JOSEF ALBERS / KEN PRICE

JOSEF ALBERS / KEN PRICE 

Excerpts From Conversation Between Ken Price And Brooke Alexander

BA: I’ll tell you what started me on this project–I don’t remember

exactly who told me this, I think it was Henry Hopkins, who said that

on an early visit he saw an Albers print hanging on the studio wall.

KP: Yes, I had one from Tamarind. I had it framed and it was up in my

studio for years. I have a set of Albers silk-screens, which I got

from Irving Blum in the 60’s. There are about ten of them, they’re

wonderful. And I was impressed by the painting the L.A. County

Museum had; a little canvas that was essentially blue, black, and

white… I always thought Albers was the most authentic in terms of

color theories. His was the real theory, because it was based on

practice. He was the guy who really dealt with the colors, and that

was it. And it was a natural thing, color that lives on its own. It

doesn’t need any support from imagery, or art history, or any of

that stuff… It’s like music, it stands by itself.

BA: What attracted you to Mexico and the Southwest?

KP: When I grew up, L.A. had more of a Mexican look and feel to it.

At least I thought so. Maybe I was attracted to brightly colored

stuff, and Mexicans are not afraid of color. When I was young

there was lots of handmade pottery from Mexico around L.A., and

later I got into curio stores in Tijuana, which were filled with

pottery from Oaxaca, Tonala, and other parts of Mexico. And a lot

of it was great. I think that was one of the high moments in folk

pottery. But it was already dying because the potters couldn’t make

a living. And when people learned how much lead was in the glazes,

that really finished it off. In the 70’s with ”Happy’s Curios” I tried to 

make a kind of homage to the Mexican Wares, not to make direct 

copies, but pieces that were in the spirit of the Mexican pottery.

BA: It seems to me this sensibility continues; the recent lava

drawings might be Hawaii, but the high-keyed color strikes

me as tilting toward a Mexican sensibility.

KP: That’s right. The color thing, it’s very intuitive; it’s not some

sort of formula. It’s how they feel, really. That’s why I had an affinity 

with the Mexican artists: it’s (the way they use) color.

BA: Was there a particular thing you were thinking about when you

made the drawing?

KP: If there was, I certainly don’t remember, but it looks like Mexican

linoleum or tiles…

BA: Well, as I got into the relationship between your and Albers’ work,

it occurred to me that there was a kind of parallel thinking coming

from opposite ends. In other words, your Mexican sources were

inexpensive curio shop ceramics and the graphics of clichéd tourist

posters and Albers was coming from his interest in Pre-Columbian

artifacts, and Aztec/Mayan ruins – what we might call the “high”

art side. And, somehow, the forms and colors that both of you derived 

from Mexican culture end up having a certain relationship That,

to me, was very interesting because it comes from polar extremes

of the cultural spectrum.

KP: Right. I probably wouldn’t have said Albers before, but it’s similar.

In this context, it’s obvious.

BA: In a similar way, I saw a relationship between some of your drawings

and prints and a group of Albers’ work called Structural Constellations.

For example these interior scenes that have a city view where, as you 

look at it, the eye is led out the window and back again. To my mind, there

is a similar circular experience in looking at Albers’ Structural

Constellations.

KP: [looking at the catalog] Yes, I like the comparison here…

I remember this scene; this was right out the window in Venice. I

made a lot of these drawings, just looking out the window. I love

that vantage point, of being sort of up, seeing all of L.A. from the

second story.

BA: One thing that we haven’t approached at all is color. And I noticed

these color charts beside the works in progress, and one I counted

has 14 colors. What is your process?

KP: Most of them have 14 colors now. The pieces start off with a grainy

surface. And they get painted with lots of thinly brushed coats of

a sequence of colors. And after they’ve been painted enough they

get sanded so that the surface becomes smooth and marks appear 

from the colors underneath. The more they are sanded the larger

and more connected the marks become. But they’re always different.

The reason for the 14 colors is so if you don’t like the way it looks

you can sand deeper and open up a different color scheme. But you

can’t really control what the marks will do, they just happen.

BA: Do you ever have second thoughts about earlier work in the sense

that when you look at it now, you have a different take on it or

that you remembered it differently?

KP: I’ve been making artworks for over 50 years now and can’t always

remember what I was thinking or feeling in the past. Occasionally I’m

confronted with something I must have made but don’t recognize at

all. And I’m assuming that memories of earlier works are enhanced

or distorted, but I don’t have second thoughts about it, or regrets

if I don’t like it. I’m too involved in what I’m doing now to worry about

it. I’m really enjoying the process of making my new work.