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[music]
My name is David Diao. I am an artist.
This is one of the Barnett Newman paintings,
which I started in 1990. This one is from 1991.
Initially, I had admired him because he represented
the more intellectual wing of Abstract Expressionism.
In any case, the first one was just a list of works by number
under the different categories: painting, sculpture, drawing what have you.
Then I decided I could actually zero in on his painting production.
When I did this in 1991 there were only about 107 in the listing.
I came to do work on him almost by chance, because I was looking at a book
and noticed how few works he did. He made probably five paintings per year.
And for me this was astounding in the sense that you usually
think of important artists as being, you know so fecund as to not able
to put the brush down. So here is one of my heroes
who turns out to be so minimal actually in the amount of work he did.
So I decided to actually image it. Well, that is where it started.
And here it is. Beginning in 1944, without any paintings,
they were only drawings at that point. And ending in 1970.
July 4th, 1970, when he died. Well, for me it is
kind of an inside joke. The idea that Newman's paintings
are usually thought of as these sublime, gigantic, room-expanding pieces.
And here I am reducing them to like postage stamps.
Well, somewhere along the way, in addition to referencing
the history of art, I came to look at the institutions that govern art.
This painting at some point was sold and then the people
who owned it very stupidly put it at auction without a reserve.
So instead of achieving a high price that the estimate would have assumed you
to get, it only achieved one seventh of what the painting had originally sold for.
That same painting was coming up for auction yet again.
I zoomed in and decided this was a chance for me to get the painting
back, because it would be at a price I could probably afford.
And low and behold, I got it back. And I was so amazed and astounded
that I had achieved this that I decided to make a painting
of the history of this painting. Beginning with when it was made,
the first auction, the second auction, and the final frame: home at last.