DCist Interview: Herb & Dorothy Director Megumi Sasaki
Imagine for a moment that you're sitting in your rather modestly sized one bedroom apartment. Now imagine being in that space and being surrounded by over 4000 paintings, sculptures, and other pieces of modern art. So much art, in fact, stacked in every corner, to the ceilings, in every conceivable space, that when you donate it to one of the largest museums in the country, they don't have room to accept it all. The art itself may be Minimalist, but there's nothing minimal about that mental picture.
That's the situation in which postal worker Herb Vogel and his librarian wife Dorothy found themselves in the early 1990s. Their decades-long obsession with purchasing art, often from some of the most important New York artists of the '60s, '70s, and '80s, often acquired before they became famous, had left them with a tiny apartment full to bursting with art. The only thing more amazing than the fact that they fit it all was that they managed to become two of New York's most recognized and celebrated art collectors on a decidedly middle class income, and without ever selling a single piece of art that they'd bought. But what's perhaps even more striking is that the Vogels, as Megumi Sasaki's charming documentary, Herb & Dorothy puts on display, are such a shy, normal, unassuming pair.
Sasaki beautifully captures the Vogels' love for art, motivated not by money, upward societal mobility, or a desire for status. Herb, quite tellingly, doesn't even tell his coworkers at the Post Office about his "hobby", and they only find out once the media starts doing profiles on them. Her film is a celebration not just of this couple, but of the notion that art doesn't have to be a pursuit restricted to the intellectual and the moneyed, and that bypassing the visceral reaction for the cerebral when experiencing art of any kind is a mistake.
Ms. Sasaki will be in town tomorrow for a screening of her film at the Corcoran, and she took the time to answer some questions from DCist.
When did you first hear about the Vogels?
That was February 2002, I was working with Japanese public television, and I was assigned to work on an educational piece for the network featuring the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. They had an exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, and we were shooting there, and all the works at the show were part of Herb and Dorothy's collection. Somebody told me who they were, and how they collected art, and the whole story, and I was very moved by it. And I went downstairs to the bookstore, and bought the catalog of Herb and Dorothy's, hoping I could do something with the story. And that was 2002. And nothing happened, [but] the story stayed in the corner of my heart for the next two and a half years. September 2004, I happened to meet them in person — again, it was a Christo and Jeanne Claude event — and Herb and Dororthy were there, so that's where it all started.
Did you approach them right then and there about doing the film?
Yes. And I just told them briefly I was interested in telling their story for Japanese media. I thought that was the only option at the time, and they said sure, and they invited me to their apartment one week later. In between I did some research, and I found out that there was so much media coverage already, but it seemed to be all the same: postal clerk, librarian, successful story as art collectors, but I thought the film had a much deeper, much more profound message to it. For me, Herb and Dorothy's story is about the passion and love. It happened to be art, they happened to be art collectors, but I think it is a huge reminder for us of what is the most important thing in our lives. It's not about money or social status, but it's to follow your passion.
And in shooting and editing the film, how did you approach trying to make it different in that way from what you'd seen before?
I thought the story is a love story, so I wanted to give a very intimate feel to it. And plus, I had some difficulty when I first interviewed them on camera, asking them, "Why do you think this artwork is so great," or "Why do you collect this type of art," and the only answer I could get was, "Because we liked them," or "Because they're beautiful." They could not articulate that, and I thought that was a problem, I thought it was a huge problem. And then it turned out that's why they're so unique. Why does visual art need to be explained and intellectualized? That was suggested by one of the artists, Lucio Pozzi, who is in the film, and he said, "That's why Herb and Dorothy are so unique." Now, the trend in the art world, everybody's trying to explain or intellectualize this visual art. Herb and Dorothy may not be able to say anything verbally, but look at their eyes, their eyes get so intense. And they are seeing something, they just don't explain it. That was an awakening moment, and from there on, I tried to focus on their eyes, the intensity of their eyes. So that was a difference.
So the fact that they do sort of see and think about art in a way that's different from many other people in the art world, how did that help or hinder them in becoming the art collectors that they became?
I think they just bought what they liked, they didn't listen to anybody, they didn't look at the trends, they didn't pay attention to the value of the art, who is hot, who isn't. Those things didn't matter at all. They knew how to open their hearts through their eyes, and then try to examine that. Just like Richard Tuttle says in the film, they take the information from their eyes, and bring that information straight to their heart, or soul — I think he used the word soul — instead of processing the information up in the brain. And I think what most of us do is the other way around, we try to figure out whether we like it or not like it, or whether we should like it or should not like it, instead of just trying to feel it. This story, it doesn't have to be art, it could be music, or film, or any form. If the piece of work really resonates in your heart, or touches you, or moves you. That's the most important thing. Herb and Dorothy are masters of that.
Despite the fact that they became celebrities as they did, they seem to be very private people, especially in the way that Herb's coworkers at the Post Office didn't even really know what he did in his spare time until the media started covering it. Given that private nature, did you find it at all difficult for them to give you access to their lives over the course of a long shoot?
It was very difficult at the beginning, they're very private people. But it took me four years to make this film from the beginning until the completion, because of the lack of funding, and so we had a long period to spend a lot of time with our camera, and during this time we sort of developed a relationship, and then we developed a trust with each other, especially from Herb and Dorothy's side towards me. So at the end, the last year, they completely opened up, and they gave me full access to just about everything. Four years, that's a long time, I wish I could make it much shorter, but I think it was a very necessary organic time to make this film.
You must have ended up shooting a great deal of footage during that time. Did that make the editing particularly difficult?
Not really. I think we did it pretty economically. We ended up with 120 one hour DV tapes. When we started, [we shot] half of the film, 60 tapes, as we edited, so we knew which parts were missing, what needed to be shot, which sequences needed to be strengthened, and I thought that was a very efficient way of doing it. I know some filmmakers shoot thousands and thousands of tapes, and I really don't like to work in that way.
You close the film with a scene of Dorothy shopping for a new computer, as the credits roll. I was wondering if there was a particular reason that you decided to go with that.
I just didn't want to end the film with the scene at the National Gallery, with their names engraved at the top of the benefactor list, very glorifying. I wanted to end the film with Herb and Dorothy and their ordinariness, just ordinary folks. And that could be anything — I was going to just go back and shoot in their living room, sitting around, quiet, just to remind the audience that they're just like one of us, ordinary people, living an ordinary life. But Dorothy started showing her interest in buying a computer, which she had resisted for a long, long time. So and then I thought that was kind of an interesting scene. And they met up, and it was a very interesting scene because Dorothy was just doing what she does, as a librarian, going through the list, checking the price, and asking all these questions, and in the meantime, Herb was off looking at the fish, so he was doing the same thing that he always does. So, I thought, it's in a computer store, a very different environment, I thought that was kind of fun and funny and interesting, and, again, a reminder of how ordinary they are.
What struck me about that was that what they did, the way in which they collected, was very much about going and visiting people, and face to face interaction, and talking to the artists. Having that scene at the end seemed to me sort of like the transition to a different age. All of their collecting was done before the internet, and it occurred to me that it would almost be even more difficult to do what they did in the way that they did it. The specific personal connections and sensory experiences they used to build their connection just don't exist with the internet.
That's an extremely interesting point, I'd never thought about that. Even then, people were looking at works through slides during their time, but Herb & Dorothy never decided what works to buy through slides, never. They always had to look at the actual work. Even though the slides were available. But now, yes, it's a very different time. People are trading art, and buying and selling art though internet auctions, and because of that I think the art market expanded dramatically. Yes, I think it can be very symbolic, indicating the new time of our world.
Do you have plans to try your hand at another feature?
I'm working on a short sequel, it's a documentation work of how Herb and Dorothy's collection is distributed throughout the country.
The Fifty Works for Fifty States program? How has that been progressing?
It's slowly progressing. Right now we're in the phase of very serious fundraisting, and we shot some crucial scenes and interviews. We're hoping we can finish up the production part by the end of the year or early next year, and edit the piece and finish it by late summer or fall. And it won't be a full length feature, probably between 45 and 50 minutes.
Herb & Dorothy screens at the Corcoran tomorrow at 7 p.m. Director Megumi Sasaki will be in attendance to introduce the film and answer questions afterward. The film, in a slightly abridged form, will also have its broadcast premiere on October 13 as part of PBS's Independent Lens series.