Pictures of the bash at COAGULA DOT COM
There was a happy celebrity-peppered elbowing crowd at Gagosian on Thursday night for the opening of Julian Schnabel’s show of oversized lush earth-colored paintings of bones (which had been used in the credit shots of his latest academy award nominated film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). Schnabel, the Director, posed with Larry Gagosian and then wandered through the gallery taking with friends and well-wishers.
He backed up into into a small side-gallery where three absurd new compositions of his featured cotton balls stuck onto faded red velvet framed in plastic replicas of oak frames ornamented with acorns. He made it in in just as our Coagula photographer was shooting the objects saying “Ridiculous!” L.A. gallerist Andy Schwartz discreetly let us know “He’s right behind you.”
We then asked the maestro about his cotton picking art.
Coagula: So how did you make this piece?
Schnabel: It took me 20 years to do it.
Coagula:??
Schnabel: I had that red piece of velvet for 20 years, and last week, I stuck the cotton balls on it… Took me 20 years to do it.
Coagula: And the frames?
Schnabel: I had them.
Coagula: Does the cotton evoke anything in particular for you?
Schnabel: What?
Coagula: Does the cotton signify anything, say fragility, temporariness…
Schnabel: It’s just cotton. No bunny rabits. It’s just what you see. Cotton.
Coagula: Fuck you.
Over whose eyes do you think you are pulling the wool, Dude?!?!? Fortunately, Schnabel is spending more time making movies and really good ones. He told writer Stephanie DuTan that he is working on the next one already. He obviously doesn’t have cash problems. Tragically, most of these truly terrible works had sold before the opening.