Philip Guston's Collected Dialogues Reveal Artistic Doubt as Creative Engine
Penguin Classics has released a new compilation of Philip Guston's discussions and dialogues titled 'I Paint What I Want to See,' which aligns with the opening of his postponed retrospective in May. This volume features dialogues with Harold Rosenberg and Clark Coolidge, along with lectures from Boston University and the Yale Summer School of Music and Art. Guston delved into the contradictions present in his later figurative works. In a lecture from 1971, he confessed, 'I'm trying to think of what to say.' Even in 1960, he regarded his abstract pieces as 'a kind of figuration.' Edited by Clark Coolidge, the book reflects Guston's complex insights, emphasizing his belief that doubt enriched his later art. A note from 1978 asserts, 'Ideas about art don't matter... They collapse anyway in front of the painting.'
Key facts
- Philip Guston's book 'I Paint What I Want to See' is published by Penguin Classics.
- The publication coincides with his rescheduled retrospective opening in May.
- The book collects dialogues with Harold Rosenberg, Clark Coolidge, and others.
- Guston taught at Boston University and the Yale Summer School of Music and Art.
- In 1960, during his abstract phase, he described his pictures as 'a kind of figuration.'
- By the late 1960s, he created large-scale paintings that he admitted baffled him.
- He once said of a painting of a shoe, 'I don't know what the hell it looks like.'
- The book is edited by Clark Coolidge and based on a 2010 collection.
Entities
Artists
- Philip Guston
- Harold Rosenberg
- Clark Coolidge
- Piero della Francesca
- David Sylvester
- Dore Ashton
Institutions
- Penguin Classics
- Boston University
- Yale Summer School of Music and Art
- ArtReview