The C-Mon Q&A: Fred Kaplan, author of ‘1959.’

1959, by Fred Kaplan.

There are years so transformative, they stand out on name alone: 1492. 1776. 1968. On the surface, 1959 would not appear to be one of them. But 1959: The Year Everything Changed, by Slate regular Fred Kaplan, begs to differ. This was the year, after all, that Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue, ditching the rigidity of bebop for a freer style of improvisation. It was when Fidel Castro and a gang of barbudos took over the island of Cuba. And it was when a tinkerer-engineer named John St. Clair Kilby introduced the microchip, a thumbnail-sized piece of technology that would revolutionize the world of computing (and allow for the eventual dissemination of LOL cats to the universe). Not to mention all of the era’s other significant cultural happenings: the Guggenheim Museum opened its doors to the public, Robert Frank’s book The Americans arrived in the United States and MoMA unveiled an exhibit titled Sixteen Americans, a show that helped give rise to artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Allan Kaprow and Jasper Johns.

“I’ve generally been suspicious of books like this — Cod: The Fish That Changed the World — the idea that everything is affected by one event,” says Kaplan of his broad survey. “But so many of the things that we associate with the late ’60s and the Baby Boomers, they were rooted in the late ’50s — and instigated by a generation that came of age during war and became disgruntled at the phony period that followed.”

1959 is definitely one hell of a yearbook (and one hell of a dishy read), featuring appearances by Norman Mailer, John F. Kennedy, Lenny Bruce, Herman Kahn, William Burroughs, John Cassavetes and Margaret Sanger. (Interesting fact: old Mags got around.) The book captures the era’s high creativity, as well as the high anxiety generated by the Cold War. “[Mort] Sahl put it this way,” writes Kaplan, of the period. “Whenever he saw an airplane approaching, he never knew whether it was going to drop a hydrogen bomb or spell out ‘Pepsi-Cola’ in skywriting.”

With the Gugg celebrating it’s 50th, Frank’s photos on display at the Met and Kaprow’s tires being rethought by William Pope L. at Hauser & Wirth, we figured that there was no time like the present to talk to Kaplan, a veteran jazz writer, who was kind enough to submit to our questioning. Here, he reveals his distaste for art skulls, the type of Picasso he’d like to hang in the loo and why he’d like to dump pig blood all over Robert Indiana’s Love sign.

C-M: If you were to die and come back as a piece of art, what would it be?
KAPLAN: Calvin Tomkins, in his biography of Robert Rauschenberg, wrote that when he went to the Sixteen Americans show, he saw a piece by the artist called Double Feature. It had a man’s shirt with a pocket, so [Tomkins] mischievously dropped a quarter into the pocket. I want to come back as that — so that people can mischieveously drop quarters into my shirt pocket.

If you could change one thing about the art world what would it be?
I’d make it a requirement that to be exhibited in public you have to show craft or wit. You see a lot of art that doesn’t have either.

What artist, living or dead, would you most like to party with?
Dali always looked like he was having a good time. He’s someone I’d want to go trotting around with.

If you could have any work of art to hang in your bathroom, what would it be?
One of two kinds: either one of those really pornographic etchings by Picasso — the really dirty ones. If not, something incredibly calming, where nothing is going on at all, just a strip of color.

What two artists would you like to watch duke it out in a celebrity death match?
I think Schnabel versus Pollock would be good. They both have that rousing tough-guy macho thing. I’d let them go at it.

If an alien from another galaxy landed on Earth and wanted to take back a single work of art to represent all of humanity, what would you give them?
I think it would have to be one of those incredibly mournful, emotional Rembrandts — that’s if you want the aliens to think that we have humanity, something that would say, don’t hurt us.

What imagery do you think is overused in art?
Skulls. Warhol’s skulls should have ended the whole thing. There should have been nothing to do with skulls after that. It’s death and Warhol made it into a pop death. It’s a comment on a comment. There’s nothing else to say about it.

If you could vandalize any work of art, what would it be?
Those gigantic Love things by [Robert] Indiana. I would pour buckets of pig blood on it and I would spray scatological graffiti all over it. They’re offensive works. Love is not about total control.

What type of art do you like to look at when you have the munchies?
Those [Wayne] Thiebaud cakes. On some of them, you just feel like you could reach in and grab one.

If art could kill, how would you like to die?
I think I would like to die by Pollock’s One from 1950. I want to be sucked into a cataclysmic explosion of the universe.