THE Q&A: TONY CANDIDO, ARCHITECT, PAINTER

Tony Candido's resume includes a roster of legendary mentors. After studying at the Illinois Institute of Technology under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer, he worked as an architectural designer for I.M. Pei and contributed to Konrad Wachsmann's groundbreaking Air Force airport hangar design. But Candido has also pursued his own vision. He began painting professionally in the early 1950s, using sweeping brush strokes to create abstract explorations (as with "Night Paintings", from 1956), figural studies ("Asahikawa Heads", in 1988) and conceptual, architecturally driven works, such as his continuing "Cable Cities" series (pictured), which depicts structures embedded in the landscape. Now aged 85, Candido paints regularly and teaches at Cooper Union's Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture. Students in his studio class tackle the idea of the urban farm, a concept Candido pioneered in the 1990s that intersects ideas of farming, architecture and urban planning. This month Cooper Union has mounted "The Great White Whale is Black", a retrospective exhibition honouring five decades of Candido's work. The day the show opened Candido took a moment to speak with More Intelligent Life about his approach to painting, his fascination with spatial relationships and the relationship between cities and their surroundings. More Intelligent Life: You've worked with some huge names in the architecture world, including Mies van der Rohe and I.M. Pei. Did either of them influence you as an artist? Tony Candido: In terms of my major influence in architecture, it was Mies van der Rohe, and planning ideas I got through Hilberseimer. And then of course, I worked for Konrad Wachsmann on his airport hangar, which was a very large space-frame structure. Those were architectural influences. Ultimately, my vision of what I'm doing developed independent of them. But I had what I consider to be a great education by very responsible men. A no-nonsense education. And that's stayed with me all my life. MIL: I ask because your paintings seem to be very influenced by the line. What is it about those calligraphic strokes and lines that appeals to you? TC: I use brushes that are four inches or five inches in diameter, and maybe anywhere from ten to 16 inches long in hair. I get my whole body into it. What I like about it is with the large, sweeping strokes I can carve out large spaces. And it's not just the space about the stroke, but also the depth of the ink, and I can get into that and see it spatially. It's visceral. Of course, when I'm doing the drawings for "Cable Cities" I'm not thinking of the brush stroke, but I'm looking for large structures that are carving out large spaces. In other words, these cities are not just internal spaces, but the space in and about them. MIL: You've said in the past that your work portrays humanity as it meets and interacts with its environment. Is that your architecture background speaking? TC: In a sense, I think of the total environment—what's internal and everything about one is the environment. But let's say specifically, when I did "Double Images" [in the late 1960s and again in the late 1980s], I'm thinking of man's relationship to his environment in the abstract. What's generated those paintings is my attempt to deal with the confusion in our minds when we become too concerned with differences in things. In "Cable Cities" I have what one might call the bend; that's where the cable comes over and bends down to meet the anchor when it's anchored. And I'm very concerned with man in relationship to that anchorage, architecturally, architectonically. MIL: As an instructor in architecture, you nurture up-and-coming talent. How do you picture the future of architecture and design? TC: That's what this exhibition's about. What will happen? I don't have a crystal ball, nor does anyone else. But what's happened to cities? In a city like New York, you experience space microcosmically. The "Cable City" is an attempt to address the universe and to reclaim the landscape that is being destroyed by suburbia. It's not that the old city should be wiped out, but I believe it should be pruned—much more than what we called "refinanced" back in the '50s. But this is a very complex question. We have millions of people living in New York, and there are a lot of homeless. And then we have our students here at Cooper Union doubling up and tripling up in what we would have called old railroad flats. When my father walked into my first big studio, he said, "Six years of architecture to live in a dump like this?" We just can't keep re-developing things. My vision is to regain, reclaim the landscape. And it's like being on a large ocean voyage, or a large vessel, where you're out and you can experience and feel the whole landscape, the whole universe. And it's not like penetrating some block of wood, and then you're in it and all you ever feel is the little domicile you're in, your apartment. So my vision is that it has to open up, and it's not going to be easy, because there are so many problems involved. I believe very deeply in this... and it's something that could be done today. We have to start thinking big. "The Great White Whale is Black" is on view at the Cooper Union's Arthur A. Houghton Jr Gallery through March 13th. ~ ERIN DEJESUS Image credit: Tony Candido ("Study for a Cable City", ink on paper, 2009)