In Conversation: Jean Manuel Beauchamp Interviews John Zinsser

In Conversation: Jean Manuel Beauchamp Interviews John Zinsser

A discussion of the “File Sketches” series by New York artist John Zinsser, which are on display at kunstgaleriebonn, Bonn, Germany, along with his recent paintings. Zinsser co-founded Journal of Contemporary Art in 1987, consisting solely of interviews with artists and special projects. Jean Manuel Beauchamp is director of Panaman Pictures.

Links:
www.kunstgaleriebonn.com
www.jca-online.com
http://panamanpictures.com/

Jean Manuel Beauchamp: In the file folder sketches, I can see that they’re consciously composed but, then, there’s this feeling of “down-time.”

John Zinsser: Yes, “studio time.” Here in Greenpoint, the sky is always grey, depressive—it’s “nowhere time.” There is always this urgency to do something. But it’s so impossible to do anything. So I try to find these “devices” to keep moving. A lot of the little sketches are done as just sort of “warm-ups.” To “get my hand going” before I work on a painting. A lot of the collage elements come out of newspapers or books. I’m really not trying to consciously think about things. As a painter, I try to work more blindly and intuitively. These are tools to try to do that.

JMB: So you could say that the work in the folders has a life outside sometimes?

JZ: They are free-association. They have fragments of songs. Or fragments from news segments on the radio.  Sometimes it’s just nonsense. This one says: “VERTICAL STANCHION: POLITICS AND THE RISE OF THE NEW LEFT.”  Paired with a certain drawn geometric configuration. The next sketch says, “FREE EXTENSION—AND OTHER MYTHS OF URBAN PLANNING.” The third one says: “ON THE BACKS OF GIFT HORSES.”

JMB: Do you put a date on them?

JZ: Each time I go to the card, I write a date, and so they’re kind of diaristic. A lot of them have to do with coming back to look at something a second time. If you do the kind of painting that I do, you have to come back and look at it the next day, to see it objectively. When you first turn on the lights—that’s the one moment of “distilled consciousness.”

JMB: I like also that they give this “textbook” vibe, where you invite other readers to investigate their own thing.

JZ: Absolutely. I’ve always liked reading footnotes, even if I don’t read the main text. Because footnotes are all these kind of “annotations” or a “side alley” into something scholarly, a specific that somehow buttresses up a larger idea somewhere else.

John Zinsser, The Lonely One, 2012, Lack und Öl auf Leinwand / enamel and oil on canvas, 16 x 12 in. Courtesy of the artist.

JMB: I love the play that it could be a teacher doing these. It could be a schoolboy. It could be a medical professional. The way that it’s presented — it’s almost like you’re practicing for a test.

JZ: Yeah, it very much has that. You can see with this lettering, it comes from so many years of “rote” education, of trying to memorize things; this idea that if you write something carefully enough, somehow you will commit it to memory. There’s that hope.

JMB: But what about opinions? Theories?

JZ: Not so many opinions, no. It’s more like William Carlos Williams’ poetry, where if there’s a form of “realism,” it’s that you’re not interpreting the facts. You’re not “editorializing.” You’re just trying to “assemble” the facts in a way that resonates through how they came to you. So it’s really just the value of making lists. Any time I’m in a place, and there’s a song that comes on the radio, I will write down that song title.

When I go around the corner to the pizza place, here, on Franklin Avenue, they have all these trucks going by, and I will write down all the names of the trucking companies. They have these very “standardized” names. “Central Plastics, Inc.,” “New York Mech, LLC,” etc., etc. Then, in-between, you know, I will be listening to somebody’s cell phone conversation, and trying to write down what they’re saying: “Alright. Shutthefuckup. Bye.” “Alright. Bye.” “Whatthefuck. You ignorant. Hello.” “You get me mad.” You know, just trying to pick something up “out of the air” that’s going to mean something. This guy came in, he goes, “I’m not going to make it.” The other guy goes, “What?” He says, “Seven hours anesthesia.” So the other kid says to him, “My girl had it.” And I realized that they’re talking about some kind of surgery that the guy’s facing. But, you know, it’s kind of strange and disconnected.

JMB: I like.

JZ: And then all of a sudden it’s Cheap Trick on the radio, “Mommy’s alright, Daddy’s alright/They just seem a little weird…” All of this is like the “soundtrack,” the “dialogue,” the “place,” the “time of day”— “5:00 pm.” And then that’s juxtaposed with a picture that I had already pasted in here previously, which is of an Eduard Vuillard photograph from 1904. And then, I didn’t plan that this picture would be on this page, but that becomes the text to the picture.

JMB: And you take this methodology with you?

JZ: I have a notebook where I try to write down the name of every book that somebody’s reading on the subway. So: “woman with half her hair shaved off, reading, Please Kill Me.” “Woman reading, Intimacy.” Both are self-help books, right? “Woman’s bag: From Cruelty to Kindness: The Humane Society.” “Woman reading: Finnish Lessons.” That’s all the same subway car. And then we’re moving from 50th Street to 34th Street, and I’m taking note of that. My accompanying notes: “This train came from Queens, Roosevelt Island, smells like fried chicken, odd assortment of characters.”

File Folder Portfolio:
http://www.facebook.com/messages/1200049630#!/media/set/?set=a.348383835182427.84872.191413724212773&type=1

Full Interview Available here:
http://soundcloud.com/jbeauchamp/zinsserinterviewmarch32012