Ambition. He clearly said that he had the ambition to be a great artist, to have a seat at the table in art history.
Drawing vs Painting: Interesting discussion with the lack of education and whether he would have ended up in the same place if he had a more formal art education. But art saved his life.
Photographs vs Life: The awkward moments captured. 1/32 of a second, instead of the movements summed up in observations from life. And then comes Photoshop!
Role of Education: The art education you get Cooper Union (we know from my dad, and David Rosenfeld's too) is serious and classic. The art education you get at the California Institute for the Arts (we know from Fischl) was lax and permissive. It didn't provide him with rigid skills or direction. As a result he graduated incomplete as an artist and had to fill in the blanks as he went along. Good question from the audience: "do you think you would have been as significant an artist, if you had a more serious art education?" He couldn't say either way.
Other Topics: Growing up in Port Washington: Alcoholism, inside/outside, voyeurism.
Patron: that worked out.
Dealer: that worked out even better.
He Paints Suburbia. In the ancient days, the center of action was the nobility or he military. Then came the theologians and academics. Then the industrial titans, and then the city sophisticates. All worthy subjects of art. But sometime in the 50's was born the suburbs, and a worthy subject of art it was not.
That is until Eric Fischl started to paint it in the 80's, showing it's depth and meaning. Masturbating boys, naked people on lawn chairs, lovers, actors.
Sure there's plenty of growing old, slowly, week by week. But in my suburban crowd at least, there's circulation of people and ideas to compete with any other place. A wasteland of compromises and desiccated dreams? That's the hollywood version. Instead it's the clay of reality--moldable, warm, smells like the earth in late April.
Here's something to help remember it: pictures.
