 a field reclaimed by painters throughout the 20th century 27 01:01:45,666 --> 01:01:47,750 and on the threshold of the 21st 28 01:01:47,791 --> 01:01:52,333 at a time of vicious war and social conflict. 29 01:01:54,291 --> 01:01:56,416 In the works of Lucinda Urrusti, 30 01:01:56,416 --> 01:02:00,333 freedom is exercised from the inside out. 31 01:02:00,875 --> 01:02:04,541 It resides in the very particular handling of her materials, 32 01:02:04,916 --> 01:02:08,208 in the complexiity that invades 33 01:02:08,208 --> 01:02:10,125 and spills over the canvas. 34 01:02:11,708 --> 01:02:14,333 For her, freedom is not a message, 35 01:02:14,333 --> 01:02:16,958 but a working condition. 36 01:02:49,666 --> 01:02:51,833 How are you? 37 01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:54,208 I' m good. You? 38 01:02:54,291 --> 01:02:56,250 Fine, fine! 39 01:02:56,833 --> 01:02:59,583 As far as possible. 40 01:02:59,583 --> 01:03:01,625 What are you painting? 41 01:03:01,708 --> 01:03:04,541 Smearing at least. 42 01:03:04,708 --> 01:03:09,166 You never know... 43 01:03:09,375 --> 01:03:12,166 how to paint, 44 01:03:13,000 --> 01:03:16,250 even when you've been at it for 100 years. - What is it? 45 01:03:16,750 --> 01:03:20,500 It's not anything yet. 46 01:03:32,000 --> 01:03:34,666 The works of Lucinda Urrusti 47 01:03:34,666 --> 01:03:37,250 are brimming with plasticity. 48 01:03:37,250 --> 01:03:41,291 Her paintings have a distinct tactile quality. 49 01:03:53,833 --> 01:03:58,125 Sometimes it’s the thick impastos... 50 01:03:58,125 --> 01:04:01,708 whose rhythms are marked out by the arm and wrist... 51 01:04:01,708 --> 01:04:05,958 striating or smoothing down the canvas. 52 01:04:20,291 --> 01:04:23,083 Other times it’s mixed techniques 53 01:04:23,083 --> 01:04:27,125 that expose the dull glow of marble powder. 54 01:04:40,833 --> 01:04:45,083 Yet others, the erased or suppressed figures 55 01:04:45,083 --> 01:04:47,041 in the background: 56 01:04:47,041 --> 01:04:51,416 a pitcher, a flower vase or maybe a nude... 57 01:04:51,416 --> 01:04:55,625 but that reemerge to lend substance to a work... 58 01:04:55,625 --> 01:05:00,041 that would otherwise appear to be suspended in space. 59 01:05:03,750 --> 01:05:07,750 To celebrate the publishing of Lucinda Urrusti... 60 01:05:07,750 --> 01:05:11,291 by Carlos Fuentes, Salvador Elizondo and others... 61 01:05:11,291 --> 01:05:15,375 I would briefly like to discuss a feature characteristic 62 01:05:15,375 --> 01:05:17,541 of the plasticity of her paintings... 63 01:05:17,541 --> 01:05:20,791 that I will call "the warp and the weave", 64 01:05:20,875 --> 01:05:23,541 as illustrated by the cover of the book 65 01:05:23,541 --> 01:05:26,041 which shows a canvas 66 01:05:26,041 --> 01:05:29,166 and a piece of tangled up string. 67 01:05:39,458 --> 01:05:45,291 LUCINDA URRUSTI. PAINTER. 68 01:05:46,458 --> 01:05:48,083 Lucinda, good morning! 69 01:05:48,083 --> 01:05:49,583 Good morning, Jaime. 70 01:05:49,583 --> 01:05:52,375 It’s wonderful to meet face to face! 71 01:05:52,375 --> 01:05:54,750 I wanted to ask you, Lucinda… Where were you born? 72 01:05:54,750 --> 01:05:57,416 And what brought you to Mexico? 73 01:05:59,083 --> 01:06:00,541 I was born... 74 01:06:00,541 --> 01:06:03,250 in Spanish Morocco, Melilla. 75 01:06:03,250 --> 01:06:07,708 My father was a military man... 76 01:06:07,708 --> 01:06:11,666 and he was sent to Morocco because of the uprisings... 77 01:06:11,666 --> 01:06:14,500 ...that would periodically break out. 78 01:06:19,041 --> 01:06:24,833 After that we moved to Cádiz, Andalucía, in the south of Spain. 79 01:06:24,833 --> 01:06:27,666 That’s where my brother was born. 80 01:06:27,708 --> 01:06:31,791 We hadn’t been there long 81 01:06:31,791 --> 01:06:37,833 when my father was transferred to Madrid and... 82 01:06:37,833 --> 01:06:42,375 life finally became more stable. 83 01:06:42,583 --> 01:06:47,625 My brother and I started going to school... 84 01:06:47,625 --> 01:06:51,958 First a private school run by nuns 85 01:06:52,000 --> 01:06:56,083 but my parents weren’t thrilled with it 86 01:06:56,750 --> 01:06:59,000 and neither were we. 87 01:06:59,000 --> 01:07:02,875 We didn’t know the prayers properly… the words and... 88 01:07:02,875 --> 01:07:06,000 we were always being punished and all that. 89 01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:10,666 So we changed to a different school. 90 01:07:10,666 --> 01:07:16,125 I think they call them "public" schools here (maybe there as well)... 91 01:07:16,791 --> 01:07:19,166 but not long after that 92 01:07:19,166 --> 01:07:24,000 Franco' s uprising took place. 93 01:07:24,000 --> 01:07:27,125 By that time 94 01:07:27,125 --> 01:07:32,916 we were living in Madrid. 95 01:07:32,916 --> 01:07:36,125 Sometimes we’d be bombarded by 96 01:07:36,125 --> 01:07:40,208 German planes... Messerschmitt I think they were. 97 01:07:40,208 --> 01:07:42,833 My mother and some other women 98 01:07:42,833 --> 01:07:45,333 —there were three or four of them I think— 99 01:07:45,333 --> 01:07:50,458 would visit the neighboring villages to see if 100 01:07:50,458 --> 01:07:55,500 they could find some food and from what I remember, they’d usually come back 101 01:07:55,500 --> 01:08:00,708 with chard and stuff like that... 102 01:08:00,708 --> 01:08:07,791 And we’d say to ourselves "They went all that way for this?" 103 01:08:07,791 --> 01:08:10,416 But we liked it because 104 01:08:10,416 --> 01:08:10,458 But we liked it because 105 01:08:10,458 --> 01:08:15,583 when we lived in the camps 106 01:08:15,583 --> 01:08:18,625 at the beginning of the war 107 01:08:18,625 --> 01:08:22,958 we had... a vegetable patch and a few farm animals... 108 01:08:22,958 --> 01:08:27,458 but when we were pushed back into the center of Madrid 109 01:08:27,458 --> 01:08:30,291 my mother killed the chickens 110 01:08:30,291 --> 01:08:33,416 and put them in a barrel of oil or something 111 01:08:33,416 --> 01:08:34,583 so they’d keep. 112 01:08:34,666 --> 01:08:39,083 Me and my brother watched them die... 113 01:08:39,083 --> 01:08:43,541 and it was years before we ate chicken again! Years! 114 01:08:43,708 --> 01:08:49,625 Much to my mother’s distress... 115 01:08:49,625 --> 01:08:52,750 "Oh, my God, those children of mine are going to starve to death!" she’d say, 116 01:08:52,750 --> 01:08:55,000 and things along those lines. 117 01:08:55,000 --> 01:09:00,666 Even when we first got here we’d say "No, not chicken, no...!" 118 01:09:00,666 --> 01:09:05,291 because we’d seen her wring their necks and... it was awful. 119 01:09:06,125 --> 01:09:11,791 After that we went to Valencia. 120 01:09:13,583 --> 01:09:16,583 I don’t think we stayed long in Valencia. 121 01:09:16,750 --> 01:09:19,958 Then we made our way to Catalonia. 122 01:09:21,166 --> 01:09:27,291 It was an exodus of sorts because by then it was obvious we were never going to win the war. 123 01:09:27,291 --> 01:09:31,166 although they held out for three years. 124 01:09:32,291 --> 01:09:36,083 Of course it wasn’t just Franco. He had the support of 125 01:09:36,291 --> 01:09:39,791 Hitler and Mussolini and all.... 126 01:09:40,041 --> 01:09:43,125 and the Moors and... 127 01:09:43,291 --> 01:09:44,916 Anyway… 128 01:09:45,791 --> 01:09:49,750 the time came when we had to leave for France 129 01:09:49,875 --> 01:09:53,583 because we had to start retreating. 130 01:09:54,208 --> 01:09:56,916 What I do remember 131 01:09:56,916 --> 01:10:02,333 is walking down that road with a group of other people, 132 01:10:02,333 --> 01:10:04,166 other families that were with us... 133 01:10:04,166 --> 01:10:11,125 and Franco and the Germans firing at us from their planes. 134 01:10:11,125 --> 01:10:15,333 We had to dive into a ditch beside the road... 135 01:10:15,333 --> 01:10:17,208 and take cover there... 136 01:10:17,208 --> 01:10:19,375 and we had to be quick about it. 137 01:10:19,416 --> 01:10:21,833 We had to get away... 138 01:10:22,375 --> 01:10:28,166 We left Figueras by that road and came to the border… 139 01:10:28,541 --> 01:10:34,000 and from there we were sent to the north of France... 140 01:10:34,000 --> 01:10:36,875 to the city of Arras. 141 01:10:36,875 --> 01:10:39,583 They took us in there... 142 01:10:40,375 --> 01:10:44,416 600 old people, women and children. 143 01:10:45,333 --> 01:10:48,000 Naturally we were locked up. 144 01:10:48,125 --> 01:10:49,916 We still didn’t know 145 01:10:49,916 --> 01:10:52,750 if Spain had fallen completely… 146 01:10:52,750 --> 01:10:56,750 or what had happened to my father. 147 01:10:57,041 --> 01:10:59,750 If he’d stayed behind... 148 01:10:59,750 --> 01:11:02,916 and hadn’t been able to leave or if he’d gotten out... 149 01:11:02,916 --> 01:11:04,083 or where he was. 150 01:11:04,083 --> 01:11:06,041 So we started writing... 151 01:11:06,041 --> 01:11:09,125 to the concentration camps we knew of, 152 01:11:09,125 --> 01:11:12,750 asking if anyone had seen him. 153 01:11:13,541 --> 01:11:16,833 In the end we were able to… 154 01:11:17,333 --> 01:11:19,666 contact him. 155 01:11:19,666 --> 01:11:22,291 It turned out he was in Argelès! 156 01:11:22,875 --> 01:11:26,250 My father told us "the president of Mexico... 157 01:11:26,250 --> 01:11:28,416 had extended us an invitation”, 158 01:11:29,125 --> 01:11:33,625 that he was opening the doors of Mexico to us, so we could come here... 159 01:11:33,625 --> 01:11:37,583 but that we had to be at the port of Sète on such and such a day... 160 01:11:37,583 --> 01:11:41,666 because otherwise the ship would sail without us. 161 01:11:41,666 --> 01:11:46,750 We had to get there somehow but we didn’t have a penny to our name. 162 01:11:47,333 --> 01:11:51,875 But sometimes it’s under the worst of circumstances 163 01:11:51,875 --> 01:11:55,666 that humans show solidarity... 164 01:11:55,958 --> 01:11:58,500 because the very same people... 165 01:11:58,500 --> 01:12:02,250 who were at the refuge with us… 166 01:12:02,333 --> 01:12:07,041 some of them had managed to hold onto franc or two… 167 01:12:07,041 --> 01:12:10,041 and...they made a collection 168 01:12:10,208 --> 01:12:13,125 and raised the money for us. 169 01:12:13,125 --> 01:12:15,458 So when we got to Paris... 170 01:12:15,458 --> 01:12:18,583 we were able to buy… 171 01:12:19,000 --> 01:12:23,583 a train ticket to Sète. 172 01:12:23,666 --> 01:12:28,291 And... once we got there I think 173 01:12:28,291 --> 01:12:31,458 we embarked almost immediately. 174 01:12:32,541 --> 01:12:38,833 I remember the ship... the "Sinaia". Yes. 175 01:12:38,916 --> 01:12:43,166 I remember the stairway up. 176 01:12:44,333 --> 01:12:48,125 The Madrid orchestra was on board… 177 01:12:48,125 --> 01:12:51,583 and in the afternoon after lunch… 178 01:12:51,583 --> 01:12:54,875 they’d give concerts and all that. 179 01:12:55,208 --> 01:12:59,083 Or Susana Gamboa would give conferences 180 01:12:59,083 --> 01:13:04,083 to inform us what Mexico was like and what to expect when we got there. 181 01:13:04,083 --> 01:13:08,750 Naturally she had nothing but praise… 182 01:13:08,750 --> 01:13:10,125 for the government of (Lázaro) Cárdenas that had… 183 01:13:10,125 --> 01:13:14,416 Because it has to be said, it was the only country apart from Russia… 184 01:13:14,416 --> 01:13:16,791 that opened its doors to us. 185 01:13:16,791 --> 01:13:21,125 No one else wanted us. 186 01:13:21,125 --> 01:13:24,833 Those left in France had no choice but to... 187 01:13:25,666 --> 01:13:30,250 go to Africa and build roads, in the case of the menfolk. 188 01:13:30,625 --> 01:13:37,041 Or go to Russia. A lot of them went afterwards. 189 01:13:52,958 --> 01:13:58,333 Everyone was wonderful and friendly and kind and... 190 01:13:58,458 --> 01:14:02,416 They’d hug us and say "Fellow Spaniards!"... and 191 01:14:02,416 --> 01:14:04,125 welcome us into their homes and say: 192 01:14:04,125 --> 01:14:09,583 "I want you to come to my house tonight for dinner!" and...well! 193 01:14:09,875 --> 01:14:15,041 We were showered with love… 194 01:14:15,041 --> 01:14:17,708 and gifts of fruit and flowers and.... 195 01:14:17,875 --> 01:14:20,375 It was an unforgettable, totally amazing reception. 196 01:14:22,458 --> 01:14:27,583 I sensed there’d be no more being locked up or concentration camps... 197 01:14:27,791 --> 01:14:32,666 or constantly moving from one place to another, running away... and.... 198 01:14:32,666 --> 01:14:34,875 and...gendarmes and all that, 199 01:14:34,875 --> 01:14:39,625 but that we’d come to a place to stay, to take up residence. 200 01:14:39,625 --> 01:14:44,416 We were welcomed with open arms... 201 01:14:44,416 --> 01:14:49,500 and...the air, the sky, the ocean… It all gave me… 202 01:14:49,500 --> 01:14:54,375 a sense of freedom and... 203 01:14:54,375 --> 01:14:56,583 safety. 204 01:14:58,125 --> 01:15:00,000 We’d come somewhere and we were here 205 01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:01,416 to stay! 206 01:15:02,333 --> 01:15:08,625 And no more Spain and Catalonia and Argelès... 207 01:15:08,625 --> 01:15:11,250 and Arras and the ship and... 208 01:15:11,458 --> 01:15:17,625 Do you think that, as an artist, you’ve exercised that spirit of freedom? 209 01:15:19,375 --> 01:15:23,500 Yes, I think so. Although maybe not... 210 01:15:23,500 --> 01:15:27,000 in a very conscious or intentional way. 211 01:15:27,000 --> 01:15:29,625 But I felt that. 212 01:15:29,625 --> 01:15:34,416 Since I was a teenager I think. 213 01:15:35,333 --> 01:15:38,250 Breathing and… 214 01:15:39,666 --> 01:15:43,375 Yes, I started to see it in my work, 215 01:15:43,375 --> 01:15:46,500 which isn’t the kind of work that pigeonholes you, 216 01:15:46,708 --> 01:15:50,833 but that allows you to create, deconstruct, explore.... 217 01:15:50,833 --> 01:15:52,250 and search and... 218 01:15:54,583 --> 01:15:59,583 We were anchored there for who knows how long... 219 01:15:59,583 --> 01:16:02,166 three days...my memory is hazy. 220 01:16:02,166 --> 01:16:05,125 But I do remember that under the ship… 221 01:16:05,125 --> 01:16:07,375 under the stairway, 222 01:16:07,375 --> 01:16:09,625 we were registered. 223 01:16:09,625 --> 01:16:14,666 "So what do you do?" "I had some fishmongers." 224 01:16:14,666 --> 01:16:18,791 "Oh, okay." So they’d send him to... or he’d stay in Veracruz. 225 01:16:18,833 --> 01:16:21,166 "And you?" "I’m an engineer." 226 01:16:21,166 --> 01:16:25,916 "And what about you?" Others were sent to Chihuahua… 227 01:16:25,916 --> 01:16:27,750 and cold places. 228 01:16:28,875 --> 01:16:31,708 My father was a military man… 229 01:16:31,708 --> 01:16:35,250 so we got sent to Mexico City. 230 01:16:36,333 --> 01:16:39,333 By the time...we got here... 231 01:16:41,333 --> 01:16:46,125 the JARE and SERE (Refugees' Relief Committees) had already been set up… 232 01:16:46,333 --> 01:16:50,583 to help...Spanish Republicans, emigrants. 233 01:16:50,708 --> 01:16:53,333 The Spanish government sent some money. 234 01:16:53,333 --> 01:16:56,208 and part of it was used to organize 235 01:16:56,208 --> 01:17:01,958 to pay for the places where we were put up. 236 01:17:02,583 --> 01:17:06,416 They set up a canteen where we’d go to eat... 237 01:17:07,416 --> 01:17:11,375 and then they started organizing how to give us work… 238 01:17:11,375 --> 01:17:15,916 how to employ the older people among us. 239 01:17:15,916 --> 01:17:17,708 For example, my mother sewed. 240 01:17:17,875 --> 01:17:20,875 They gave her a sewing machine. 241 01:17:21,416 --> 01:17:25,083 And gradually, one by one... 242 01:17:25,083 --> 01:17:29,916 Obviously my father couldn’t join the Mexican army… 243 01:17:29,916 --> 01:17:32,500 because he wasn’t Mexican. 244 01:17:32,500 --> 01:17:39,041 That was an odyssey, especially for him… 245 01:17:39,041 --> 01:17:45,708 because he had neither the ways nor means to support his family. 246 01:17:45,708 --> 01:17:49,041 My mother was the one who worked sewing. 247 01:17:50,041 --> 01:17:53,916 They gave her a job at a toy factory 248 01:17:53,916 --> 01:17:56,500 and they took me on as well. 249 01:17:56,666 --> 01:18:00,333 I told them I was 14... 250 01:18:00,333 --> 01:18:03,000 but I wasn’t. 251 01:18:03,000 --> 01:18:06,333 I was afraid I’d get caught out. 252 01:18:06,333 --> 01:18:08,875 I felt like I was committing a crime. 253 01:18:08,875 --> 01:18:14,250 I remember my job was stuffing the arms and legs… 254 01:18:14,250 --> 01:18:18,500 of teddy bears with straw using a special tool. 255 01:18:18,500 --> 01:18:21,583 Strands of straw. 256 01:18:22,625 --> 01:18:26,750 And if you weren’t careful the tool would tear... 257 01:18:26,750 --> 01:18:29,500 a hole in the felt. 258 01:18:29,500 --> 01:18:31,916 Anyway! 259 01:18:32,625 --> 01:18:35,291 That was before 260 01:18:36,000 --> 01:18:43,541 they opened the schools… 261 01:18:43,791 --> 01:18:48,083 to educate the children… 262 01:18:48,125 --> 01:18:51,083 and give the teachers and… 263 01:18:51,458 --> 01:18:54,250 professors work. 264 01:18:54,250 --> 01:18:57,208 The Vives (Institute) was founded and the Madrid (College)... 265 01:18:57,208 --> 01:19:00,083 the Hispano Mexicana and other academies. 266 01:19:00,083 --> 01:19:02,166 I think the first was (Luis) Vives... 267 01:19:02,166 --> 01:19:06,000 or at least that’s where my brother and I went. 268 01:19:07,083 --> 01:19:09,416 And... 269 01:19:09,458 --> 01:19:13,166 the education was first-rate. 270 01:19:13,166 --> 01:19:16,666 The teachers, their humanism, their... 271 01:19:17,083 --> 01:19:21,083 well, for example, I remember, going on… 272 01:19:21,416 --> 01:19:25,541 excursions with Emilio Prados. 273 01:19:25,833 --> 01:19:30,125 We’d listen to him in the courtyard. 274 01:19:30,125 --> 01:19:34,208 We’d listen to Emilio Prados and learn about… 275 01:19:34,208 --> 01:19:36,416 the natural world. 276 01:19:36,708 --> 01:19:37,708 And I say 277 01:19:37,708 --> 01:19:43,041 He opened the door to a whole new universe… 278 01:19:43,041 --> 01:19:46,125 opened our eyes to art and... 279 01:19:46,458 --> 01:19:51,500 We took elementary school there. 280 01:19:51,500 --> 01:19:54,625 Some of the courses we’d taken… 281 01:19:54,750 --> 01:19:57,875 as children… were validated… 282 01:19:58,375 --> 01:20:00,291 and... 283 01:20:00,958 --> 01:20:05,250 whenever someone had to go up to the blackboard 284 01:20:05,250 --> 01:20:08,166 it’d always be me. 285 01:20:08,458 --> 01:20:11,541 Whenever we had to write on the blackboard... 286 01:20:11,625 --> 01:20:15,375 about what we’d done on our school trip: 287 01:20:15,375 --> 01:20:17,958 "Let Lucinda go up." 288 01:20:17,958 --> 01:20:22,750 I was very shy. I didn’t like it at all… 289 01:20:23,208 --> 01:20:25,041 but… 290 01:20:25,041 --> 01:20:27,750 I always got picked. 291 01:20:28,250 --> 01:20:31,083 I remember Rubén Landa. 292 01:20:31,875 --> 01:20:36,500 He was the headmaster of Vives back then. 293 01:20:36,500 --> 01:20:40,208 He was an incredible man. 294 01:20:40,208 --> 01:20:44,375 He sent for me through some other teacher. 295 01:20:44,375 --> 01:20:48,208 He said, "Listen, we wanted to talk to you because... 296 01:20:50,166 --> 01:20:52,791 I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not… 297 01:20:52,791 --> 01:20:55,208 but you have a natural talent… 298 01:20:55,666 --> 01:20:58,833 for art, for drawing and painting." 299 01:20:58,833 --> 01:21:02,208 I was astounded to hear that. 300 01:21:03,333 --> 01:21:06,250 I wasn’t aware of it at all. 301 01:21:07,041 --> 01:21:09,166 And well… 302 01:21:10,208 --> 01:21:13,375 I finished secondary school… 303 01:21:13,375 --> 01:21:16,083 and part of high school. 304 01:21:16,083 --> 01:21:18,791 I don’t think I finished high school. 305 01:21:18,833 --> 01:21:20,791 After high school... 306 01:21:20,958 --> 01:21:23,083 my intention was to go on and… 307 01:21:23,125 --> 01:21:25,250 study Architecture… 308 01:21:25,625 --> 01:21:28,458 but at the time… 309 01:21:28,458 --> 01:21:33,125 the drawing teacher there... 310 01:21:33,125 --> 01:21:37,125 was a Spanish painter from Aragon. 311 01:21:37,125 --> 01:21:40,000 Luis Marín Bosqued. He’s dead now. 312 01:21:40,416 --> 01:21:46,083 But he said, "You know what? I can give you classes in the afternoon at my house." 313 01:21:46,083 --> 01:21:50,791 "My wife María Teresa is about to arrive from France." 314 01:21:50,791 --> 01:21:53,666 She’s "a beauty." 315 01:21:53,666 --> 01:21:56,041 full of warmth and enthusiasm… 316 01:21:56,041 --> 01:22:00,125 full of warmth and enthusiasm… 317 01:22:00,125 --> 01:22:02,916 and head-over-heels in love with his wife. 318 01:22:03,291 --> 01:22:08,291 So I ended up going to their house in the afternoons… 319 01:22:08,291 --> 01:22:12,458 and my mother sewed for María Teresa. 320 01:22:12,458 --> 01:22:19,000 That’s how we paid for my classes. 321 01:22:19,000 --> 01:22:23,541 And Marín Bosqued would sit in on the… 322 01:22:23,541 --> 01:22:25,416 dress fittings. 323 01:22:25,416 --> 01:22:27,750 "Oh, yes, yes, María Teresa. Excellent!" 324 01:22:27,750 --> 01:22:30,666 "No, the skirt needs to be shorter, shorter." 325 01:22:30,666 --> 01:22:33,166 "No, the neckline lower!" 326 01:22:33,500 --> 01:22:36,791 And my mother would say: "It’s going to end up a belt!" 327 01:22:44,458 --> 01:22:48,833 In the beginning I wasn’t very aware… 328 01:22:49,625 --> 01:22:52,291 of my vocation or talent… 329 01:22:52,291 --> 01:22:55,375 or the path I was going to take. 330 01:22:55,375 --> 01:22:59,583 At the time… 331 01:22:59,583 --> 01:23:03,500 I had the option of… 332 01:23:03,500 --> 01:23:05,041 carrying on. 333 01:23:05,041 --> 01:23:08,875 What I did know was that I didn’t want to be a… 334 01:23:08,875 --> 01:23:12,166 housewife or cook… 335 01:23:12,166 --> 01:23:13,708 and sew and all that… 336 01:23:13,708 --> 01:23:16,833 which was all I’d known until then… 337 01:23:16,833 --> 01:23:19,708 with my family, my mother and... 338 01:23:21,833 --> 01:23:22,958 I don’t want to follow… 339 01:23:22,958 --> 01:23:25,250 Penelope’s path… 340 01:23:25,291 --> 01:23:28,833 but Lucinda’ s method of plying layer upon layer... 341 01:23:28,833 --> 01:23:33,458 that at once reinvents and erases the previous day’s work… 342 01:23:33,458 --> 01:23:37,166 conjures up the image of a weaver who undoes by night… 343 01:23:37,166 --> 01:23:39,583 what she weaves by day. 344 01:23:39,916 --> 01:23:43,541 Perhaps it would be more fitting to talk of weaving… 345 01:23:43,541 --> 01:23:46,916 as a birthing of sorts. 346 01:23:47,375 --> 01:23:52,208 When the weaver cuts the last thread of her work... 347 01:23:52,208 --> 01:23:55,000 isn’t she somehow giving it life? 348 01:23:55,250 --> 01:23:57,666 Cutting its umbilical cord? 349 01:23:59,333 --> 01:24:02,916 But what I want to talk about is the birthing of light, 350 01:24:03,083 --> 01:24:07,750 which is the very stuff of the plasticity we see in Lucinda’s works. 351 01:24:12,625 --> 01:24:17,625 Can you tell us how you conceive of a painting? 352 01:24:17,625 --> 01:24:20,375 Where it comes from, how it begins to take shape? 353 01:24:20,500 --> 01:24:22,708 How you execute it and how you finish it? 354 01:24:23,291 --> 01:24:26,500 I don’t have a formula as such… 355 01:24:26,833 --> 01:24:31,166 Sometimes I’ll get my inspiration from a glance… 356 01:24:31,166 --> 01:24:34,333 or something more concrete, but... 357 01:24:34,333 --> 01:24:35,791 obviously… 358 01:24:37,500 --> 01:24:40,541 you have to acknowledge it has the potential… 359 01:24:40,541 --> 01:24:45,250 not to be a tangible reality, but one... 360 01:24:45,250 --> 01:24:49,083 that entertains the possibility of the subjective. 361 01:24:49,083 --> 01:24:51,875 One you can extract from... 362 01:24:51,875 --> 01:24:53,875 create, blot out, remove, erase… 363 01:24:53,875 --> 01:24:56,375 and return to.... 364 01:24:56,375 --> 01:25:00,708 And that, I think, has been my path: 365 01:25:00,708 --> 01:25:03,291 subjectivity and..... 366 01:25:03,291 --> 01:25:06,875 yes, a sense of freedom. 367 01:25:07,250 --> 01:25:11,625 As the saying goes, "the sky’s the limit." 368 01:25:14,541 --> 01:25:18,083 I always begin with something 369 01:25:18,125 --> 01:25:21,125 that's in my immediate environment, 370 01:25:21,125 --> 01:25:24,000 but to get to the subjective, 371 01:25:24,875 --> 01:25:28,250 to transcend the craft, 372 01:25:28,250 --> 01:25:30,750 transcend the subject matter, 373 01:25:30,750 --> 01:25:33,458 the object... 374 01:25:33,708 --> 01:25:38,000 It's like diving into the depths of the ocean and 375 01:25:38,000 --> 01:25:40,708 swimming inside the painting. 376 01:25:40,708 --> 01:25:44,000 totally losing yourself in it. 377 01:25:44,000 --> 01:25:47,333 What I mean is, you plan the painting... 378 01:25:47,708 --> 01:25:52,625 I always begin with something 379 01:25:53,625 --> 01:25:55,791 but then it turns out... 380 01:25:55,791 --> 01:25:58,500 it doesn't work at all. 381 01:25:58,500 --> 01:26:01,166 The painting starts progressing... 382 01:26:01,208 --> 01:26:04,791 -when it wants to talk, when it wants to... 383 01:26:04,791 --> 01:26:07,500 tell you something and in the meantime... 384 01:26:07,500 --> 01:26:11,250 there you are...flailing in the dark. 385 01:26:11,250 --> 01:26:14,250 Sometimes you paint just a few square centimeters 386 01:26:14,250 --> 01:26:17,166 as if saying to yourself, "Maybe there's a thread here 387 01:26:17,166 --> 01:26:19,875 I can keep tugging at." 388 01:26:20,083 --> 01:26:22,458 Maybe at the end of the day... 389 01:26:22,541 --> 01:26:26,375 you think you've achieved something, made some progress... 390 01:26:26,541 --> 01:26:28,666 and the next day... 391 01:26:28,708 --> 01:26:30,583 when you walk into the studio... 392 01:26:31,708 --> 01:26:34,166 you're utterly disappointed. 393 01:26:34,208 --> 01:26:37,458 You realize it's awful, 394 01:26:37,541 --> 01:26:39,958 that you have achieved virtually nothing... 395 01:26:39,958 --> 01:26:42,833 and so you have to put your nose to the grindstone... 396 01:26:42,875 --> 01:26:45,666 and start over again. 397 01:26:45,666 --> 01:26:47,708 Sometimes you think it's almost done, almost baked 398 01:26:47,833 --> 01:26:50,750 and you turn it to face the wall... 399 01:26:51,375 --> 01:26:56,125 believing it's done, but when you turn it around later on, 400 01:26:56,500 --> 01:26:59,875 you see it again after a while, 401 01:27:00,333 --> 01:27:03,458 you say...I need to pick up where I left off! 402 01:27:04,458 --> 01:27:08,666 Of course, implicit (in that freedom) is fear. 403 01:27:10,041 --> 01:27:13,833 What? How? Where do I draw the line? 404 01:27:13,833 --> 01:27:19,250 But as you progress, you gradually realize 405 01:27:19,250 --> 01:27:21,541 what is the painting wants most. 406 01:27:22,875 --> 01:27:26,625 - What did you start with here? What idea did you begin with? 407 01:27:26,666 --> 01:27:29,666 It's 408 01:27:29,666 --> 01:27:35,291 Let's say I haven't decided yet... 409 01:27:35,291 --> 01:27:39,250 but it is...I don't know what they're called... It's one of those things... 410 01:27:39,291 --> 01:27:42,750 you use to put tortillas in, 411 01:27:42,750 --> 01:27:46,125 that's made of woven palm, 412 01:27:46,125 --> 01:27:48,375 of dry palm leaves. 413 01:27:48,375 --> 01:27:52,541 One day someone who used to work here told me it's called "chiquihuite". 414 01:27:52,541 --> 01:27:57,083 Now I want to add a bit more. There. 415 01:27:57,250 --> 01:28:01,166 That's it. I wanted it lower, but now it's too low. 416 01:28:01,166 --> 01:28:04,875 Because if someone wants to... frame it later..., 417 01:28:04,875 --> 01:28:07,708 the frame will take up a bit more space,. 418 01:28:07,708 --> 01:28:10,583 maybe half a centimeter or a centimeter. 419 01:28:10,625 --> 01:28:14,541 So I'm going to bring it down about three centimeters. 420 01:28:14,541 --> 01:28:21,208 It's still very much a work in progress. Still very green. 421 01:28:21,208 --> 01:28:24,041 Well, not green exactly. As you can see here, it's more like 422 01:28:24,041 --> 01:28:26,708 grays and blacks. 423 01:28:30,583 --> 01:28:33,958 About the paintings you’ve done... 424 01:28:33,958 --> 01:28:37,500 of all kinds of animals… 425 01:28:37,500 --> 01:28:40,625 A while ago you told us… 426 01:28:40,750 --> 01:28:43,708 about your experience with the chickens… 427 01:28:43,708 --> 01:28:48,291 that were killed for food… 428 01:28:48,291 --> 01:28:53,666 and how that was a traumatic childhood experience. 429 01:28:53,666 --> 01:28:58,750 I was wondering, how is it that someone who doesn’t have pets… 430 01:28:58,750 --> 01:29:00,541 paints animals with so much love? 431 01:29:00,541 --> 01:29:04,666 Do you think that traumatic experience has something to do with it? 432 01:29:04,666 --> 01:29:08,000 You don’t want to own animals anymore, but you still love them? 433 01:29:08,375 --> 01:29:11,875 Yes, it’s funny you should make that observation. It’s very... 434 01:29:11,875 --> 01:29:15,458 I don’t think I could live… I don’t think I’ve ever had the desire to live with animals. 435 01:29:15,458 --> 01:29:19,875 I’ve never felt the need. That said... 436 01:29:19,875 --> 01:29:26,791 yes, they have form and light and volume and so on... 437 01:29:31,208 --> 01:29:36,041 The idea was to use only white... 438 01:29:38,583 --> 01:29:43,000 with a more or less central, linear theme. 439 01:29:43,833 --> 01:29:46,750 I tried to achieve different shades of white… 440 01:29:46,750 --> 01:29:50,625 including grays and the odd smudge here and there. 441 01:29:50,625 --> 01:29:53,291 That’s why I included the spots… 442 01:29:53,291 --> 01:29:57,750 so it wouldn’t look like a flat mass of color. 443 01:30:00,166 --> 01:30:03,750 The one above, for example, "Striped Cat "… 444 01:30:05,708 --> 01:30:09,625 is a collage in oil... 445 01:30:10,041 --> 01:30:13,625 A collage means sticking things together, right? 446 01:30:13,666 --> 01:30:16,791 And as you can see I used pieces of fabric... 447 01:30:16,791 --> 01:30:20,375 to give it a bit more relief… 448 01:30:21,083 --> 01:30:24,666 so it would work better with the relief 449 01:30:24,666 --> 01:30:30,250 created by the passepartout of sorts… 450 01:30:30,250 --> 01:30:32,875 that forms part of the painting. 451 01:30:32,875 --> 01:30:37,416 I did that one as a gift for my granddaughters 452 01:30:37,416 --> 01:30:40,250 when they were small. For a birthday or something. 453 01:30:40,250 --> 01:30:45,958 Which is why I chose a more fun, light-hearted subject matter. 454 01:30:45,958 --> 01:30:49,541 The one underneath, "Fat Cow"... 455 01:30:49,541 --> 01:30:57,583 is situated in a pen or a haystack. 456 01:30:57,583 --> 01:31:04,833 I incorporated part of the frame, which is something I like to do... 457 01:31:04,833 --> 01:31:11,958 Overstep the canvas so it’s not boxed in by wood… 458 01:31:11,958 --> 01:31:16,375 but forms part of.... 459 01:31:16,375 --> 01:31:21,583 the painting. Integrate it as far as possible. 460 01:31:25,208 --> 01:31:27,625 Tell us about your love for still life. 461 01:31:27,708 --> 01:31:31,916 Why is it so important in painting? In your paintings? 462 01:31:31,916 --> 01:31:37,291 Yes, you’re right… 463 01:31:37,333 --> 01:31:39,166 because... 464 01:31:40,083 --> 01:31:43,125 because it’s life, although I don’t know why they call it "still life". 465 01:31:43,291 --> 01:31:45,958 I think it comes from the French. 466 01:31:45,958 --> 01:31:49,208 But "tranquil" life would be a better description, wouldn’t it? 467 01:31:49,291 --> 01:31:52,250 On the one hand it allows you... 468 01:31:53,083 --> 01:31:54,500 to perceive things... 469 01:31:54,666 --> 01:31:59,458 because of its concreteness, 470 01:32:00,750 --> 01:32:02,583 but on the other... 471 01:32:03,875 --> 01:32:06,208 it allows you—at least I speak for myself— I don’t know… 472 01:32:06,208 --> 01:32:10,291 to break with...and extend that concreteness… 473 01:32:10,875 --> 01:32:15,000 with air and space; 474 01:32:17,458 --> 01:32:18,958 to immerse yourself in something… 475 01:32:18,958 --> 01:32:21,416 that appears mute on the surface… 476 01:32:21,500 --> 01:32:24,458 but that has something to say to you. 477 01:32:40,458 --> 01:32:43,250 Could you tell us about this shelf? 478 01:32:44,708 --> 01:32:46,958 Yes, maybe you’ve noticed… 479 01:32:47,750 --> 01:32:51,208 but I’ve always been attracted to… 480 01:32:51,208 --> 01:32:56,041 old, battered, rusty things and... 481 01:32:56,041 --> 01:32:58,625 I could never get rid of them because… 482 01:32:58,625 --> 01:33:02,583 I still find them visually fascinating. 483 01:33:06,041 --> 01:33:10,958 I like things that are old and rough and rusty… 484 01:33:12,625 --> 01:33:18,458 because they’re matter and color. And I like that. 485 01:33:19,041 --> 01:33:21,125 This was one of them. 486 01:33:21,166 --> 01:33:23,416 It’s not very rusted, but anyway. 487 01:33:23,416 --> 01:33:25,208 I included it. 488 01:33:26,291 --> 01:33:28,333 I wanted to do a… 489 01:33:28,333 --> 01:33:30,916 monochrome painting… 490 01:33:30,916 --> 01:33:35,250 using white and its derivatives… 491 01:33:35,250 --> 01:33:39,291 grays and texture. 492 01:33:39,291 --> 01:33:43,041 The lack of subject matter and elements… 493 01:33:43,041 --> 01:33:46,791 forces you to make the most of… 494 01:33:46,875 --> 01:33:49,583 your materials and texture… 495 01:33:49,875 --> 01:33:53,083 to enrich the painting as best you can. 496 01:33:54,833 --> 01:33:57,625 You mentioned the term "matter". 497 01:33:57,750 --> 01:34:00,875 It’s a term I associate closely… 498 01:34:00,875 --> 01:34:04,833 with Mexican art… 499 01:34:05,333 --> 01:34:11,291 that incorporates gravel and marble powder mixed with pigments. 500 01:34:11,291 --> 01:34:14,875 - Sand... - Lots of Mexican painters use it. 501 01:34:14,875 --> 01:34:17,041 Your work is very material. 502 01:34:17,291 --> 01:34:21,291 Yes, it’s true. Well, I suppose if you see it that way… 503 01:34:21,291 --> 01:34:24,750 but yes, matter and the material... 504 01:34:24,750 --> 01:34:27,125 What I mean is, I’d never dream of.... 505 01:34:27,125 --> 01:34:29,875 I think that’s why I’ve never felt very drawn to watercolor, 506 01:34:29,875 --> 01:34:32,666 because the color is diluted in water. 507 01:34:32,666 --> 01:34:39,625 Maybe it’s the Spaniard in me… 508 01:34:39,625 --> 01:34:43,208 The primitiveness of... matter. 509 01:34:43,208 --> 01:34:46,791 There might be some Tàpies there? He too.... 510 01:34:48,833 --> 01:34:51,583 When I saw a painting of his in Spain, in Barcelona, 511 01:34:51,833 --> 01:34:54,791 full of texture, I said to myself: “Yes, yes!” 512 01:34:54,791 --> 01:34:57,416 “Now that says something to me.” 513 01:34:58,208 --> 01:34:59,208 And... 514 01:35:00,125 --> 01:35:04,125 yes, yes, marble powder lends oil paint 515 01:35:04,500 --> 01:35:06,500 a completely different consistency, 516 01:35:06,500 --> 01:35:09,458 because on its own oil paint is... 517 01:35:10,791 --> 01:35:14,125 deliquescent and greasy and... 518 01:35:15,250 --> 01:35:19,500 a bit like goo if you don’t.... 519 01:35:23,041 --> 01:35:27,666 And yes, I’ve worked with marble powder… 520 01:35:27,666 --> 01:35:29,500 and sand. 521 01:35:41,125 --> 01:35:45,500 There was this... I’m not sure if it was a garage somewhere... 522 01:35:46,208 --> 01:35:51,166 I don’t remember if it was here or in New York. 523 01:35:51,416 --> 01:35:54,875 It was like a restoration shop and… 524 01:35:54,875 --> 01:35:56,500 and I asked them… 525 01:35:56,500 --> 01:36:00,166 because they show you samples... 526 01:36:01,083 --> 01:36:03,541 fragments… 527 01:36:03,541 --> 01:36:07,000 samples of frames. 528 01:36:07,291 --> 01:36:11,208 moldings for new… 529 01:36:11,208 --> 01:36:15,666 So I asked if "by chance you wouldn’t happen to have an old frame?" 530 01:36:15,666 --> 01:36:17,541 "Oh, so that’s what you’re after? they said. 531 01:36:17,541 --> 01:36:20,583 As if insinuating, "You’re cuckoo, aren’t you?” 532 01:36:20,583 --> 01:36:22,916 "Yes," I said. 533 01:36:22,916 --> 01:36:25,958 So they took me to a kind of... 534 01:36:26,708 --> 01:36:30,250 I wouldn’t call it a trash heap, but something like it, 535 01:36:30,250 --> 01:36:33,291 because the frames were all strewn on the ground. 536 01:36:33,291 --> 01:36:37,083 Some of them were disassembled… 537 01:36:37,083 --> 01:36:39,708 Others....I picked it out from the pile. 538 01:36:40,833 --> 01:36:44,541 There were gold leaf frames and baroque ones… 539 01:36:44,541 --> 01:36:45,625 and ones with reliefs... 540 01:36:45,625 --> 01:36:48,666 So I took a chisel 541 01:36:48,666 --> 01:36:51,708 and a small hammer (clack clack clack) and... 542 01:36:51,708 --> 01:36:57,916 my intention was to remove it all… 543 01:36:57,916 --> 01:37:01,791 but I liked the marbled appearance it took on. 544 01:37:01,791 --> 01:37:03,625 Maybe I took too much off here, but… 545 01:37:03,625 --> 01:37:05,708 Who knows if it’ll stand the test... 546 01:37:05,708 --> 01:37:07,458 ...of time. 547 01:37:07,458 --> 01:37:08,000 ...of time. 548 01:37:39,125 --> 01:37:41,291 By intervening the frame, 549 01:37:41,291 --> 01:37:43,916 she dissolves it in a manner of speaking, 550 01:37:43,916 --> 01:37:47,041 makes it disappear, imbues it with a ghostly quality. 551 01:37:48,708 --> 01:37:51,791 Even though the frames she uses… 552 01:37:51,791 --> 01:37:54,541 tend to be old, well-made ones... 553 01:37:54,583 --> 01:37:56,750 with elaborate moldings 554 01:37:56,750 --> 01:37:59,083 —by no means nondescript—, 555 01:38:03,166 --> 01:38:06,583 instead of drawing attention to them, the painting tends to… 556 01:38:06,875 --> 01:38:09,791 mask its frame, 557 01:38:10,000 --> 01:38:14,875 because it has been imbued with a chromatic substantiality... 558 01:38:15,000 --> 01:38:17,458 that originates within the work. 559 01:38:18,500 --> 01:38:22,416 You could say the artist weaves from the inside out… 560 01:38:22,416 --> 01:38:24,750 with lines and hints of color, 561 01:38:25,250 --> 01:38:28,916 volumes that invade the forbidden zone. 562 01:38:29,208 --> 01:38:33,875 This is how she manages to establish a gray area between the painting and the frame... 563 01:38:33,958 --> 01:38:36,583 to the point where the latter is suppressed... 564 01:38:36,833 --> 01:38:40,916 not because of its absence, but due to its amalgamation. 565 01:38:43,625 --> 01:38:46,791 Of course we can find countless examples In Lucinda’s work... 566 01:38:46,791 --> 01:38:49,583 of paintings that don’t have frames, 567 01:38:50,291 --> 01:38:55,166 especially her medium-sized and larger works. 568 01:38:55,750 --> 01:38:58,583 But the fact remains that in either case... 569 01:38:58,958 --> 01:39:02,041 like the mesh of a wire fence, 570 01:39:02,041 --> 01:39:06,083 the artist plays with the dialectic of boundaries. 571 01:39:06,875 --> 01:39:10,041 By subtly playing with the spectator’s perception like this, 572 01:39:11,208 --> 01:39:12,541 Thus Lucinda blurs the borders between 573 01:39:12,541 --> 01:39:15,375 Thus Urrusti blurs the borders 574 01:39:15,375 --> 01:39:16,958 between containment and creation. 575 01:39:31,916 --> 01:39:36,708 I feel a painting doesn’t end at the edge of the canvas, 576 01:39:36,708 --> 01:39:39,833 that it shouldn’t be enclosed, 577 01:39:39,833 --> 01:39:42,958 that it should continue.... 578 01:39:42,958 --> 01:39:45,958 and the frame allows me to… 579 01:39:46,083 --> 01:39:49,875 include the painting in it, 580 01:39:49,875 --> 01:39:55,208 either to merge them or in a way that doesn’t enclose or delimit the painting. 581 01:39:56,125 --> 01:39:59,833 You can’t stay stuck with one material... 582 01:39:59,833 --> 01:40:02,958 or a given space, 583 01:40:02,958 --> 01:40:06,708 which might require expanding... 584 01:40:06,708 --> 01:40:11,791 because limits and confines...No! 585 01:40:12,708 --> 01:40:15,000 That’s not my style. 586 01:40:16,333 --> 01:40:19,625 Would you say it somehow echoes your attitude towards life? 587 01:40:20,791 --> 01:40:24,625 How you tend to overstep boundaries... 588 01:40:25,708 --> 01:40:28,833 and don’t easily let yourself be "boxed in". 589 01:40:29,291 --> 01:40:33,833 You’re not an abstract artist... 590 01:40:34,041 --> 01:40:36,875 You’re more of a figurative one, but now and then... 591 01:40:37,041 --> 01:40:40,833 you do things like this piece here beside you. 592 01:40:40,833 --> 01:40:44,958 They’re a couple of paintings with wire that remit me to... 593 01:40:44,958 --> 01:40:47,750 a type of pictorial structure... 594 01:40:47,750 --> 01:40:50,416 that goes beyond painting in the strictest sense, 595 01:40:50,916 --> 01:40:53,291 in keeping with your disregard for restrictions.... 596 01:40:54,083 --> 01:40:55,875 Yes, exactly. 597 01:40:56,666 --> 01:40:59,666 I wasn’t aware of it, 598 01:41:00,208 --> 01:41:04,708 but I don’t like limits or feeling constrained. 599 01:41:04,708 --> 01:41:09,291 What I mean is, I use tangible... 600 01:41:09,291 --> 01:41:12,666 figurative elements... 601 01:41:13,791 --> 01:41:15,416 but there’s more to it than that. 602 01:41:15,416 --> 01:41:18,041 You have to convey the subjectivity of it all. 603 01:41:20,208 --> 01:41:21,791 Not get trapped by the form, 604 01:41:22,625 --> 01:41:25,541 but emphasize the subjective element, 605 01:41:25,541 --> 01:41:27,083 more than the tangible aspect. 606 01:41:27,083 --> 01:41:28,541 The emotional aspect too? 607 01:41:28,541 --> 01:41:30,625 Of course. 608 01:41:30,625 --> 01:41:33,125 I think subjectivity is... 609 01:41:33,125 --> 01:41:38,625 not completely rational, but definitely emotional. 610 01:41:39,000 --> 01:41:43,583 What I mean is, like every cultural or artistic expression... 611 01:41:43,583 --> 01:41:48,291 painting requires both logic and emotion. 612 01:41:50,125 --> 01:41:51,208 And… 613 01:41:52,500 --> 01:41:56,250 yes, it’s there, but it disappears 614 01:41:56,250 --> 01:42:00,166 if you dwell on it... 615 01:42:00,791 --> 01:42:04,375 and expose it. What do I know? 616 01:42:10,041 --> 01:42:12,500 This painting... 617 01:42:14,333 --> 01:42:17,541 “Orange Background and Collage", 618 01:42:18,041 --> 01:42:20,750 Like this string here that can be 619 01:42:21,125 --> 01:42:23,666 interpreted as loose threads or... 620 01:42:23,666 --> 01:42:26,333 some people see a bird... 621 01:42:26,625 --> 01:42:31,833 but that’s the spectator’s prerogative. 622 01:42:33,750 --> 01:42:37,625 Obviously I conceived of it as a monochrome painting... 623 01:42:37,625 --> 01:42:40,541 but some parts have more texture... 624 01:42:41,333 --> 01:42:44,041 than others, to vary the tone, 625 01:42:44,625 --> 01:42:47,291 apart from the gray element, 626 01:42:47,500 --> 01:42:50,333 which adds a material or more.... 627 01:42:51,125 --> 01:42:55,000 I thought the gray of the string 628 01:42:56,166 --> 01:42:59,291 went very well with this orange 629 01:42:59,666 --> 01:43:02,958 in this corner... 630 01:43:03,625 --> 01:43:08,750 And... the string was on a table 631 01:43:08,750 --> 01:43:13,458 and I liked it as a material and the color 632 01:43:13,458 --> 01:43:14,833 so… 633 01:43:14,833 --> 01:43:17,291 I included it. 634 01:43:21,791 --> 01:43:23,333 I don’t feel… 635 01:43:23,333 --> 01:43:25,583 I’ve ever done abstract painting. 636 01:43:26,458 --> 01:43:28,375 Although naturally, 637 01:43:28,666 --> 01:43:29,958 even when it’s figurative… 638 01:43:30,458 --> 01:43:32,208 art always has… 639 01:43:32,375 --> 01:43:34,291 an expression... 640 01:43:34,583 --> 01:43:38,041 or something interior… 641 01:43:38,708 --> 01:43:39,583 and that might be... 642 01:43:39,583 --> 01:43:42,583 what we could call its abstract element. 643 01:43:43,291 --> 01:43:44,083 And... 644 01:43:44,416 --> 01:43:45,208 well... 645 01:43:46,250 --> 01:43:48,041 that’s been my struggle. 646 01:43:49,625 --> 01:43:53,125 My work isn’t what you’d call "abstract". 647 01:43:54,250 --> 01:43:56,625 I’ve never done anything totally abstract, 648 01:43:56,625 --> 01:43:59,291 not in the sense of 'non-figurative’, 649 01:43:59,291 --> 01:44:00,458 a work in which... 650 01:44:00,541 --> 01:44:02,708 you can’t find… 651 01:44:03,000 --> 01:44:04,750 a motif, 652 01:44:05,041 --> 01:44:06,375 but it does have… 653 01:44:06,666 --> 01:44:08,125 that certain something… 654 01:44:08,291 --> 01:44:09,666 innate to figurative art… 655 01:44:09,666 --> 01:44:12,000 that is abstract. 656 01:44:14,125 --> 01:44:16,125 So maybe… 657 01:44:16,541 --> 01:44:19,625 that’s been my path. 658 01:44:50,458 --> 01:44:53,750 To begin with, I’m not big on colors. 659 01:44:54,166 --> 01:44:56,583 Color or colors… 660 01:44:57,583 --> 01:44:59,291 I don’t feel them... 661 01:45:00,833 --> 01:45:02,625 Rather, I see them… 662 01:45:02,625 --> 01:45:06,833 I view color as a concession. 663 01:45:06,833 --> 01:45:10,916 Maybe because of this, because of my coloristic limitations… 664 01:45:11,125 --> 01:45:15,083 I prefer monochromes... 665 01:45:16,500 --> 01:45:19,000 and very little color, 666 01:45:19,250 --> 01:45:21,916 because it demands 667 01:45:23,083 --> 01:45:25,291 more subjectivity. 668 01:45:27,166 --> 01:45:29,458 Over the course of her lengthy career, 669 01:45:29,958 --> 01:45:34,125 Lucinda Urrusti has consistently used her craft… 670 01:45:34,208 --> 01:45:36,041 to recreate over and over again… 671 01:45:36,041 --> 01:45:38,750 one of art’s time-honored metaphors: 672 01:45:39,416 --> 01:45:41,916 that of the canvas as a loom. 673 01:45:42,041 --> 01:45:45,916 Of course there are other recurring metaphors in art. 674 01:45:46,333 --> 01:45:49,250 Ones that Urrusti has also used: 675 01:45:49,791 --> 01:45:52,166 the painting as a window, 676 01:45:57,000 --> 01:45:59,750 or the canvas as a wall marred… 677 01:45:59,750 --> 01:46:03,083 by the passage of time and the elements — 678 01:46:03,083 --> 01:46:07,166 a metaphor that was much-employed by a certain school of abstract art. 679 01:46:07,500 --> 01:46:11,708 These are illustrations of how plasticity can be grounded in metaphor. 680 01:46:18,625 --> 01:46:22,041 I‘d like to take the time to discuss the tapestry-like quality… 681 01:46:22,041 --> 01:46:26,083 I see in many of Lucinda’s paintings, 682 01:46:26,125 --> 01:46:29,791 which sometimes appear like thick weaves of basting and backstitches. 683 01:46:42,625 --> 01:46:47,750 In "Profile Portrait of my Mother" (1961), 684 01:46:48,666 --> 01:46:52,916 the precise rendering of the face is at once complemented and softened... 685 01:46:52,958 --> 01:46:57,666 by a profusion of pencil strokes scattered over the surface... 686 01:46:57,666 --> 01:46:59,875 toward the lower part (of the portrait), 687 01:46:59,875 --> 01:47:03,500 creating a tangle of gestural forces 688 01:47:03,500 --> 01:47:05,541 that perfectly balance out… 689 01:47:05,583 --> 01:47:07,791 the portrait of very composed lady. 690 01:47:08,750 --> 01:47:12,708 Again, metaphorically, these (strokes) are like threads... 691 01:47:12,708 --> 01:47:17,375 trussing an atmosphere of bonds, attachments and emotions... 692 01:47:17,416 --> 01:47:20,291 that would otherwise go unnoticed… 693 01:47:20,291 --> 01:47:24,083 in a simple academic rendering of her profile. 694 01:47:24,083 --> 01:47:26,291 This portrait reveals a compulsion… 695 01:47:26,291 --> 01:47:30,458 to simultaneously create and tear asunder. 696 01:47:32,458 --> 01:47:34,958 The other day I read something about 697 01:47:34,958 --> 01:47:36,833 an interview Bacon did 698 01:47:37,083 --> 01:47:38,916 and, funnily enough, 699 01:47:39,583 --> 01:47:42,250 This portrait reveals a compulsion… 700 01:47:42,250 --> 01:47:45,166 I was telling you. 701 01:47:46,333 --> 01:47:48,000 He too... 702 01:47:49,625 --> 01:47:52,333 had a painting in mind 703 01:47:52,958 --> 01:47:54,291 and... 704 01:47:55,458 --> 01:47:57,750 he mentioned a painting 705 01:47:57,958 --> 01:48:00,500 where he'd begun with a... 706 01:48:01,916 --> 01:48:03,750 figure, with a face. 707 01:48:03,750 --> 01:48:06,041 I don't think it was a portrait, 708 01:48:06,083 --> 01:48:07,041 but anyway, 709 01:48:07,041 --> 01:48:08,875 he started making some smudges... 710 01:48:08,916 --> 01:48:11,541 the eye sockets and the mouth 711 01:48:12,041 --> 01:48:13,708 and the nostrils, and... 712 01:48:13,708 --> 01:48:15,750 It didn't even... 713 01:48:16,708 --> 01:48:19,208 have any features, 714 01:48:19,208 --> 01:48:20,583 but yet 715 01:48:20,875 --> 01:48:24,166 it looked like...the subject. 716 01:48:24,458 --> 01:48:28,458 Of course he didn't speak much 717 01:48:28,458 --> 01:48:31,875 about his process or his work, 718 01:48:34,083 --> 01:48:35,541 but, no, 719 01:48:36,291 --> 01:48:38,500 it's hardly ever like that. 720 01:48:38,500 --> 01:48:40,833 it's not something that happens (often)... 721 01:48:40,833 --> 01:48:43,250 especially not with oils. 722 01:48:44,208 --> 01:48:46,458 Another facet of your work… 723 01:48:46,750 --> 01:48:51,250 we see here and that would appear to be a natural gift… 724 01:48:51,250 --> 01:48:54,583 is your talent for portraits. 725 01:48:54,583 --> 01:48:56,958 Can you tell us about this? 726 01:48:58,041 --> 01:49:02,375 The procedure is the same as in any painting. 727 01:49:02,875 --> 01:49:05,708 First I do a sketch... 728 01:49:05,875 --> 01:49:08,416 Then you have to consider the space you have, 729 01:49:08,416 --> 01:49:09,500 its dimensions, 730 01:49:09,500 --> 01:49:12,000 the proportions you want 731 01:49:12,041 --> 01:49:14,416 and get it to fit naturally, 732 01:49:14,416 --> 01:49:17,708 in the space, 733 01:49:18,041 --> 01:49:20,708 you want to put it in, 734 01:49:20,708 --> 01:49:22,166 whether it's a face, 735 01:49:22,250 --> 01:49:24,083 or a group of people. 736 01:49:24,208 --> 01:49:29,166 If you look at a Leonardo or a Tiziano for example, 737 01:49:29,750 --> 01:49:33,875 first you make a general sketch 738 01:49:33,875 --> 01:49:40,416 and then you gradually give it more definition. 739 01:49:40,583 --> 01:49:44,458 You explore the shadows until you find it.... 740 01:49:44,458 --> 01:49:47,250 But there are as many ways to go about it 741 01:49:47,250 --> 01:49:51,583 as there are human beings. 742 01:49:53,208 --> 01:49:56,916 The first one I did was of my brother Juan. 743 01:49:58,250 --> 01:50:02,750 He was very young at the time. So was I. 744 01:50:03,166 --> 01:50:05,666 Just a year-and-a-half older than him, and 745 01:50:06,291 --> 01:50:10,541 Juan used to be home a lot, studying and what not... 746 01:50:10,541 --> 01:50:13,375 or (reading) the paper. 747 01:50:13,375 --> 01:50:15,708 So... 748 01:50:16,416 --> 01:50:19,208 One day he was reading and I said to him: 749 01:50:19,291 --> 01:50:23,708 "Stay like that a minute...." and I started drawing him. 750 01:50:24,500 --> 01:50:29,583 That was in essence my first portrait. 751 01:50:29,583 --> 01:50:32,458 At least the first spontaneous one, 752 01:50:32,708 --> 01:50:38,000 because before that, as a callow young girl, 753 01:50:38,791 --> 01:50:41,541 I’d done a few of the women… 754 01:50:41,916 --> 01:50:44,958 who’d come to see my mother… 755 01:50:44,958 --> 01:50:47,625 to have dresses made. 756 01:50:47,916 --> 01:50:50,708 My mother made clothes for them… 757 01:50:51,083 --> 01:50:53,500 on the side. 758 01:50:53,541 --> 01:50:59,666 First she worked for Liverpool as a seamstress making overcoats and... 759 01:51:00,083 --> 01:51:02,083 I’d put my (art) things away when they’d come... 760 01:51:02,083 --> 01:51:03,791 because it was a very small apartment 761 01:51:03,791 --> 01:51:05,708 with just two bedrooms. 762 01:51:05,833 --> 01:51:08,041 When they arrived I’d hide, but... 763 01:51:08,041 --> 01:51:12,791 "Oh, she paints!" "The kid draws!" 764 01:51:13,916 --> 01:51:17,083 "Do my portrait!" they’d say... 765 01:51:17,833 --> 01:51:19,125 And... 766 01:51:19,416 --> 01:51:24,041 one day Salvador Zubirán came. 767 01:51:24,041 --> 01:51:27,416 I think he was rector at the time...yes... 768 01:51:27,416 --> 01:51:31,750 and he asked me to do a portrait of his daughter... 769 01:51:31,750 --> 01:51:35,125 or niece. A blonde girl… Pretty. 770 01:51:35,125 --> 01:51:38,833 I remember because I have a photo somewhere… 771 01:51:39,041 --> 01:51:40,916 of her in a cashmere sweater. 772 01:51:40,916 --> 01:51:42,291 I copied the texture of the cashmere, 773 01:51:42,291 --> 01:51:46,666 of the sweater and... 774 01:51:46,666 --> 01:51:49,708 everyone was like "Ohhh..! “It’s as if you can touch the sweater!” 775 01:51:49,708 --> 01:51:52,458 "How amazing!" 776 01:51:53,083 --> 01:51:54,083 And... 777 01:51:55,625 --> 01:51:57,583 he said... 778 01:51:58,208 --> 01:52:02,166 I had to charge him, but I didn’t know how much because... 779 01:52:02,666 --> 01:52:05,916 I think Zubirán said "No, no.” 780 01:52:05,916 --> 01:52:08,375 "You have to charge me!" 781 01:52:08,375 --> 01:52:09,333 And I said "But I don’t know how much." 782 01:52:09,375 --> 01:52:12,791 "At least 100 pesos!" 783 01:52:12,875 --> 01:52:14,958 Or maybe he said 150, I’m not sure. 784 01:52:15,166 --> 01:52:17,083 And I said “That much...!” 785 01:52:17,791 --> 01:52:19,875 But when he paid me I felt guilty. 786 01:52:19,875 --> 01:52:22,666 I said, "But I haven’t studied... 787 01:52:22,666 --> 01:52:25,250 I haven’t been to art school..." 788 01:52:25,250 --> 01:52:27,958 Of course I’d read... 789 01:52:28,250 --> 01:52:33,666 a lot of books on the Renaissance, on this painter and that... 790 01:52:34,875 --> 01:52:36,666 contemporary artists... 791 01:52:36,666 --> 01:52:39,416 especially Renaissance ones. 792 01:52:39,416 --> 01:52:43,208 I read how young painters… 793 01:52:43,208 --> 01:52:48,583 would go live with their maestros… 794 01:52:49,708 --> 01:52:53,000 to learn everything… how to grind the colors… 795 01:52:53,000 --> 01:52:55,708 and prepare the canvas and what not. 796 01:52:55,708 --> 01:52:58,750 And I said "But I don’t know anything!" 797 01:52:58,750 --> 01:53:00,541 "How can I....!" 798 01:53:00,541 --> 01:53:02,583 I felt guilty. 799 01:53:02,583 --> 01:53:04,833 As if I’d taken advantage or robbed him blind. 800 01:53:04,875 --> 01:53:09,041 And when I got that first payment I said "Wow!" 801 01:53:09,208 --> 01:53:13,583 "This is great! I get to paint, which I like... 802 01:53:13,583 --> 01:53:16,500 and I get paid for it into the bargain!" 803 01:53:16,625 --> 01:53:17,500 And... 804 01:53:17,583 --> 01:53:19,875 I said to myself, "This is a good thing.” 805 01:53:20,000 --> 01:53:23,666 “This is definitely the way to go.” 806 01:53:24,208 --> 01:53:27,291 And with the 500 (pesos) they gave me, 807 01:53:27,291 --> 01:53:29,375 we bought a book of anatomy 808 01:53:29,375 --> 01:53:33,166 for my brother. 809 01:53:33,166 --> 01:53:36,416 It was an expensive book. 810 01:53:36,416 --> 01:53:41,333 I don’t remember if it was one volume or two, but we hadn’t been able to buy it for him. 811 01:53:41,333 --> 01:53:45,750 He’d go to the library to study. 812 01:53:45,791 --> 01:53:50,958 But with that book… Fantastic! 813 01:53:55,250 --> 01:53:57,333 Portraits... 814 01:53:57,333 --> 01:54:01,250 Without a shadow of a doubt, man, human beings are... 815 01:54:01,250 --> 01:54:06,291 incredible creatures. 816 01:54:06,291 --> 01:54:08,750 Internally, what they do and what they.... 817 01:54:08,750 --> 01:54:14,500 Just observing them, what their features, their faces say... 818 01:54:14,500 --> 01:54:18,708 Each one is an inimitable individual... 819 01:54:18,708 --> 01:54:21,791 No one looks like anyone else. 820 01:54:22,583 --> 01:54:27,208 So when you start trying to decipher them... 821 01:54:27,291 --> 01:54:30,041 That, yes. 822 01:54:30,333 --> 01:54:34,500 I remember sometimes I’d be on the bus... 823 01:54:34,500 --> 01:54:36,833 And I’d think to myself… 824 01:54:36,833 --> 01:54:42,541 "I’d like to paint that guy or that girl over there..." 825 01:54:58,250 --> 01:55:02,083 But I didnt dedicate my time and energy… 826 01:55:02,083 --> 01:55:05,000 solely… 827 01:55:05,000 --> 01:55:07,166 to portraits. 828 01:55:13,208 --> 01:55:15,666 I haven’t done many portraits. 829 01:55:15,666 --> 01:55:20,625 At least not unplanned ones, which are the ones that interest me… 830 01:55:20,625 --> 01:55:24,625 as an artist. 831 01:55:24,625 --> 01:55:29,041 They were either of important academics... 832 01:55:29,041 --> 01:55:31,833 or they were out of town or... 833 01:55:32,916 --> 01:55:36,041 I had to make do with what I had: 834 01:55:36,041 --> 01:55:40,250 work from a photo or until they announced "I can’t come to pose anymore", 835 01:55:42,166 --> 01:55:45,708 which was the case with Octavio, Octavio Paz, 836 01:55:45,708 --> 01:55:49,333 who I think posed for me just once or twice. 837 01:55:49,333 --> 01:55:53,208 After that he went off to Paris and... 838 01:55:54,000 --> 01:55:56,500 time passed… 839 01:55:56,541 --> 01:55:59,083 and when he came back he was sick… 840 01:55:59,208 --> 01:56:01,458 and couldn’t... 841 01:56:01,458 --> 01:56:06,708 The point is you have to adapt 842 01:56:06,791 --> 01:56:09,083 to the circumstances. 843 01:56:15,791 --> 01:56:18,375 I started doing portraits... 844 01:56:18,375 --> 01:56:21,375 Portraits have always interested me… 845 01:56:21,375 --> 01:56:25,083 when they’re done directly… 846 01:56:25,083 --> 01:56:29,000 of a living being. 847 01:56:29,083 --> 01:56:33,750 Obviously I prefer to work with a real live subject. 848 01:56:33,750 --> 01:56:35,458 and… 849 01:56:35,500 --> 01:56:39,958 Well, Carlos was brilliant… 850 01:56:39,958 --> 01:56:42,916 in every sense, including as a person. 851 01:56:43,375 --> 01:56:46,291 Speaking of which, the portrait I did of him... 852 01:56:46,291 --> 01:56:50,583 I remember the last... maybe it was that same time we had lunch here at the house. 853 01:56:52,166 --> 01:56:55,083 He came with his wife, 854 01:56:55,083 --> 01:56:56,875 Silvia Lemus. 855 01:56:56,875 --> 01:57:00,250 But when he saw the portrait he was with Gabo, 856 01:57:00,250 --> 01:57:03,458 García Márquez. They arrived together. With Mutis. 857 01:57:03,458 --> 01:57:07,083 I think we had lunch together here at the house. 858 01:57:07,083 --> 01:57:10,875 And when they saw it... 859 01:57:12,875 --> 01:57:15,791 Carlos said, "Oh, you’ve portrayed me like god!” 860 01:57:15,791 --> 01:57:17,291 “How crazy is that!" 861 01:57:17,708 --> 01:57:18,875 And I think it was Gabo 862 01:57:19,208 --> 01:57:21,208 who said… 863 01:57:21,208 --> 01:57:23,625 "Well, aren’t you?" 864 01:57:24,166 --> 01:57:25,250 And... 865 01:57:26,625 --> 01:57:28,666 well, yes, he was a.... 866 01:57:28,666 --> 01:57:30,875 genius... 867 01:57:31,083 --> 01:57:35,208 a well-read, cultured man… 868 01:57:36,250 --> 01:57:41,708 and a magnificent conversationalist... 869 01:57:41,791 --> 01:57:42,416 and... 870 01:57:42,583 --> 01:57:46,083 he had all these anecdotes about people and what not. 871 01:57:46,166 --> 01:57:49,208 He and Gabo were good friends, 872 01:57:49,208 --> 01:57:53,541 but Gabo wasn’t extroverted or talkative or any of that. 873 01:57:55,958 --> 01:57:59,333 You were friends with Ricardo Martínez. 874 01:58:01,791 --> 01:58:04,958 Yes. I met him by chance in San Ángel where I lived. 875 01:58:04,958 --> 01:58:07,625 I was married at the time. 876 01:58:07,625 --> 01:58:11,916 One day my husband came up and said "Look who I’ve brought you!" 877 01:58:11,916 --> 01:58:14,291 My husband would go out walking in the mornings… 878 01:58:14,291 --> 01:58:17,791 and it seems Ricardo did too. 879 01:58:17,791 --> 01:58:19,791 Somehow they met and my husband said, 880 01:58:19,958 --> 01:58:22,583 "This woman here... 881 01:58:22,583 --> 01:58:24,541 has lost... 882 01:58:24,541 --> 01:58:27,541 How did he put it? 883 01:58:27,625 --> 01:58:30,458 “She’s lost her… 884 01:58:30,458 --> 01:58:32,666 muse" or something like that. 885 01:58:32,958 --> 01:58:36,500 Now Ricardo was a very intelligent man… 886 01:58:36,500 --> 01:58:38,375 A well-educated...well-read man. 887 01:58:38,375 --> 01:58:40,583 And he said, "Well, it’s only to be expected." 888 01:58:40,583 --> 01:58:42,541 By then I had two... 889 01:58:42,541 --> 01:58:45,125 very young children. 890 01:58:45,208 --> 01:58:49,125 It was a lovely, big house and everything, but 891 01:58:49,125 --> 01:58:52,791 "She has nowhere she can lock herself in to paint," he said. 892 01:58:52,791 --> 01:58:56,000 "It’s a necessity" he said. 893 01:58:56,000 --> 01:59:01,333 And proceeded to take care of the situation. 894 01:59:01,458 --> 01:59:02,125 And... 895 01:59:02,333 --> 01:59:05,666 he had three children and... 896 01:59:05,666 --> 01:59:10,791 two of them went to the same kindergarten as my two. 897 01:59:10,916 --> 01:59:12,333 So... 898 01:59:12,541 --> 01:59:14,000 Oh, yes, he suggested... 899 01:59:14,125 --> 01:59:18,041 He said, "If she doesn’t have a place where she can work in peace and quiet... 900 01:59:18,250 --> 01:59:22,791 He said "You can come to my studio,” 901 01:59:22,791 --> 01:59:24,708 which was also his house. He had a big, long… 902 01:59:24,791 --> 01:59:26,666 garden and… 903 01:59:26,916 --> 01:59:29,666 a room where he painted. 904 01:59:29,750 --> 01:59:32,333 And so... 905 01:59:32,333 --> 01:59:34,416 I took him up on the offer. 906 01:59:34,416 --> 01:59:36,125 Then he and my husband… 907 01:59:36,291 --> 01:59:38,291 ended up falling out. 908 01:59:38,416 --> 01:59:41,000 My husband would drop me off and pick me up, 909 01:59:41,541 --> 01:59:44,958 but if it wasn’t about bullfighting or politics they’d find something else to argue about. 910 01:59:45,333 --> 01:59:48,833 They fought so much my visits came to an end. 911 01:59:48,833 --> 01:59:49,791 But... 912 01:59:50,750 --> 01:59:55,041 I kept in touch with Ricardo by telephone. 913 01:59:55,291 --> 01:59:56,083 That said… 914 01:59:57,375 --> 02:00:00,916 he never got very involved, not even as a teacher. 915 02:00:01,333 --> 02:00:02,625 It was nice though... 916 02:00:02,625 --> 02:00:05,833 having the opportunity to go to another studio back then, 917 02:00:05,833 --> 02:00:08,166 somewhere I could be alone... 918 02:00:08,166 --> 02:00:10,041 Yes, 919 02:00:10,041 --> 02:00:12,375 he was a contact... 920 02:00:12,375 --> 02:00:16,166 and a good friend after that, from then on. 921 02:00:18,333 --> 02:00:20,250 As a newly-wed I lived... 922 02:00:20,458 --> 02:00:23,958 We had a house in San Ángel... 923 02:00:24,625 --> 02:00:27,083 (On) Calero, on the corner of Jardín. 924 02:00:27,375 --> 02:00:29,958 Juan O’Gorman, the painter, 925 02:00:30,291 --> 02:00:35,208 lived on the opposite corner. 926 02:00:35,625 --> 02:00:37,833 We could practically see each other from our windows... 927 02:00:37,833 --> 02:00:41,250 because Jardín was a small street and... 928 02:00:41,958 --> 02:00:46,208 On Saturday afternoons we’d hold an open house. 929 02:00:46,833 --> 02:00:51,791 The most amazing people would come. People I admired and who... 930 02:00:52,166 --> 02:00:57,250 I respected immensely. The group came to be known as "The Hyperion": 931 02:00:57,708 --> 02:01:01,333 (Luis) Villoro, (Ricardo) Guerra, Jorge Portilla. 932 02:01:01,750 --> 02:01:04,750 Jorge was a great singer. 933 02:01:05,125 --> 02:01:07,250 He’d start singing and… 934 02:01:07,250 --> 02:01:09,250 all in all, a lovely man. 935 02:01:09,250 --> 02:01:11,791 They’d discuss philosophy... 936 02:01:11,791 --> 02:01:17,000 or the German philosophers, the Hyperion Group... 937 02:01:18,458 --> 02:01:21,083 But I’d turn… 938 02:01:21,083 --> 02:01:23,083 to look at (Juan) Rulfo, who was also there... 939 02:01:23,083 --> 02:01:24,750 He’d get up.... 940 02:01:25,166 --> 02:01:27,666 Sometimes he’d play domino or something. 941 02:01:28,166 --> 02:01:30,375 But he never said a word. And I’d say to myself, 942 02:01:30,791 --> 02:01:33,166 “If there’s anyone I identify with, 943 02:01:33,916 --> 02:01:36,916 it’s Rulfo… 944 02:01:36,958 --> 02:01:39,166 Juan Rulfo.” 945 02:01:39,541 --> 02:01:43,541 He didn’t speak much, but he’d written Pedro Páramo. 946 02:01:43,541 --> 02:01:45,541 I did a drawing for him. 947 02:01:46,375 --> 02:01:50,291 It wasn’t a very professional drawing or anything of the kind 948 02:01:50,291 --> 02:01:52,291 but... 949 02:01:52,291 --> 02:01:54,625 I didn’t ask him to pose. 950 02:01:54,625 --> 02:01:56,625 I just watched him… 951 02:01:56,625 --> 02:01:59,125 when he was there and... 952 02:01:59,875 --> 02:02:02,500 Back then... 953 02:02:03,458 --> 02:02:06,416 two female poets would join us. 954 02:02:06,541 --> 02:02:08,541 The only two women, 955 02:02:10,166 --> 02:02:12,166 writers or.... 956 02:02:12,166 --> 02:02:14,333 They were Rosario Castellanos… 957 02:02:14,333 --> 02:02:16,833 and Dolores Castro. 958 02:02:16,833 --> 02:02:20,416 They were friends… 959 02:02:20,583 --> 02:02:21,666 and… 960 02:02:23,625 --> 02:02:26,041 I thought "Thank goodness..." 961 02:02:26,041 --> 02:02:28,208 “It’s not just men!" 962 02:02:28,625 --> 02:02:30,125 For me... 963 02:02:30,125 --> 02:02:32,000 it was… 964 02:02:32,000 --> 02:02:34,125 during those formative years, 965 02:02:34,166 --> 02:02:36,583 getting to meet people like that… 966 02:02:37,291 --> 02:02:38,041 and... 967 02:02:38,833 --> 02:02:42,166 listen to them... and watch them and... 968 02:02:42,166 --> 02:02:45,291 Naturally, it was very enriching... 969 02:02:46,041 --> 02:02:48,916 because the Mexico of those days 970 02:02:51,291 --> 02:02:54,833 was a wonderful Mexico, a small city... 971 02:02:55,791 --> 02:02:59,000 I remember Archibaldo (Burns)... 972 02:03:00,250 --> 02:03:03,916 my husband at the time, 973 02:03:04,375 --> 02:03:09,291 saying to me, "You know Octavio Paz..." 974 02:03:09,291 --> 02:03:11,833 "Introduce me to him!" 975 02:03:12,791 --> 02:03:15,833 I’ve sometimes asked myself… 976 02:03:15,833 --> 02:03:19,916 "How is it I got to meet the crème de la crème of that period?" 977 02:03:19,916 --> 02:03:23,041 Firstly, because there weren’t that many of them. 978 02:03:23,041 --> 02:03:26,375 And secondly, because back then… 979 02:03:27,083 --> 02:03:30,791 as we all know, the city was the cily like... 980 02:03:30,791 --> 02:03:34,708 and because we all had a tendency to get together... 981 02:03:35,208 --> 02:03:37,375 because we were like-minded. 982 02:03:37,375 --> 02:03:39,625 You, writer; him, photographer... 983 02:03:40,666 --> 02:03:42,791 Salvador Elizondo and... 984 02:03:43,250 --> 02:03:46,250 Octavio, who was already famous and... 985 02:03:46,875 --> 02:03:49,208 All the times… 986 02:03:49,750 --> 02:03:51,666 all the Saturdays he came… 987 02:03:51,666 --> 02:03:53,583 He came for a long time. 988 02:03:53,583 --> 02:03:54,750 Octavio 989 02:03:54,750 --> 02:03:56,083 would come alone. 990 02:03:56,875 --> 02:03:58,416 Until one day he said… 991 02:03:58,416 --> 02:04:00,583 "Elena’s on her way!" 992 02:04:00,875 --> 02:04:03,083 Elena (Garro) was traveling. 993 02:04:05,583 --> 02:04:08,625 Finally, Elena arrived… 994 02:04:08,625 --> 02:04:11,708 very late, with an Argentinean in tow. 995 02:04:11,708 --> 02:04:13,083 A friend of... 996 02:04:14,000 --> 02:04:14,875 Borges. 997 02:04:14,875 --> 02:04:16,875 He was... I don’t remember. 998 02:04:16,875 --> 02:04:18,875 Friendly and all that. 999 02:04:19,083 --> 02:04:21,708 They arrived about midnight, 1000 02:04:24,166 --> 02:04:26,416 but she was acting very.... 1001 02:04:26,708 --> 02:04:29,708 One thing that did strike me at the time… 1002 02:04:30,708 --> 02:04:35,250 was Octavio’s admiration for her, 1003 02:04:35,750 --> 02:04:37,291 for Elena. 1004 02:04:37,875 --> 02:04:40,791 In time... 1005 02:04:40,791 --> 02:04:44,458 our respective spouses... 1006 02:04:46,750 --> 02:04:50,791 saw to it that… Well, 1007 02:04:51,000 --> 02:04:54,125 both his marriage and mine… 1008 02:04:54,791 --> 02:04:56,500 fell apart. 1009 02:04:56,500 --> 02:04:57,375 In my case... 1010 02:04:58,000 --> 02:05:00,250 it wasn’t so terrible. 1011 02:05:00,250 --> 02:05:02,041 Quite the opposite actually. 1012 02:05:02,458 --> 02:05:06,000 And the first time Octavio and I… 1013 02:05:06,000 --> 02:05:08,000 bumped into each other after that at Casa del Lago, 1014 02:05:08,000 --> 02:05:10,958 at some cultural event, 1015 02:05:11,958 --> 02:05:15,791 he said, "Looks like we both came out winners." 1016 02:05:15,791 --> 02:05:18,416 To which I replied, "You’re right there." 1017 02:05:18,416 --> 02:05:20,291 Truth be told, 1018 02:05:20,291 --> 02:05:22,916 I always saw it as regaining my freedom… 1019 02:05:22,916 --> 02:05:26,083 not as a...but...the thing is... 1020 02:05:26,583 --> 02:05:28,958 I found it funny that... 1021 02:05:28,958 --> 02:05:31,583 he felt the same way. 1022 02:05:32,041 --> 02:05:35,083 Shortly after that... 1023 02:05:35,083 --> 02:05:39,416 he started seeing Mari Jo Paz and looked the picture of happiness. 1024 02:05:39,416 --> 02:05:42,125 I didn’t know her that well, 1025 02:05:42,458 --> 02:05:46,875 but she seemed a happy person 1026 02:05:46,875 --> 02:05:48,750 with a positive outlook and.... 1027 02:05:50,875 --> 02:05:53,833 Lucinda, you came into contact with a man… 1028 02:05:53,833 --> 02:05:55,541 who dominated... 1029 02:05:56,041 --> 02:06:00,666 Mexico’s museum scene. I’m talking about Fernando Gamboa. 1030 02:06:01,083 --> 02:06:03,375 What was your relationship with him like? I know you worked with him. 1031 02:06:03,375 --> 02:06:04,791 What was that like? 1032 02:06:05,791 --> 02:06:08,208 I was very young… 1033 02:06:08,208 --> 02:06:10,208 at the time. 1034 02:06:10,208 --> 02:06:13,000 I was studying at La Esmeralda. 1035 02:06:13,791 --> 02:06:16,958 Having contact and working with Fernando Gamboa 1036 02:06:17,875 --> 02:06:20,500 was incredible. I worked with him… 1037 02:06:21,791 --> 02:06:24,083 doing museography at the Palace Fine Arts. 1038 02:06:24,583 --> 02:06:29,416 My first project was a retrospective of Diego Rivera… 1039 02:06:29,708 --> 02:06:32,083 and it was utterly amazing… 1040 02:06:32,750 --> 02:06:34,750 because there were lots of… 1041 02:06:34,750 --> 02:06:37,333 blocks of… 1042 02:06:37,333 --> 02:06:40,333 Diego’s drawings; 1043 02:06:42,083 --> 02:06:43,875 charcoal drawings. 1044 02:06:43,875 --> 02:06:48,708 of a woman carrying firewood or carrying something and... 1045 02:06:48,708 --> 02:06:52,625 we’d spread them out on the floor... 1046 02:06:53,458 --> 02:06:57,166 There were of dozens of them and we had to select just a few. 1047 02:06:57,625 --> 02:07:04,958 Once I got to go to (José Clemente) Orozco’s studio. 1048 02:07:04,958 --> 02:07:09,791 As you can imagine, at my age I was... 1049 02:07:09,791 --> 02:07:14,625 especially since he looked so stern and unapproachable... 1050 02:07:14,625 --> 02:07:18,916 but he was actually very nice and friendly. 1051 02:07:20,500 --> 02:07:26,000 He said... I was told to take something. I don’t remember what I showed him... 1052 02:07:27,166 --> 02:07:29,916 but he took a good look at it and told me to… 1053 02:07:29,916 --> 02:07:32,208 keep up the good work, 1054 02:07:32,208 --> 02:07:37,666 that I was on the right path and had talent... 1055 02:07:37,666 --> 02:07:40,916 and that… I remember him saying, 1056 02:07:40,916 --> 02:07:43,708 "Behind the Spanish tradition." 1057 02:07:45,958 --> 02:07:50,500 All this allowed me to… 1058 02:07:50,500 --> 02:07:56,333 work as a museographer with Gamboa. 1059 02:07:56,333 --> 02:08:00,166 Plus I got to meet the painters in person. 1060 02:08:00,166 --> 02:08:05,000 Painters I wouldn’t have had access to, except for my teachers at La Esmeralda. 1061 02:08:05,000 --> 02:08:06,500 Who were they? 1062 02:08:06,500 --> 02:08:08,541 There were three of them. 1063 02:08:08,541 --> 02:08:13,375 There was the principal, "El Corcito"… 1064 02:08:14,458 --> 02:08:19,458 who was an adorable man. 1065 02:08:20,208 --> 02:08:23,708 Well, I found him charming at any rate... 1066 02:08:23,791 --> 02:08:27,125 but it wasn’t until later that he discovered he was a painter. 1067 02:08:27,125 --> 02:08:31,083 He painted miniatures and they were very well done. 1068 02:08:31,333 --> 02:08:32,458 He gave me… 1069 02:08:32,458 --> 02:08:35,625 At La Esmeralda school of art… 1070 02:08:35,625 --> 02:08:40,166 you had to take the full course: a Masters in the Plastic Arts, 1071 02:08:40,708 --> 02:08:44,625 but I didn’t want to and I couldn’t anyway because I didn’t have time. 1072 02:08:44,666 --> 02:08:50,333 You had to take Chemistry, Art History... subjects I’d already studied. 1073 02:08:50,333 --> 02:08:55,750 So I said to the principal, to Corcito. 1074 02:08:56,000 --> 02:09:00,333 “No, I want three non-curricular workshops, 1075 02:09:00,333 --> 02:09:02,833 because I have to work." 1076 02:09:04,625 --> 02:09:09,500 "I want to take three workshops in the morning. It doesn’t matter in what order, 1077 02:09:09,500 --> 02:09:13,041 because I work at the Palace of Fine Arts in the afternoons." 1078 02:09:13,458 --> 02:09:16,458 "Who do you want?" 1079 02:09:16,458 --> 02:09:19,458 “Agustín Lazo for Painting..." 1080 02:09:22,083 --> 02:09:25,000 "Guerrero Galván for Drawing..." 1081 02:09:29,625 --> 02:09:33,708 "Federico Cantú for Fresco and Mural Painting." 1082 02:09:33,708 --> 02:09:38,541 All three were good teachers. 1083 02:09:38,541 --> 02:09:42,833 They weren’t overbearing or too attached to the rules, 1084 02:09:42,833 --> 02:09:44,416 but had a lot of criteria. 1085 02:09:44,416 --> 02:09:47,250 And naturally I got to see some of… 1086 02:09:47,291 --> 02:09:50,750 the works of these artists I admired. 1087 02:09:50,750 --> 02:09:56,916 Because they weren’t just teachers or academics or whatever, 1088 02:09:57,541 --> 02:10:03,000 but artists, creators of maestros, right there. 1089 02:10:03,041 --> 02:10:06,291 For example, Guerrero Galván... 1090 02:10:07,625 --> 02:10:10,333 he’d walk past to check what we were each doing… 1091 02:10:10,333 --> 02:10:11,583 at our easels. 1092 02:10:11,583 --> 02:10:14,291 There’d usually be a nude model… 1093 02:10:15,583 --> 02:10:17,500 or sometimes they’d be dressed. 1094 02:10:17,500 --> 02:10:22,333 But that’s normal for a drawing class, isn’t it? 1095 02:10:22,333 --> 02:10:23,208 So... 1096 02:10:23,791 --> 02:10:25,916 I’d draw and... 1097 02:10:25,916 --> 02:10:29,083 he’d come up and say, "Good, very good." 1098 02:10:29,083 --> 02:10:32,041 And not long after that… 1099 02:10:32,083 --> 02:10:33,958 he asked me to supervise… 1100 02:10:33,958 --> 02:10:36,625 the drawing class. 1101 02:10:38,041 --> 02:10:42,958 And I said, "What is this? I came here to learn, 1102 02:10:43,375 --> 02:10:45,541 not correct other people!" 1103 02:10:45,541 --> 02:10:49,791 He’d drop by on Saturdays for roll call and what not. 1104 02:10:50,125 --> 02:10:51,750 In some ways... 1105 02:10:53,666 --> 02:10:56,583 yes, looking back… 1106 02:10:56,583 --> 02:10:58,958 those were good days, 1107 02:10:58,958 --> 02:11:01,125 but the time came when..., 1108 02:11:01,166 --> 02:11:03,208 I had to decide… 1109 02:11:03,208 --> 02:11:05,375 to strike out... 1110 02:11:05,375 --> 02:11:07,875 on my own. 1111 02:11:08,208 --> 02:11:12,583 By then I also had to... 1112 02:11:12,583 --> 02:11:14,958 earn money… 1113 02:11:14,958 --> 02:11:17,083 and give classes. 1114 02:11:20,708 --> 02:11:22,666 I think I began... 1115 02:11:22,666 --> 02:11:25,750 or better put, I don’t think… 1116 02:11:25,750 --> 02:11:29,541 there is a starting point. 1117 02:11:30,250 --> 02:11:32,333 Sometimes you don’t know what you’re looking for. 1118 02:11:32,333 --> 02:11:36,125 You do it because it interests you. 1119 02:11:36,125 --> 02:11:39,375 It’s intuitive... but there’s no 1120 02:11:39,375 --> 02:11:42,791 accompanying mental process, 1121 02:11:42,791 --> 02:11:45,166 no reasoning... 1122 02:11:45,166 --> 02:11:47,833 "This is the path for me." 1123 02:11:47,833 --> 02:11:49,291 You get on with it… 1124 02:11:49,291 --> 02:11:51,375 and later you realize… 1125 02:11:52,125 --> 02:11:55,000 it’s like Machado said, 1126 02:11:55,000 --> 02:11:57,791 "You create your path as you go along." 1127 02:11:57,791 --> 02:12:01,083 And down the line you realize... 1128 02:12:01,083 --> 02:12:04,875 that what you did instinctively… 1129 02:12:04,875 --> 02:12:08,166 intuitively, was in fact… 1130 02:12:08,166 --> 02:12:10,458 what interests you, what you’re most cut out for. 1131 02:12:10,458 --> 02:12:14,708 I once considered studying Architecture, 1132 02:12:14,833 --> 02:12:19,125 but then decided against going to university, 1133 02:12:19,125 --> 02:12:22,458 Maybe because it was the closest thing to… 1134 02:12:23,333 --> 02:12:26,000 the plastic arts or… 1135 02:12:26,000 --> 02:12:27,041 but... 1136 02:12:27,666 --> 02:12:29,958 then I realized it wasn’t… 1137 02:12:29,958 --> 02:12:32,708 the technical part… 1138 02:12:33,000 --> 02:12:35,416 the building walls and making… 1139 02:12:35,416 --> 02:12:37,708 calculations and all that, 1140 02:12:37,708 --> 02:12:40,625 but the aesthetic side... 1141 02:12:42,083 --> 02:12:43,500 of it (that appealed to me): 1142 02:12:44,125 --> 02:12:46,125 art. 1143 02:12:46,666 --> 02:12:47,333 And... 1144 02:12:48,000 --> 02:12:49,500 that search, 1145 02:12:49,500 --> 02:12:51,583 that surrendering to something.... 1146 02:12:52,250 --> 02:12:52,875 that... 1147 02:12:52,875 --> 02:12:54,750 drives you. 1148 02:12:57,583 --> 02:12:59,333 It’s in her name: 1149 02:12:59,333 --> 02:13:02,291 Lucinda twines filaments of light. 1150 02:13:02,750 --> 02:13:04,875 Threads, ropes, 1151 02:13:04,916 --> 02:13:07,291 fabrics are all constants… 1152 02:13:07,291 --> 02:13:09,666 throughout her oeuvre. 1153 02:13:14,541 --> 02:13:17,041 Let’s take, for example, "The Knots" series… 1154 02:13:17,041 --> 02:13:18,708 from 2008… 1155 02:13:18,708 --> 02:13:21,875 in which the artist worked with ropes. 1156 02:13:22,083 --> 02:13:24,583 Or "The Folds" series… 1157 02:13:24,583 --> 02:13:27,958 inspired by blankets. 1158 02:13:31,250 --> 02:13:33,791 Then there are the paintings in which Urrusti… 1159 02:13:33,833 --> 02:13:37,625 leaves the texture of the canvas exposed… 1160 02:13:37,625 --> 02:13:40,875 to complement her thick impastos. 1161 02:13:40,875 --> 02:13:44,583 Like in "Small White Horizontal Nude 1"… 1162 02:13:44,583 --> 02:13:45,916 from 2007. 1163 02:13:46,583 --> 02:13:50,583 But deserving of special mention is her use of pastels and charcoal... 1164 02:13:50,583 --> 02:13:53,375 in her nudes on paper, 1165 02:13:53,375 --> 02:13:56,375 composed of a mesh of lines… 1166 02:13:56,375 --> 02:14:01,208 that weave an image we can barely make out. 1167 02:14:01,833 --> 02:14:05,333 That frayed stroke that leaves strands in the air… 1168 02:14:05,333 --> 02:14:07,958 but ties together strings of movement… 1169 02:14:07,958 --> 02:14:10,833 to describe naked bodies, 1170 02:14:11,208 --> 02:14:13,916 that warps threads of colors, 1171 02:14:13,916 --> 02:14:16,708 as if braiding or crocheting... 1172 02:14:17,083 --> 02:14:21,041 marks the moment drawing and painting come together... 1173 02:14:22,000 --> 02:14:24,208 to give birth to light. 1174 02:14:27,791 --> 02:14:30,125 Without being too obvious, 1175 02:14:30,125 --> 02:14:32,708 this painting balances on threads. 1176 02:14:32,708 --> 02:14:35,291 Like these birds Urrusti has painted… 1177 02:14:35,291 --> 02:14:40,125 perched unpredictably on other filaments of light: 1178 02:14:40,125 --> 02:14:43,208 electricity cables... 1179 02:14:43,208 --> 02:14:46,500 in "Birds on the Wires" (2010). 1180 02:14:48,000 --> 02:14:50,750 Some people from your generation… 1181 02:14:50,750 --> 02:14:53,208 studied with you at La Esmeralda… 1182 02:14:53,208 --> 02:14:57,000 and then you joined a group of emerging artists… 1183 02:14:57,041 --> 02:15:00,166 that ended up being called or that is now known as… 1184 02:15:00,166 --> 02:15:02,500 the "Breakaway Generation". 1185 02:15:03,333 --> 02:15:07,250 Yes, but I really don’t think... 1186 02:15:07,250 --> 02:15:09,583 we were aware of it at the time. 1187 02:15:09,583 --> 02:15:11,625 It was more because we were like-minded, 1188 02:15:11,625 --> 02:15:15,583 because we knew each other, because we had... 1189 02:15:17,000 --> 02:15:23,041 But no, we didn’t break away from anything… and we didn’t set out to break anything. 1190 02:15:24,166 --> 02:15:27,833 I think I’ve said this before, 1191 02:15:27,833 --> 02:15:32,666 but we didn’t break as much as a plate so I don’t know why they’d call us that. 1192 02:15:32,666 --> 02:15:37,791 Maybe "breakaway" meaning the rupture artists... 1193 02:15:37,833 --> 02:15:40,625 like Orozco and Diego… 1194 02:15:40,625 --> 02:15:45,250 instigated with the Academy and everything that... 1195 02:15:48,375 --> 02:15:49,750 I remember Lucinda Urrusti… 1196 02:15:49,750 --> 02:15:52,416 as a painter. 1197 02:15:52,416 --> 02:15:56,375 Her art is... how can I put it? Very material. 1198 02:15:56,375 --> 02:15:59,166 Every time she does a painting, 1199 02:15:59,166 --> 02:16:01,375 you can tell she’s labored over it… 1200 02:16:01,375 --> 02:16:04,791 for a whole month or maybe two. 1201 02:16:04,791 --> 02:16:07,208 Thy' re full of fine detail, of dots! 1202 02:16:07,208 --> 02:16:09,041 She’s a very meticulous painter: 1203 02:16:09,041 --> 02:16:10,958 you can tell she gets engrossed in it... 1204 02:16:10,958 --> 02:16:14,083 and works away with no notion of time. 1205 02:16:14,083 --> 02:16:18,416 More so than most other artists. 1206 02:16:18,458 --> 02:16:20,583 She puts a lot of work in. 1207 02:16:20,583 --> 02:16:22,166 No, it’s not... 1208 02:16:22,166 --> 02:16:24,583 I mean, I can give you examples… 1209 02:16:24,583 --> 02:16:26,958 that go to prove... 1210 02:16:26,958 --> 02:16:28,833 I can vouch for the fact that… 1211 02:16:28,833 --> 02:16:31,333 she’s an extraordinary artist. 1212 02:16:31,333 --> 02:16:33,125 Very meticulous. 1213 02:16:36,708 --> 02:16:40,166 Even in Lucinda's early works, 1214 02:16:41,208 --> 02:16:44,791 mainly from the Sixties, 1215 02:16:44,791 --> 02:16:48,791 you can see her preoccupation with volume, 1216 02:16:48,791 --> 02:16:52,333 with achieving a three-dimensional effect. 1217 02:16:52,333 --> 02:16:56,041 When you look at her easel paintings, 1218 02:16:57,250 --> 02:17:01,333 which combine 1219 02:17:01,333 --> 02:17:06,458 sand and marble powder with oils 1220 02:17:06,458 --> 02:17:12,458 to suggest -to more than suggest- volume, 1221 02:17:12,458 --> 02:17:15,458 you can see this intention. 1222 02:17:15,458 --> 02:17:17,916 But you can also see it 1223 02:17:17,916 --> 02:17:20,041 in her drawings 1224 02:17:20,041 --> 02:17:22,541 and even her graphic works, 1225 02:17:22,541 --> 02:17:25,125 in her nudes 1226 02:17:25,791 --> 02:17:29,625 and still life paintings, 1227 02:17:29,625 --> 02:17:33,833 where she toys with volume, 1228 02:17:33,833 --> 02:17:38,708 where you' re never sure if her figures 1229 02:17:38,708 --> 02:17:43,583 are vanishing, or emerging. 1230 02:17:43,958 --> 02:17:46,125 I find this sense of volume 1231 02:17:46,125 --> 02:17:48,958 very interesting 1232 02:17:48,958 --> 02:17:52,791 and it's what allows us to understand why she later 1233 02:17:52,875 --> 02:17:54,666 makes this leap.... 1234 02:17:54,666 --> 02:17:58,708 this leap towards volume 1235 02:17:58,708 --> 02:18:03,625 in works that are not conventional sculptures. 1236 02:18:04,416 --> 02:18:08,750 She doesn't make bronze sculptures 1237 02:18:09,125 --> 02:18:12,041 or carvings, 1238 02:18:12,125 --> 02:18:16,250 but toys with the question of volume 1239 02:18:16,250 --> 02:18:18,666 using objects 1240 02:18:18,666 --> 02:18:21,083 that she comes across 1241 02:18:21,291 --> 02:18:25,250 on her walks, in the street, 1242 02:18:25,333 --> 02:18:28,000 in the park, in the countryside. 1243 02:18:28,375 --> 02:18:31,125 She then reinterprets them, 1244 02:18:31,125 --> 02:18:33,541 reworks them, 1245 02:18:35,791 --> 02:18:37,583 She has even intervened 1246 02:18:39,208 --> 02:18:42,791 parts of her own home. 1247 02:18:43,041 --> 02:18:47,416 She is an artist who doesn't limit herself to conventional painting, 1248 02:18:47,416 --> 02:18:50,166 to the frame, to the easel, 1249 02:18:50,166 --> 02:18:52,541 but who pushes the envelope. 1250 02:18:52,666 --> 02:18:54,875 She even sculpted a bench 1251 02:18:54,958 --> 02:18:57,083 in her own garden. 1252 02:18:58,666 --> 02:19:02,458 Then there are pieces like the one behind me, 1253 02:19:02,541 --> 02:19:06,375 a conventional vase 1254 02:19:06,958 --> 02:19:10,708 that she has decorated 1255 02:19:10,708 --> 02:19:14,833 with materials to give it a different texture. 1256 02:19:14,875 --> 02:19:18,083 She is always purposely searching for new languages, 1257 02:19:18,083 --> 02:19:20,875 new forms of expression. 1258 02:19:21,500 --> 02:19:25,875 Lucinda's work contains countless references 1259 02:19:25,875 --> 02:19:29,875 to ancient cultures, primitive cultures. 1260 02:19:29,875 --> 02:19:32,208 You can see this in the titles, 1261 02:19:32,208 --> 02:19:35,916 in her constant references to Persian, 1262 02:19:36,041 --> 02:19:37,666 Etruscan, 1263 02:19:37,666 --> 02:19:40,000 and Egyptian culture, 1264 02:19:40,625 --> 02:19:42,791 but she doesn't just refer 1265 02:19:42,791 --> 02:19:44,791 to these cultures; 1266 02:19:45,083 --> 02:19:49,333 the objects themselves, the objects she creates 1267 02:19:49,916 --> 02:19:52,208 remit to them, 1268 02:19:52,541 --> 02:19:56,250 although I'm not sure if she does this 1269 02:19:56,333 --> 02:20:00,000 consciously or unconsciously. 1270 02:20:00,625 --> 02:20:03,083 Take, for example, 1271 02:20:03,541 --> 02:20:07,625 her intervention of a Celtic dagger. 1272 02:20:07,625 --> 02:20:11,916 It's a three-dimensional object on a wooden base. 1273 02:20:11,916 --> 02:20:14,875 The central figure is a dagger, 1274 02:20:14,875 --> 02:20:17,416 but if you look more closely, 1275 02:20:17,458 --> 02:20:22,041 you can see she has made incisions and applied staples 1276 02:20:22,041 --> 02:20:25,083 and metal to it, 1277 02:20:26,583 --> 02:20:30,000 Taken together, 1278 02:20:30,625 --> 02:20:34,291 I'd call these pieces a new archaeology of sorts; 1279 02:20:34,541 --> 02:20:39,000 objects that hark back to the past, but that have been reworked 1280 02:20:39,000 --> 02:20:42,541 in a very innovative fashion 1281 02:20:42,583 --> 02:20:44,416 from an artistic point of view. 1282 02:20:44,416 --> 02:20:47,458 Lucinda is a suggestive artist. 1283 02:20:48,791 --> 02:20:50,958 It is rare to find direct, 1284 02:20:50,958 --> 02:20:53,166 literal references to things in her pieces; 1285 02:20:53,166 --> 02:20:54,833 she always intimates. 1286 02:20:54,833 --> 02:20:57,208 She always exacts a dialogue 1287 02:20:57,208 --> 02:21:00,708 between the creator and the spectator, 1288 02:21:00,708 --> 02:21:05,583 and it is this dialogue that connects her work with the external world. 1289 02:21:07,375 --> 02:21:11,000 Maybe that’s what’s so hard… 1290 02:21:11,500 --> 02:21:14,583 or impossible about art, 1291 02:21:14,583 --> 02:21:17,166 that you can never have… 1292 02:21:17,166 --> 02:21:19,833 the satisfaction of saying, "Wow, that’s great!” 1293 02:21:19,833 --> 02:21:23,625 "It’s finished.” “My work here is done." 1294 02:21:23,625 --> 02:21:25,083 It’s not an option. 1295 02:21:25,583 --> 02:21:26,791 And so... 1296 02:21:27,458 --> 02:21:31,625 maybe that’s where the wonder… 1297 02:21:31,625 --> 02:21:34,416 and the impossibility and... 1298 02:21:34,416 --> 02:21:39,083 the struggle with the work or with art, 1299 02:21:39,083 --> 02:21:40,791 with the painting lies, 1300 02:21:41,125 --> 02:21:43,583 in that it is… 1301 02:21:44,041 --> 02:21:46,250 never finished. 1302 02:21:48,125 --> 02:21:51,541 It can always evolve more, 1303 02:21:52,208 --> 02:21:54,666 meaning you’re the one at fault. 1304 02:21:54,666 --> 02:21:57,250 Maybe it’s because you’re tired or worn out… 1305 02:21:57,833 --> 02:22:00,000 or because of your limitations… 1306 02:22:00,000 --> 02:22:01,708 that you haven’t… 1307 02:22:02,750 --> 02:22:05,375 managed to complete… 1308 02:22:06,750 --> 02:22:09,750 the work yet. 1309 02:22:09,875 --> 02:22:11,166 And... 1310 02:22:11,666 --> 02:22:16,083 that gets me thinking about Leonardo, 1311 02:22:18,250 --> 02:22:22,916 Because he never considered a portrait finished, 1312 02:22:22,916 --> 02:22:27,083 he’d take the Mona Lisa with him 1313 02:22:27,541 --> 02:22:30,208 about the Mona Lisa and a... 1314 02:22:30,250 --> 02:22:32,750 I think a Saint... 1315 02:22:33,583 --> 02:22:36,708 I’m not sure if a Saint Sebastian or who, 1316 02:22:36,708 --> 02:22:41,166 but one who kept on working as long as he could… 1317 02:22:41,166 --> 02:22:44,083 and if he had to travel… 1318 02:22:44,083 --> 02:22:47,958 when the King of France invited him… 1319 02:22:47,958 --> 02:22:51,083 to France… 1320 02:22:51,083 --> 02:22:54,208 he’d take the Mona Lisa with him. 1321 02:22:54,875 --> 02:22:59,250 Maybe that’s why… 1322 02:22:59,250 --> 02:23:03,208 when we see it we go, 1323 02:23:03,208 --> 02:23:04,333 "Ohhh...!" 1324 02:23:04,333 --> 02:23:06,291 They say the Mona Lisa has a smile… 1325 02:23:06,291 --> 02:23:08,000 like no other, 1326 02:23:08,000 --> 02:23:10,416 but it’s not just her smile, 1327 02:23:10,416 --> 02:23:12,958 because that would depend only on her mouth, 1328 02:23:13,958 --> 02:23:16,458 but there can be no denying… 1329 02:23:16,458 --> 02:23:20,041 it’s indescribable: 1330 02:23:21,125 --> 02:23:23,875 the artistry, 1331 02:23:24,833 --> 02:23:27,750 the struggle, the achievement and... 1332 02:23:28,083 --> 02:23:31,750 There’s definitely something very, very special… 1333 02:23:31,750 --> 02:23:35,583 about that portrait. 1334 02:23:44,250 --> 02:23:47,375 Shall we put some music on, or not? 1335 02:23:49,041 --> 02:23:55,000 Leonardo Da Vinci used to say 1336 02:23:55,416 --> 02:24:00,000 the best time to do a portrait, 1337 02:24:00,000 --> 02:24:04,250 was between 5 and 6 in the afternoon, because of the light, 1338 02:24:04,250 --> 02:24:08,500 with an orchestra… with chamber music playing 1339 02:24:08,500 --> 02:24:12,083 in the background for the expression. - Wonderful! 1340 02:24:12,083 --> 02:24:14,958 How about that? Nice, right? 1341 02:24:14,958 --> 02:24:17,875 We’re missing all that. 1342 02:24:17,875 --> 02:24:20,458 Let's call them then! 1343 02:24:21,208 --> 02:24:24,916 Sure, why not? 1344 02:24:27,666 --> 02:24:31,458 Salvador Elizondo wrote these very clear words... 1345 02:24:32,041 --> 02:24:33,208 I quote: 1346 02:24:33,208 --> 02:24:36,541 "Their substance… 1347 02:24:36,541 --> 02:24:38,041 is ineffable." 1348 02:24:38,041 --> 02:24:42,166 “The inspiration behind them, indescribable… 1349 02:24:42,208 --> 02:24:44,166 and unfathomable.” 1350 02:24:44,458 --> 02:24:49,291 “A vivifying hand wraps them in a pure light… 1351 02:24:49,291 --> 02:24:52,166 made of dense glazes, 1352 02:24:52,166 --> 02:24:55,041 imprecise, magical colors… 1353 02:24:55,041 --> 02:24:57,125 fiery in essence, 1354 02:24:57,125 --> 02:24:59,166 evanescent and ambiguous 1355 02:24:59,166 --> 02:25:02,458 in their radiance and hues.” 1356 02:25:04,291 --> 02:25:08,000 What role has painting played in your life? 1357 02:25:08,375 --> 02:25:11,125 After family ties, 1358 02:25:11,125 --> 02:25:14,291 the most essential thing, 1359 02:25:14,291 --> 02:25:18,375 the thing that has filled my life, is painting. 1360 02:25:20,333 --> 02:25:23,083 Not only that, but it has infinite possibilities. 1361 02:25:23,083 --> 02:25:24,666 Infinite paths you can travel, 1362 02:25:26,291 --> 02:25:30,000 explore. 1363 02:25:30,000 --> 02:25:32,583 It can be nerve-wracking too, 1364 02:25:32,583 --> 02:25:34,541 but on the upside... 1365 02:25:34,541 --> 02:25:37,625 it gives you a sense of freedom, 1366 02:25:39,208 --> 02:25:44,041 a sense you’ve found what you’ve intuited, what you’ve been looking for, 1367 02:25:44,791 --> 02:25:47,541 which, at the end of the day, is the subjective… 1368 02:25:47,541 --> 02:25:49,250 aspect of art. 1369 02:25:49,250 --> 02:25:50,958 Freedom and.... 1370 02:25:53,291 --> 02:25:54,625 Simply that. 1371 02:25:55,791 --> 02:25:56,750 Thank you. 1372 02:25:56,750 --> 02:26:00,666 Thank you, Jaime. 1373 02:26:02,041 --> 02:26:05,333 Among the many works hanging on her studio walls… 1374 02:26:05,333 --> 02:26:07,416 is a small painting… 1375 02:26:07,416 --> 02:26:11,458 12.5 by 17 centimeters… 1376 02:26:11,458 --> 02:26:14,291 mounted in an old frame. 1377 02:26:14,291 --> 02:26:16,791 It’s called "White and Black Paintbrush"… 1378 02:26:16,791 --> 02:26:18,833 and that’s exactly what it depicts: 1379 02:26:18,833 --> 02:26:21,625 the bristles of a thick paintbrush; 1380 02:26:21,625 --> 02:26:24,708 the sum of so many other threads in the tapestry… 1381 02:26:25,291 --> 02:26:27,583 Lucinda Urrusti weaves… 1382 02:26:27,583 --> 02:26:29,916 on the white of the handle… 1383 02:26:29,916 --> 02:26:31,875 of this instrument… 1384 02:26:31,875 --> 02:26:34,125 and the canvas. 1385 02:26:35,083 --> 02:26:37,958 Finally, I’d like to mention another work: 1386 02:26:37,958 --> 02:26:40,833 "Collage of Siena" (2012), 1387 02:26:40,833 --> 02:26:43,166 on whose dense surface… 1388 02:26:43,166 --> 02:26:46,083 the artist has placed… 1389 02:26:46,083 --> 02:26:49,000 a large rectangular fabric of sorts, 1390 02:26:49,000 --> 02:26:51,875 reminiscent of the burlap fabric… 1391 02:26:51,875 --> 02:26:54,666 Spanish informalists… 1392 02:26:54,666 --> 02:26:56,500 like Manolo Millares… 1393 02:26:56,500 --> 02:26:58,500 used in the days of Franco. 1394 02:26:58,500 --> 02:27:02,208 They’d stretch torn fabric over their frames… 1395 02:27:02,208 --> 02:27:05,083 to symbolize the ravages of the war, 1396 02:27:05,625 --> 02:27:09,291 the tearing apart of families, exile, 1397 02:27:09,291 --> 02:27:11,958 and bodily wounds. 1398 02:27:12,125 --> 02:27:13,583 I asked the artist… 1399 02:27:14,708 --> 02:27:17,375 where she’d found this disturbing piece of… 1400 02:27:17,375 --> 02:27:20,500 unraveled cord that she’d included in her painting. 1401 02:27:20,708 --> 02:27:24,375 "It’s an old doormat," she replied. 1402 02:27:25,250 --> 02:27:28,125 A much-trodden mat… 1403 02:27:28,125 --> 02:27:31,625 that gives us an inkling… 1404 02:27:31,625 --> 02:27:34,041 of the many different paths traveled... 1405 02:27:34,041 --> 02:27:36,333 and the lines that connect them. 1406 02:30:17,625 --> 02:30:19,625 English translation: Alison Stewart