Viewing page 9 of 12

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

I would like to say to the graduating class, "The world is yours." Never has prejudice of all sorts come under attack as it has today. There is a new freedom for women to be themselves, to find out what they really are. Freud's "What do they want" is easy to answer. They know what they do not want, but just as the slave can only dream of what he will have after freedom, which he knows he wants, women must first be free and live and discover what they want. The March edition of Harpers has a great article on women's lib by Norman Mailer, seen from the male point of view, and then there is the book "Sexual Politics" by Kate Millet presenting the case for women.

As to the role of the museum. Nothing could be more important than that one's work be shown. In 1963 I painted Bill Seitz when he was still curator of the Museum of Modern Art. He would disclaim any influence on the art world by saying "we just reach out there" - I told him that what he hung on his walls in turn had a great influence and became sanctified. In the portrait there is an arm resting on its elbow with a completely non-committed hand doing nothing which was my way of presenting his attitude. I'll admit this is rather subtle, and picketing is much more effective. The human image for many years was not considered important. In 1962 when the Museum of Modern Art had its "Return of the Figure" show I went to a symposium there (all men by the way) and none of the speakers really connected with the kernel of the subject. "Man is the mirror of all things" says the Bible and this is true. I wrote a statement once for a publication called "The Hasty Papers." This was put out - just one edition - after the filming of "Pull My Daisy," a film with Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Jack Kerouac of the Beat Generation. I had a part in the film. This is the statement - 11 years ago - autobiographic but showing the position of the human figure in art at that time. 

"As for myself, being born I looked around the world and its people terrified and fascinated me. I was attracted by the morbid and excessive and everything connected with death had a dark power over me. I was early taken to Sunday School where the tale of Christ nailed to the cross would send me into violent weeping and 

-3-