Vogue. John Karrin. Jeff Koons. Jasper Johns. Francesco Clemente.

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Places of Power

In June, the Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art opens. On the eve of VOGUE managed to enter the holy of holies - the most powerful workshops of artists today.
Where are born paintings, which are then attracted to the minds of viewers and millions of dollars the estimate? What happens behind closed doors of the workshops of great artists? What they are looking at these studios - inspiration, escape from the mad, mad, mad world around us? What is hanging on the walls and stands on the shelves? Artist's Studio - not an incubator, where his ideas are born, not cast his genius, an amazing reflection of his vision of the world around.

The first asked such questions and captures the Titans contemporary art in their studios, creative director of VOGUE, Russian emigre Alexander Liberman. In 1948, during his trip to the Norman coast he photographed in the studio of Georges Braque Varenzhevil-sur-Mer. Thus began a project that Lieberman put into practice over the next ten years: every summer he went on a pilgrimage to Europe and with the tenacity of the modern paparazzi got into workshops Cezanne, Kandinsky, Bankuzi, Miro, Matisse, Picasso, Duchamp. In 1959, the result of the landmark work shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a year later published a book "The artist in his studio" - the bible of the art of XX century.

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We live, as we are assured eminent art critics, in the era of "poslestudiynogo art." Many of our contemporaries like Maurizio Cattelan and conceptual wit Francesco Vetstsoli easily cost a laptop and a phone. But some of the titans of modern art - among them Jeff Koons, John Karrin, Jasper Johns and Francesco Clemente - like Michelangelo and Raphael, doing workshops. And VOGUE, following the precepts of Lieberman's found the key to their doors.

John Karrin

John Karrin writes Anna Braytfort nudes in his studio in Manhattan against a green wall, where he got the idea of ​​photography workshop Lucian Freud made Alex Liberman.

Our first address - New York, Manhattan. "The first thing I dealt with a kitchen, - says John Karrin fifty years, kicker, who began by drawing a naked classmates in the eighties and for many years a former regular contributor to Playboy. - I broke it because I needed her huge window in the roof. Since then, I started to paint in natural light even on a gloomy day, no turning back. Electricity was not I would never - it's like flying economy class after the business. " What he does not like to shop? "Everything else". It's been half a year, as Karrin moved here, but it never brought to mind. First, the walls were too white, like a banal contemporary art gallery. But the album Lieberman Karrin spied marsh shade of green, which were painted walls workshop Lucian Freud. But do not hit the tone and repaint the wall have neither the time nor the energy. Second, there is still too little space for books on the history of art: as without a shadow of embarrassment recognized artist, they are vital to any creator of the XXI century. The latest addition - the catalog of Francois Boucher, who gave Karrin his wife Rachel, an artist, on the fiftieth anniversary - lying right under your feet. "And the floor, quite frankly, is useless, - complains John. - One of the previous owners covered the old oak flooring, water-based polyurethane, which on sunny days went gleams. "

The decor in the studio spartan, no sweet trifles, no signs of excessive luxury - simple easel, a large table with a top made of refractory mass and elegant chaise longue for nudes. "I prefer to work with models - explains Karrin. - I need to talk during the process, and dialogue with inanimate objects do not leave. "

Jeff Koons

Jeff Koons closely watching to see how assistants are working simultaneously on two of his paintings in the studio in New York's Chelsea. In a dozen canvases and several sculptures - they remained behind the scenes.
Quite differently arranged in the New York studio of Jeff Koons, the favorite of supermodels and Hollywood stars, porn star Cicciolina's ex-husband, and author of giant butterflies, gilt Michael Jackson. It is called the heir to Andy Warhol with his famous "Factory": a huge - ten thousand square meters - Koons studio work one hundred forty assistants. That's more than was once the Rubens, the singer excesses and herald the Dutch capitalist revolution.

Koons himself rejects the analogy with Warhol: "I just hate to be the one." He is convinced that the result will not change on himself if he is holding a brush or dab will be an assistant under his guidance. "It's about vision, not in technology." As a general rule, an employee of the studio is working with Jeff Koons nine or ten years, and then sent to float freely. Manager Gary McGraw - the oldest member of the "family" (the so-called apprentices Koons), he's here for twenty three years.

Koons frank: any production must be profitable, "We - the same assembly line, but our product - this is the beauty and passion." To kunsovskaya "non-factory" to function, requires two thousand five hundred five-liter cans of paint and three thousand seven hundred and fifty hands in the year. A more rigorous system of transfer plan and monitor its implementation at every stage. "I have to be sure that everyone understands what I'm waiting at the exit - says the artist. - And there is not a minor detail. " Make up your mind it is to create at least one of his sculptures without the help of the team, it would take about six years. And now here comes six to eight paintings and sculptures of ten to fifteen per year. "Not as much as I'd like, but we must keep the quality up to par. You can do more than just make the pot boil. "

As Karrin, Koons obsessed with natural light. "This is a prerequisite for drawing, but the studio is too big, so we use lamps Verilux - fluorescent light that mimics sunlight." Many of the assistants working in headphones - just not the Jeff. "The music distracts me from communicating with people. I want to see and hear everything that's going on to look over his shoulder, grasping the hand if required. Being on top of a word. Otherwise, I simply will not work. "

Jasper Johns

Eighty-three Jasper Johns - leaving nature: living off the beaten track in Connecticut, working in his garage, drawing with crayons and pastels, surrounds himself with gifts loved ones.
Jasper Johns and author of "Flags" - works on the Stars and Stripes U.S., which are considered classics of pop art, you can catch the work in two places: in the estate in the north-western Connecticut, where he adapted a studio spacious garage, and on the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean. "In the garage and the light comes from the north and from the south. This allows you to work from nine in the morning until five in the afternoon, with a break for lunch. But if you ask me about my dream studio, I remember Titian, - says the artist. - He even had a patio where pretty girls every day he covered the table under the olive trees, behind which he sat and stared at them. Is this not happiness? "
When he started out, I spent much time in cheap studios with low ceilings. "So, when I managed to take a tiny house with a garden in Southern California, I was so happy that I was running away draw at five in the morning and returned just before dawn." Jones almost does not use an easel - it attaches the canvas on the wall, puts it on the table or on the floor. Instead of the traditional palette of the artist prefers pieces of glass: "On the surface of the transparent color looks more natural." And it is bound to trinkets that lovingly arranged on the shelves around the perimeter of the studio. "Each of them has its own story. This fan gave me a geisha in Tokyo, and the African ostrich egg brought to each photographer, brilliant portrait lithographer Tatiana Grossman, I bought myself a reproduction of "Ginevra de Benci" by Leonardo da Vinci was left of my old assistant. Why, I even write a garden boy can not throw out. " Smacks Plushkin, but the result - a: Jones - the most expensive of the artists still alive in the world.

Francesco Clemente

Author nekrorealisticheskih somber paintings was born in a bright, Naples, and in his studio in New York, the atmosphere of the Italian south. The owner greets guests near the elevator and assigns to the kitchen, where a huge wooden table already ranting with his assistant, a bottle of wine with a friend. For large windows - a series of taxis crawling along Broadway on the floor - countless drops of paint, and around numerous chairs and tables - from Frank Lloyd Wright to Ettore Sottsass, which would do honor to any museum, if not lived his life in severe terms of artistic disorder. Why such a love of design? "Well, I graduated from the Milan Polytechnic, was going to be an architect. Or not going? Just know that there is a hotbed of any Marxist nonsense are found and interesting people, and that's done. "

Clemente takes this loft since 1981, when he moved from Rome to New York. Sagging sofa, standing in the corner, remembers the night talking Warhol and Basquiat, Keith Haring frenzied dancing and youthful antics of Julian Schnabel. "I had never been another workshop, except squat in India, where I started painting at nineteen. There I was hanging out with the artists who daub huge banners for Bollywood films. Perhaps, therefore, still prefer the monumental forms. "
Artistic mess, designer furniture, unfinished canvases and friendly party every day - because he lives and works by Francesco Clemente, who was born at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, in a fun and freestyle Naples.
On a small side table next to the sofa - wooden statue, a small piece of artificial lawns on which painted a football field, next to a cigar and a doll. "Figurine - is a Brazilian god of small religions that interest me. And he in turn is interested in football, women, and good cigars. I provided him with all necessary. "

The Artist's Wife Alba complains that raise four children on Broadway is not easy - but for the past thirty-three years without complaint brings to her husband in the morning jasmine tea from the ground floor, where they have their apartment. "I start work early in the morning, at which time the light is better, and finish about four - says Clemente. - In the evening, friends come, we sit down and talk. So we can say, from the time of Andy Warhol, little has changed. "

vogue.ru
PHOTO SOURCE: Annie Leibovitz; Francesco Carrozzini