BaBits: The Hyper Eve Babitz (IV).

Hypertext of the 2000 interview by Paul Karlstrom, made for the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art Oral History Project. Maybe more texts later. The interview will be serialized as the text is  hypertextualized and media enriched, and collected HERE, where linking will probably continue after the initial posts. Eve Babitz is an artist, writer and formerly, a self-described art groupie. She achieved international fame when in 1963, at the age of 20, she got her photo taken playing chess in the nude with Marcel Duchamp at the Pasadena Art Museum, a photo that has become one of the iconic images of the artist. It was also one of the seminal events in the birth of the native Los Angeles contemporary art scene. But such an introduction damns her with faint praise, for as Babitz’s numerous, smart, exuberant and hilarious books amply demonstrate, the L.A. of the 60s, 70s and 80s was pretty much her oyster, and she knew how to set the pearls from it. Along with Nathaniel West and Joan Didion, she is in my opinion one of the best writers on the city. The mystery remains: Why is she out of print?

Continued fron Part III.

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MR. KARLSTROM: Well, that’s right. In fact, Dennis was being interviewed day before yesterday, just as you were [at Castle Green, Pasadena].

MS. BABITZ: That’s right.

I’m going to turn the tape over in moment. I’m interested in the responses of people you knew at the time to do this. That’s pretty dramatic, that’s pretty interesting that you did that. People must have found out in your school.

No. I didn’t tell anybody.

Not even your friends?

No. I had the photograph. My mother hid them.

But you—

My mother hid those pictures.

Were you proud of them? I mean, in a way weren’t you proud of the fact that it was you up there with this famous artist?

No.

You’re deflating all my—

I considered it that I’d gone too far trying to get Walter back.

But it sort of, what?

It was just sort of like proof that I’d—to what lengths I would go. You know, sort of like an embarrassment.

So you got—well, at least he returned your calls, but did you get him back?

Kind of, for the next three or four years.

You guys going out together?

Yes. He took me up to San Francisco, to Europe. Michael, you know that guy, The Beard—

McClure.

We saw the preview of that play. The first time it was ever done.

Then it got busted here on La Cienega [was playing it].

Right, yeah.

Let’s turn the tape over.

Okay.

[Begin Tape 1, Side B.]

Okay, Archives of American Art continuing this very interesting interview with Eve Babitz about her life as a model, a photographer’s model and a chess player with Marcel Duchamp. What interests me, well, just before we turned the tape over you said that you actually did not tell your friends that you had done this.

No. Of course, I would have imagined that would be almost irresistible, at least [with] some of your friends, [to] say, “God, guess what I did.”

No. I was not, like, going out with James Dean. That was weird . . .

That would have been cooler.

Yes.

So you thought it was a pretty weird thing—

Yes. I did.

So it wasn’t—

I mean he was old, you know.

Okay, what about that?

It was like kind of depressing.

Really?

Yeah.

Tell me about that. Tell me how you felt about that. That’s interesting. Because that suggests a kind of connection in a relationship, at least visual, between you and your self-conception, then brings in your partners shall we say. How did you feel about that? You said he was old.

Well, I mean, I just, I mean he was old and he was too old for me.

Okay. Well, but you know what that suggests is very interesting to me. Taking off your clothes and, in a sense, because you were paired with him that there was that, even a sexual connotation to him. Is that right?

Yes, there wasn’t a sexual connotation.

There wasn’t?

That’s right, and there wasn’t with Julian either.

But still you said that he was too old for you.

Right. That’s right. He was, I mean, it was like, I mean, if he were like, you know, Nureyev, you know, and some sort of like insanely gorgeous looking, you know, stunning type of person like that it would have been much more fun.

Well, you see what that implies. That does suggest—

That I’m a shallow person?

No. No.

I am a shallow person.

No, Eve, that’s not what I’m suggesting. But if you are, you are.

I would be much more eager to show it to my friends. But now I’m glad it wasn’t. As I’ve grown older I’ve realized that it was like a smart move.

You would have preferred a James Dean.

Right.

Then, you would of really—

Then I would’ve shown my friends.

So it wasn’t you being naked that you were unhappy with.

No.

It was about being paired with this old guy.

That’s right.

I understand.

How would you like it? I mean, if it were like Louise Nevelson or something and you were 20 years old?

Well, you ask a real interesting question because then that’s, of course, reversing the dynamic because the fact of the matter is you’re nude, you’re in a picture -

That’s right.

—with a clothed Dejeuner sur l’herbe.

Right.

Where you’ve got these nude women—

Right. That’s right. I kind of like that too.

You like the idea.

Yeah. Yeah.

So did you see yourself in any way as an object of desire. This is a term that they use. I mean, did nudity at all for you equate with desire, with sexuality—

Not there. That was like the work place.

Uh-huh.

That was like—it was—I mean, it was like nine in the morning.

Right.

It was, you know, I wasn’t drunk. You know, I had a hangover; it was like, you know, it was not desire time.

Well, I don’t mean that you desired; but I guess what I mean is when you’re creating images and it’s the image, finally, that lasts and that carries—

I know, but you don’t know when you do that. You just don’t—nobody who does that knows otherwise they would never do it because then they get hounded by manic fans.

You know it doesn’t sound to me as if you were particularly vain in this situation.

No, I was embarrassed.

Because in talking about the-having Julian make these other photos and other girls did this, they liked to do it. It seems to me that there is an implicit there, kind of vanity, self-image awareness but you—that didn’t play a role in the Duchamp session for you?

Well, Julian asked me and I figured, you know, it was like one of those things.

Well, it was like a dare.

Yes.

And you were up to it.

That’s right.

But you were proud of your body, you’ve said so.

Yeah, but not at that hour.

Okay. The good thing is the photographs can be viewed at any hour.

You know, also I, you know, I was on those birth control pills and my breast were like, they hurt.

That’s not very sexy.

No, and, you know, it was like they blew up like, you know, they wouldn’t fit into any of my dresses. I had to quit taking those birth control pills.

Now, was that the one when, when you got the 36, double D, bra?

No. That’s what I wear normally.

Oh, Lord.

This—that’s what, when I’m, like, average.

Mm-hmm.

This was like—I mean they were like, I thought they should be photographed really.

They never were?

I mean at that time, so they were for immortality.

I see what you mean, yeah. It was a record, it was a document.

That’s right.

And it was all about you.

That’s right.

Well, see, that’s important.

Isn’t that funny?

I mean, do you feel that way? That it was—well, of course, you were the participant. You said earlier something very interesting.

Most of [the time] my breasts are much softer, but this time they were sort of like, I thought they were sort of curious.

You mean like they were almost not you.

That’s right.

They were other.

That’s right. Isn’t that funny?

It is funny. You’ve said earlier that—

You don’t find that photograph in this book now do you?

No. For the tape—you have to say what that book is. It’s one of your books.

Oh, my first book, Eve’s Hollywood.

Eve’s Hollywood, when was that published?

Twelve years later.

Mm-hmm. So, ’75?

Well, actually, 19-it was, like, before I was 30.

’74, ’73.

Go to PART V (END)

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