The Art of Being Human
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
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This is an inspirational portrait of the artist Frederick Franck, author of The Zen of Seeing. Born on the border of Holland and Belgium, where both World Wars began, Franck has seen firsthand the horrors of modern warfare. Living now in upstate New York, his life's work - through painting, sculpture, and books - has been to help people see the humanity in others, so that they will not be able to tolerate or be involved in violence towards others. It's a message with particular significance in the wake of Rwanda, Kosovo, and Littleton, CO.
'Frederick Franck is one of a rare and precious breed-an authentic troubadour whose lyricism is pure in word and image. He quietly roams our materialistic world and shows us that even here, even now, there is hope for our soul.' Jacob Needleman, author of Money and the Meaning of Life
'Franck's spiritual nature and his view of art as a means to 'transmit the preciousness of life' is an ennobling one which may be most appropriate for classroom use.' Video Librarian
'In an era marked with growing intolerance, this video may help remind viewers of the value of all human life.' School Library Journal
Citation
Main credits
Marks, Leonard M (Producer)
Laurence, Peter (Producer)
Squires, Emily (Director)
Franck, Frederick (Interviewee)
Other credits
Camera, Marc Kroll, Joel Shapiro, Merrill Aldighieri; audio, Michael Greene, Gary Silver; edited by Joe Tripcian ... [et al.].
Distributor subjects
Aging ; American Studies ; Art; Biography; Conflict Resolution; Human Relations; Humanities; Mental Health; Philosophy; War and Peace; War and PeaceKeywords
WEBVTT
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[music]
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Though I was born precisely on
the border of Holland Belgium,
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and it was another fateful spot
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because both the First and the
Second World War started there.
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And so when I was five years old, I heard
the booming of the big breath of guns
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a few miles away uh… looking out of a
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Attic window I saw next, we say burning,
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and I remember (inaudible) coming over.
In the mean time,
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endless possessions of miserable refugees
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with their children divided,
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thank God’s of all the
people in our sanctuary
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have had to flee their homes with children
on their backs, and a few belongings
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and… and… and… a baby cares. And I remember that…
I don’t remember the words in which I thought
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that’s where these are all human beings
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about two hours, (inaudible) on
push carts, and bloody bandages.
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These are all human beings.
And so actually, my…
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you could call it obsession with the basic
question of what does it mean to be human,
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was practically born with me.
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[music]
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The Chinese sage Hugh Miang said,
\"The meaning of life is to see,
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not look at ourselves,
and the world around us,
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but to see it, to see it.\"
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Now that became my life’s motto,
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for I became ever more aware of the calamity of
having allowed our God given capacity to see,
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deteriorate into our addiction
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to merely looking at things like beings
with all the sufferings, and all the power,
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the stupid looking at entails.
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Any cow and any tiger
can look at the world.
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Only we humans have that gift of seeing.
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And if we could still see,
how could we possibly stand
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to what we look at unflinchingly alone
if it’s cleaned. If we could still see
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the nightmares of (inaudible)
or Mozambique or
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whatever the outrage of today.
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If we could still see those
neat robes of corpses,
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those collapsed buildings, those famished
mothers with their children at their breasts,
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if we could still see, would
we not kneel down, or weep,
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or pray, or cross ourselves
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in an attempt to exercise
the depth of evil falling.
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[music]
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Drawing for me is the infallible
antidote against mere looking at.
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For drawing is such an immense
intensification of perception
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that the seeing, and the drawing confuse
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into one single undivided act.
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And that’s an action of
total identification with
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what, or whom you’re drawn.
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Drawing or the painting
is my way of meditation.
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What does meditation means? It means
you get in touch with what matters,
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and piano too.
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[music]
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If you play something like that,
even if the… that the windows close
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because I know a good pianist said some
what I mean, but then you are in touch
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as you are in touch when you’re
drawing a… a swarm of birds
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with the sanity,
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the saint core of the, of the
world than of human being.
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And so everyday it has to
have a little while of that
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and some people may get that in
prayer, but to me all this is prayer,
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and not putting out ultimations to God of singing
and praises. This is something else. This is uh…
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being in touch with that which
matters of whatever you call it.
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[music]
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All this would be quite unthinkable
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if Claske (inaudible) just my wife.
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Officially, I’d say Claske is my wife,
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but unofficially, I think we… I have grown
into some kind of a single organism
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which does not have to discuss,
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shall we go and sacrifice our backyards?
It just happens to come that way.
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But she’s also much more,
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my name is mentioned as the author of these
books which is a bare faced lie, of course,
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because without Claske, there
wouldn’t be any books.
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If you see these manuscripts,
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they’re so… uh… complete changes
five, six, seven, eight times.
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First, I write it by hand then I write
it by hand again, then I get it,
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then I can only read it, he can’t read it anymore.
Then I typed it out of first time, and I think,
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oh, it looks pretty good because I
edited while typing, of course.
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And then it comes back
this way… And I try again,
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and I think, no, it’s really… it has to go
tomorrow, and then it keeps gonna forever.
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So that’s uh… very great
part of what I do, you know.
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And that, of course, the editor’s
correspondence verbatim.
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[music]
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And then, well, so many other things
that have to be done regarding
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the birds, my rabbit.
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It grows all the time. It changes
all the time. We are never bored
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because he has always seen (inaudible)
constantly, but to live it constantly.
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[music]
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This place, peace on earth that
I’ve built in Warwick, New York
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as a kind of oasis of sanity,
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you know, very crazy world.
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As a saying of reverence for life,
that’s lives are stood for.
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This hand of the human, and
in short, the sign of hope.
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I didn’t look for a place to start this
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trans-religious oasis. It came to me.
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And I saw it as a kind of canvas.
I saw it as a possibility to
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create something.
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I hoped of work of art, but outside of
the art game, and at the same time as a
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spiritual or religious
if you wish statements
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outside of religious games.
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Today, however three contemporaries,
and with whom I had the good fortunes
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to begin some kind of contact. And they’re really
the ones to whom I dedicated the Pacemin Terris.
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Angelo Roncalli, Pope John XXIII
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who by profession was a catholic,
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but however holds more than a Pope, he was a
prophet of human solidarity and a free spirit.
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Now for winters that I drew in Rome,
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drawed a council where for me
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really a revelation of uh…
the greatness of John XXIII
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as a human being…
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Human beings are so much layered
than popes, aren’t they?
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The second great man was Albert Schweitzer and whose
staff Claske and I worked for three years in Africa.
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I had a patient in New York
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who uh… to whom my attention to that
writer very much in need of all surgery
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emergency clinic. And I said, Ah…
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I’m available, and I left my practice.
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I was terribly interested to see this
phenomenon, there’s eighth uh… world wonder
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from close by, and got to know him.
And I knew him
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from very close by because I… I sat
opposite to him at table mostly.
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I got to know him as an
extraordinarily human person,
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not at all the saccharine saint that
he was often made… made out to be,
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but somebody who could be
absolutely mad at people,
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and had a very good sense of humor. When
he was 86, at six o’clock in the morning,
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he was studying (inaudible).
I only started 9 o’clock.
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And he played a much better.
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Last but not least, (inaudible)
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who brought the great wisdom of Zen to the west,
and who could answer the quest of what Zen is,
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say, it is the great wisdom,
it is the great compassion,
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it is the great compassion
which is the great wisdom.
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And so this Buddhist sage,
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this catholic pope, and this
protestant doctor, and thinker
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were for me the paradigms of what
it means to be human in our time.
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[music]
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Actually, I don’t call these things
sculptures, I call them shrines,
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or tokens, or icons.
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I just try to say something
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with these rather symbol means.
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[sil.]
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Some people have said here, \"Is that the hand
of God?\" I said, sure, it’s the hand of God.
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Or says, somebody says, \"Is there’s
stigma in that hand, in the second hand?\"
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Well, I say, yes, indeed, it is.
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Later ask me, what did I think of two?
I thought, ah,
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that maybe an eye in the hand,
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the hand that ceases, the hand that draws.
So I mean these are all free associations.
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[sil.]
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The Chief Owen (inaudible)
who was an important figure
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in the Native American Movement.
His quotation from the great law
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of the six nation Iroquois
confederation says,
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\"In all our deliberations
we have to be mindful,
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of the impact of our decisions
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on the seven generations to follow ours.\"
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I love to juxtapose those
negative spaces of emptiness with
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whatever came out of them.
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[sil.]
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Now this I call Hiroshima.
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I also call it the unkillable human.
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It came about after, in Hiroshima,
I saw burned into a concrete wall,
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the shadow of a fellow human
who had been evaporated there
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on August 5th, 1945, the
movement the bomb struck.
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[sil.]
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Peace on Earth,
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it is actually the scene that Pacimen
Terris at our places really devoted to.
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And we just we’d like it to make
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kind of peaceful noise you see.
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[sil.]
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This cosmic fish
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with all these faces in it, this is an old dream of mine from
childhood, really, and which every scale of the fish is a human face.
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[sil.]
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The whole thing together is humanity
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swimming through the interstellar spaces.
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[sil.]
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To me the fish is an extremely
significant symbol.
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[music]
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They all have a stepping stones,
and they all have a meaning too.
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[music]
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Now this is uh… one of the
oldest, oldest sculpture.
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It’s (inaudible) a gong.
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And I made it for the play called
the \"Death and Life of Everyone,\"
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which is my contemporary evaluation
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uh… of the medieval play of everyman.
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And I wanted to symbolize this everyman
who has his black African aspect…
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[sil.]
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… and that’s Caucasian aspect.
So there are two…
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the two aspects of the
same human, everyman.
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[sil.]
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It’s name is (inaudible).
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(inaudible) is the oldest known symbol
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of eternal life.
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It’s a snake that bites its own
tail, and becomes circular.
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[sil.]
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Social mask.
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[sil.]
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I open it up and you get through self.
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Through self has been called the indwelling
spirit, has been called the Buddha nature.
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I call this specifically human,
you know, but in modern term.
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Let’s put this social mask
on again and be safe.
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[music]
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Nicholas of Cusa who is a
Christian mystic from the
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15th century adventures
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in all faces can be seen the face of faces.
00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.999
He failed as an other door,
should (inaudible) this face.
00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
[music]
00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.999
This is actually the same theme…
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… whereas this mirror
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in which you can see darkly that same
through self, that face of faces
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and your own features,
00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.999
the same as the original face.
So just like to go close by.
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[music]
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:54.999
I call this acronym Madonna.
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The mantle of this acronym Madonna,
00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
I also call her, the mantle of the Earth is a
hallow tree trunk that I’ve found around here.
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And then there are all those
beings, there’s these
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
innumerable beings embraced in that mantle.
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
And as I see, I also call it,
the mother of the earth.
00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:28.000
[music]
00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
I could call this the eye of God,
00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
could call it, the Buddha eye. I would
always love is when you look into it…
00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:53.000
[sil.]
00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
You see yourself as you are. That means
00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
very brief, very brief.
It is a very brief life.
00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
You can grasp it.
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
You just wait and see.
00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
Look gone. That’s the proof.
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
[sil.]
00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
The tree of life,
00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
but at the same time, it
makes me think of uh…
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a word of Dionysus. And there’s
a goddess of fountain,
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
eternally flowing into itself.
00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
And so it’s a life fountain.
00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
It’s a recycle of life fountain.
00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
[sil.]
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
I see the fishes. They swim on and on,
00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
never reaching the end of the water.
00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
I see the birds flying in the sky,
00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
flying on and on, never
reaching the end of the sky.
00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
A painting like the recycle of birds,
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I notice now, I… I don’t know if anyone don’t gonna
somethings when I painted it, but it is that feeling.
00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
[music]
00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
These paintings are not constructed.
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
These paintings come out of drawings that I have
done at one point, and they keep on haunting me
00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
until it has been projected on a canvas.
00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
[music]
00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
Like the tiny couple, in an
immense space to that solitudes,
00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
nor they often scratch me that way.
00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
Again each one of that crowd
of people is an absolute,
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
umm… are so relative (inaudible)
but also an absolute.
00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
And here, this entire mass of people,
00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
or line of people jump standing on their
heads and some tumbling over on their hands,
00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
some in love and then… and… and…
leaning against each other.
00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
I’d say loving. Yeah, that’s it’s life, and
that’s life as I can’t help seeing it.
00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
And it’s not so different from
those birds in those swarm.
00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
So they’ve start of mystery
of uh… of the run,
00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
the many, and the total.
00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
So I wouldn’t say that these
paintings are philosophical,
00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
or trying to put over some
kind of philosophical concept.
00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
There’s no concept whatsoever. And that’s the difference
with much of the modern art at this conceptual.
00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
You better call conceptual or
not, this is actually the vision.
00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
It is a way of seeing. For me, the question
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
of seeing, and looking at,
00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
is a crucial, absolutely crucial question.
When I look at a face,
00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
and sketch a face, I’m
that sketching caricature.
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
As I see… I choose… uh… salient points.
00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
He has a bald head. He has a little
bit of wool around his chin,
00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
and he has two… two little glasses on.
That person I caricature.
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
If I… I’m… If I’m going to draw that face,
00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
I have to see it.
00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
It’s all there in those few trees.
It’s all there in a bowl of cherries.
00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
And the other day, I painted three
little apples, rotten apples
00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
with a lot of insects around them.
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
If I look at that, I would say that three
rotten apples with a lot of flies around it.
00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
If I start to draw this, I’m
faced with life, death,
00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
and all kinds of evaluations on the theme.
00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:33.000
[music]
00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
Now my books actually\"
00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
The Zen of seeing\" was
based on this question.
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
But it was not as clear yet because
it’s done years ago almost.
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
This question of seeing
versus just looking at…
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
two books are coming out, but the main book
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
is \"Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing,
Meditation in Action.\"
00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
I call it (inaudible) Zen of Seeing.
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
I’m often asked,
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
oh, uh… (inaudible) drawings,
00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
all of a suddenly, (inaudible)
steel, and you bang it into shape.
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
Why? How? And actually, I don’t know,
00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
I do that for me the drawing,
00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
I’m in total contact with life as it is.
00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
[music]
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
I’m not at all a conceptual artist.
I don’t think things out.
00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
They have to come to me, or they don’t. And
sometimes, they come in words then I write.
00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
And sometimes, they come
in the urge to draw
00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
which is always there. And sometimes,
I have to play it on the piano.
00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
And sometimes, I make it into a piece
of steel So umm..so..actually could say
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
there is a kind of dilettantism.
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
Yes, why not? Why not? Who uh… my (inaudible)
said that I’m a professional artist.
00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
There are good artists, and
there are lousy artists.
00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
[sil.]
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
[music]
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
The function of art is to transmit
00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
that preciousness of life I would say
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
which is in itself, well, I
would call as spirituality.
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
And if one doesn’t dogmatize that then
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
you can bring people as if
we’re together by these means.
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
And so I’ve been experimenting with
these means, and it has worked.
00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:13.000
[music]
00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:50.000
[sil.]