Robert Irwin Has Not Read His Own Biography

Last night the writer Lawrence Weschler, biographer of Robert Irwin and David Hockney (my new review of his twin books here), gave a reading at Elliott Bay that was less a reading and more just a casual gathering with about 50 people he seemed to have known for ages. He wore a striped tie that reminded me of the famous op artist who quietly, almost silently, actually lives in Seattle, Francis Celentano.

Weschler read great passages from the new edition of Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees, the great 1982 Irwin biography that has now been updated in a second edition, and True to Life: Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney—passages that reminded me of things I should have pointed out in my review: the fact that the central disagreement between Irwin and Hockney is their divergent beliefs about the legacy of cubism (Irwin: Picasso and Braque had a failure of nerve and didn’t follow through all the way to pure abstraction, Hockney: Picasso and Braque saw that future and rejected it as an “empty room,” which is a direct dig at Irwin’s installations of seemingly empty rooms); Irwin’s love for donuts and the perfect Coke (syrup to carbonated water ratio meeting a Platonic ideal); the fact that both artists make some of their greatest discoveries in the grass at the side of the road; the fact that the only people Irwin has trouble treating as peers are peers (he’s generous with students and gardeners, impossible with Richard Meier and Hockney, for instance); the tale of how America basically lost one of its best artists by its stupid “homeland security” bullshit (one of Hockney’s friends was denied a visa on a dumb technicality after 9/11, and fed up, Hockney vacated California and now spends most of his time in England); the dual nature of Irwin reflected in his body language (the Zen opening of his hand in a release gesture like the opening of a tulip versus the mmph and screwing his fist forward); the fact that every profession is a conspiracy against the laity and that going to graduate school makes your mind smaller.

New revelations came out, too.

1. Irwin has not read the definitive book on himself. I suppose this should come as no surprise, but it still does. (Irwin’s “readers”—his wife and his assistant—did, however, let Irwin know that the book was good.)

2. Hockney does read Weschler, and though Hockney and Irwin disagree on everything, Hockney even reads what Weschler writes about Irwin. Irwin neither respects the time that Weschler spends thinking about Hockney nor reads what Weschler writes about Hockney.

3. Weschler has three new books out, not two. The third is the new Tara Donovan monograph. Donovan is the eighth artist to win the MacArthur genius grant within six months of Weschler writing about him or her.

4. Weschler has no interest at all in getting the two artists (who have never met but who have been talking to each other through him for 25 years) together.

5. Weschler has a funny habit of telling a story he’s about to read, then reading it, realizing halfway through that he’s repeating it, and his speech from that point on in the story degenerating into a burble, at which point he stops to make fun of himself.

6. Hockney is now painting with his hands, directly on a computer screen. Weschler does not know why exactly, or what these paintings look like, but this is what’s up.

7. The person who bumped into and broke the Irwin column at Irwin’s retrospective in San Diego earlier this year is Irwin’s biggest fan. He came bounding out of the bathroom and ran straight into the thing.

Today Weschler and I were going to take an art tour around the city, but the snow has put us off until tomorrow. I’ll record the thing and you can stop hearing me talk, and start hearing him.

Now for your moment of David Hockney: the piece that represents the culmination of his photocollages, Pearblossom Hwy from 1986.