The artist in his New York City studio
Nearly five decades into his career, the pioneering artist and filmmaker—a critical force in the emergence of neo-expressionism— continues to reinvent himself, fusing bold material experimentation with cinematic storytelling that defies convention.
It takes some chutzpah to station a 17-foot-tall sculpture by the name “Idiota” on the lawn outside your dining room window. The title, a put-down in several languages, is no inside joke: it’s scrawled in 24-inch letters across the top of the work, which is cast in bronze and shaped like a battle standard. As an amuse-bouche, it’s an attention-getter.
Julian Schnabel, never short on chutzpah, made “Idiota” in 1988 on the grounds of a Spanish monastery that had been forcibly converted into military barracks in the 19th century and later abandoned. Framed up from found wood planks and later cast, the sculpture is totemic, gloomy and weirdly compelling. On a grassy lawn in Montauk, New York—Schnabel’s grassy lawn—it’s also slightly comical. Who’s the idiot? And whose names are those painted on its pole?