Cy Schnabel

Mart Engelen: You come from a creative family but you first studied political science. Tell me more.

Cy Schnabel: Indeed, I studied political science at university. Art history, film and painting were things I was surrounded by from a young age. I decided to study political science because it was more of a challenge and I was always interested in social issues. Art and film was something where I could do my own research. I didn’t feel I needed to go to school to learn about it when I could go to museums, galleries or old cinemas playing avant-garde films. I was always doing research on art, even while I was studying. Political science was really the thing that I focused on while I was studying.

ME: How long did you study political science?

CS: I studied political science for four years at college; my undergraduate experience.

ME: If we go back a little, you grew up in New York and then what happened? Did you travel while studying…?

CS: I have artistic people on both sides of my family. On my Spanish side, my mother (Olatz López Garmendia), and also through my father (Julian Schnabel), my American side. I was born and went to school in New York but we always spent long periods in Spain and Mexico. Apart from that we would travel a lot to France because my father had exhibitions there and has always maintained friendships and good work relationships with people in Paris.

ME: What role did Mexico play in your upbringing?

CS: Well, because of the language it was always a culture we felt close to. We loved to go to Mexico. It’s a massive country, incredibly diverse….

ME: Sorry to interrupt. Was this because you were American or also because of your mother’s Spanish background?

CS: My mother had indeed travelled a lot to Mexico before she met my father. She loved the people she met and her experiences in that country. And my father, even more than my mother, had been to Mexico several times since he was a teenager because he grew up in Brownsville, Texas, which is on the border with Mexico. And when he started surfing he went to Mexico all the time; road-trips, surfing, Mexico City, Oaxaca, etc. I think Mexico is a very stimulating place, visually. You are constantly presented with colonial architecture or more eclectic modern architecture from the 1960s and 1970s. It’s a very colourful experience, just on the street, because you have all sorts of food markets, flea markets. The publicity and advertising of small local businesses was always painted by hand, but a bit less today because things are more digital. And I think these kinds of motifs left a very strong impression on my father. Travelling then was totally different, it’s not like today when we have iPhones and internet and all this information. Before, it was really like you were going into the unknown. That’s why I think Mexico always has a deep and special place in my father’s heart because it was one of the first radical trips that he made to a country that had a massively different culture.

ME: So when and why did you decide to change direction for a future in the arts?

CS: Just to give a little bit more context to what we were saying before, I went to Mexico but my brother and I mostly grew up exposed to two cultures… read more