Probably a third of the way down is this...
MR. KNIGHT: In the interview that you did with Bruce Kurts in 1972, you said, almost in passing, that when you met Oldenburg and saw his work, you felt a relation with European experience, especially German expressionists.
DR. PANZA: Yes.
MR. KNIGHT: And that's a very intriguing notion, and I wonder if you could discuss that?
DR. PANZA: Yes, I felt this relationship because of this opposition of so different colors. And also, the German expressionists used the same technique to put very strong colors one aside of the other. They don't use difference of tone of colors, just pure color against another one, but without a transition. And this was a technique used by the German expressionists in order to give more violent force to the expression. And I found the same thing in Oldenburg.
MR. KNIGHT: It's interesting, because Pop is usually thought of as such an American sensibility.
DR. PANZA: Yes.
MR. KNIGHT: But in a case such as this, you seem to connect it with the European tradition.
DR. PANZA: Yes. In some ways, yes. Perhaps I am wrong; perhaps is not real. But I had this feeling, and it was interesting for me to make this confrontation; because it was helpful for understanding the work of Oldenburg.
If you look at Oldenburg's 60's work that Panza collected, I can see this connection. Here are the MoMA Oldenburgs. And, to be exact in which ones we are looking at, the ones Panza actually collected which live at the LA Moca.
It's not an issue of historically attributing the Oldenburgs to the influence of the German Expressionists. This may be true, but like Panza, I'm not willing to state it definitively. The two have similar formal concerns and techniques though. They act the same way. They preform the same formal methods. It's interesting to consider and is a relationship I probably wouldn't have ever considered without this interview. Thank you to both Knight and Panza. RIP dear collector. Your collection lives on.
