Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20121030

Been a dream so i was following my dreams. But when i was 17 years old i was a replacement for a wonderful pianist and i performed the tchaikovsky piano concerto number one and i thought, wow. Rose and we conclude with arnie glipl cher, the legendary art dealer at the pace gallery. Agnes martin was at the turn of the century. We had pop art happening and the end of abstract impressionism happening and the beginning of minimalism. Many people call martin the beginning of minimalism, shes the end of abstract expressionism because there is brush work, there is a very sensitive application by hand. Minimalism sought to get rid of all possible human marks on the canvas. Rose literature, music, and art when we continue. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose orhan pamuk is here, the Nobel Prize Winning author of my name is red, snow and the museum of innocence has just had another novel translated into english. Silent house was written in turkish almost three decades ago. It is set in the summer of 1980 in the leader of turkeys coup. Fatima is visited by her children. They enter into a deep darkness which is visible between the wings of the big front door. Pamuk has also published the innocence of objects, the catalog to the museum of innocence in istanbul which opened early this year. I am pleased to have this friend of our program back at this table. Welcome. Thank you. Rose we visited in istanbul, visitors are making us happy. Everything is fine with the museum. Rose has everything changed in your life since i saw you . I returned back to my writerly persona. So in many so many programs i told you between the ages of seven and 22 i wanted to be a painter then. Between 22 to now im writing novels but the dead artist in me came out, i planned this novel and the museum together, it took almost a decade to collect the objects, write the novel to the objects then do the museum and its open, now its working, its running on its own now im very happy to slightly push it back in my memory. Im busy with the new novel. Very much. Rose okay, whats it called . Its called strangeness in my mind. It chronicles the immigration to istanbul from rural anatolia. And how generation after generation of people made istanbul when i was born into this town 60 years ago it was almost a million and now 14 million and most of these people came from poor parts of turkey. Why did they come . Whey what did they do . They built their own houses were their own hands. They are developed now, we see highrises in those areas of town. The city has changed so much in the last 50 years and now trying to in my new novel that im very busy with trying to chronicle that to the point of view of the dispossessed. Rose many people say a great novel begins with a question. Okay. Here the question is trying to see the life that we have all lived in turkey from the point of view of a person who came to this town late who tried to make a living, who came with a very poor background and tried to adapt to the city. We always saw turkish officials history, turk turkish establishment, myself included, we always saw these people who are coming and imbalancing the cultural projection we have of th city. Trying to see istanbul from the point of view of someone who felt he dont belong, who insists he belongs then some of them get to be very rich, some of them get to be continue to be poor so trying to also go to the moral issues of what makes you successful, was it worth it, this kind of thing. Rose so when youre working on a novel like you are on this one what are you doing . So many things at once. At first there is a research site. First a novel i think of it as subject matter, choosing the subject matter, deciding about that. For years i take various notes. Rose the idea has been in your head. For quite a long time as i get older the ideas are i have so many unwritten novels i am panicking and running around to write them. Some novel december man research and research can be divided into research that i can do myself like reading books or interviewing people. For this i do that. More now i have people who are helping me interview people about their lives, how they built their houses, how they so i combine this information then i invent, change them around, change them around, change them around, rewrite it. Rose this is while youre writing. You invent, change, move, go back . Yes, of course and develop characters meanwhile, then revisit the story, rewrite it so in a way youre you have it on the line level and i still have major changes you think of you develop characters. Then also i have a habit of reading to my acquaintances, friends, and trying to see whether the story works. Reporter you have friends read it i read in process. Im not a shy novelist in that sense i read passages to my friends, even to visitors, some people who are not well acquainted. Rose sit down and listen to me. Yes its also a sweetness. Rose a sharing, too. Yes, uhhuh. So that way i developed and developed this story actually one writes a novel to work some basic points. A story that is also a literary theory about the russian theory about a story is actually something that connects the things that you want to talk about so that your character goes rose a whole bunch of things you want to talk about and you create characters to connect them . Characters and storyline. Say in the novel im now writing i want a scene in which people build with their own homes. Rose they make their own bricks . Yes, they make their own bricks and they buy also remains old houses to make their new houses. So i learn about this and i want to write about this or i want to write slightly about political tensions of coming to the city and having a very conservative attitudes toward life and then experiencing the charms or seductions of modern city life. Rose do you know the last chapter . No, but i know where it will go. That i will it will end up in highrises where there used to be 50 years ago muddy fields and shanty houses. Rose which is happening in istanbul as we speak . This is whats happening, yes and the novel has aspirations to be panoramic but while im deviling, exploring the mind of a Street Vendor whos selling things, a strange turkish liquid at night. It has also connotations of roe man schism with the ottoman empire, so forth and so on. Rose silent house is about the 80s, before the coupe, its a family gathered in anticipation of the coupe . Does that fascinate you . The whole subject matter of the relationship between the turkish people and the military . It does. But not particularly interested in military but since our army was involved in turkish politics for quite a long time and upper classes coup and reliant on the power of arm to protect secular and this was also my family, in a way, for quite a long time. Rose coming out of ataturk, too. Yes, this is the tradition in turkey. So our armys involvement in police is inevitable. Even if you politics is bedesign in the novel. But on the other hand, its not about army, its about civil society. Rose okay, but you and i both have had this conversation before. It is said that p. M. Erdogan has put the military back in the barracks. Yes, im happy about that. That part im happy about Prime Minister is maneuvering, successfully maneuvering to put the army back into barracks. Im happy about that. But that part of turkish history is slightly over now. Rose youre not going to find a coup every several years. Im not expecting a coup but who knows . Coups come from wherever. And but now, turkish politics is now has now left that problem behind. Rose well come back to turkish politics which as you know i have great interest in. Tell me about the silent house and tell me about whats the house in question . Silent house is a story about a Family Gathering perhaps in the manner of russian writers where generations meet and different point of views in a way represent the problems of the nation say this is about a family. The founder of the house who is not alive, was a military doctor and military doctors form young turkish positiveistic opposition to ottoman sultans especially sultan who was for a long time a patriarch and he has young turk and revolutionary ideas but hes exiled to this small Fishermans Village and begins to live there because he cannot return back to istanbul. The idea of dangers of politics is spelled there. Then two generations past the radical jacobian ideas are based on the power of the army doesnt work anymore and unfortunately if they have experience in the 1970s and early 80s, lifes right wing Paramilitary Forces and the left wing marxist forces are shooting each other in the streets. The idea of democracy doesnt work too much because the idea of perhaps tolerance doesnt work too much or the country is so unhappy and economically its so unfrustrated that there is too much tension. The house is where all this family meets and theres an old grandmother who is remembering the radical jacobian ideas of his husband wanted to publish rose this is fatima . Yes, fatima. And so im putting all this together to give a sense of whats happening in the country then, of course, theres a story site. Rose and then the grandchildren. Farouk and matin and hassan. Rose now, hassan is interesting. Hassan is a typical right wing nationalist street guy. Militant of the 1970s. Lots of anger and resentment although he is not a radical islamist he has right wing antiwestern sentiment. Very conservative. Has little paranoias like all of us in fact in that part of the world about the west plotting to do things in turkey. Rose is that simply hisly. In other words, the west has come to do that and so therefore you can never quietly assume it will never happen again or good question, its not over, this kind of imagination that a conspiracy that the western powers are doing nasty things in our country its still generated and, in fact, sometimes western powers help us to feel like that. Make us believe that some conspiracies are right and on the other hand now no that turkey approaches International Community more perhaps because of negotiations for European Union i think turkish peoples understanding of west is more mature. More grown up now that this kind of almost infantile rose but does that have to do with the confidence of turkey about its Economic Growth rate . About its role in the world . About the prominence its plays in the region . Yes, but this confidence has also its bag that turkey is doing well in the last decade economically so well that that gives you something rose and istanbul has become one of the most yes, the story is about that, actually this is some of the parts of the book are the same ground and im writing in my new novel. All these places where there were factories, little Olive Gardens or fig trees and also a fancy summer resort or previous a Fishermans Village and all these places were considered to be part of istanbul now belong to the town and when i read the book this book again i saw that how much of the town had changed, grew, how much of the land scape had changed. All these hills in my childhood that i saw empty if you paint them with the blue crayon will be enough. Now its full of highrises. And the novel is chronicling that change. Too. Rose is that a Welcome Development . In some aspects, if there are highrise it is country is getting rich, economical growth is of course something you welcome. But are people involved in architectural change, urban change . There we may have problems. Rose and should you look out for the price you pay for that so that you can minimize that price . I. E. In terms of what it does to community, what it does to cull sdmur what it does to i think when i think part of this problematic growth, uncontrolled growth where intelligentsia is saying its too uncontrolled, whats happening . Lets have more, this is whats happening and urban change is getting very political in turkey because two sides are the ideas both ideas are respectable, but what is more important is that we have to have more transparency, peoples involvement in these urban change decisions. But behind it lies the fact that economy is booming so fast that no one can control it anymore. For me the ahasing thing is that i can say that in relation to silent house is that ive been living for 60 years. Thereve vn times that ive come back this or that that the change i saw in the first 45 years less than the change i saw in the last 15 years. Wow. How is it different . Change in the last 15 . Is it just velocity . Velocity. Immense economical political change is more development of say development of free speech and liberal society and because of economics and its hard to control turkey anymore. Its so rich and coming that its hard to crush it down and control it. Rose as i a writer do you and because of the run in you had you were criticized for criticizing turkey, correct . Yes. Rose they arrested you. No. Rose well, they didnt arrest you but i was fined but then it was dropped because of international pressure. Rose exactly. I understand that. Do you fear at all now what you have to be careful that you make sure what you say is understood for what you mean . These are two Different Things. I am upset about what i say may be changed a bit, but in the end i im not the prize winner. Internationally recognized. Im not afraid of myself. I can say whatever i want. Rose do you feel like youre safe because they would not i dont want to go into this. I have selfconfidence, enough selfconfidence whotoexpress myself but i have to note that all my journalist friends and all Journalistic Community is a bit buried worried about what what to write and say. Theyre quoting each other. Rose some journalists have been arrested. But also we have to dont forget this is their tradition here. This is not a new development. We hope these things dont continue that while im happy about erdogan erdogans fighting the army im getting upset more and more about the journalists. Rose slight authoritarianism. Slight authoritarianism is unfortunately beginning and this year is deeply related to the fact that unfortunately turkey could not make peace with with the angry kurds. Rose and thats what they worry about. And once the bombs are exploding its hard to demand once the bombs are exploding both sides get radical and then it clashed and authoritarianism and political flashes get severe. Rose so you think thats the tenor of turkey today. Whether the government s getting authoritarian is troubling all of us. Rose but the secular state remains . Of course, no problem about that. Sigs secular state remains and demoacy is working in turkey. Rose and erdogan goes around the world preaching secularism. He went to cairo and preached secularism. Im happy about that. Rose go ahead. Im happy that erdogan is preaching secularism in cairo. Im also happy about arab spring you look at libya, you dont know whats going on there, syria, you dont know how thats going to end. Its the rise of islamists in the middle east. Whats your perspective and where it might be going . Okay, first, im a writer. I judge events, human point of view instead of ideological preconceived ideas and for me democracy is the criteria for democracy, i believe in democracy because its morally important. Its a moral issue democracy means first of all morally that you go to people and ask their opinions in that sense im very happy about the arab spring about whether its in turkey or say in cairo the army is marginalize add bit in cairo. They continue to hold their old power maybe are losing some of in the turkey. In other parts of the middle east the army is various armies who are heart felt defenders of secularism but also was abusing their position, are losing their power. And im morally happy about that but that is raising another problem that we are happy to have democracy but unfortunately people are not rooting for the pa t parties that we want them to work for. And now yes, these are the dilemmas of democracy. Democracy is not only people its not a democracy where you a democracy is its a surprising thing that people want a party you dont want. Rose sometimes revolutions are started by some people and finished by others. I dont think that this is i hope thats not a revolution, thats an authoritarian ends up being authoritarian so i dont think thats happening. Especially in arabic countries. Thats not happening. We may see that may be developing towards that way or that way. But i think were both in turkey and in arabic countries we have to respect peoples will. Rose is there in your mind not like a trilogy or something but is there in your mind a sense that before you finish you want to write a whole range of things that hang together as the history of, as an examination of, as a reflection of. I would probably as i get older would write i want to write more and more about turkish middleclasss, upper middleclasss, infor situation with western ideas and how can history turn around and a new thing appeared not entirely that upper class secular reformers that my family also and im also believing those reforms believed but something new, something strange. Something that never existed. Perhaps a sort of nonwestern modernity is coming about. That i would love to go in details and chronicle more. Rose i hope you will. This book is called silent house orhan pamuk. Back in a moment. Stay with us. Rose lang lang is here. He is a pianist sensation who sells that out concert halls around the world. He is known for the virtuosity and passion of his performances. He is amassed an impressive repertoire that includes tchaikovsky and rock mononovember to bauk. Here he is playing beethoven. Rose where was that . Vienna. Rose ah its funny to see you playing yourself. See yourself playing . Its quite funny to see myself replay every time i see it im like thats interesting. Rose youll be at Carnegie Hall october 30 in a benefit for the lang lang foundation. What is that . We started this foundation four years ago and our aim is to helping the next generation through music. Rose generation of americans . Generation of International Starting in america and influencing the world. Rose good for you. Yes, so we have this concert. Rose and theres a new c. D. Out which i have in my hand which is called the chopin album. A favorite for you or there are a lot of my favorite songs which i practice really hard when i was a kid and now i start practices like oh, its getting easier. What composer is hardest for you . I would say braums. Rose really . Yeah, brahms. Rose and why is that . His personality is a very strong personality and the music is always going deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. Somehow when you play his music you need to be completely quiet and let the air flows. Rose when you have had your success, do you still have teachers . Yes, i do. I have a few wonderful teachers rose those are they were conductors as well. Absolutely. Rose and what did they give you . How did they take these remarkable musical skills you have and take it to another level . They inspire me to have a different interpretationen and they gave me the great tradition of lines how rubinstein did it, Leonard Bernstein did it. So they gave me all those options that i could learn from the past but then they let me explore new ideas and to recreate new moments. I can see i actually thats enormously, i would think attractive way to learn because you can see how different people of great renown approach something and theyre approaching to see Different Things the. To see different interpretations. It also, i would think, informs you of the possibilities. Yes, yes. Rose of any piece of music if you see how the greats take a difficult piece. Your mind is open to what might be opportunities in the next time. Exactly. And music stays like a memory. Like ten years later if you go back to the same piece you found that you are reviewing something on top of ten years ago but in the very different dimensions so in a way music also growing with you somehow by not noticing it. Rose when you were growing up, when did you know know that this is the life that you will have. The first surprise for me is first time on stage when i was five and i really like the stage light and i found that that was really warm but obviously thats kind of being a pianist has always been a dream so i was just following my dreams but until when i was 17 years old i became this replacement for a wonderful pianist who got a fever. And at that moment i performed the tchaikovsky piano concerto number 1 with chicago symphony and i thought, wow, this is my moment. Rose chicago symphony .  right. Rose was barren balm director . That time it was kristof herber and the master of ceremony. Rose do different conductors influence you differently on how you perform on stage with them . Especially when you are a teenager. You get actually more stronger influence and then now im 30 years old so the influences are getting smaller. Rose i was trying to remember when we first met, the first show we did was what year . It was 2002 . Rose so ten years ago. Where do you want it to go. What kind of career do you envision for yourself . I mean, clearly there will always be recordings for posterity, but at the same time theres an extraordinary number of better orchestras today . I think of course career is a very important thing but i think growing up we need to share our passion to muse musical education and ask me today around the world musical education is getting disappears. Rose why is that . I think one is economy, prices, and people think lets be more practical, maybe music and art is not really necessary so when they look into the budget when they see music and art they say oh, we can cut that. So this worries me a lot because i dont rose because of what culture means to you and what it does for the soul and the psyche. It makes our minds in a much more creative way and makes our heart more peaceful. Is it whats the level of appreciation in music in china versus the United States or elsewhere . China is a very different situation. Chinese kids are crazy about learning Musical Instruments and in a moment we are we have like 90 Million People learn instruments. And half of them are playing piano. So every Elementary School that i see has a music class so for the future i see theres a huge passion for music. Rose why do they want the piano . I dont know. Maybe piano is simple to play . laughs rose no, no. But maybe its just something you hear more about people taking piano lessons or wanting to play piano. Its the thing parents want to introduce that you are kids to and those that have seeds of greatness. I guess. I would say that because my parents or our parents generation they didnt have a chance to learn piano because that was the cultural revolution time so somehow now china becomes this also a player in the world that we need connect to the world and piano becomes some kind of a good bridge twhoo n between two cultures. Rose what happened to your parents during the cultural revolution . My father learned chinese instrument so he took audition to a school after the culture revolution. Rose but before and where was he during . He was in a factory working something i rose and your mother . My mom during the cultural revolution went to countryside to work with farmers. Rose did they talk about it . My mother enjoyed working because she said she learned a lot of things she which she will never learn in the city like how to grow things she enjoyed it and she only stayed there for three years so she was fine but i know some of the people didnt enjoy it. Like my piano teacher, for example. Rose what happened to european know teacher . She was a great pianist at the time but during the cultural revolution they sent her to somewhere and she had to feed pigs in the farmland. Rose no connection to a piano at all . No connection to culture at all. Right, so she didnt enjoy that. Rose you play today chinese music as well as the western canon yes, i play also i actually do some traditional chinese music and i do it like arrangement to the piano so i Start Playing chinese stuff on the pianos. Sounds interesting but were trying to mix up the technique from the chinese music taste. A lot of vibrato and try to adapt that kind of sound in piano keys. Rose even though youre only 30 you teach master classes. Yes, i have a school in china in shin gin and now we have rose shinjin is a lively place. Yes, lovely city. Rose how big . Ten million. Rose ten Million People not the biggest. Rose how many are there in china . I would say probably around eight rose with more than ten Million People . What do you in each the master class . What is it that you want them to get . I would really like to share the love for music. Sometimes you learn thing from your wonderful teacher but sometimes you become kind of a machine when you practice and a lot of kids are a little bit scared of expressing their feelings because theyve been told too many things. I think big a good teacher is not just training the proper way of playing but also helping them say, you know, something from their own. Rose but you got it early. Even though you had a very a different kind of training, you got that, that whole sense of individuality. Right, right. Rose how come . Your personality . Your what . I just felt that its pretty boring if we all do the same thing. Rose right, right, right. And all be the same way. I felt pretty boring. Rose are you happiest when youre on stage . I actually really enjoy being on stage and i get overjoyed but sometimes i as you know, you travel more than anybody else that sometimes jet lag makes you feel tired. But the great thing about music is that when you play a song by chopin or mozart, you are in that musical planet and you forget all those depressive stuff so in a way so its so helping, spiritually. Rose how many days have you gone without playing a piano . In the summer this year i actually had a summer off. Rose all summer . Yeah, but i was practicing. But for five days i didnt practice. Rose five days. Is that the most youve ever been without putting your hands on the keys . Yeah. I think the most longest rose was there withdrawal for you . I was in south france having fun time on a boat. Rose on a boat. So i didnt really think too much about music. Rose so in a candid moment, whats the ambition for you . Is there a goal . And what is it . I mean, obviously theres in at world theres no limit. All the great musicians, they still work so hard to find a new way of interpretation, like a man turning 70 still working so hard to find the meaning behind the notes and im only 30. Theres a long way to go. Im really looking up at those great masters. Do they set up a higher standard for us all the time . Rose who are the three masters youre talking about . Kristof eshenbauk and my teacher rose oh, those are the three masters youre trying to you want them say were proud of you, that was great . Yes. Rose thank you for coming. Thank you, charlie. Rose come back sooner than the number of years that have passed since you were here. Lang lang, the chopin album a whole series of wonderful performances. Thank you. Thank you. Rose Arne Glimcher is here, he is the legendary art dealer of the pace gallery. 40 years ago he said when we started this in 1960 there was no art market, it was the question of choosing the life you wanted to live and i wanted a life in art. Pace has expanded to seven locations in worldwide. Artist chuck close has said of him he is the dealer who is most ruled by passion. Glimcher is the author of a new book that celebrates the career of agnes martin. Its called agnes martin, paintings, writings, remembrances. Welcome. Thank you, charlie. Rose youre going full steam ahead in china. And beijing has been great and the next place is hong kong so we will be opening in hong kong. Thats it. Rose meaning what . Thats it for gallery expansion. But there are other things i want to do. Theres a couple documentary films i want to make. Rose subject . One is the idea of art being manufactured. I think people dont understand really that art is something in the mind, not in the hand. So many people have enormous skill to make beautiful portraits, can render what they see. So few people can interpret reality. Rose so where do you put damien hirst . I think damien hirst is one of the artists i would like to interview for this film. Because . Because the work isnt made by damien. Isnt made by jeff koontz. Lucas amaris is exclusively made by a computer. Rose youre saying what about those people . Im saying they are some of the best examples of art being a product of the mind rather than of the hand. Rose ah. So in a way its like sol le wit who was one of the first minimalist artists. He made wall drawings and they were designed by him and executed by other people. His conception was that he could work like an architect. Architect cans make great works of art architecture. I think for the most part architects are utilitarian artists its great. Its not the same level for me of painting and sculpture and where theyre nonutilitarian, that they are something that just extends the perception of the mind. Rose tell me who agnes was agnes martin was one of the really key artists at the turn of at the middle of the century. We had two things happening. We had pop art happening and then we had the end of abstract expressionist happening and the beginning of minimalism. Many people call martin the beginning of minimalism. Shes the end of abstract expressionism because there is brush work, there is a very senseive the application by hand minimalism sought to get rid of all possible human marks on the canvass. So Martin Reinhart paints the last paintings, the black ultimate paintings and martin says i am going to begin painting again and she eliminates everything from the picture. There is at first no color, theres no composition, and she begins making paintings that are grids, that look like graph pain we are pencil on canvas, the pencil changing ever so slightly because of the grain of the canvas, very soft washes of color and she said to me i wanted to make a painting that nobody else would think was a painting. And she said you know, they responded. She was a pioneer woman. She came from saskatchewan, she was a sailor, she trained for the olympics as a swimmer. She was a really tough pioneer lady and a recluse. You know, the years of her life she lived on a mesa and never saw anybody and was snowed in for the winter and would just limit any stimulus around her. So i was there once and rose how did you meter . I meter in 1963 at a party at jack youngermans studio with Ellsworth Kelly and Robert Indiana and i was a kid and she was amazing. A lecture ensued about truth and beauty at that meeting and i think something clicked. I think when we meet people that we like that we have something in common with intellectually. Something clicks and so incidentally youngerman was married to delphine serig who was a star, she was one of the most famous actresses in the world. I was this little kid from boston, it was very glamourous. And i met martin then and we begin a relationship but she didnt show with me at that point. She was with another gallery and in 1967 she stopped painting. She felt she had made all the paintings that were left inside of her. She said everything she had to say. And she bought an air flow trailer and went back to new mexico where had taught in the past and she rented some property on a mesa and i didnt see her for eight years and one day she walked into the gallery and she said im painting again, would you show my paintings . It was just like that. And my partner fred mueller, we were both close to her and she said ill let you know when to come. And on a friday afternoon i got this telephone call saying the plane to albuquerque leaves at 9 00 tomorrow morning, ill meet you at the airport. Not account request k you make it. And we were there. And that was the beginning of of the relationship. Rose let me show photographs. Someone a photograph of agnes martin on the roof of her studio with jack geller man, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Indiana. One thing about meeting agnes when i started to deal with her at the beginning she said remember, we are not friends we are toilers together in the art field but we are not friends. She was really afraid of friendship. Rose with everybody. With everybody. Rose look at the number two. This is dessert rain 1957, oil on canvas. So this is the beginning of martins mature work and you can see theres influence of Joseph Albers but shes beginning to limit the amount of content in the painting. Rose the next is pilgrimage. Acrylic on pencil on canvas. This is a Greater Boston painting. This is the one of the key early works and the way you have to look at these paintings is by erasing any kind of prejudice as to what you think youre seeing and look at the painting and it becomes a mantra these paintsings are especially calming, especially beautiful with time and agnes said to me once from music they accept pure emotion, from art they expect explanation. Rose she also said when i think of art i think of beauty, beauty is the mystery of life. Its not just in the eye, its in the mind, it is our positive response to life. Ill give you an interesting example of that. My granddaughter was about eight years old visiting agnes and agnes had a beautiful rose she picked from the garden and my granddaughter was fascinated by the rose and agnes took the rose out of the vase and said to isabelle is this rose beautiful . And isabelle said yes, the rose is really beautiful. And then martin put the rose behind her back. She said is it still beautiful . And isabelle said oh, yes, its beautiful. She said you see, isabelle, beauty is in your mind, not in the rose. She said one must see the ideal in ones own mind, its like a memory of perfection. And i think thats what she was really after this is trumpet. Acrylic and graphite on canvas. This is the last painting she made and you can see before compared to the previous painting it has a great deal of brush work. The last work is untitled but looks very much like this. In this last work after a lifetime of making paintings that were much more perfect she comes backing to this very brushy, very stormy painting this is the last painting she painted. And i was with her rose this is 2004. 2004. Her last painting. I was with her during the time she was dying i was zillionthing at her bed and she said to me, arne, there are three paintings in the studio. The one on the wall, the brushy one is perfect the other two arent. I want you to go to the studio right now and destroy them. And i said okay because agnes painted perhaps ten versions of the single painting that you see until she got the one she wanted all of them were beautiful to my eye. She cut up nine of them. So i went to the studio and the other two paintings were perfection and they were beautiful and i cut them up to ribbons with a matt knife, she said did you do it . I said i did it. And here you can see this changes drastically. You have this fantastic washed background and i think of these somewhat like the dark paintings of rothko that were the second to his last paintings this shape is an echo of works from the 50s. Even the painting we looked at earlier that was fuzzy and had a reck tang until the middle but i see it as a kind of infinite void infinite background, void of the background with this concrete shape flowing on it. These are open to incredible interpretation. Rose the last one siff untitled from 2002. This is two years before the last painting and how different these are from the paintings that are grids so stripes. At that late moment in her life in her 90s shes reaching for something new. Rose okay, back to china. Last time you were here you said the western narrative is over. You are the first major western gallery to expand into china. Is the western narrative over. Well, i was at admonished by my son for saying that. Rose i know. And mark said to me dont you ever saythat again. Rose so . Well, i think its over in this way. It doesnt mean that great art isnt going to be made in america. But the american this glorious american narrative is winding down. And i think rose why is it winding down . Because its no longer art was a focus of the west. We only focused on the west. We didnt focus on emerging countries art happened all over the world that we didnt even care about. One like eve klein whos a major painter rose well, art can happen if we dont notice it, cant it . It can happen if we dont notice it. We dont have to notice art or hang it on the gallery in order for it to be art . Certainly not or id have to have galleries the size of new york city. But the world has to acknowledge that there is a constituency that makes art that appreciates art. Rose this is a fascinating story. Youre right. Rose the book is unusual in that its not art speak. Its my journals of life with her. Its her ideas and i hope that its something that people can read piece by piece and learn something about themselves. Learn about life, learn about truth and beauty. Rose thank you. My pleasure. Rose ago net, martin, paintings, writings, remembrances. Arne glimcher, sailor, filmmaker father, grandfather. And we dont know what. Rose we dont know what. Thats what makes life interesting. Thank you for joining us. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org