|
For an artist whose body of work includes everything from posters and postage stamps to a chunk of the Berlin Wall and the exterior of a Boeing jet, a book might seem a traditional, even prosaic, medium by comparison. But the book is The Art of Peter Max, a substantial volume that offers a retrospective (so far) of the works and the life of artist Peter Max. The nature of Max's art in general—diverse in both subject matter and media—ensures that this art book is far from traditional, as befitting the man himself.
Max, who painted this issue's cover, will be signing The Art of Peter Max as part of a special appearance at his gallery at Santana Row. Max will be at the gallery each evening Sept. 1113 to open his new show, West Coast Pop.
During a telephone interview, the New Yorkbased Max, who was in Aspen, Colo., spoke very fondly of the South Bay. "I love the area a lot," he said. "If I ever got a place in the area, it would be near San Jose." He created this week's covers for all seven newspapers published by Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, using a collage technique and painting on photographs of the area taken by SVCN photographers. West Coast Pop will also feature some familiar Bay Area images.
In recent times, Max's work has often been associated with these collage-type photographs, notably his tributes to the Statue of Liberty and his rendering of George Washington; he's also known for bold, rainbow-hued abstracts.
However, Max came to prominence in the '60s with his free-spirited, cosmic-themed conceptual artworks. Ever since, he has enjoyed a unique presence in American pop culture—quite an accomplishment for an artist who never planned to become an artist. "Some kids took wrestling, some kids took fencing, some kids took piano, some kids made model airplanes. I used to take drawing classes, but I never thought this was something I would do when I grew up," he says.
Many of Max's popular early works in the 1960s were made for prints and posters, some promoting concerts and events, including the very first "Be-In." But Max got his start as a strict realist painter. "When I came out of art school and I showed my work around to ad agencies and art galleries, they said 'Today (in the mid- to late-'60s) if we need realism, we just go to photography. We don't buy any more realistic paintings.' I was shocked, I was so hurt that no one had ever mentioned anything to me," he recalls. "I loved the fact that I was highly skilled to do this, but that now with all this skill, nobody wants it? And so my conceptual side came. You know how when you have to dance for a living, you become a good dancer, you don't stop dancing? I started just going out there, going outside my realm and inventing stuff."
Such an adventurous ethic has always informed Max's work, but he credits the influence of Eastern philosophy with truly sparking his imagination, in both his work and his life. "I was very lucky to meet a swami," he says, "I met a holy man from India and I got a very interesting direction out of it, like a life direction, of what to do with my life."
His association with the holy man, Swami Satchidananda, inspired Max to open a yoga center—the first, at the time—in New York City.
Max remains devoted to yoga and says it helped change the way he creates art. "It affected my work a lot. I was even anxious about my work—what was I going to draw, what was I going to paint, how will it come out? Now I never think about how will it come out. I just paint. I let it surprise me."
The influence of yoga and Eastern religion also led Max to what has become a lifetime of activism for human rights, ecological causes and animal protection. "Try to make someone else's life better," he says. "It could even be a flea, it could be a moth. The other day I was in this Chinese restaurant, and there was what looked like a newborn fly in the window, it was just trying and trying to get out. So I took my teacup, I dried it out so it wouldn't wet her wings and I cupped it over the little fly. I took a piece of paper, slid it in there and I walked out it out into the street and it flew away and it disappeared in two seconds. But I loved the fact that, you know, it took one second of my life, big deal, but it's a good practice. It's a good thing to do."
Currently, Max has just finished working on art for the Indy 500, and recently, for the sixth year in a row, he created artwork for the Grammy Awards. During his career, he has painted works for Earth Day, the World Cup, the Super Bowl, the New Orleans Jazz Festival, the 2002 Olympics, Woodstock 1969, 1994 and 1999, and the Moscow Music Peace Festival, among many others.
But it's clear that art, as much as Max is so obviously passionate about it, is only one facet of this artist's life. "When you have Peter Max at the easel as the artist, it's all about composition, it's about color combinations, it's about line direction, subject, inventing, feeling like I'm inventing something on the spot," Max says. "But when Peter Max walks away from the easel, it's all about yoga, a better world, animal protection, helping others. It's all about charity things. I'm grateful that I have that in my life. It's become serious. First it was like, 'Wow, that would be a cool thing to do.' Now I've done it for so many years, it's the only thing I would ever want to do."
Peter Max will appear Sept. 1113, 7 p.m.10 p.m. and Sept. 14, 11a.m.-2p.m. at The Art of Peter Max, Colors of a Better World Gallery, 334 Santana Row. RSVP to 408.615.1590. Readers are welcome to bring their souvenir copy of Saratoga News to the gallery to have Peter Max autograph it. Max will sign his book, The Art of Peter Max, Sept. 13, noon2 p.m. at Borders Books and Music, 356 Santana Row, San Jose, 408.241.9100.
|
Photograph by Rick Bard