Work > 2013

JP: Ok can you introduce yourself.

TP: What do you mean?

JP: Your name, where you were born..that kind of stuff.

TP: My name is Tassos Papadopoulos and I was born in Greece

JP: What have you done in your life? How would you describe your profession?

TP: Everything related to art.

JP: What does that mean?

TP: Doing shit to survive, building things, metal work, marble,….everything

JP: Can you be more specific, do you have any examples of that work?

TP: I mean I would work odd jobs. I owned a gas station when I was 16. Cut hair for 10 years after I married your mother. I designed nightclubs and restaurants in Chicago, from painting to carpentry. And during the moonlight I would go home and paint.

JP: Do you consider yourself an artist?

TP: No I wouldn’t call myself an artist. If you go to school they give you a fancy label and you become an artist.

JP: Do you consider yourself a painter?

TP: When I paint walls, yeah.. yes

JP: Not when you’re painting on canvas?

TP: No it’s just natural.

JP: How do you start a painting?

TP: It comes out I gotta do it.

JP: From what ? from where?

TP: It’s very simple, It’s like uh… a good friend of mine said that art is a disease some people get cured and move on and some people always live with it and die with it.

JP: Do you have this disease you speak of?

TP: Yeah, I have that disease, of course I have that disease, it’s a bug.

JP: What is it? Just keeping busy?

TP: No it’s not keeping busy, it’s about being a creator.

JP: Is it different from making something out of boredom?

TP: No it has nothing to do with boredom. You are in complete control. You are controlling the canvas, controlling your thoughts, controlling your feelings, and you are controlling everything. At that moment you are God. You are a creator. And you are born with it. It’s a feeling, a type of emotion, it cannot be taught. If it doesn’t come out from your loins or your insides, you can forget about it. First you start with a skeleton then you give it skin, then you breathe life into it and then you put it out for the audience to admire and question and look at it.

JP: Do you enjoy the act of painting more than the end result?

TP: No no no, I actually enjoy the process. That’s the high. It doesn’t matter what people say.

JP: So you have 40 plus paintings in the basement that you have made over the past year and only 4 or more people have seen them, does this bother you?

TP: No it does not bother me. What I keep trying to explain to you is that high. That high actually is mine, it’s not theirs. That’s where I am at. Whoever looks at them or doesn’t look at them does not matter. You just can’t wait until you get to the next one and the next one.

JP: Why haven’t you learned any art history or theory ? It seems as if your ideals of art stop around Giotto and Michelangelo and the Reneissance. A more classical lense of understanding this giant entity.

TP: It would be nice. I learn about things from many of my friends that have gone to schools. I’m clever , and I listen and I analyze, but I just don’t want to learn. In fact I have never finished a book in my life. You know that.

JP: But It would strengthen your understanding of what you do, right? If not that your process would be stronger because you have all these new ideas about creating. It would enrich your mind while you are working or while you are waiting for paint to dry, you know?

TP: Absolutely!! It would. But if you think at the beginning of something, did someone actually stop to think about what it was they were doing? Painting on a cave wall, he did not ask that question of where is this moment in history…he just did it.
So my ideas are pretty much the same as that. Very raw and very primitive. In other words knowing somebody sells his work or the way his process is similar to that other person’s, or even me learning this history,: It would do more damage to me. I wouldn’t get the enjoyment out of it.

JP: So you are living in a bubble?

TP: Absolutely I am living in a bubble! There is nothing wrong with that. I am open to new things, but yes I am living in my own bubble.
What I am trying to say is very simple, for someone to be a teacher, to teach someone something else, who taught the teacher teaching the student? Who was the first person that said, I developed this technique therefore I should teach it to somebody else and somebody else and somebody else.

JP: That’s an old thought of teaching though. Both a student and a teacher are both learning at some similar rate.

TP:I understand, I understand, but also if you put it into a primitive state, which is actually when the baby is being born inside the stomach, it’s the same thing. In other words it’s very raw. The way I do things is wrong, the way I approach things may be wrong, but it’s actually me learning on my own. Which is actually :I am the teacher and I am the student. That’s what it is. That’s the fun of it. Nobody told me or taught me to do what it is that I am doing. I am teaching myself. Till the time comes when I have to go, hopefully I will be able to teach myself what I want and where I want to take it. And actually that is not being afraid. All right? What else?

JP: What do you think my work is about ?

TP: Uh your work should be your own, not because you were taught something, that’s what I believe.

JP: No, when you look at my work, my paintings my sculptures, what do you think it is about?

TP: Uh, your work? I actually love your work. I love what you have done with it and where you are going with it. I love the way you execute it.

JP: Is my work about one thing? Is it about material? Or is it about painting or sculpt..

TP: No, no, no no. Your work is very emotional. I personally think you should put your heart into it more. That’s what I believe.

JP: What do you mean by the word emotional ?

TP: It has emotions, messages, It has uh….See it’s different when you call yourself an artist and you write a book or compose a piece of music or make an object and look at it when it’s done. It should actually grab you, give you a message all at once, slap you, bring you down, and you then regurgitate what you saw making your meaningless life meaningful.
Your work does all that for me. I think you got it, you just have to find the heart in it. In other words you reached a depth, but you could go even deeper. And and…that doesn’t come from school, it comes with practice and age and you growing . The more you grow the more your work grows. The only way you will gain this is when you mature. Your knowledge is self -taught. I know you went to school. But you were born with the bug. It’s about teaching yourself how to build something, how to use a nail and a hammer without hitting your finger. No matter how many times someone will show you something it doesn’t matter until you practice it and make it right on your own.

JP: Considering you are self taught and you are somewhat on the margins of a given artistic community(meaning you’re no longer surrounded by other artists in a studio, or collaborating with people on projects anymore) where do you think art is now? Contemporary art…what does it look like to you? What is it to you ?

TP: Again let me explain that being with other artists enriches your work and from what I saw at your school was not that, I saw competition. Competition is not good.

JP: Competition is good, it pushes you, It’s constructive 100%

TP: It pushes you, yes, but it wasn’t the thing I saw in my past studios, back then when it was happening, whatever, …

JP: What the 80’s the 90’s what are you talking about?

TP: 90’s, yeah sure and even back more, before me. There was always jealousy and competition, like any field, but there were also people being together, eating together, feeling and working together. Also there was this energy in the air that you can grab rather than competition. From my point of view, when I went to your school, I didn’t see that. I just saw a lot of closed doors like everyone had something to hide, a lot of empty studios with computers collecting dust. It was sad ,what I saw. Actually, I believe that art will no longer exist. There will be no need for art anymore. First of all the computer has taken over the way we relate with things and then there will be no more art. People will not need emotion or will not want to be curiously looking at something.

JP: Are you saying people will no longer look at things?

TP: Looking at this, looking at that, just gazing.. Doesn’t have to be beautiful or ugly . eventually galleries will go then museums will go, because there is no need to visit a museum if you can see them on a computer. No one is going to go out to see anything. In other words human emotions and curiosity will die.
I’ll give you an example. I’ve been going to thrift stores all my life. For fun, to look around at things. The past 2 to 3 years you cannot even find, I was just telling your mother this, this morning, You will not see artisan work anymore. You won’t find carved wood tables or even real wood. Everything is plastic. Manufactured mass- produced. No more craftsmenship. There’s nothing. I’m not saying tables should have ornate legs and mirrors should be dripping with painted flowers and gold leaf. All I am saying is that all that old stuff that people took pride in with their hands is gone.
JP: What is that from? Why do you think this is happening? What’s the symptom ? Is it that your parents worked hard, you worked hard and then said yeah don’t work go to school, now people are coming out highly educated but can’t change there own tires?
TP: I was watching a movie the other day and these people where walking through a forest calling out every bird’s name that they would hear. And I was like oh my god! we are sooo out of touch. With everything!
Instant gratification. For instance if you bought a GUCCI purse back then and bought one today, the one back then is worth more. Not value wise, craftsmanship wise. That’s what I’m saying.
Everybody wants to have something fast. Art Fast. No one is working with their hands. It’s too fast and no hands means it’s not honest anymore.
Everybody wants to Bank. All the artists want to bank but nobody wants to work through problems. They want to look cool and play the part. No one wants to work hard and create at the same time. If you are too comfortable you become numb.

JP: What would you tell another artist whether younger or older?

TP: What would I tell them ?

JP: Yeah. If you had something to say.

TP: I would tell them to drop the label, forget about getting into this thing to make money , learn what you can, and then ask yourself , Do you have it in you ? If you don’t have it in you all you are doing is moving your fingers up and down on the guitar making one sound. I don’t think anyone is an artist. You have to have something in you. It’s the soul, not the action or the work that you do. If you teach someone something they can do that one thing over and over again.

JP: What about Ideas? Ideas could never come forward? What if one has the soul you speak of but prefers to chase down ideas that don’t necessarily align with using one’s hands, as you said?

TP: See Jim, I’m going to make this very simple. There are people in China and Thailand and the Philipines and they can actually paint a Rembrandt. And you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from the real one. Down to the last detail. But if you ask them to paint something on their own, they can’t do it. But they have practiced and mastered their skills so well. Then you have these other guys with the ideas and they send it out and the unveiling comes and pass out the grapes and then hoopla do.
Art is a way of life. It’s about producing and working through problems in a hand on way, that is it. I still believe in hands on. Its not who knows you and you want a warm studio and you want to live off your work. Here…. its very simple as long as you know yourself and what you really really want the rest follows. …alright ?

JP: Yeah I guess these questions will suffice for now. Thanks.