Impossible Conversations: Imaginary Interviews with World-Famous Artists

Imagined interviews with 15 world-famous artists: Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Alfred Hitchcock, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Louise Bourgeois, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí, Leonora Carrington, Madge Gill, Balthus, Béla Lugosi, Agatha Christie and—yes—even Anonymous. Carla M. Wilson cleverly penetrates the facade of celebrity and brings us closer to the human being behind the brand. This quirky experimental work mixes fact & fiction and will amuse, educate, demystify, and delight. "By way of Wilson's splendid imagination, curious encounters guaranteed." —Edith Doove "In IMPOSSIBLE CONVERSATIONS Carla Wilson performs with great aplomb the impossibly perilous feat of the imagined interview. She has selected some of the most difficult interview subjects possible (artists!), and imagines how meetings between an interviewer who has done her research and really wants to engage these oddballs in conversation might play out. The results are delightful, perhaps even more for the agonies the interviewer has to endure than for the eccentricities of the artists themselves. Pity the poor interviewer, especially since the voices in this book are so well heard that one can actually imagine these troublesome characters to be in the room, making life for the interviewer uncomfortably difficult. What a sublime achievement!" —Eckhard Gerdes