A Conversation with Werner Kramarsky

WK: There is one thing we really need to say. The business of making work is hard work. It’s skill, it’s talent, it’s opportunity, and then comes the question of luck because you also have to have luck. Without luck, you don’t get into a gallery or into a show or all of those things, because you can make all the rounds you want to and your work can be absolutely exquisite but if you’re not lucky the right person doesn't see it. You said before how often do I have to talk about the business of abstraction or contemporary art. I talk with artists all the time, and obviously I have a lot of artist friends, and I tell them that a large piece of this is luck. You can have all the talent and all the skill in the world and you can work very, very hard but you need an opportunity. So one of the things I try to do is create opportunities for people. You give work like this to an institution and maybe somebody will see it and say, “Hey, that looks interesting. I wonder where that artist is?” And find them and either show them or acquire work or something like that.

CR: It reminds me of a conversation I had with a professor at an art school in Germany who said, “You know, everybody is mourning the fact that there is no life drawing anymore.” In German foundational school, out of a Bauhaus model, it’s called Formenlehre—the basic teaching of forms. And he said, “We have to institute a different kind of Formenlehre. We have to institute that people know how to put together a portfolio, how to apply for a public competition, how to present and conduct a studio visit.” It’s basic knowledge that an artist has to know because as much as it is luck, it is also something that you need to learn how to do.