David Lynch Interview
David Lynch is the only person on Earth who knows who killed Laura Palmer. He is best known as the master of the bizarre, behind the camera of Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Lost Highway. However, from 13 January to 26 February, he is David Lynch the painter, who exhibits his art in the Grand Duchy. On display in the Nosbaum & Reding gallery is a collection of lithogra- phs and drawings he made between 2007 and 2010. Sir Lynch invites us to take an intimate dive into his more perverse nightmares.
When was the first time you sold one of your pictures?
In the beginning I didn’t sell my pictures, I just gave them away. A man for whom I was working as a print worker in Philadel- phia, Roger Lapelle, paid me 25 dollars a just for a painting, under the condition that he got to keep everything I produced over the day. I did that on Saturdays when I wanted to make a little extra money.
The first piece of art that I really sold, was a relief-like picture, on which I projected my first movie (“Six Men Getting Sick”). My wife Peggy’s High School teacher bought it.
How much did you get for it?
Not enough to remember how much (laughing)…
Are there any lost pictures that you will never see again?
Yes, there are many lost pictures…
What do you feel thinking about them?
I don’t feel good. I don’t care about several ones, but the loss of the others makes me sad.
Do you feel guilty?
Not in all of the cases. Certain ones simply got stolen. Sometimes I didn’t have enough space to store them properly. I also left behind several ones and they probably got thrown in the trash over the years.
Have you ever destroyed a well-crafted, finished picture?
I have destroyed finished pictures, but they weren’t good. I am pretty certain about that.
Is it possible to treat a picture badly or even abuse it?
No, even if you light it on fire and completely burn it – it’s gone. You can be destructive, sometimes that creates an amazing idea to proceed on the way.
And what do you think about the observer or owner of the picture?
They can do with it whatever they want. It would be sad to destroy a picture. But oddly enough people have some sort of re- spect for that thing that somebody else created. Especially, if the object was handcrafted by somebody.
Do you like the idea that your best works are kept in museums or collections?
Actually that has not happened yet. There only are some photos of mine in museums. My work has been exhibited in museums, but I have only sold few of them.
Maybe a museum is not the best place for a picture?
You are trying to tempt me into saying something like that! Museums are so very important. And usually a museum will exhibit art pieces in a good way: brilliant light, surrounded by purity, so the people can look at the piece itself. If somebody buys a piece for home, that can interfere with the purity of the experience. Catalogues are very important. Persons that are far from the exhibition can also experience it. That is the second best solution. The internet has not yet reached the standard of quality to really make an experience possible. The internet can only provide a hint.
Is the devil a good painter?
It is: “The devil is a liar and the father of all lies.” People think that he is a person. But he counts among the forces that keep us in duality and prevent us from finding ourselves. It is a game and the devil is in the world to make the game last for as long as possible.
Is there a connection between art, the experience of art and betrayal?
Ever since money has gotten involved – and the grading of things by means of money has been around for centuries –, of course betrayal and tricks are part of these affairs. There are numerous stories about that. And it increases the value of the whole thing. I suspect that that is part of the game, too.
Do you remember the first pornographic picture that you caught sight of?
I saw some fantastic pornographic pictures in Philadelphia! Two of my friends were involved with that: one of the collected pornographic pictures and the other one was Jack Fisk, the brilliant director and painter, who used to work in an infamous book shop. Every once in a while he would show me something. I remember one old picture showing two girls and a sailor. It was really hardcore! Over the time I realized that if you see too much of it, it gets cold and depressing – at least it does with me. That takes away a lot of the actually experience. But there is a certain fascination to it. Pornography can get you to dream sometimes.
What are the things that you need to believe in as a painter?
The original idea, intuition, yourself. You need to get as close as possible to your own voice. You will continue working, even if you’ve lost faith, until you have the feeling that it is right. There can be setbacks and destructive incidents along the way. But those can also be lucky accidents. You only need to make sure to keep moving and never paint the same picture twice. You always have to dive into the unknown.
Goodness, wisdom, dignity – is it hard to create a space for such things in painting?
No! Goodness, wisdom and dignity are in all things. If only you get deep enough into the world of painting you don’t need to make the effort to separately think about those things.
Does beauty sometimes have to be protected by ugliness?
Contrast belongs to the field of relativity. With time proceeding, ugly things become fewer and fewer. Everything is beautiful. Everything! Of course there are personal preferences.
I have this fresh scar on my hand…
That is the ideal example! Usually something like a scar is con- sidered ugly. I believe that the scar makes your hand a lot more interesting. It is beautiful. It has texture. The shape, the forms, the colors! If you isolated it by photographing… It is an organic phenomenon. It contains beauty.
Do you have a different relation towards time while painting?
Yes. I believe that time goes by slower if you’re getting tortured. If you really enjoy something the time seems to be flying out the window. All of a sudden it’s late at night or even later. It is weird that there are no set times, that the character always changes. Most days simply are not long enough… Far from it!
Do you require sunlight to paint?
Yes, I do. I have gotten used to painting outside. As I live in Southern California I can do that almost every day of the year. Now, at the end of fall and early winter – one may laugh at me – it’s too cold for me nevertheless. There are beautiful days, but the light seems too depressing and the sun is very low on the horizon. But once spring comes that means a lot of euphoria! I need the heat of the sun for a lot of things that I do.
Do you feel like some old artist?
Everything is relative. Everyone knows: talking to ourselves, we are talking about an ageless self. It’s that of our childhood (laugh- ing). Sometimes, it surprises me to look in the mirror and realize that you are no longer at an age that once was. But that doesn’t bother me. The ideas keep floating, the euphoria is there, luck is there, you carry on.
Do you like purgatory as a model of time?
Most people don’t know where they were before they got here. They only know that they are on an earthly journey that will come to an end at some point – in their body. We don’t know where we are going afterwards. 100 percent: we don’t know! Some people still claim to know anyway. I am absolute pro heav- en on earth. We talked about meditation. The entire enchilada lies inside of us. The heavenly kingdom lies within us. I believe in the sentence: mankind was not created to suffer. Happiness (“bliss”) is in our nature. If you take a look around, that doesn’t seem to be that right. But ultimately it is true.
