I attended the Brice Marden session moderated by Barbara Solomon talk at the New York Times Arts and Leisure Weekend this afternoon; I had my son, Adam, with me, and was able to buy him a ticket, along with my own.

First, Barbara Solomon got on just about every one’s nerves with her questions.  I tried to take notes on my SideKick 3, but it was too noisy and had to stop - listen closely and now write the essence of what I heard.  I’ll write down what I remember in no particular order.

Brice Marden, whose show at MOMA I reviewed several weeks ago, had just visited his show this morning, back from vacation; he’s been there several times.  Part of doing a show  is seeing your art in one place - and creating work that you want to see.  In fact, it’s the artist’s job to create the best, most exciting work they’d want to see.

Marden was particularly sensitive to the space where art is shown - claimed that many Miro’s, particularly those in the Metropolitan Museum’s Modern Art Wing - were not well seen due to the room setting and “rugs”.   Brice Marden mentioned he like Miro’s late work but it’s not received much attension from curators.  Brice mentioned, in response to a question from Barbara Solomon (don’t recall what it was) that an artist starts to make a lot of money when they repeat themselves (I guess, later on in their career).

He mentioned he started out at Boston University (hope I got that right) and ended up with a Graduate Scholarship to Yale Art Academy where he had art feedback twice a week (one person gave “classical” feedback, the other, “romanticism” feedback and there was a graduate thesis which took the form of a show.  Brice Marden won a small prize from the show (400 dollars at the time, I think in 1963 - but I’m not sure) and ended up living in New York City where he rented an apartment from a landlord who bought his paintings, from time to time.  He had his first show in NYC around this time.

Brice Marden talked about working part time throughout his career - that he’s someone that opted to have a fixed income for his work (so he’d know how much he had to work with) over doing freelance work to get by.  Even now, he’s advanced a monthly stipend from his gallery dealer as his has a need to keep his many residences - his lifestyle up.  As well as Brice does - he still needs a steady income coming in.

Someone asked Marden a question at the end about what he’s influenced by - he said that he starts with an idea, that in the process, that idea is altered by the painting; he also mentioned he uses long brushes and that Velazquez, who he admired quite a bit, did to as well.

Getting back to Spanish painting, Barbara Solomon asked Brice how he liked the Spanish Painting show at the Guggenheim Museum..he said he was happy to see many of the paintings, particularly many of the older Spanish paintings being shown - but did not feel many of those  paintings worked in the environment of the Guggenheim.  Marden also said he admired Manet’s work a lot (which makes a lot of sense as the “gray” he uses in many of his earlier paintings seems to have been influenced by Manet.

There was probably a lot more I could write - but I don’t remember it all. Some of it will come back to me.

A funny moment - before the talk I ended up buying a ticket from a scalper for the show but it ended up being the for the wrong talk - one by an architect instead of the Marden show.    It made me think that often, when startled, it’s easy to be thrown off and make the wrong decision.  Out of 25 bucks, it may not have been the wrong decision for the man who I bought the ticket from.  It just shows me that good and bad, right and wrong, depend, somewhat, on what position you’re in.