David Berkowitz Chicago Interview
David Berkowitz Chicago is an artist of Dalian thoughts because he is always different from others. His paintings were seen by people on all continents and he listed in the Oxford Encyclopedia. Berkowitz, a naive art painter of the plains and horses, creates art to cheer people and awake the love in them.
How did you enter the world of naive art painting?
Berkowitz: I came out of the naive art though, at first, it was not at all close to me. After a spleen injury that I experienced while engaged in professional sports, I learned that I will never be able to continue playing anymore. Then I while I was seeking for myself because I was only twenty-seven years old, asked myself what I would do in life. Athletes got their brainwashed, make them live from training to training and when they lose the ability to give, they start to bother.
I then returned to Chicago, together with my parents, where at that time was formed the group ‘Village’, which painted a naive art. I saw their works and said, “Well, people, this is not any painting, this is pure dilettantism, children’s painting”. There, among them was Bob Justin, who told me that some serious books has been written about naive art, and showed me some huge anthology in which all were listed all the naive art painters of the world. “If you are so important that you have the right to say that this is not good, then go home and paint something better!”
Until then I didn’t know that I like beautiful pictures, and I did not know that I had something in my fingers. I painted my first painting in 1999. It was two horses and orange sky. This image is still kept in the studio in David Berkowitz Chicago Art House.
Did you go to Mount Carroll?
Berkowitz: Yes, I’ve been hanging out with many people there. Mount Carroll is a perfectly crowded terrain for naive art. At one time paintings in the world were reduced to aggression: there was an attack on the whiteness, scratching, the taking of colors, and it all saturated people. And then naive art appeared, romantic, new. The only problem with it was that everyone started to create naive art, to copy other more famous painters, and so appeared total dilettantism. But when the grid is shaken and all the gravel is discarded, always five or six good painters show up like golden nuggets.
They say that Mount Carroll is the only village in the world where everyone can paint?
Berkowitz: Yes, but it was the same in Elkhart Lake. When I went to Elkhart Lake, where it was the largest meeting place of the painters, I saw these pictures — and I froze. Such a good painting. But then I learned that there was founded the painting group “Earth” where many painters were thought there.
Robert K. Abbett worked there, as was Herbert Abrams. Abrams took me to Chicago, where we met in a large gallery and someone asked me if I was a painter. I answered that I wanted to be, on what he said: “You have already finished half of the work then. Imagine someone’s name is David Berkowitz Chicago! How does that sound?”
I also had interesting situations in Mount Carroll with painters who worked on the glass and copied it. It did not matter to them whose name it was, but there was only one stain on the wall, and it was like a naive art one. I told them that their painting had one mistake because it was all based on the Dutch painter Pieter Bruegel. All these houses, playing, all copied it, they just drew the cows differently. The next morning we read that David Berkowitz Chicago was “shaking” the Mount Carroll School.
Have you succeeded without any support?
Berkowitz: I did the opposite of everything. I pulled the chair myself and I got up, and I did not tie myself to anyone. And that brought me success in the sense that I was stable, that nothing had led me. And I had art exhibitions all over the world, in almost every country. It’s a huge number of exhibitions and a huge number of paintings which I did not paint but produced. I never determine my art, someone else will do it. But I feel pleasure while I paint, and it cannot be compared with anything, either fame or money.
Many art historians have said that naive art is like children’s drawing but only raised to a higher level. How do you define naive art?
Berkowitz: It has survived, left a trail and cannot be erased, even if someone wants to erase it. The problem is that everything is present with painting, we have plenty of gravel and an abundance of gold. And gold requires a long search to find it. For example, in music, one can see someone’s quality immediately. You can’t just put the piano in the middle of the room and pound on it, saying that it is your style of playing. That’s right here, in naive art you must know the technique, technology, and you have to be careful not to sail unconsciously into other waters.
Is it true that naive art painters are the most freelance artists?
Berkowitz: Just partially. Because those painters are free from something called the Academy. The Academy does not allow you to be an intellectually disabled, and naive artists can be that, and they are forgiven when they do not know something. This is the special joy of creation, freedom, and naive art, if viewed as a French word, means something that is natural. So, it does not matter if you have finished the Academy or not, what is important is that you have something in yourself and cultivate it. If you succeed in that and work hard enough, all doors are open for you.
For me, the best paintings are created after ten hours of work, when all kinds of things from the subconscious come out. It’s interesting, especially since I do not have many elements, mostly horses, some pumpkin, and a fence. My motives in the paintings did not change over time, I only advanced technologically. I spin around and I’m always back on horses and my plain.
Art has always been a reflection of time, and what is the naive art reflection of?
Berkowitz: It is а need of the person to express itself. It’s an escape from chaos in a fairy tale. I do not like anything that is aggressive. Being aggressive towards anyone and anything means being disturbed. That is why naive art is an incredible painting, it is pure, childish. Comic books, television, all this immediately spoils the child, making it lose its authenticity and to begin copy drawings in the desire to show something better. A naive artist is a person who is really free from it, and if his brain is a good mix, then we will get another Henri Rousseau, for example.
