Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1405907
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: IMAGE COURTESY THE ARTIST; PHOTOGRAPH ROBERT BEAN. PHOTOGRAPH NICK WILLING. PHOTOGRAPH FELIX FRIEDMANN. questions]. I have to do various things, like sometimes I have an interview. Sometimes I'll have somebody ask me to write something. Usually, my kid's in the studio, and our dog is running around. I tend to my trees outside. And then I get down to some work — usually by the afternoon. You've been outspoken about politics. Has that impacted your recent work? Perhaps more optimistic or lighter given Biden's 2020 win? Sean Scully: We need freedom of speech and freedom of thought. So, Biden's win has buoyed me considerably. And I'm a great environmentalist. I think that [Biden's] concentration on the environment and the infrastructure of this great country would do huge amounts of good in the future. Which we will see in the next 10, 20 years. So, it's possible that he's going to be a great president. Do you listen to music while you work? Sean Scully: I listen to music all the time. Agnes Obel is one that I listen to. I listen to a lot of old American music because I had a blues club. Bo Diddley, for example. Robert Johnson, B.B. King, and a lot of music from the 1960s. Bob Dylan, I adore. So, it's very, very, very varied. And Lykke Li is wonderful. A new Swedish singer. There are a lot of very interesting female singers around at the moment. When did you first meet Sean Scully and what was your initial attraction to his work? Marla Price: I first encountered his work in 1984 in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. I followed his career closely. In 1988, shortly after I began as curator at the [Fort Worth] Modern, I met him while on a studio visit in New York, when I purchased the great painting Pale Fire (1988) for our permanent collection, which is in the exhibition. This exhibition has examples of works throughout his artistic evolution. Which work or series is a personal favorite? Marla Price: I have too many favorites to choose one, but Backs and Fronts (1981) is very special — his first large and really ambitious work. The Modern has a long history with Scully. We hosted "The Catherine Paintings" exhibition in 1993 at our previous location. The artist gifted this series to our permanent collection in 2002, and we have it on view frequently in our second-floor gallery. A few years after we moved into our Tadao Ando building, we presented his "Wall of Light" exhibition, which featured Wall of Light Desert Night (1999) from the Modern's permanent collection. How do you think this presentation and Scully's work resonates with artists emerging now? Amanda Sroka: Chronicling the development and breadth of Scully's work from the 1970s to today, this presentation is an affirmation of the infinite possibilities of abstraction that are made available through the medium of painting. The relevance and ingenuity of this work across five decades serves as an inspiration for artists of Scully's generation and those to come. Scully at work in his studio Sean Scully's Landline North Blue, 2014, at The Modern Sean Scully "Sean Scully: The Shape of Ideas," through October 10, at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, 3200 Darnell St., themodern.org. 32