Michel Gondry at the Hammer

It has been an inspiring few weeks here at UCLA. Last tuesday the 21st, Michel Gondry visited the Hammer museum in Westwood! People were lined up around the block see this eccentric artist. With the help of my very kind roommate who works for the Hammer I got in.

Before the lecture proceeded more than 5 minutes, Gondry stopped the interviewer in mid sentence to gripe about the glaring white pages left on the reserved seats. He went on about how the organizers of the event said it was a packed house yet there were papers dotting the auditorium which served as a major distraction.  Gondry stopped the interviewing process for a good five minutes before the seats were filled with eager artists and loyal fans who stayed to watch the lecture projected in an overflow room.

The last question that resonated with me is when Gondry was asked about language barriers. The interviewer said something like “do you ever find it hard to understand english” (something idiotic like that) and Gondry replied that he always understands except when he needs time to formulate a good answer, he will say “oh i do not understand can you rephrase your question…”

All in all I got a very good feeling about Gondry. He has an amazing ego-building body of work and yet he appears so humble and down to earth. He has a “matter of fact” tone about his art. If something didn’t go quite as planned he would say well that is just how t’is. The little flaws in his pieces give a more rich handmade character. Oh I aspire to have the same attitude about my work. It is important not to take yourself too seriously . So often we try to take all the credit for our art when in reality it is just an amalgum of our predecessors creations. We just take a specific cocktail of visual stimuli and repackage it in a more modern rendition of what has already been established.  But Michel Gondry’s cocktail is dynamic; it reaches the core of our most playful, childlike nature and exposes certian curriosities about the physical world. He brings the ephemeral and intangable into plain sight for our entertainment. I am inspired!