01.21.07
Luke Paul Zimmermann, artist
Monica Alfonso, interviewer (artist)
Rama Tiru , moderator (photographer)

Monica: What are the core aspects of minimalism to you? Is it the distilling of the art object? Is it a refined image combined with clean lines and execution? I wanted to discuss this, because in considering Judd’s work the context of the art in the space was so important. In contrast you’re working within the confines of painting.

Luke: Yes, I am working within the confines of the painting. It’s the cleanness of the lines, it’s the fact that everything comes out. It’s almost like a mathematical process. You work in a certain size for a certain reason; you’re putting paint down for a certain reason. Each one of those pieces out there, of the nine pieces, each one of them is graded from black to white and it was not done randomly. We took measuring cups and measured the paint out so that each color was graded to the next grade and the next grade and the next, until I returned to the color at the other end. I started out with white, then added a little black to the white, then added more black to the white, and more until I arrived at the center panel, which is 50/50, and then it started reducing down, moving towards black. It’s also about the flatness and the cleanness of the lines. There’s no brush stroke. It’s meant to be totally flat. It’s meant to speak that way. Even the colored series is a transition from yellow to red. I like that, but it’s really the black and the whites that drove me to do this.

Monica: You mentioned in your statement that you had a memorable assignment back in art school. You were asked to reproduce a color photo in black and white. What was it about that process, what did you discover in that? Distilling the image in this way?

Luke: Well, I take the color out of it. So you’re really working with shadows aren’t you? You’re pulling the color process out, aren’t you? You’re just working with tone. When I decided to start painting again that was a lesson that came back to me. I decided to do something in black and white. I’m really not about black and white, but I wanted to start back there again. I wanted to revisit where I was a long time ago and then allow myself to move forward out of that space and to whatever space it is that I’m headed towards. There’s my pop can’ art for example. There are other things too, like the self portraits’, where I used my chef’s coat and apron. It was a coat of mine from about ten years ago that I don’t use anymore, but it’s a part of me. So I just dipped it in plaster, hung it up and let it dry.

Monica: Yes, it reminds me of a combine or something. We talked about that one because it’s like your homage to Rauschenberg.

Luke: Well it’s like a lot of things Rauschenberg did. The things I like are basically post WWII, until about the mid-seventies. That’s the stuff I reference off of. That’s the stuff I spend most of my time looking at –what most of my library is about, books that I buy, catalogues that I buy. I’m not adverse to going to other shows but if I’m going to travel to Fort Worth or Dallas or Houston, it’s because there’s something of interest that has come along –like a Motherwell show. I’m going to go to that. That’s one thing I appreciate about Fort Worth, the new Modern in Fort Worth. It’s bringing art, that we don’t get a lot of in Texas, into Texas. Are you familiar with Sean Scully? Fort Worth did a large show of his recent works not long ago. I found those interesting. I found minimalism in them. It’s minimal in the sense that those bands’ are being repeated over and over again. He rearranges them, and colors them a little differently, and there are brush strokes in the works. However, if you take the context of the whole body of works itself you can almost see it as minimalism –the fact that the palate is limited.

Monica: I want us to talk about the fact that Judd didn’t think that emotion had any place in art outside of the experience of looking at the art object, in admiring the construction and materials. But he rejected the brush stroke as it refers to the expression of emotion. And that’s thought of as the presence of the hand, which Judd and other artists connected to minimalism, rejected. So how do you feel about that? I think that you are trying to respect the clean lines and purity in minimalism but also have this need to create a disruption.

Luke: There’s a piece of mine that’s a dual canvas. First of all I painted a flat gray canvas. I started painting a second canvas the same color. I put down a few brush strokes and I thought, hey, this looks good at this point, right here; and I stopped because I could feel it work just a white canvas with a few simple brush strokes. But I thought can you still call that minimalism?, because now all of a sudden you’re injecting brush strokes into the work. Does that still qualify? Then I realized I had dual colors (white and gray) and that was it. That was my statement for minimalism, so I could stop there, and it was okay for me. It’s the simplicity and the purity of it –that’s what it’s about. And I can accept that painting because it has a certain simplicity and purity to it when you look at it; it’s serene. With another painting, I painted a large white canvas and then a large gray canvas. I leaned them against each other after they dried –and walked away; and I when I looked at them the next day, they weren’t exactly lined up perfectly. I realized there was a little white line running along two of the edges, where one canvas was offset from the other, and I thought that’s perfect! Now all I’ve got to do is attach them together, offset like this, and it’s a perfect expression for me of minimalism –there’s just that little bit of white edge on two sides.

Monica: Yes, and it’s working with the structure of the material, the canvas.

Rama: I was under the impression that minimalism is the placing of light and shapes, without actually bringing in your brush stroke. Minimalism can be a number of colors. It could be a band; it could be any shaped kind of thing. With Scully’s work it’s mostly the placing of the lines and the shapes. And that’s why I was curious about your interpretation of minimalism: you have lines and shapes but you are defining it by tonality. You are focusing on the tonality of a group of canvases. If you take one canvas out would it still be minimalism? Or if you take one on its own will it be minimalism?

Luke: To answer that question, you’ve got 9 canvases to a series. They don’t always have to be aligned in a horizontal band, or they don’t always have to be aligned into a square. There are numerous ways to put those boxes [canvases] together as long as you’re using the 9 boxes [canvases]. You can line them up according to whatever your sensibilities would be, and it wouldn’t take them out of the context you’re working with. You still change the language of the series by changing the location of each canvas.

Rama: But do you want the language to change every time you place it in a different formation?

Luke: Oh, it definitely changes.

Rama: So would you do this with all your work, or do you have a certain format? Like you have the red and yellow [series] in a square format arranged together; and you have a horizontal format for the white to black [series]. You said you worked on it by increasing the tonality in every square. Because your thought process was in steps, will you keep them as the steps of the same thought process?

Luke: You can move them around. When you move them around and change the way they’re lined up it really changes the language.

Rama: But what do you want to do with them?

Luke: I don’t know the answer. I’ve been working on the canvases themselves; I’ve put them on the floor; I’ve started lining them up in different forms, and I’m not sure exactly how each series is going to be. The colored one [red/yellow series], I really like the way it is –in that square box formation. The black and white flats could very well be changed around. Sometimes the horizontal band works for me, sometimes it doesn’t, maybe it’s my mood at the time.

Luke: Monica, you talked about Judd and specifically the importance of him placing his work in space.

Monica: Yes, for instance I know in his later installations he conceived of the work after picking the site as with the aluminum boxes. When he discovered those artillery sheds, he executed the work after discovering the space. I wanted to know how much this was considered in the process of making this body of work. When you’re working with so few components in this vein every aspect must be spot-on for the experience to be what you intend to communicate to the viewer. I wanted to know if you were interested in considering the installation of your work as site-specific. Because that was so important to a lot of the artists working in that vein — the connection to the work as it relates to a specific space.

Luke: Judd had the luxury of putting permanent works in permanent installations and it was a wonderful thing for him. I don’t consider it to be quite as important for me because . . . it isn’t. I certainly had to consider, when I proposed the show to Rama, the space it was going to be put into.

Monica: you were aware of the limitations of it.

Luke: Exactly. So that definitely dictated why the canvases are the size they are. I had a certain number of pieces I wanted to do. In a way these are like studies because it would be really nice to see these 10 x 10 canvases blown up to 30 x 30 –and to have that series marching across the wall. I think it’d have a larger impact. But it wasn’t really feasible in this situation so I had to deal with what I had, and did what I wanted to do or say. And going back to Judd and the artilleries, I think it’s interesting that when you go out there they open the building up for you to go in and there’s a certain time of day that you can attend the exhibits.

Monica: the light is just so?

Luke: Exactly! At the 10 am tour you go through the artillery buildings and see the boxes. The 2pm tour is of Dan Flavin’s work which is all indoors –and fluorescent lights. The position of the sun has nothing to do with anything because the buildings are all blackened out for the fluorescent light installation. But after I went on the 10 am tour, I realized there’s a reason the 10am tour goes through the artillery buildings: the sun is coming up from the East and coming through those glass windows.

Monica: And I know he installed those windows for that reason and he refused to have the exhibit shown in artificial lighting.

Luke: I have a photograph that I took of one of the boxes in the exhibit. And after I had it developed and blown up, I looked at it and it didn’t make any sense. The thing is that when the sun hits the boxes, it creates reflections that create optical illusions. It’s a magic trick.

Monica: Yes, it’s amazing that in the installation he was able to transform the metal boxes into these ethereal objects that are continuously shifting their shape and become almost immaterial; you forget at times that they are metal boxes.

Luke: It’s pretty magical, you look at the aluminum boxes and they actually shimmer. Sometimes the way the light comes in you’d almost swear it was Plexiglas you’re looking at; it’s no longer brushed aluminum. And the angles you catch them at, off the sunlight, they just change.

Monica: It’s just that the whole installation is best viewed at specific lighting conditions, I guess, which are present at 10am, because he didn’t want artificial lighting.

Luke: It makes me wonder about the cement boxes. They were the first installation he did out there, in the fields, and they were built on site. They weren’t built elsewhere and brought in. I wonder how many people actually walk out to those boxes and experience those boxes out there in the field.

Monica: It is a treacherous landscape. I only saw them from a distance.

Rama: Are the aluminum boxes identical? Not size-wise, but the inner configuration?

Luke: The dimensions of each are the same, but the interiors are different.

Rama: So when the light hits them, with several boxes with the different interiors, each one is a different presentation. And what do you see when the light moves across them? What you saw a half an hour ago, will it change in a major way because of the lighting?

Luke: I think that it would have to.

Rama: Have you gone back and revisited after half an hour?

Luke: Well you can’t do that. They schedule the tours for the artillery buildings at 10am and they let you in, then when you leave that building, they lock the door behind you. I actually emailed the Judd foundation before we went, to see if we could view them another time, and I never heard back from them. I just took that to be a no. What else are you going to think? I haven’t seen them on an overcast day yet. That would change the look again. I’m excited about going back and going to see the cement boxes; I really do wonder about those. I think there’s something going on out there in that field that you can’t really experience unless you get out to the field.

Monica: You mentioned creating space in your Artist’s Statement and I was wondering since your work is all 2-D as to what that space meant to you. Is it space between the work and the viewer?

Luke: I’d have to go back to the statement and look at it, but there is a spatial relationship between the viewer and the piece of art that’s very real. If you look at it up close, then step back to view it from 20 feet away, it definitely changes. Also how close together or how far apart the boxes are placed when the series gets hung is interesting. I’ll see how that works out. I’ve pushed the boxes together into a horizontal band with no space between them; then I’ve put them on the floor and spaced them with varying bands between the boxes. I really haven’t arrived at a conclusion about that. It’s certainly a part of the process that I’ve been thinking about. I’m not sure if that answers your question. I’d have to look at my Artist’s Statement again.

Monica: You just said that to exhibit is to create a specific space in time.

Luke: The exhibit is about creating a specific space in the time frame that you have to do it in and the wall that you’re putting it on.

Monica: So you’re still working out the arrangement?

Luke: This is true.

Monica: Is it a more intuitive process?

Luke: I think it will be because I see myself actually laying things out and thinking about it. After the works are done, I can start working with that. Just sitting here talking with you about it gives me food for thought along those lines, and I’m thinking: Since you did these paintings by mixing the paint with a formula, what about laying out the horizontal series with the first space between canvases being a 1/4 space, the second one a 1/2 space, with the third one a 3/4 space, and play with that and add that into the formula.

Monica: It could be interesting, since the installation would reflect the piece.

Luke: The space it’s in.

Monica: Right, and the concept, the incremental nature of it.

Luke: Yes, and that had never come to me until just now. So I’m sure that’s another way I’ll look at the boxes, considering the space between them.

Monica: I think that would add another dimension to the work, spacing the panels mathematically in accordance to the tonal range.

Rama: Yeah, I think so too, but that’s a different perspective, so it adds a three dimensional feel in your mind.

Monica: I did really respond to the two-panel piece though. We talked a lot about it when I visited your studio. I responded to it because even though that large, gestural mark refers to a brush stroke, I discovered that it was made using a paint roller. It also resembles a Xerox or some kind of a mechanically printed image or transfer. It has a lot of different readings. I liked that tension and it made me really stop and question how the mark was made.

Luke: That’s interesting. I’ve had people tell me it reminds them of film. I may need to explore that further.

Monica: And what about your other work?

Luke: My other works are much more abstract. Some relate to your momento’ pieces, Monica. My family actually contributed to some of them, as one of the things they’ve given me is a lot of photographs, from back when I was growing up, family photographs and whatnot. I attach them to the canvas.

Monica: So it’s about inserting a found object into the piece.

Luke: It is, and then I apply paint. I’m never quite sure how much of it’s going to be showing through.

Monica: Is it a personal memento that you’re assigning to the work like a stamp or something?

Luke: Yes, it’s assigning a personal part of my life, definitely. I’m sure you keep notebooks. We all do this. You write in those notebooks things that you think about concerning art. Typically, when I’m working on a project, I know I’m going to go to another project at some point. Often when ideas come to me I think this is a great idea but I haven’t got time for it right now, but I don’t want to lose the idea. If I try to keep it to memory I’m going to lose it. So I include it in this notebook and I go back and read the notebooks. And it allows you to edit because you’ll go back to the notebooks and say jeez what was I thinking that day?

Monica: So, tonality –that is what the black and white paintings are concerned with primarily.

Luke: Absolutely.

Monica: But then there’s that other piece we talked about that’s touching on something else. I wonder how far you wanted to take one or the other.

Luke: Well I tend to stay with things, so even though these pieces were done for this particular exhibit, I definitely want to stay with this for a while. I don’t really have one project that I finish with and move on. So I’m thinking about these black and whites –and even these flat tones and colors– I could see myself doing some more of those after this is all over. You know I could even see myself making black and whites that are not in a minimalist vein so much like this is –but actually putting brush strokes in– and still moving around in black and white for a while. I’m finding that sort of interesting –which would be the same thing if I go back to the two-panel piece you were talking about. I’d like to expand that idea, and see where that leads me. But then I’ve got pop can art that I’m doing, where I’m going to be actually flattening pop cans and attaching them to canvases that I’ve painted. And then there are the self portraits that I’ll be doing forever I think because

Monica: It’s ongoing.

Luke: Ongoing, yes. So all of a sudden it pops in your mind That could be a great self portrait. I don’t ever see any of my self portraits actually having my face in them, but who knows? Never say never! That’s not a good thing.

Monica: Those are about gathering objects that represent you.

Luke: Yeah. And that’s the same with found art, you know, it’s something that resonates to the person who finds it. Something resonates about that that makes you want to do something with it or incorporate it into your art if that’s what you do. That’s certainly where the Diet Coke can came from. I found it; I picked it up off the street, and I looked at it and I thought This resonates to me. And I don’t know what it is about it, but it resonates to me. So I took it home and I looked at it and I put it up for a while and next thing I know I’m out one morning with my car smashing pop cans to see what shapes I can come up with. I spent like an hour doing that until I got all these flattened pop cans.

Monica: Oh, you have more?

Luke: Oh, yeah, I’ve got plenty of them at the house. When I was doing this with the car, I thought God I wonder if the neighbors are looking? What is going on out there? So, that’s what I’m working on at this time.

Monica: Well, thank you for the interview, and I look forward to seeing your new work and studio.