THE INSIDER: NICOLAS POL
Art, violence, and werewolves. Welcome to the world of this Parisian painter.
In the New York party world, Monday night is a dark horse. It can either be sleepy and silent, or - like it was three days ago - completely mad.
That's due in part to artist Nicolas Pol and his curator Vladimir Roitfeld, whose new art exhibit drew Jean Paul Gaultier, Erin Wasson, and both Olsens into a former meat factory to see Nicolas' new paintings and sculptures, imported from Paris for the first time.
We sat down with the young painter to discuss his first exhibition in the States.
There's this assumption in New York that if you're young, cool, and Parisian, you must already be friends. Have you known each other for a long time?
Vladimir: Not at all. I met Nicolas six or seven months ago in Paris. A very good friend of mine is a big art collector; she knew the work I’d been drawn to in the past, and she said, “You’ve got to see this person, his work connects with what you’ve already been collecting.” I’d never seen his work before that, it was a beautiful new sight.
So you didn't meet at art school?
Nicolas: No, it was just me at art school. At the end of college, we had the option of going into a special school for aesthetics. So I had a professor, Alain Declerck... He was a very violent and extreme painter but he didn’t view an artistic shock as a negative thing, and for me, it was a very productive thing to learn, that you could be violent and shock people in your art, and make that into a positive thing. It helped evolve my practical artistic vision and also helped develop my resistance as an artist to fatigue or to fear. It was very important.
But you wanted to be an artist before that. Yes, always, since I was very little – but those theories didn’t come until I was adult enough to handle them.
I read that you incorporate science in your work? No, that’s not true! People are starting to say it, but it’s null. It’s actually more about a new way of thinking about mathematics in how it relates to art, but you know what? I don’t like science but I do like science fiction! I like it a lot and I think you can see it in my work. Aliens, space ships, space, the moon, but the way I see it, the constellations and the light, I consider it part of what we already know as people – even though it’s seen as advanced, I think ultimately it’s always been part of human consciousness.
Your canvases are massive. How long does it take you to finish something? That depends. There are paintings that I can do very quickly and I don’t move until they’re done – like twelve hours and it’s done. And then sometimes it’s much longer. It depends on so many things.
There's a lot of text in your work, too. Why is it in English instead of French? I guess it could be in French, it wouldn’t actually matter. But you’re right it is in English. I think because it’s a patois. What I mean is, you would see it as English because you speak English, but those words also exist as slang in France, as English words. So in Paris, they make just as much sense. And I love patois because they let you have complete freedom with language, and as for English – I don’t know, it’s more immediate and certainly more cinematic. But I think they can exist in the same space, the French and the English.
How do you think the New York art kids will react to your work? For the moment, I am very curious to find out! It’s the first time anyone here has seen an exhibition of mine.
Vampires or Werewolves?
Vlad: Vampires!
Nicolas: No! Werewolves. Vlad will say vampires but he has to, he basically is a vampire. I’m all for the werewolf.
--FARAN KRENTCIL
See Nicholas' first American exhibit, The Artist Maw, at 80 Essex Street in New York City until December 10.
This story was published on November 11, 2009.
