Speaker 1: Welcome to another edition of Views on Art, a series in which you meet the people who plan and take part in the many fine exhibitions in the art galleries of the city. Here now is our moderator, Ruth Bowman, curator of the New York University Art Collection.
Ruth Bowman: As those of our listeners know, this, uh, series of artists' interviews has been going on for some time. These are artists who, uh, have one or more works in the New York University Art Collection. It's with particular excitement that I welcome Benny Andrews, who has, uh, had a show in-- this past month at the ACA galleries of, um, one of, I guess it's one large painting, isn't it? Uh, plus a number of smaller paintings and then the-the drawings for the large painting. Can you tell us a little bit about this series of paintings you've been doing?
Benny Andrews: Well, the-the, uh, exhibition that was just on at the ACA, the-- that was called Circles, and that's the third of what I call my Bicentennial series, and that is that I'm doing a major work which involves about 20 or 30 [unintelligible 00:01:08] in oil and about, uh, I guess about 40, 50 [unintelligible 00:01:12] in pen and ink each year, and that will add up to be s-six, uh, in 1976 because I would like to, as a person, as an American, as a Black person, an artist, to have made some statements that would probably be interesting from that point of view.
Uh, I happen to know quite a bit about a lot of the plans that have been made for the bicentennial in 1976 because I collect coins and stamps. And, uh, I realized and I noticed that they constantly are talking about, you know, the things that mostly deal with white America. And, uh, I don't see anything so far. I haven't seen anything that would relate really to Black America. So as an artist and as a Black person, and-- I feel that I would like to kinda make a statement.
Ruth Bowman: This very large painting that we're referring to that was in the ACA exhibition is, uh, what? 20 feet.
Benny Andrews: 24 feet by 10.
Ruth Bowman: 24 feet by 10 feet high, and has some rather extraordinary imagery, uh, in-in that. There's one main figure splayed out in the center of the figure-- in the center of the painting. The whole painting is done against a white background. I think it's even unpainted, isn't it?
Benny Andrews: Yes, it is. Yes.
Ruth Bowman: And then around this figure are a group of, uh, rather ambiguous figures.
Benny Andrews: Yes, well, I-I should explain, uh, Ruth, that, uh, I really don't try to explain my paintings.
Ruth Bowman: You didn't have to.
Benny Andrews: No, ac-- my feeling is that, uh, if you make pictures, that you should try to remove yourself as much as possible from your particular opinion of what they mean. I feel that, uh, the work should mean something for the individual looking at it. It does not mean that the artist doesn't have an opinion, of course, he has or she, but I find that sometimes that prejudice the view. And, uh, since I talk so much and I'm involved in so many other things, I do reserve kind of the right to stay out of trying to interpret my work.
I would like-- I talk about myself, my-- what I came from, what I believe in, what I like to do, but when it comes to the picture itself, the painting or the sculpture, I-I've learned is this is not something that I've always do-done, but I've learned that the less I say about what I specifically meant, the better it is for the viewer.
Ruth Bowman: That the symbolism is nonspecific, and can-- and so that the viewer can identify with something in the picture itself. And the minute you give it a name you spoil it.
Benny Andrews: Yes, yes, yes, uh--
Ruth Bowman: Well, that-that's okay, Benny Andrews. Let's then start in another way and-and talk about you as an artist and how art came into your life, you know, where along the way. You've been around New York for a while.
Benny Andrews: Well, actually, I've told my life story so many times until I get, um, tickled at it, but I'll tell it again. I was, uh, born in Georgia, in Madison, Georgia, and as a son of a sharecropper. In fact, I came from a very big family. We were sharecroppers in a little town in the country outside of Madison, Georgia. And I grew up there. We were farmers, and we were very poor. And we lived, you know, and we really were kind of what was left over of another time really, because there were very few of these kinds of people left. And I started drawing when, I guess, I was three or four years old because my father drew on the side of barns. He drew airplanes so I got that-- and--
Ruth Bowman: Just for his own amusement.
Benny Andrews: Yes, yes, and, uh, my family, we were lucky because my family read a lot, so that was our communication because I could only go to school five months a year until--
Ruth Bowman: Because you were working in the fields.
Benny Andrews: In the fields and things like that, but I used to dream and see a lot of things. So I-I developed my imagination that way. And so actually, a lot of my work come from my feelings of those times, but I realized that it is not enough for me to copy those times, that I-I live-- I exist in a rather, uh, uh, dual world because I did go to an art school. I graduated from Chicago Art Institute, and I really did get formal art training. It came much later. It was-- I went to art school when I was 24 years old.
And I had been to only one museum before that. And that was the Alamo, which is funny because I was in the Air Force out in Texas and I went to the Alamo. That was the first museum I went to. And I didn't even know that I couldn't go to the museums in the South because, you know, during the time, there was segregation then. I couldn't go. I didn't even know that. So anyway, so my start came very late and with the exception of learning technique and being exposed to other artists.
I really had already formed my opinions of what I like to paint and how I'd like to express myself. So in that way, you know, that is my form and now the-- I-I-I say I've been exposed to contemporary artists and contemporary situations, and I feel that's important for me to be able to express myself in a way that I'm not copying a path, or working on a kind of an ironclad style, but my feelings come from, you know, what I knew and how I was brought up and things like that.
Ruth Bowman: The thing that, uh, strikes me and trying to analyze is I try to, when I hear about what an artist did in early years, and I still consider 20s early years. Um, uh, such unusual approaches as you do have to perspective and to scale and to pictorial space are-are completely individual, your own, particularly the light in your paintings. Uh, and I just wonder, did this come from observation or was there an aspect of your training or particular teacher who had some impact on you?
Benny Andrews: No, actually, I-I always had trouble with teachers. It was not that I didn't try to get along with them, or that they didn't try to get along with me, but it was just that it-it appeared that when I was in art school, I had already made my mind up over what I like to do. And, uh, the only teacher that really helped me in any way, and that was because he left me alone, was Boris Margo. He came to Chicago to teach for two years and he was the first teacher that just told me to work the way I wanted to work, and he left me alone, but, uh, it's-- it-it was like I said, I-I just knew I like to express myself. And that's why I'm very serious about artists being given an opportunity to express themselves.
I really just would like to fight for that. I really transcend artists. I think that all people should try to express themselves. And I just believe in that. And that's what I like to do. And my so-called style or technique or whatever that is, it's-- the only thing I can say is that I remember in 1958, my last year in school, I wanted to do something about the janitors that were sitting in the hallways in the school that I attended. And I wanted to somehow get closer to them. I mean, it sounds kind of sophomoric to make those kind of statements, but I really did.
So what I did is I went-- they-- since they were always available to mop up mistakes that were-- had been made by the students in the classrooms, they were near the John or the men's room. So I went in and-and first thing I got was some of the, uh, paper towels and the toilet tissue and things, and that was when I started working with collage. And by playing with that, then it-- and it did something else too. It threw me off. In other words, I could paint very realistically, but once I put these objects on the canvas, then I had to contend with them, and they always throw me off.
In other words, instead of being able to polish the apple you call it, you have to deal with them. In-in my case, they keep my work alive. For me, there's the problem of over-- of finishing your work and-and getting rid of the life in it. And so with those keeping me off balance, and then-- but I realized-- and then, of course, that's when I started working with collage in 1958, but then I realized that all I had seen with the exception of a few abstract artists' work and of collage, had been something that had been done very cute and [unintelligible 00:08:36]
You can see these things where people would use the raised surface to make things look realistic to fool the eye. So I decided that I would always let it be known in my work in some way that you knew I was using collage, that I would not try to hide it or try to give the impression that it was third dimensional, but I wouldn't inhibit myself from painting into it if I wanted to. And so when my work succeeds, it is just-- it can be very raw and it'd be very-- and it can be very incomplete in some ways. I could-- and I can paint the other way too.
And what is funny, a lot of people for a long time thought it was because I was so poor that I had to patch up my canvases, and it was quite the opposite. It's more expensive to paint with collage than it is to paint without it because you have to-- I use paint to glue mine on and things like that.
Ruth Bowman: Oh, the adhesive is paint.
Benny Andrews: Yes, yes, it's oil paint. I decided that after experimenting with, uh, glue that, uh, most of the glue that dry very quickly is, uh, vegetable glue, so it would rot and the other kind of glue takes a long, so I decided to just go with oil paints since the rest of it is going to be oil and it should last along with the rest, and it does.
Ruth Bowman: The pigmentation is the connection.
Benny Andrews: Yes.
Ruth Bowman: And of course that-that, uh, brings me to another aspect of your work. Do you teach?
Benny Andrews: Yes, I teach. I teach at Queens College. I've been teaching for a long time, about 10 years, actually, I used to teach at a new school.
Ruth Bowman: And-and what about the way in which you interact with your children, or your students?
Benny Andrews: My stu-- oh, I've insisted my students are adults. In fact, I have to keep reminding them of that, is that, uh, I teach in the SEEK program, so I have students that, uh, are really kind-- in a urban situation, came from my kind of situation. So-- and of course, I-- they're not just Black students, they're also Greek, and a lot of students, uh, Chinese, I have quite a cross-section. They're mostly Black and Puerto Rican, but, uh, I teach a studio course that I helped create at Queens College in this area. It's a studio course for first-year students that are not art majors. And, uh, so we-- well, this class- this class of mine just went to The Tombs, uh, last week, the Manhattan House of Detention. And then they were at my exhibition, and now they're participating in some more things. So my class is really-- really got a chance to do diversified things.
Ruth Bowman: Well, let me pull together a couple of things you've said, Benny Andrews. You talked about, uh, before working as you are and from your own experience and not being taught how to do things or how things should be done. Then you talked about, uh, your own teacher and the best teacher being the one who left you alone. Now you're working with students, uh, who are coming to college because of a whole group of new attitudes. Uh, they would not have otherwise gone to college. And what is it that your goal in using art with non-art majors, what-what-what does this do for the people, the individuals?
Benny Andrews: Well, I-I feel that, uh-- I feel that I'm a good example that art can be, uh-- that a larger number of the population of the people in the country can actually become involved in art. I think I'm a good example of that because, uh-- you know, in relating my background, I show that I had no reason except that I liked it. You know, there were no-- there was no encouragement from any-any of my environments except my family.
Um, I just think that, uh, I can make it more real and much more of a functional thing. And I'm showing my students, and they are showing me too, because I get as much or more from them they ever could get from me because they also keep me honest, uh, is that-- there are many more uses for-for art than just as decorative objects to be placed on walls, on stands.
And I'm showing them that by taking them into the prison and show them that people can actually use this in a way that, you know, to relax, like they used to play cards and things like that, but also we've created an industry in the prisons where the people are really making money. We have really established one or two artists who now are burdened down with work and request to exhibit their work. And I also counsel a lot of my students since I do have a large number of minority students, that there is a possibility for them to become artists.
When I came up, I went to a Black college and they discouraged us from going in any of the professions other than what we call the five in mortuary science, hairdressing, uh, theology, agriculture, and teaching. So I make sure that I try, and I do, I've convinced a lot of students that if they'd like to become painters, sculptors, and I tried to use my example as an example for them, that it is possible and that they should do that. You know, because I think that any, uh, people should have a very diversified, uh, uh, professional base. And I think that, uh, you know, so we should be aviators, lawyers, painters, music, you know, so I feel that in this area, I should do that. So I do that with my students.
Ruth Bowman: So it's an aspect of selfhood, which is commercially viable for some people.
Benny Andrews: Well, it-it-- well, again, I go back to this saying that I think that people should do what they like to do. I insist that you maintain high principles in the process, you know, that you have, but-- so there are a lot of people that would like to be these things, but they're discouraged because they're convinced that they're not gonna get a job, they're not gonna do this, and they're not gonna do that. And that is something that I fight constantly with people, not just my students, but with people, is that, you know, I point out to them, a lot of students, if they want jobs, they could get a job.
Now, why even go to college if their ambition in life is to get a job? And what is the pleasure of existing if you're not going to try to do what you'd like to do? Then I try to point out to them sometimes that there is more in life than just earning money. It's not that you can't earn some money as an artist, but the compensations for being in these professions sometimes a greater than what-- you know, the compensation you'd get from earning a little extra money in one of these professions that offer a sure-fire job [unintelligible 00:14:26]
Ruth Bowman: So it's really, uh, Benny Andrews, working toward being as well as doing.
Benny Andrews: Yes, yes, yes, I--
Ruth Bowman: And in this being, I-I just wanted to ask you one question about the prison program that you, uh, started. And that is, uh, how did you convince the prisoners and a-after you had worked, you know, through the authorities, that this was something that was valid for them to do?
Benny Andrews: Well, you see the, uh-- in prisons, the ones that we've been in, uh, there is no problem of convincing the prisoners. They are captives. They have no opportunity to escape. They have no-- nothing to do. They will do almost anything, which has been shown over and over, and that anything you can name, people in captivity will do. And, uh, we've found out that a large number of people when they get out, they're no longer interested.
Ruth Bowman: Mm-hmm.
Benny Andrews: So we do not try to concentrate out-- There are eight ex-inmates that work with me personally now, they work with me, but a large number who expressed and shown all kinds of interest inside, once they get out, they're no longer interested. That was not the problem. The problem really turns out to be, which I help set these, uh, kind of programs up all over the country now, tends to be more the, uh, kind of ignorance that both sides have of each other.
The administration and the general public. That's where the problem is. It's not the prisoners, it's not even the need of the institution. It's not even the fact that people in the general public would like to help, it is the stereotyped views of each other. That is-is that the general public think that the, uh, administration of all prisoners are these animals, and all, it seems, that the administration of the prison seems to think that you have this, like, uh, thoughtless and careless public that don't want to do anything. And they both are standoffish. I'm involved now in a seminar experiment at Queens College where we are working with students and we'll eventually bring prisoners to the-- my classes at Queens College.
And we feel that-- and this-- [unintelligible 00:16:29] uh, co-director, this is, uh, teacher Bill or Jim Fisher, we feel that [unintelligible 00:16:34] borough in Manhatt-- in New York state is set up like a city. So why shouldn't the city university in that borough, the city prison, the city hospital, the city shelter for, uh, abused children, what-- why shouldn't they work together? But they are all islands. Now, we are working with, uh, the Queens, uh, shelter for abused children too, and we are going to open-- 'cause that's where a lot of people who go into the prisons come from and-and-and of course, all walks of life or that kind of place. But--
So if we could just break that down, and you have this manpower in all of these places. We have 600 students at Queens that are in work-study that would just be happy to go into all of these institutions, but there's no one to break it down. So we are trying to break it down.
Ruth Bowman: Administrative, uh, costs must be high though.
Benny Andrews: No, no. They're gonna get credits. They're begging for, uh, work in, uh--
Ruth Bowman: Real work.
Benny Andrews: Yes. They-they-they-they look for places to get credits. They have these off-campus thing, but it's just no one has talked to the warden, or hadn't talked to the warden at the-- of prison at the-- Queens and the Kings County, whatever. And it's just a little work sometimes.
Ruth Bowman: To-to convince them this is a valid program.
Benny Andrews: Yes.
Ruth Bowman: What are the kinds of objections you hear to art? I mean, you've been through this, heaven knows, uh, you know, for 20-20 years now, or close to it.
Benny Andrews: Well-well, people are afraid of each other because like I said, they have these stereotype views. Uh, we had an instance of an artist walking into one of the prisons, and it was his first time, and he immediately started calling the guards pigs because he'd been reading all that in the paper and things like that. And one of the inmates told him, "Hey, man, cut it out. That cat-- that guard is all right." The inmate told the artist that the- that the guard he was calling a pig was all right. Now, you know, it's just the irony of it. So he was a person who was so prejudiced about all guards or all correctional officers.
And of course, they're the exact same way. Of course, you have a large number of correctional officers think anyone who has a beard or anyone who says they're artist or something sees all the-- and you get a large amount-- you got a-a lot of that. But, uh, it-- my feeling is that once the-- some of that suspicion is erased, then a-a lot of good work can be done. I don't say that it would be perfect. No, no, there are all those people, there are those pigs, and there are those, uh, stereotype people, there are all those people exist in large numbers, but, uh, it is just-- it has to do-- you know, the-the barrier has to do a lot with ignorance.
Ruth Bowman: Getting back to your own work, Benny Andrews, when do you find time when you're doing, uh, prison projects and, uh, expansion teaching projects into, uh, various institutions and encouraging, uh, the-- those who have been deprived of, uh, I suppose, selfhood in many, uh, instances into art? When do you get time to do your own work?
Benny Andrews: Well, that's funny because people ask me that all the time. And I-I have plenty of time. I work, uh, I-I paint, you know, practically every day or so. I don't-- I-- it's not something that I insist on reporting to my studio at eight o'clock and working until 5:00, but, um, I-- it's all a part of the same thing. In other words, I don't ha-- I only involve myself in things I want to do.
I've always tried to retain that right. In other words, when-- it is like I'm saying that I feel that I-- I'm coming to the end of what I can do in terms of the prisons and not feel-- and if I feel that way, then I know that it's time for me to look for something else, you know, to try to innovate in in terms of some kind of changes, but, uh, I-I-I have plenty of time, and it-- and it's like I say, I don't have to turn my head off of this to go into this.
It's all the same thing. I think it's being a complete person. You know, I-I-I think that more people should engage themselves in other things. I-- like I say, I play chess, I do all those, I would play more tennis, but I can't. Now, that's something I-- but what I'm trying to say is, is that you have many facets to be developed, it's not just one or two things. I-I-I feel sorry for people that, you know, just concentrate on one or two things.
Ruth Bowman: But you're-you're, uh, recognized professional, uh, superiority as a painter. Uh, uh, after all it's an international thing. Your-your work hangs in all the major museums and-and-and is in a lot of collections. Uh, this is, uh, uh, certainly the result of a good deal of concentration on your part. Uh, I-I will not ask you about the symbolism of your, uh, of single parts of-of your Bicentennial Series, but I wonder in the totality of it, do you envisage it all being hung together?
Benny Andrews: Uh, yes. There is a, uh, a museum exhibition that is being planned now that was start, uh, in 1975 in January, the High Museum. That's where I'm from, Atlanta. And the High Museum in Atlanta is putting together, uh, may-- it won't be a retrospective. It would just be from the Bicentennial Series, maybe three or four. Oh, yeah, someday I would like to see them hang together, yes.
Ruth Bowman: Uh, as-as an aspect of-of what would-- what I call it projected, uh, feeling or attitudes of yours, uh, it's-it's hard to, uh, concretize, I guess, what art is.
Benny Andrews: Mm-hmm.
Ruth Bowman: But in terms of my own response, I found that it was quite overwhelming. I don't know whether it was the shadows or the surface or the contrast or-or the subject matter or the combination of-of the four, uh, responses, but it was-- I responded as strongly to the drawings for it as I did to the painting itself. And I--
Benny Andrews: Well, I-I-I feel, you know, like I said, that this, um, I-I've existed in a way of kind of a dual existence. I came out of a very rural, uh, situation and then I went into a very sophisticated one to go into the art world, you know, to become a painter, you're exposed to that. And I think that my drawings, I've always liked, uh, Matisse and, uh, well, some of Picasso's early--
I like all of Pica-- most of his work, but the earlier ones that he did [unintelligible 00:22:16] line drawings and things. And I was always amazed at how much Matisse could get between two lines and that austerity, and since I use so much texture in my paintings and things, and I always like to take up challenges. I like the challenge. You see, for me to say I'm doing a series, it's a challenge because that's ridiculous.
And, you know, you-you would assume that the individual has a predetermined thing he's gonna end up with. I haven't-- I don't have the slightest idea of what my next work will be. You know, the number four. I keep talking about utopia because I can't imagine it. And that's where the fun is. See the, uh, Circle, all that's over for me. It was over when I finished it or even before the show was done. And so it's-it's like a crazy existence. And the same thing about, uh, uh, the symbols and things. I have a-- they change. I don't know what the-- one-- I-I do know one thing that I did with the watermelon is that in some ways, it's a negative thing in terms-- uh, uh, uh--
Ruth Bowman: I think that's felt.
Benny Andrews: So, uh, I would-- I like to deal with that. I-I like to face things. I like to try to deal with it. Now, whatever it ended up being, that's, uh, an opinion that the viewer has to get.
Ruth Bowman: Well, since it ended up being several and-and I guess I would say many things for me, that is the watermelon almost as a wound or the watermelon as a- as a temptation or the watermelon, as-as both-both success and failure. You know, it's-it's-it's marvelously, uh, coherent in-in the painting called The Circle.
I think, uh, Benny Andrews, that we'll have to have you come back again because, uh, our time has flown. And, uh, we've-we've had a flavor of your attitudes, but not enough of your ideas. And so I-I thank you for coming and I hope you'll come back.
Benny Andrews: Thank you very much, Ruth.
Speaker 1: That concludes this edition of Views on Art with Ruth Bowman as moderator. Your comments and suggestions will be read with care. Send them to Ruth Bowman, WNYC, New York, 10007, and join us again next week at the same time for another program, Views on Art.
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