I love museums. Have you guys ever been to the Natural History Museum? In New York City?
Volim muzeje. Jeste li ikad bili u Prirodoslovnom muzeju? U New York Cityju?
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
So one of the things that I do is I take my kids to the museum. Recently I took them to the Natural History Museum. I had my two sons with me, Sabian and Dabith. And we go into the front entrance of the museum, and there's that amazing sculpture of Teddy Roosevelt out there. You guys know which one I'm talking about. Teddy Roosevelt is sitting there with one hand on the horse, bold, strong, sleeves rolled up. I don't know if he's bare-chested, but it kind of feels like it.
Nekad svoju djecu odvedem u muzej. Nedavno sam ih odveo u Prirodoslovni muzej. Bio sam tamo sa svoja dva sina, Sabianom i Dabithom. Priđemo ulazu u muzej, a tamo stoji nevjerojatna skulptura Teddyja Roosevelta. Siguran sam da znate o kojoj pričam. Teddy Roosevelt sjedi s jednom rukom na konju, odvažan, jak, zavrnutih rukava. Ne znam ima li gola prsa, ali čini se kao da ima.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And on the left-hand side of him is a Native American walking. And on the right-hand side of him is an African-American walking. And as we're moving up the stairs, getting closer to the sculpture, my oldest son, who's nine, says, "Dad, how come he gets to ride, and they have to walk?"
Na njegovoj lijevoj strani hoda Indijanac. Na njegovoj desnoj strani hoda Afroamerikanac. Dok se uspinjemo stubama, približavajući se skulpturi, moj najstariji sin, ima devet godina, kaže, "Tata, zašto on smije jahati, a oni moraju hodati?"
It stopped me in my tracks. It stopped me in my tracks. There was so much history that we would have to go through to try to explain that, and that's something I try to do with them anyways. It's a question that I probably would have never really asked. But fundamentally what he was saying was, "That doesn't look fair. Dad, that doesn't look fair. And why is this thing that's so not fair sitting outside of such an amazing institution." And his question got me wondering, is there a way for us to amend our public sculptures, our national monuments? Not erase them, but is there a way to amend them?
Zamrznuo sam se. Zamrznuo sam se. Kroz toliko bismo povijesti morali proći kako bi im to objasnio, a to uvijek pokušavam učiniti. To je pitanje koje vjerojatno nikad ne bih postavio. Ono što je zapravo rekao bilo je, "To ne izgleda pravedno. Tata, to ne izgleda pravedno. I zašto ta nepravda stoji ispred ovako nevjerojatne institucije." Zbog tog sam se pitanja zapitao postoji li način da ispravimo svoje javne skulpture, svoje nacionalne spomenike? Ne trebamo ih izbrisati, no postoji li način da ih ispravimo?
Now, I didn't grow up going to museums. That's not my history. My mother was 15 years old when I was born. She is amazing. My father was struggling with his own things for most of my life. If you really want to know the truth, the only reason I got into art is because of a woman. There was this amazing, amazing, fantastic, beautiful, smart woman, four years older than me, and I wanted to go out with her. But she said, "You're too young and you're not thinking about your future." So I ran on down to the junior college, registered for some classes, ran on back, and basically was like, "I'm thinking about my future now."
Dok sam odrastao, nisam išao u muzeje. To nije moja povijest. Moja me majka rodila s 15 godina. Divna je. Moj se otac bavio svojim stvarima većinu mog života. Ako želite znati istinu, umjetnošću sam se počeo baviti zbog jedne žene. Bila je to divna, odlična, prelijepa, pametna žena, četiri godine starija od mene, i htio sam izlaziti s njom. No rekla je, "Premlad si i ne razmišljaš o svojoj budućnosti." Otišao sam do visoke škole, prijavio se na neke predmete, vratio se i rekao, "Sad razmišljam o svojoj budućnosti."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
"Can we go out?"
"Hoćemo li izaći?"
For the record, she's even more amazing. I married her.
Samo da se zna, još je izvanrednija. Oženio sam ju.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
So when I randomly ran down to the junior college and registered for classes, I really wasn't paying attention to what I was registering to.
Kad sam tako iznenadno otišao do visoke škole i prijavio se na neke predmete, nisam obraćao pozornost na što se prijavljujem.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So I ended up with an art history class, and I didn't know a thing about art history. But something amazing happened when I went into that class. For the first time in my academic career, my visual intelligence was required of me. For the first time. The professor would put up an image, bold strokes of blues and yellows, and say, "Who's that?" And I'd go, "That's Van Gogh. Clearly that is Van Gogh. I got this."
Završio sam na satu povijesti umjetnosti, a nisam imao pojma o povijesti umjetnosti. No nešto se nevjerojatno dogodilo na tom satu. Prvi je put u mojoj akademskoj karijeri moja vizualna inteligencija bila potrebna. Prvi put. Profesor bi pokazao sliku odvažnih plavih i žutih poteza, i rekao, "Tko je to?" Rekao bih, "To je Van Gogh. Očito se radi o Van Goghu. Mogu ja ovo."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I got a B in that class. For me, that was amazing. In high school, let's just say I wasn't a great student. OK? In high school, my GPA was .65.
Imao sam četvorku iz tog predmeta. Za mene je to bilo nevjerojatno. Recimo da u srednjoj školi nisam bio odličan učenik. OK? U srednjoj školi prosjek mi je bio .65.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Decimal point first, six five. So me getting a B was huge, huge, absolutely huge. And because of the fact that I realized that I was able to learn things visually that I couldn't learn in other ways, this became my strategy, this became my tactic for understanding everything else. I wanted to stay in this relationship. Things were going well.
Prvo decimalna točka, pa šest pet. Moja je četvorka bila jako, jako velika stvar, iznimno velika. I upravo zbog tog shvaćanja da mogu učiti vizualno, da ne mogu učiti na druge načine, to je postala moja strategija, moja taktika za shvaćanje svega. Htio sam ostati u toj vezi. Sve je bilo dobro.
I decided, let me keep taking these art history classes. One of the last art history classes, I will not forget, I will never forget. It was one of those survey art history classes. Anybody ever have one of those survey art history classes, where they try to teach you the entire history of art in a single semester? I'm talking about cave paintings and Jackson Pollock just crunched together all in the same -- It doesn't really work, but they try anyway. Well, at the beginning of the semester, I looked at the book, and in this 400-page book was about a 14-page section that was on black people in painting. Now, this was a crammed in section that had representations of black people in painting and black people who painted. It was poorly curated, let's just put it that way.
Odlučio sam ostati na satima povijesti umjetnosti. Nikad neću zaboraviti jedan od zadnjih satova povijesti umjetnosti. Radilo se o preglednim satovima povijesti umjetnosti. Je li itko pohađao takve satove povijesti umjetnosti, gdje te pokušaju naučiti cijelu povijest umjetnosti u jednom semestru? Govorim o špiljskim slikama i Jacksonu Pollocku zbijenim u jedno -- baš i ne funkcionira, no svejedno pokušavaju. Pa, na početku sam semestra pregledao knjigu, i u toj je knjizi od 400 stranica dio od 14 stranica o crncima u slikama. To je bilo nagomilano poglavlje o prikazima crnaca u slikama i crncima slikarima. Recimo samo da je bilo loše organizirano.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Nonetheless I was really excited about it, because in all the other classes that I had, we didn't even have that conversation. We didn't talk about it at all. So imagine my surprise when I get to class and on the day that we're supposed to go over that particular chapter, my professor announces, "We're going to skip this chapter today because we do not have time to go through it."
Svejedno sam bio uzbuđen, jer ni pod jednim drugim satom nismo imali taj razgovor. Nismo o tome uopće pričali. Možete zamisliti moje iznenađenje kad nas je na satu, onog dana kad smo trebali razgovarati o tom poglavlju, profesorica obavijestila, "Preskočit ćemo današnje poglavlje jer nemamo vremena proći ga."
"Whoa, I'm sorry, hold on, professor, professor. I'm sorry. This is a really important chapter to me. Are we going to go over it at any point?"
"Hej, oprostite, pričekajte, profesorice. Oprostite. Ovo mi je stvarno bitno poglavlje. Hoćemo li ga uopće preći?"
"Titus, we don't have time for this."
"Tituse, nemamo vremena za ovo."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please, I really need to understand. Clearly the author thinks that this is significant. Why are we skipping over this?"
"Oprostite, oprostite, oprostite, molim vas, stvarno trebam razumjeti. Očito autor misli da je značajno. Zašto ga onda preskačemo?"
"Titus, I do not have time for this."
"Tituse, nemam vremena za ovo."
"OK, last question, I'm really sorry here. When can we talk, because we need to talk."
"OK, zadnje pitanje, oprostite. Kad možemo pričati, jer moramo pričati."
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I went to her office hours. I ended up getting kicked out of her office. I went to the dean. The dean finally told me, "I can't force her to teach anything." And I knew in that moment if I wanted to understand this history, if I wanted to understand the roles of those folks who had to walk, I was probably going to have to figure that out myself. So ... above you right here on the slide is a painting by Frans Hals. This is one of the kinds of images that was in that chapter. I taught myself how to paint by going to museums and looking at images like this.
Kasnije sam ju posjetio. Izbačen sam iz njenog ureda. Otišao sam dekanu. Dekan mi je naposljetku rekao, "Ne mogu ju prisiliti da nešto predaje." U tom sam trenutku znao, želim li shvatiti ovu povijest, želim li shvatiti uloge onih koji su morali hodati, morat ću to shvatiti sam. Pa ... iznad vas je slajd sa slikom Fransa Halsa. Ovakve su slike bile u tom poglavlju. Naučio sam slikati idući u muzeje i gledajući ovakve slike.
I want to show you something.
Želim vam nešto pokazati.
I made this. I --
Ovo sam ja naslikao. Ja --
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
I made some alterations. You'll see there are some slight differences in the painting. All this art history that I had been absorbing helped me to realize that painting is a language. There is a reason why he is the highest in the composition here. There is a reason why the painter is showing us this gold necklace here. He's trying to tell us something about the economic status of these people in these paintings. Painting is a visual language where everything in the painting is meaningful, is important. It's coded. But sometimes, because of the compositional structure, because of compositional hierarchy, it's hard to see other things. This silk is supposed to tell us also that they have quite a bit of money. There's more written about dogs in art history than there are about this other character here. Historically speaking, in research on these kinds of paintings, I can find out more about the lace that the woman is wearing in this painting -- the manufacturer of the lace -- than I can about this character here, about his dreams, about his hopes, about what he wanted out of life.
Promijenio sam neke stvari. Vidjet ćete manje razlike među slikama. Sva ta povijest umjetnosti koju sam upijao pomogla mi je shvatiti da je slikanje jezik. Postoji razlog zbog kojeg je on najviši među svima. Postoji razlog zbog kojeg nam slikar pokazuje ovu zlatnu ogrlicu. Pokušava nam nešto reći o ekonomskom statusu ljudi u tim slikama. Slikanje je vizualan jezik u kojem je sve u slici značajno, važno. Šifrirano je. No nekad je, zbog kompozicije, hijerarhije u kompoziciji, teško vidjeti druge stvari. Svila bi nam trebala pokazati da imaju puno novaca. Više je napisano o psima u povijesti umjetnosti nego o ovom liku ovdje. Gledamo li povijest, istražujući ovakve slike, više mogu saznati o čipki koju žena na ovoj slici nosi -- proizvođaču čipke -- nego o ovom liku ovdje, o njegovim snovima, nadama, o njegovim ciljevima u životu.
I want to show you something. I don't want you to think that this is about eradication. It's not. The oil that you saw me just put inside of this paint is linseed oil. It becomes transparent over time, so eventually what's going to happen is these faces will emerge a little bit. What I'm trying to do, what I'm trying to show you, is how to shift your gaze just slightly, just momentarily, just momentarily, to ask yourself the question, why do some have to walk? What is the impact of these kinds of sculptures at museums? What is the impact of these kinds of paintings on some of our most vulnerable in society, seeing these kinds of depictions of themselves all the time? I'm not saying erase it. We can't erase this history. It's real. We have to know it. I think of it in the same way we think of --
Želim vam nešto pokazati. Ne želim da mislite kako se ovdje radi o istrebljenju. Ne. Ono što sam upravo stavio u ovu boju laneno je ulje. S vremenom postaje prozirno, što znači da će se eventualno ova lica pojavljivati. Pokušavam -- želim vam pokazati kako pomaknuti svoj pogled, samo malo samo na tren, samo na tren. Zapitajte se zašto neki moraju hodati? Kakav učinak ovakve skulpture imaju u muzejima? Kakav je učinak ovakvih slika na najranjivije u društvu? Kako je vidjeti sebe prikazanog ovako? Ne kažem da je išta potrebno izbrisati. Ne možemo izbrisati povijest. Stvarno je. Moramo to znati. Razmišljam o tome kao što razmišljamo o --
Let me step back a second. You remember old-school cameras, where when you took a picture, you actually had to focus. Right? You'd put the camera up, and if I wanted you in focus, I would move the lens a little to the left and you would come forward. I could move the lens a little to the right, and you would go back and the folks in the background would come out. I'm just trying to do that here. I'm trying to give you that opportunity. I'm trying to answer that question that my son had. I want to make paintings, I want to make sculptures that are honest, that wrestle with the struggles of our past but speak to the diversity and the advances of our present. And we can't do that by taking an eraser and getting rid of stuff. That's just not going to work. I think that we should do it in the same way the American Constitution works. When we have a situation where we want to change a law in the American Constitution, we don't erase the other one. Alongside that is an amendment, something that says, "This is where we were, but this is where we are right now." I figure if we can do that, then that will help us understand a little bit about where we're going.
Zaustavit ću se na tren. Sjećate li se starih fotoaparata, koje ste trebali fokusirati kako biste nešto fotografirali. Zar ne? Uzeli biste fotoaparat, i ako sam htio tebe staviti u fokus, pomaknuo bih objektiv ulijevo i ti bi ušao u fokus. Mogao bih objektiv pomaknuti udesno, i ti bi spao u pozadinu, a ljudi iza ušli bi u fokus. Pokušavam to ovdje učiniti. Želim vam dati tu priliku. Pokušavam odgovoriti na pitanje svojeg sina. Želim stvarati slike, želim stvarati skulpture koje su iskrene, koje se bore s mukama naše prošlosti, no govore o raznovrsnosti i prednostima naše sadašnjosti. Ne možemo to učiniti brisanjem i uklanjanjem. To neće funkcionirati. Mislim da bismo trebali funkcionirati kao Ustav SAD-a. Dogodi li se da želimo promijeniti zakon u Ustavu SAD-a, ne obrišemo onaj prijašnji. Pokraj njega stoji amandman, nešto što kaže, "Ovdje smo bili prije, no tu smo sada." Vjerujem da bi nam činiti to pomoglo shvatiti nešto više o našoj budućnosti.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)