WHERE INTERDISCIPLINARY AND NICHE MEET
Los Angeles, April 2024
Hot off Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, GUS VAN SANT admits he’s been painting again, even though he’s still searching for what to paint. To the ignorant ear, the fact might be surprising, but to those who know the work of the legendary director, it’s a cause for celebration. Even though he’s better known for indie classics like Drugstore Cowboy or blockbusters like Good Will Hunting, Van Sant is an underrated yet precious presence in the art world.
KIM GORDON shares a similar status, best known for her role in shaping indie music, both while a part of Sonic Youth and in her solo career. After the release of the gender-bending album The Collective earlier this year, she relates to Van Sant’s struggle, confessing she’s locked herself in her room painting old canvases black - an ineffective way to catalyse spontaneity, according to her. The dead end they talk about is an overarching struggle for all artists, but it’s surprising to hear two of the most celebrated interdisciplinary artists relate to it.
While the two chat, it becomes obvious they’re old friends, having met over three decades ago. They’ve worked together in Last Days, a movie where Gordon plays a record executive - ironic since she’s spent her career evading the industry’s trappings. The two fall into conversation casually but swiftly, relating to an artist's idiosyncratic path. From her days as a receptionist in an art gallery (an impressive feat since she couldn’t type) to Van Sant’s days as an impressionable high school student, they unravel not the history of their success but the comedic moments that got them to where they are. Over a Zoom call, the two discuss the struggle (and attempts) of selling out, the art world, and their collective adoration for Van Sant’s new dog.
KIM GORDON: Hello Gus! Where are you right now?
GUS VAN SANT: I’m in LA, what about you?
KG: Yeah, me too. I’m at home.
GV: How did the show go?
KG: They’ve been going pretty well, we just did three on the West Coast, three on the East Coast. Now we’ll have a bit of a pause till late May.
GVS: How many people are playing?
KG: Same people as in the last tour. They're amazing. They're incredible. It's all women which wasn’t intentional. That's just the way it ended up. So, Gus, I was trying to think about it, do you remember how we met?
GVS: I think we first met in an exhibit that had something to do with William S. Burroughs…
KG: I honestly don’t remember, but you’re probably right.
GVS: I don’t blame you, there were so many in New York at the time. But for me, because I was coming from Oregon, it was unique to me.
KG: Was that before you made Drugstore Cowboy?
GVS: It was probably after it because Burroughs was in it, I was a lot more involved in the stuff he did. I made a short film from one of his stories and got to know him from that little thing, but it was only after the movie that I got to see him a lot.
KG: He sort of reminded me of my dad. My dad grew up in a small town in Kansas, he had this folksy sort of manner… What I do remember is that when we played in Portland, we invited you to come to the show.
GVS: But also, we did Last Days together.
KG: That was so fun. You’re super brave to take on that subject. Did you ever worry about the Nirvana fans coming after you for presenting something other than their idea of Kurt… I mean, that could also be true with Capote.
GVS: It was originally supposed to be the first of that trilogy, Elephant, Gerry, and Last Days, and it was inspired by a Godard film that was banned by the Pope. But it was funny because the Christ figure was represented by a 14-year-old girl. I was inspired by that in that sense because I was trying to not get too close to the idea of Kurt. Originally, he was supposed to be a 14-year-old boy alone wandering around the house. At the time we cast it Mike Pitt was 16, a bit old. But time went by, we couldn’t get the funding, and somehow, he started to have the same hair, he sort of morphed into him.
KG: I thought it was really smart to take a more poetic and lyrical approach to the whole thing and just kind of remove it from the everyday world.
GVS: I missed the opportunity to have the band fighting…
KG: Band dynamics... that's a whole movie. I remember you telling me this hilarious story about Gerry. You thought it was going to be this movie with lots of talking and by the time you got to the desert to film, you realized that wasn’t going to happen.
GVS: In itself, it was a misadventure. I thought because Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, and their friends were always upping each other and screaming they would just play off that and when we got there, they just didn’t want to look silly. It morphed into something else.
KG: I know you like to use improvisation which is something I loved about working with you. So, was the movie all improvised? Or was it kind of scene by scene?
GVS: We had meetings and just kind of came up with scenes and arranged them in order. What was missing was the Cassavetes type of constant talking so we decided to write a script last minute. We shot in Argentina; we were in these cabins near a park. But it was so cold, and we needed to start a fire to keep ourselves warm. We ended up using the script to ignite the fire which we thought was fine because we had it on the computer. And then, on the first day of the shooting, the computer jammed. We ended up just making it as we went along.
KG: You should’ve done the making of.
GVS: Yeah, I should’ve. But it wasn’t that different for Last Days, you guys were just making it up as you went along.
KG: How did you feel about undertaking Capote? It’s a difficult subject matter…
GVS: I mean, I just knew the story because I grew up in the New York area and worked a couple of summer jobs on Fifth Avenue. I knew the turf. I mean, I didn’t actually know those people; I wasn’t having lunch with the ladies, but I read about it all in Esquire. So, when I was having dinner with Robin Baitz, he mentioned he was working on it with Ryan (Murphy). I just asked a question like, “Does Ryan ever use people from the outside?” I was in the middle of asking him the question and when I realized I wanted to know whether I could be involved in it, I just added “Like me, I could do it.” They said yes which I was kind of shocked, like all of a sudden now I have a gig.
KG: It was fascinating seeing these, well I was going to say old actresses but they’re not at all old. But it was so juicy watching it all.
GVS: What about your story with your family?
KG: Yeah, I wrote this piece about my brother, I told you about him, he was a schizophrenic and a Shakespearean scholar…
GVS: I was reading the things you sent me.
KG: Yeah, it’s coming out in an art book, Karma Press is putting it out. I thought that maybe I’d like to write something about my parents, but I don’t know if I will. I really like writing, but there’s so much procrastination involved. But to me, it’s the most satisfying thing. Recording is fun too, but this is something you can do by yourself and it’s somehow different than making bad paintings. [Laughs] To me, art is very complicated, the more you know the harder it is. I don’t know anything about music, so I just have to blench forward. But with art, it’s different.
GVS: I know, it’s impossible. After the Capote project, I was going to go back into painting, but it’s been a year now and it’s taken me that long to figure out what to paint. I have so many paintings from the last 10 years. I almost feel like I’m revising those as opposed to making new ones. With age, your whole relationship to the painting changes.
KG: I don’t know... I just painted over these two paintings with black. I started doing that but then I realized, “Is that the solution for anything?”
GVS: I’m trying to be spontaneous too but then I realize that you’re being conscious about being spontaneous, so it messes it up. Art is so limited in a way, it becomes like making art about art. It seems like you can express more in a film. I grew up in the same town as Chloë (Sevigny), we had the same art teacher…
KG: No way!
GVS: Yeah, his name was Robert Levine. He used to paint in class and some of the students became his acolytes. We would go to his class even when we weren’t scheduled and just sit behind his desk and read or watch him paint. He taught us about Art Nouveau. I was painting pretty seriously even at 14. We had another teacher who showed us films in class. There was this animation called Clay. My parents had an 8mm camera so you could make your own stop motion. I started making them while I read about New York underground filmmakers in this book called The American Underground Cinema, it listed everybody from the Kuchar brothers to Jonas Mekas. A lot of these people, like Warhol, were painters but they were using film as a painting medium. I never thought of using it in an experimental way. It just kind of started from there.
KG: Were your parents supportive of that?
GVS: I think they were happy; they bought the paintings I would put in art shows in Connecticut. I don’t think they were terribly excited later when I was trying to work in Hollywood. Showbiz seemed like such a long shot, but they were always supportive. Meanwhile, you were an early worker with (Larry) Gagosian during similar years.
KG: Indeed, I was. I used to hang out in Westwood Village, and I worked as a framer for him using these metal frames. He was selling these schlocky prints at the time, the kind of thing a teenage girl might have in her bedroom. But he was a real slave driver, he used to come in and say, “I need a hundred more.” So, I quit.
GVS: Were they of John Travolta?
KG: [Laughs] Oh no, they were light pastels surrounded by white. I actually found one in the bathroom of this acupuncturist I went to. But anyway, when I moved to New York, he already had connections there so he said he might find me a job so I became a receptionist although I couldn’t type. I would go out and look at young art, that’s how I met Richard Prince. But Larry was a trip, he used to have me carry a fragile Brice Marden across the street. I was always saying things to him about how he was a capitalist. I felt like I could say anything. Sometimes he would try to hug me, and I would just kick him in the shins. He was hard to take seriously and to see him become so successful in the art world is crazy.
GVS: I went to Ed Ruscha’s LACMA opening, which…
KG: Oh, I was there!
GVS: You were? It was crazy to see how many of those artists are now in their 80s.
KG: I know, a lot of grey-haired old white men.
Gus turns to me
GVS: Do you want us to just keep rambling?
PEDRO VASCONCELOS: I could listen to it all day, but just out of pure curiosity before we wrap up, as two celebrated indie titans, what do you make of mainstream success?
KG: I like the idea of creating a niche audience, I don’t subscribe to the bigger is better idea of success. But obviously, the more people who see or hear your work, the better.
GVS: I’ve always tried to sell out. But it’s hard to do. I tried to do Twilight. There was a time Sofia (Coppola) and I wanted to make it together. They wouldn’t hear any of that. There were a couple of times when I tried to do bigger things, but it never transpired, which is probably lucky. My independent angle is mostly a way to get out of people telling me what to do. If you do something for cheap, you’re giving out a good deal so you can just sort of do your own thing, and then, by default you’re indie.
PV: Lovely, thank you so much for...
KG: Wait wait, Gus I want to ask about your new dog.
GVS: [Gus pulls a dog into the frame of the computer] Oh yes, we got him like a year ago. He just chewed up the hot tub cover. He hadn’t chewed anything, so I hope it’s not a new stage. It's the same breed as my other dog but they have such different personalities.
KG: It's amazing, well, it was nice to meet your dog.
GVS: It was good to talk to you. Let’s get together soon.
Conversation conducted by Pedro Vasconcelos
Photography by Yaël Temminck