KEVIN BERLIN

By Will Jensen
Original text in Flemish.

Left pull quote: "Look at fashion advertising. There is almost no difference anymore in what's being presented in terms of nudity and what is seen as pornography. The difference between art & pornography is a question of centimeters, for a man, a bit more." Right pull quote: "Most people who finish their art training have painted a lot of canvas & have invested a lot of time in their study but they're unsure about what they are doing. It's like walking into an ice cream shop and not knowing which flavor you want." Photography: Michael Dehaspe

It has nothing to do with their explanation. In a disarming way, the American artist Kevin Berlin knows the story behind each of his creations. And there are many. His paintings and bronze sculpture adorn the collections of Kim Basinger, David Letterman, Hillary Clinton, Quincy Jones and Jimmy Carter. During one of his many trips, he painted the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg:" When I arrived in Russia, I knew three Russian words. One was vodka." Now he lives on the fourth floor in an old palace in Florence. Incognito. But do not tell anyone else.

KB: When I was small, I didn't have my own bedroom; I had to share with my brother. But my parents bought me a whole supply of paint & brushes. If I wanted an expensive tube of cadmium red, I got it on the condition that I didn't waste it. As a child, I was already winning national poster contests and such. I couldn't imagine that I could go on doing something that I liked to do. I thought I would be a doctor or a businessman. Since I was young, I've been interested in anatomy. I learned all the complex Latin names for muscles and bones by heart. It seemed at first that this information was worthless to a 12 year old boy but eventually became invaluable for a sculptor. After school, I started taking classes and began to draw nudes.

My parents encouraged me very much because they saw how much I liked doing it and that I was good at it. My drawing lessons seemed to be a good preparation for sculpting. It was only at Yale that I took a sculpting class with a brilliant professor, Erwin Hauer who taught me the basics.

X: Was the absence of school/training a problem?

KB: Sometimes I think my work is stronger because of the lack of training/school etc. that I had. Sometimes it is a hindrance. At Yale, the basic idea was that you had to learn to think, solve problems, search for answers. If you could do that you could fend for yourself. Most people that come out of the art schools,

have painted a lot of canvas & have invested a lot of time in their study but they're unsure what they are doing. It's like walking into an ice cram shop and not knowing which flavor you want. If you create, you must know what you want. You have to say, "Today I want vanilla and pistachio". If your work is different

inventive, noone around you will understand what in G-d's name you are doing, you must be able to enlighten them yourself. Definition of genius: develop something noone else sees and make it take on form. Often, my strategy is to surround myself with geniuses and steal their ideas. That is simpler than being a genius yourself. And the results are often the same. <grins>

X: Your paintings and sculpture are in the collections of many well-known people. How did you come in contact with these people?

KB: Behind every piece, there is a story, often a trip or an adventure. You find this also throughout American literature: in "Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, meandering down the river is more important than arriving at a destination. After studying in London for a year, I decided to live in the US for 3yrs to paint and sculpt cultural icons. At the time, winter was around the corner so I headed for Sarasota in Florida. I painted elderly people and three hundred pound women who sat on the beach. After that, I went to Bozeman, Montana, searching for the Marlboro Man. I took horse riding and lasso lessons and I visited cattle auctions.

I was drawn to Hollywood where there are bodybuilders, moviestars and California girls. I lived one block from Beverly Hills. Even the sidewalk across the street was better laid than my side. It was as if where Beverly Hills stopped, the rest of the world began. I went searching for the stereotypical California dreamgirl. "Then you should make a sculpture of Kim Basinger," my neighbor said. He was apparently her hairdresser. "What's your plan?" he asked. I wanted to make something in 3/4 scale, in cast bronze and leafed in 23 carat gold, almost like a religious object. And Kim Basinger came and posed, it was that simple.

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X: What story lies behind "The Colossal Bellybutton"?

KB: I was searching for the essence of the California girl. Maybe she doesn’t exist but she is what everyone has eyes for in America. Instead of sculpting her completely, I thought her bellybutton could tell the whole story. After searching for 7 months, I discovered her on line at a movie theater. She was dressed in black with her midriff exposed and appeared to have the perfect bellybutton.

I enlarged it 40 times its size: good for someone that is 73 meters (240 feet) tall. By comparison, the Statue of Liberty is 33 meters high.

Another story— is about a 2.5 meter (8 feet) tall bronze sculpture of a California dream girl. I looked for about 3-4 months: at the beach, at the gym, in clubs but I couldn’t find anyone. Until I met someone who filmed the Miss Hawaiian International Swimsuit Pageant for television. Ron Rice, the founder of the contest, is a typical American self-made man, who began by selling suntan lotion on the beach. Now he has factories on five continents. He had just married actress Darcy LaPier. The result - much larger than life- now stands in the Hawaiian Tropic mansion in Daytona Beach, Florida.

X: You have also created trophies.

KB: I was asked to design a trophy for the National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts in Miami. The prize carried Ted Arison’s name, the founder of Carnival Cruise Lines who passed away, sadly, in 1995. Every year, this sculpture that I designed gets given out during a great gala event. Quincy Jones was the first to receive the prize. This year, Placido Domingo received the award. The idea of the award is to honor someone for their extraordinary personal contributions and also the attention they have given to helping young artists.

X: On the basis of what criteria can someone pose for you?

KB: In the past, I chose models who were attractive or those who had unique features. Now I select them for their ideas and their good company. If you feel comfortable with someone and if they inspire you, then there’s a good chance that you create better work. I tell them directly, "I will steal your ideas if they are good. "There is enormous power in telling the truth. At the end of the day, you must stop and see how many times you actually told the truth: your intentions, your thoughts, your opinions. It is also rare that you get to hear the truth from someone else. The truth quickly knocks down barriers. In Breughel’s paintings, the painter depicts daily everyday things: someone drunk, someone mean, someone lonely, someone physically challenged. The themes are universal and you still recognize them centuries later. I want to reach this place in my work, I want to give the impression that it is worth it to get up in the morning. If you give a child vitamins in the form of Fred Flintstone, he’ll be crazy about them and he/she still gets the proper nutrients. I try to camouflage "nourishing" messages in a similar way.

X: You work almost always with live models. How do you get a female to go so far as to pose for explicit pieces such as "The Red Dress" or "The Private Collection"?

KB: Many of the models are friends of friends- or people I meet on a street corner. The secret in getting someone to pose for you is twofold. First you must tell the truth. If you want to take someone out to eat, then say: "Hello. I would like to take you out to eat." If you want to paint someone, then say: "Hello. I would like to paint you." New Yorkers are especially sensitive about the truth. If you tell them something that is not true, they feel it with their antennae. Then they think you have a hidden agenda. It also helps to show examples of your work to them.

The second rule: if the model feels good, the work will be good. If she wants a cappuccino or a glass of water, or a small break, or if there is anything that makes her uncomfortable, I want to know. I want to give her the feeling that she is being treated well and that she’s being respected.

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X: The question is: What is pornography? What are its borders?

KB: Art, fashion, film and pornography are rapidly merging. That seems to be more the trend. If people are confident enough in something to talk about it but is something that lies on the edge of societal normas/ values, then at some point, it becomes acceptable. When the Academie Francaise threw a sheet over the art world and determined what the best way was to paint, the Impressionists did not go along with it. There were enough people who loved impressionism and who had no duty to the Academie So, something new arose.

To go back to your question, pornography is discussed but is still not mainstream.Thanks to the Internet one has access to things previously unknown. There was the White House scandal with Monica Lewinsky about which mothers had to explain to their children exactly what had happened. There is the rise of Viagra for which Senator Bob Dole made advertisements. Suddenly it is OK: it’s being talked about. In mainstream films you see actors having actual sex. That was unthinkable in the past. Look at some of the most recent fashion ads. There is almost no difference anymore in what's being presented in terms of nudity and what is seen as pornography. The difference between art & pornography is a question of a few square centimeters. for a man, perhaps a bit more…

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"Many of the paintings that I cannot exhibit in New York, pose no problem in Paris. If you hang this on a wall in America, even well-informed, intelligent people will comment: "Look, a private part"!

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X: regarding that subject, do you notice a difference between Europe and the US?

KB: Many of the paintings that I cannot exhibit in New York, pose no problem in Paris. If you hang this on a wall in America, even well-informed, intelligent people will comment: "Look, a private part!" Thereby missing the nuances, the subtleness, the message.

In Paris, it was different as they look at the work. They comprehend that the male and female parts are not exceptional, that they constitute a part of everyday life. That was very refreshing.

X: How is it that the classical masters challenged time while the present day people, it seems to be less the case?

KB: We live in a strange era where talent has often become hidden or undeveloped. When Michaelangelo was 13, he was working with the greatest masters in Florence. At 26, he made the statue of David. How was he able to do that? Because, before he worked on the statue, he studied and worked for thirteen years, seven days a week, with the greatest artists in the world. Meanwhile we spend a lot of time in kindergarten and grammar school so that you now must be 40 or 50 to have as much experience. Most artists don’t have this opportunity. Even people with talent must practice. If you want to draw good noses and you have already drawn 50, then you know a little about them. But imagine you have drawn 10,000 different noses - fat, thin, small, big — then you really know what a nose is. You know the nose inside and out.

Great masters such as Rubens were so confident with depicting bodies that they could easily paint them. I want to take a piece of paper, some gouache and a paintbrush and create something magnificent. Something that would make people say: I could never do that. Try once, if only for a few seconds, to do what the Russian ballerina Yulia Makhalina does during a performance. You will see that for the average person that it is entirely impossible. Her training and skill become apparent quickly.The talent shows. I love to do things whereby I can can use everything that I have previously learned. It is different from throwing some plastic and nonsense in a pile merely to show how ugly and chaotic the world is. I want to make something in an old-fashioned way, with love. I embrace the world and if you look at my work, you will see that. And hopefully you embrace it too.

X: What is your most recent project?

KB: I have just discovered glass and I want to make portraits with it. Bronze has a number of limitations. We are so comfortable with it, as a material from the past, used to memorialize the past. We associate it with the dead and with something we want to honor. You can see through glass. A bridge to the future.

I have now started a series called "The Heroes of our Time". They are double-sized sculptures that are a head and some shoulder. On average, they weigh 130-200kg (350+ pounds). Originally they were made of clay. A model is made and then sent to the Czech Republic where there are possibilities for glass sculpture. The choice of people for "Heroes of our Time" is very subjective. They are mostly figures that I grew up with and had admired. I choose people who are successful, but also those in the midst of their journey, who still have a lot to do.

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"A giraffe is a horse that is being designed by a committee. It is difficult to get all the noses in the same direction. I was, for example, enormously disappointed when I saw the sketches for the rebuilding of Ground Zero"

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X: For whom have you chosen?

KB: I worked with Maestro Valery Gergiev, the artistic director of the Russian Mariinsky Theater where the Kirov Ballet is located. He is also the permanent guest-conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In Russia he is for many a national hero. Also President Putin is a great admirer. He has gone to great effort to take the Russian repertoire out into the world because there are extraordinarary pieces of music that are very well known and admired in Russia but relatively unknown outside the borders.

Whether it is a Russian opera company or a ballet that comes to Washington, they continually present "The Nutcracker" & "Swan Lake" due to commercial considerations. With these they can lure in the public and a guaranteed financial success. Maestro Gergiev has introduced "Prince Igor" and "La Bayadere". I know for sure he’s come up against a lot of resistance. Some say: Russia is for the Russians". In other words, keep the door shut. Meanwhile my belief is: to know me is to love me. We must realize that we have a lot in common despite our differences.

Finally, I have heard President Clinton often say in his speeches — we must embrace our differences. The future of America will depend on how well we do this as opposed to wishing that we all looked more alike.

X: Are there any Americans in the series?

KB: There is a statue of Buzz Aldrin, the man who was on the moon. A very dynamic man, even at 74. He dreams about the possibilities for in spacetravel in the future and shares his ideas.

X: Would you ever like to make a monument as big as The Statue of Liberty, something to enliven people? Did you find a city yet that was interested?

KB: No. Maybe Brussels would be interested? <grins> if you make something that is small that is good, then it is good. If you make something enormous that is good, then it is incredibly good. Naturally if you make something that is really big that is bad, you create a nightmare. A sculpture doesn’t move. It is not video or film, but it has the power to move and inspire people if it is in a public place. Look at the Statue of Liberty or Mt. Rushmore. If you place something in a city, a lot of people will see it: local government officials, financiers, you name it .Do you know the saying: A giraffe is a horse that is being designed by a committee. It is difficult to get all the noses in the same direction. I was, for example, enormously disappointed when I saw the sketches for the rebuilding of Ground Zero.

X: How would you have taken it on?

KB: I would build the Twin Towers exactly as they were only a floor higher. Then we could say to everyone: ‘You can throw us down on the ground but we will always stand up again.’ In Russia they say "hope is the last to die". If you have no hope, then there is not a single reason to live.

A few years ago, I read the autobiography of Casanova who was well-known for his extramarital affairs. When he was 26, he was thrown into a jail cell in Venice. His cellmate asked him a question: "If you knew for certain that you had 10 bad years ahead of you full of misery and sadness and also 10 coming that would be full of joy, which would you want first?". Everyone chose the misery first because there was hope. That’s what the Twin Towers must do: give people hope. This thought keeps me….