You’ve played a lot with pattern and design in your work. How did you
approach this project for W?
PRUITT: I’m interested in the arc of a project—how it starts with a
singular focus. In this case it was the panda bear, this black and white
animal that teeters on the brink of extinction. It’s been 11 years since
my very first panda painting. I had this idea of mixing the panda with
other black and white animals, because I think the panda looks this way
so that it can camouflage into the environment. So I took that idea
literally, thinking about fashion and patterns that are created by the
human mind and hand, and I mixed it all together. I also thought about
the biblical concept of when the lion lies down with the lamb, then
there will be world peace. I could be misquoting, and I’m not the kind
of person who ever actually goes back and does the research to see if
he’s gotten it right. I was just thinking about this notion of animals
and patterns that don’t necessarily go together. And then Chloë is this
kind of Dian Fossey, with her career as an actress. She’s very
comfortable inhabiting roles. I saw her as playing a benevolent
ringleader in this world of creatures and becoming one herself, wearing
black and white clashing patterns. Chloë was perfect because she’s known
for not being afraid of fashion. So it just seemed like a good chance to
do a project again and maybe wash away the bad memories of that haircut
from 17 years ago.
SEVIGNY: For me, corralling the animals was difficult. There were a lot
of creatures and a lot of people handling them. I felt like I let
everybody down because I couldn’t hold the chicken. There was this
tableau, and I was just another creature in it, just another piece of
pattern.
PRUITT: It is. You would never know it by looking at me, but I’m totally into fashion, and I love to follow it. It’s sort of like a fat guy who watches sports on TV on the weekends.
There were moments that reminded
me so much of the Cecil Beaton Ascot scene in My Fair Lady. It was a
contemporary version of that.
PRUITT: I thought it was like that, too, but I didn’t plan it that way.
As it was happening, it was like, Wow! This seems like something very
familiar.
SEVIGNY: I’ve never seen My Fair Lady. It’s Audrey Hepburn, right? I
can’t stand Audrey Hepburn. It’s this character she created in Breakfast
at Tiffany’s—a comic kind of New York City character. I don’t know, for
me it’s just vapid. It irritates me.
