Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, come in. Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, John Curran. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes?
Gee, I didn't think that was going to be the first question. Let's see. It's an old... I think it's Paul Smith, this jacket. It's a Tom Ford shirt. And... Tom Ford pants and I can't remember the shoes. They're really old and probably Amazon socks. I like corduroy jackets. I've always have and turned out to be perfect for for England. It's always terrifying coming traveling.
I never know what you know, I'm going to be hot. I'm always dreading being hot. So so turned out to be the right thing to wear.
You just missed the major heat wave, sir. Now we're back in the autumn, even though it's June.
Chapter 2: What clothing choices does John Currin make for his paintings?
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Download today. And you're an American painter and your work has been widely exhibited and is held in collections including MoMA, the Whitney and Tate and your paintings have sold for millions of dollars and the subjects in your pictures are often wearing the most specific and beautiful clothes and I wondered how do you decide what someone is going to wear in a portrait?
Well, I think I showed you I I was doing a painting recently and I had a kind of red jacket on and I thought it, I don't know, it wasn't interesting and my wife has this beautiful violet plaid jacket and I borrowed it and I realized it was by you. I had this lovely pink and gray and white and black tartan kind of plaid. And I hope it's okay. I made it, I turned it into a double-breasted coat.
But it was the most beautiful color on the, it had a kind of greenish yellow sky and the purple was really lovely, kind of made the painting. But I mean, I guess I make up, well, a lot of my paintings now, the sources, like Sears catalogs or Montgomery Ward catalogs from the, the time, basically from the time I was a, I was a kid.
So, so, you know, early seventies, uh, mid mid seventies and, and, uh, there's something about those scenarios and the, and the faces and the expressions and the hair and, um, even the ugly clothes, like I, I, I find transcended. I can just, those, I don't know, they, they seem to be endlessly applicable to, to almost like mythical creatures.
So the clothes sadly come from, you know, double knit pantsuits and stuff from those, from those catalogs.
They look really good. They do look mythical. It's interesting. And you described your home as the opposite of sexually expressive, which is quite an unusual comment on home life. And most children don't want to think about their parents as sexually expressive. And what did you mean by that?
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Chapter 3: How do childhood experiences influence Currin's artistic themes?
And I don't think of... And I don't... And I personally kind of do believe that sex is not really constructed, that it is rather essential. But... But on the other hand, I'm fascinated with its construction as well. The gender, the construction of it. But I don't think about it in a political way.
You know, my paintings are filled with things that are really more about the construction of the perception of sex, which is gender, rather than, you know, or rather maybe mixing a kind of essentialist Venus with then the construction that you see in, for instance, a clothing catalog.
Yeah. I was reading about when you talked about wanting to paint like James, like Sean Connery, but being more of a Clint Eastwood.
It's not so bad being Clint Eastwood, I can tell you. It's not a huge comedown. I mean, I think, you know, really though, There's another character in there, which would be like game show hosts from the 70s, you know, like one of these sad, like plaid jacket wearing game show hosts from the 70s.
Or like, I remember there was this guy named Gene Rayburn and he was this terrifyingly white teethed, white toothed, like. sideburns and you know, like, like that's another thing that interests me was those, those men from the seventies that were like, that had just missed that had just missed, you know, the youth movement.
You know what I mean?
Like they were a little bit, they were close enough to taste it, but they just, but they're like 40. You know what I mean? They're like 35 instead of 25. And so they can't get it on with the hippies and they can't go to Woodstock and they can't go to, you know, they can't, there's no free love for them, you know? And instead it's just a kind of,
swinging or something, you know, like, like I, I guess that was my parents, you know, it would have been, would have been that generation. So, so, um, or maybe they're, maybe they were a little older, but, but like, you could feel it in the culture of, of like this desperation of wanting to take part in this, like, you know, everybody wants to be
like Mick Jagger or something, but instead they're like Ed McMahon or they're like Johnny Carson or something like that.
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Chapter 4: What role do sexual themes play in Currin's artwork?
I hate that word, by the way, but you know what I mean? They were very on board with me becoming an artist and they encouraged it. And my mom, you know, got me, paid my violin teacher's husband $25 a week to paint with me on the weekends. You know, I could paint in his studio on the weekends. And that changed my life. That really helped me. And... And they let me go to art school and paid for it.
I mean, I think they thought I was a real artist from the time I was a teenager. And it was a totally respectable thing to do. There was none of the kind of cliche of like, Come back when you want to get a real, you know, when you want to have a real job or something, nothing like that. None of the cliche of, of, of you're wasting your time and you should be a doctor or something like that.
That's really impressive. My God. So you're married to the artist Rachel Feinstein who said that you'd seen her before you ever met and had started putting her in your paintings. And she shows up as the love of your life in so much of your work. And what happened when you first saw her?
This guy I knew, this guy that I barely knew, called when I was sharing a loft with Shawn Landers and Kevin Landers, two artists, and we had one phone between us all. And he called that phone and said,
Barely knew the guy and he says oh I very close friend of mine is having a show is doing a performance and she's very beautiful and she she looked like she stepped out of one of your paintings and so so And he had told her that he was a close friend of mine and that, you know, you know, so it was kind of funny.
And, and, and so I went and I went, she was doing a performance where she was, she had built a kind of a gingerbread house and she was sleeping in it and in the daytime. So people could sort of spy on her while she slept. And, um, I went and saw, I went to see her. It was arranged that I would go meet her. And I, you know, I, I think I had seen her once before from like a distance maybe.
And, but, uh, we, we just, um, and this sounds like bullshit, but we, but we actually walked up to each other and looked at each other's eyes and kissed. Wow. That's really the truth before we said anything. And, um, and, um, And then I said, I sort of broke the ice after we kissed. I said, I sure hope you're Rachel. And so, yeah. And she was in her underwear, by the way, and she looked crazy.
She had a crazy look. And I, you know, and so... I remember I went out to dinner that night with Andrea, my art dealer, Andrea Rosen. And I said, I met this girl. And she's in her underwear. I guess she's kind of a... bimbo or something. I don't know. She's very young, you know, she's much younger than I am. And, and, and I said, but the thing is, I think, I think I'm in love with her.
I, I, I had, I had a, I had a 10 minute conversation with her and I, I think I'm in love and, and, um, I want to, I, I, I, I, and, and Andrea, and so I was supposed to have a show and I was having a show in France. And so, so Andrea, she, she, she bought her a plane ticket.
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Chapter 5: What insights does Currin share about the portrayal of women in his art?
You know, in a way, it is a little bit like what we're talking about, 70s clothing. There's a kind of a sense of glamour that you've just missed out on or something and that you can't quite join that party, you know?
Yeah, because there is a feeling of poignancy about that image. You know, there she is, she's so beautiful with this blonde hair and this, you know, amazing cleavage that you can't quite see in the red she's leaning into. And yet there's a wistful feeling you get rather than just, oh, that's impossible and I'm left out of that. There's something touching and that's why it's...
someone writing, this is sexist, you know, instead of this is hardcore, you know, whatever.
Because I read in an interview that you said, no matter how good I can paint, I lack the aristocratic style of a European. And given that your style is internationally revered, whose style do you like in that respect?
Well, I think what I was referring to when I said that, I remember saying that, and what it was was I was ā I became ā I still am very obsessed with Francis Picabia. Oh, yeah. And, you know, and ā Then I saw a show, a large show of his, for the first time, a lot of his work together. And what struck me was that even when he tried to make sort of ugly paintings.
And I should say also, I always loved Martin Kippenberger's paintings. Oh, yes. But anyway, it's like he would try to be a vulgar American, and he just never could shake this beautiful, elegant arabesque or something. You know, like, it just, he couldn't, you couldn't. There's this fantastic movie, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, where... What's his name?
Michael Caine.
Michael Caine is sort of teaching Steve Martin how to be a loose European in Monaco or something like that. And it's like... And Steve Martin almost gets injured, you know, trying to cross his legs in a chair like a European. I don't know. It's hilarious. And, you know, in a lot of ways, Picabia, I could just see, he couldn't stop being like effortlessly elegant European.
And it was kind of upsetting because I realized, you know, Conversely, I'll never not be a kind of blockhead American. And so that's... You know, I try to not suppress that, I guess, even though I am obsessed with European elegance and the sort of, or I'm a sucker for it. And, you know, my house is done up, you know,
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Chapter 6: How does Currin perceive masculinity in his paintings?
Well,
Honestly, it was very loud. It was funny. It's a funny story. I think I told you.
You told me, but I can't remember.
Rachel and I were, I was having an opening at Sadie Kohl's. And Rachel and I were just like sort of luxuriating at the hotel, you know, and having a drink. And it was a little bit after the beginning of the opening. And Sadie calls and says, get your asses over here. Lucian Freud's here. And so I go, oh, shit. So we kind of ran. And I was more starstruck.
The truth is I don't quite remember what we talked about because I was very starstruck to see him and that he's talking to me and that he's at my show. It was amazing. He gave me some compliments on a couple of paintings. But I was so starstruck that the truth is I don't think I had a meaningful conversation with him. I was just more like, I can't believe I'm talking to Lucian Freud.
Well, he was quite hard to talk to because he was quite shy. So when you said that, I was so excited about the idea of you both talking and talking to each other. And I remember you said he'd paid you some compliments, which he certainly didn't do without meaning them and being completely sincere. And it was...
It was too chaotic and loud a scene to have a meaningful conversation. It was just... I had thought about this guy more or less nonstop for most of my adult life. When I went to Carnegie Mellon University, there was still there a very beautiful, very early Freud small painting of a Greek bust.
From the, from the period of the, of the, of the zebras, although there was no zebra on this one and it, and I just remember the, the weird. Just a strange, very unusual cubism of the Greek bust. It was Picasso-y, but it wasn't anything like Picasso. And it's just a gorgeous painting.
And so I've always... And he wasn't... Back in the... This would have been in the... Well, yeah, this would have been like 1980 or 1981. He wasn't as... as hugely famous then, at least to art students and things.
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