Sue Webster Interview
Interview held at O’Keefe’s restaurant 31st January 1994
Sue Webster: It was quite interesting when you sort of rang up and you said that you wanted to sort of talk to me or interview me or whatever about artist as celebrity, but it made me for like the first time actually sit down and really really, I started writing my thoughts about the subject in relation to the work I was doing and... it was a good exercise for me! Because if you're not at college, you know, you don't have to give tutorials or seminars about your work and stuff, the only time that you really get to do that is when you force a critic to come and look at your show, and when you meet them then you know they really don't it much time, as with a group show like that, seven artists, with about five different pieces of work that they want to talk about, it doesn't really get a chance to get down into the work, so for me it was a good exercise.
Matthew Shadbolt: So how do you go about looking at your work then. Like without a crit, or without anyone there?
S.W.: Umm... well I talk to, because my boyfriend's actually Tim, the guy who did the sheep, so, he's at the Royal College, yeh, he's in his final year. so that really has been, I s'pose I give him tutorials about his work, and he probably gives me them too. And whenever he has got big lecturers coming in. because you know they have artists in like Alison Wilding, Erie Bainbridge or whatever, and he gets crits about his work, he can tell me everything that's happened, and I can talk to him about his work you know anything he's not sure about, so it sort of works like that. I suppose that I've been out of college for so long that sort of, that side of it has become really unimportant, that I can like make the work and not have to justify it. So when somebody sort of rings up and says oh can I come and talk to you about your work, I mean I've and I’ve been in London for a year, and I worked sort of as a bit more of a commercial artist, where everything is taken at its face value. the money, mean it's a good way of making a lot of money, but not really...
M.S.: Not really you?
SW: Oh it was me, yeh, it definitely was but it didn't make you question your work, you got paid for it and that was that you know.
M.S.: So did that sort of give rise to the artist as superstar work?
S.W.: I think it probably had umm... something to do with it I mean I was trying to think last night, what it was and it all sort of poured out. I've mean stuck in a fine line between the music industry, the record business made into the art business if you like. And I s'pose the commercial work I did was for people like MTV and Def2 and all that soI was still an artist but with a particular field like record covers video sleeves, textiles and stuff like that, and when I came to London, when Tim started the Royal College, I didn't have a studio so I completely gave up that side of it, and went to work for a record company doing PR, and it was doing that that possibly realized that I didn't want to follow a line in the media industry, actually being a part of it, I realized I couldn't be sure inside me, like bands thatI had absolutely no interest in, I was far more interested in promoting myself and Tim. So I started doing umm...
M.S.: A way of combining the two. Do you think?
S.W.: It was probably a turning point doing the PR side of it. But anyway, I s-pose umm... I had an office with all the facilities but I had no studio, so I started working on the phone, the fax, the computer, and stuff like that. I started doing PR for Tim’s Interim Show, when he was at the Royal Collage, and managed to sort of get ‘The Independent’ down, and stuff like that to review the show. And when they talked to him and interviewed him it actually got him in a lot of trouble with the course, because they thought you know he was exploiting the Royal College, you know he was a -self seeking exhibitionist, but he was almost sort of artist as celebrity so you might bring him up you know.
M.S.: Do you mind that?
S.W.: Do I mind that? No not at all. It was a brilliant exercise for me, and I s'pose that was like I realized that I could channel that energy into my own work. Then I started doing articles, making up articles, and sort of hyping up this imaginary superstar.
M.S.: When you say you didn't have a studio and started working on the computer and stuff is that why you made those pieces that were in the LIFT show that size, because when I was looking at them I was thinking yeh, why are they that size? Kind of magazine size.
S.W.: Yeah, because they were actual size.
M.S.: But the feeling of like promoting yourself, and trying to hype yourself up, you know like… what I'm trying to say is I wasn't sure wether you should have made them bigger. You know, sort of larger than life size. like the superstar thing.
S.W.: I think it never, I mean a billboard, it was all down to authenticity, and if I wanted people to believe it was real, which a lot of people did, so by doing It that size, it was the actual size. And that's when it started to play on people's minds. You know they suddenly started questioning themselves you know is this real? If I'd done it any bigger then I think it would have lost the impact. Because people who don’t know me at all started asking me questions. They started to wonder wether it was a work of art.
M.S.: I mean I realized that it wasn’t real when I saw I think it was the ‘Time Out’ one which said Sued instead of Suede.
S.W.: But it started off by having to leave clues on it. I had to put clues on there for people, because people weren’t getting it, if you know what I mean. They saw it, and they either believed it or they didn't. But I always wanted something in between to leave people thinking. And when I did the 'Arena' cover, I didn't put my face on it, so people started trying to you know, the most obvious thing to do was to put my face on the model. Instead I thought there was just a list of people who were being interviewed in the magazine and I just put my name there
M.S.: Because that was how it was starting to work, when I saw the show...
S.W.: You looked for the clues yeah?
M.S.: Yeah I know what you mean but with the magazine covers and stuff, would you actually like to be on the cover, you know, if it was for real?
S.W.: Oh yes, of course.
M.S.: But I mean how do you feel about that, sort of having worked with it, what would you do...
S.W.: What would I do?
M.S.: Yeh if you had control over how...
S.W.: How would I handle it?
M.S.: Yeh.
S.W.: I don't know, I think I've been trying for such a long time. I believe that if It happens. It'll be just another day. Because that's the nature of the work. Well it does happen, I do get real articles, I mean when I was at college, I was like writing articles about myself and sending them into ‘The Face’, ‘Blitz’ and ‘I-D’, and on occasion I used to get them published, you know full color page spread, and I was in my first year BA, like you are now, and all of a sudden I was nationwide in these magazines. And it was really shocking because I thought, I thought, I could do it I could try, I mean all of a sudden that was the reality of it.
S.W.: I mean I got a full page spread in 'Blitz', ‘The Face' was always really difficult, ‘cos they’re a bit more you know sort of cliquey. So they'd only give you like a little section, in the ‘hype!’ section or something like that, you know.
M.S.: But how did that sort of affect your work, did that make you realize that you could do it, sort of like the fine line between actually exhibiting something, and then getting something published, sort of the mass media and art debate. I mean how do you feel about the way it would affect your work? I mean how does it affect your work?
S.W.: What you mean...
M.S.: Your work is about having publicity.
S.W.: Yes.
M.S.: And then, when you actually get the publicity... how does that affect..
S.W.: When I actually get it I think it's worked! I think that someone's taken me seriously because you know, if somebody comes up to me and says, you know I'm interested in doing an article on you then I think you're taking me seriously whereas if I send something into somebody then that's me that's done the hard work. I make it happen, whereas if they chase me then maybe I am becoming not a little bit more successful but taken seriously probably. I should say what sort of magazines I've been in because most of my stuff's been in magazine magazines you know like 'The Face' and 'I-D' and stuff like that, so it's not really taken as serious art until...
M.S.: Why do you think that is?
S.W.: Umm because probably more because the magazines have a more cliquier market isn't it. I mean as soon as it becomes categorized as being something that's being taken seriously I s'pose, but you're getting the shows like now for instance, like Gavin Turk's, because as soon as he did that Sid Vicious thing I thought brilliant, like you know, I could have done that, or I wish I'd done that, that sort of thing because it was something like being taken seriously then there might be a chance that my stuff will be taken seriously.
M.S.: Yeh but a lot of his pieces aren't taken seriously are they, like his 'Cave' you know his Royal College show...
S.W.: Well it was by the authorities at the Royal College!
M.S.: Oh yes, but not in the sense that they started to think about it because they didn't give him his M.A.
S.W.: I think it was too serious for them.
M.S.: Do you think so?
S.W.: Do you know the whole story that was attached to that? Like the fact about Prince Phillip coming round, apparently... do you think we ought to leave?
S.W.: Have you interviewed Gavin Turk at all?
M.S.: Well I'm trying to, I'm gonna get in touch with Jay Jopling.
S.W.: Actually I've got Gavin's number. I know where his studio is. it's like whether he'll see you or not I don't know, I mean he's alright, I've met him loads of times... is it under G for Gavin or T for Turk? There you go, he's under V for some reason!
M.S.: V for Turk.
S.W.: Yeh his studio's at the top of Tottenham Court Road. That's his studio number, because if you go through Jay Jopling you'll probably never get hold of him... 071-379-1667. He's got a really nice studio but it's part of a whole run down block, it's like really falling to pieces, and then you get to his studio and it's immaculate, within it, you know.
M.S.: I mean, what do you think of his work? Because I see you two as quite similar.
S.W.: Umm.... well I did it until he did that Sid Vicious thing, but then I suddenly thought like, someone's playing along similar lines but Gavin is a real intellectual, and he usually presents his work as minimally as possible. He gives you absolutely no clues about it. And you can either stand about and try to work it out for about an hour, in which case I haven't got the patience to do that, or you can immediately think what you think of it you know. With that Sid Vicious thing it was so visual.
M.S.: I mean. that could almost have been one of your covers.
S.W.: I have done it!
M.S: Really?
S.W: Yeh it's for Tim, for the 'New Contemporaries', he sent off an application because I can't do it because I'm not a student, but because the nature of his work's really big, he thought there'd be no way they'd accept anything like that, so I did him a series of twelve covers, that were all like A4 size, and it was like 'The Great Pretender’ series sort of thing. So I did a series of those. One of them was, I had to do it, I mean I was going to put me on the cover...
M.S: Yeh I was going to go for the contemporaries show but I wasn't allowed.
S.W: Why?
M.S: Because I'm a first year. Another thing about not letting first years show their work. So what do you think of this artist as superstar thing? I was trying to work out who maybe was the first to use this way of working..
S.W: And who did you come to?
M.S.: Well I was thinking that it was maybe Warhol, you know with all the stuff that sort of surrounded Warhol, he was actually like a celebrity, and at an equal level as an artist. You know he was an artist and he was a celebrity. Gilbert and George people like that you know...
S.W.: I s'pose It's like people using themselves in their work isn't it.
M.S.: But I’m not sure if it’s something more than that. It’s like you’ve got the work and then you’ve got something else.
S.W.: It’s the way you use it. Well this is it you know because initially I started sticking my head on bodies, like an illustrative thing, or whatever, but I came to that by this sort of PR work that I was doing, I realized that I, I didn’t plan it it just happened. But I could use that to manipulate the media, in my work. and I could play one against the other I s'pose. I came to it from that angle.
M.S.: Who do you look at, sort of who's influenced you?
S.W.: Umm...
M.S.: I mean did you look at anyone consciously when you were making those pieces?
S.W.: No not at all. Because it all came quite naturally really. Because of all this stuff of working commercially for the music industry, working for a record company and then, working with all this stuff I built a background up. Also I was thinking way before then, before I went to art college, I used to hang around with bands, and things like that, and I actually got shortlisted to co-present 'The Tube', do you remember 'The Tube'? Yeh I used to worship that program, and it was the time I applied to go to Nottingham, this is like way back, and I was on the border, between I'd just applied for a job on ‘The Tube’, and I got shortlisted down from 3000 or something, I had two interviews and then I got shortlisted down to the last twelve. This was like a series of screen tests and then you got shortlisted down to the last twelve. And it was to replace Paula Yates, when she had a baby, and they were looking for two people or one, I can't remember which, so I got shortlisted to twelve and then I got chaperoned off to Newcastle where they were filming, with the other people and one of them was Karen Keating! You know off Blue Peter, like Gloria Hunniford's daughter. Even though I didn't know it at the time.
S.W.: A couple of other lads were DJ's and radio DJ's and stuff like that, and there I was just about to go to art college! I was like living the high life up in Newcastle, you know, with like all expenses paid, taxis everywhere, ferried around, so I was like a real superstar, so that was like, my first real taste of it. And then I didn't get it, and it went to Wendy May I think. who was a DJ. And then I like carried on with this art course because I thought I'm destined to do this you know, and in my first year there was this competition at college, to work with Paul Smith, the fashion designer, and it was when I first met Tim, and I egged him on to go in for this competition, but he wasn't like that you know he wanted to get on with his work, but I wanted to be involved with that type of people, so I applied and got shortlisted down to the last six, to work with Paul Smith, you got a load of money to do fashion sets for him, stuff like that, and it was again, we got all this publicity, and all these gallery people, in my first year. And they actually gave us a warehouse to work in, so we didn't actually work at college because you know, we had this massive warehouse to work in. Like a whole term to do this project, with loads of cash, meet all these people, it was brilliant, the real high life, but I s'pose it was stuff like that, which kept happening, then I like started in my second and third years, writing articles and sending them to papers, stuff like that, but it was of my work, my work wasn't it you know. That wasn't my work, because I was doing sculpture and I was like sending photos of wacky sculptures off. 'Here I am I'm brilliant' you know, all of this, and my work was very separate from the hype. Then I s'pose, they merged into one. And it was brilliant you know, I don't think I'm influenced by Jeff Koons, or Andy Warhol but it was brilliant discovering them.
S.W.: Like when I discovered people like Warhol and Keith Haring, they were all part of this New York scene, they mixed art with music, and club life and stuff like that and it was brilliant to discover that, and realize that I'm not alone I s’pose, to mix the world of the cliquey art world with entertainment I s'pose, and before long your work becomes entertainment, which it did when I was working commercially for MTV and stuff, it was entertainment, my work was entertainment. And doing this PR side of it when Tim got to art college, I started doing PR for him, and then it just developed on from that. I don't think I really looked at somebody and thought 'Wow, that's really great', I came to where I am now, through a whole series of events, that's led up to now, I think it's a natural progression to where I am now.
M.S.: And where's that, where are you now?
S.W.: Well the next step, which is the progression, is, I actually want to do an advert, as a work of art, so that it'll appeal to a mass audience, because I've often thought about it but now I'm trying to raise funds, sponsorship or whatever to make it happen. Which costs a hell of a lot of money because it's an advert, you're actually paying for your work to be exhibited, in a magazine or something so that it'll appeal to a mass audience.
M.S.: I think one of our tutors at Kingston, one of his friends, was really into this captive audience thing, and he paid, I don't think it was very much, he'd made like an advert, a video piece or something like that, and he paid a sort of small amount of money, to have it shown for a month, at some cinema in India, like adverts before the film, he had that done. So it’s like a similar thing. What are you going to do for the advert?
S.W.: Well the initial idea is based around, because I'm working with Tim, because I have worked with Tim, collaborated on stuff, with him before, but now he's at the college, we're working separately, but together like that show we did 'LIFT' which was basically going to be just me and Tim, but then we got other people in, we thought why not organize a group show, which I'd never done before, we thought it'd be a good exercise but it's to coincide with Tim's degree show, you know the MA, you know that advert, it's a spoof of another advert, and I've got to do it spot on to make it look authentic enough, you know the advert ‘You are what you trash’ it's a double page spread in 'The Face', they ran it a few years ago, and it's a picture of a famous celebrity, and they did Johnny Rotten, James Woods the actor, and they did Lisa Bonet, I think, who's in 'The Cosby Show'. And it was like the contents of their bin, displayed neatly on a page. So it was like, you can find out so much about a person through their trash. And for Tim's degree show he was going to do an installation, with all his two years' rubbish. From his space, from home, and he started playing on the idea, and it just somehow didn't work, and so what it all boiled down to, we think we can say so much, on a piece of paper, which was the whole thing surrounding the 'Hype!' piece he did, I don't think it works so well, making this gigantic sculpture, because I'd done a spoof newspaper article, at the time of the 'Hype!' piece, that he did for his interim show. And I plastered it round the Royal College, and it created so much hype, and the real article.
I got the 'Independent' down for an interview, because he'd done a piece called ‘The shit and the cream’. Tim, for his interim show, he’d been at college six months, you know his inters show at the Royal College gallery. and he made ‘Hype!', you know the big steel piece, which was sponsored by British steel, so he got, which I helped make, and the most important piece was called 'The shit and the cream' which was when he found out that he'd got a place at the Royal College, and the Royal College is supposed to be all this 'Arty Farty' ‘Up there’ business, and he rang round his Mum, because he never told her that he'd applied, and it came as a real shock to her, it was a reason to come to London you know to get a bit of space you know, and his Auntie, or his Godmother teaches at the Royal College, teaches fashion, a real arty farty type, and she rang him up and said 'Oh Tim, the shit and the cream always rise to the top, and I know which one you are.' Because it was you know so special to be at the Royal College, like a freak comment, so he had to make a piece of work, so he made two glass plinths, two glass cylinders, with glass tops, and he put cream in one, and his shit in the other, and by then he'd decided he wanted them in his interim show. And I rang up 'The Independent' because I was doing my PR at the time, for a press company, here it is, this photograph didn't actually appear, I had that done, I shoved it on afterwards, pissing at the Royal College of Art.
But that was the actual article, and this Dalya came down, and she's like the art correspondent of 'The Independent', and she spoke to me and Tim for half an hour before the opening, and all of a sudden, Glyn Williams the head of sculpture, was absolutely furious, you know, because I'd got 'The Independent' down, and none of the other students had set their work up, I don't give a shit because it wasn't aimed at them anyway, and she came down and she interviewed Tim about the piece and then sort of started questioning the whole concept of being at college, allegedly Tim said that he didn't need tuition, but in effect he actually said he didn't want tuition when he was making the piece.
S.W.: He wanted to discuss it afterwards but not while he was making it, if word had got out that he wanted to make this piece then he would have got nothing out of it, so he did it, and he got an absolute bollocking for it, and he got put before the ABCD board, which is what Gavin Turk got put in front of when he did the Cave piece, it's a disciplinary board, and at the time of Gavin Turk it didn't matter wether he got chucked off, because it was his MA show, but Tim got put on probation for six months, in case he pulled another stunt like this, he could have been kicked off the course, and it lasted until Christmas. And it was basically Glyn had sent Tim a letter saying you've exploited your position at the Royal College of Art, you've sold your integrity for a few column inches! And you're an exhibitionist and all this stuff and all of a sudden it was working! Tim as the celebrity. All of a sudden, we'd been playing this game, risking being taken seriously I s'pose, and I did a spoof advert, I did a piece which was the Saatchi article and I casually put these in Tim's portfolio, you know for people to read, and one of them, was actually a made up piece that I did before that and one of them was the front page of 'The Independent', that was my first piece like this, and it was the story of Simon Callery, who's showing at the Saatchi gallery, Saatchi walked into a gallery and bought all his work, well I retyped the whole thing, convincingly, to say it was Tim. And he'd walked into the Ester Beuws gallery, which was an anagram of my name, and I plastered it around the Royal College, and sent it to people in the post, and everybody was reading it, and they were coming up to him and like shaking his hand and saying 'Well done mate!" and all this, and they didn't know that Ester Beuws was just an anagram of my name, and it brought out the worst in people as well, because there was a hell of a lot of jealousy, people that wouldn't talk to Tim, people that were bitching in corners about him.
S.W.: It was a brilliant sort of test if you like, seeing how that celebrity status worked. In the real world. Because It was totally unreal, but to those who didn't know it. that were bitching about Tim, and I actually went and told them later that it was a joke, it made them look completely stupid. Because they were so like, jealous of his success. Other people's success sort of thing. So it was an exercise in that. But that was the hype, and going back to the advert that I want to do, Tim realized that he didn't have to make that 'Hype!' piece, the three dimensional billboard, which could have in fact been done in a way like this, I s'pose the idea could have been put across in a similar way to the article like that. So the idea for his degree show, which was the contents of his bin or his studio or whatever, he realized then that it probably would have as much effect, as a two page ad in a magazine.
M.S.: Or reach as many people.
S.W.: Yeh, and also I think it's that whole idea that appeals to me about doing it so perfectly well that it looks authentic. You know, everything is spot on. A picture of Tim as a famous artist, you know, this is the contents of my bin, and taken in all seriousness. And people read and remember the article and start wondering who this famous artist called Tim Noble is. So it's like playing on that sort of mind game. It's a progression on from the magazine covers that I did, where I'm actually gonna have something published you know. I mean both of us come from a sculptural background, Tim's actually doing sculpture but you realize that you don't have to let people have like a gigantic image. You can do, you know, something like this can have so much potency. You can appeal to so many people.
M.S.: How did you make the transition from sculpture to the sort of 2D stuff?
S.W.: I think it was like an absolute break from... because I didn't have a studio. I mean I was based up at Dean Clough in Halifax, do you know that?
M.S.: Yeh
S.W.: So I was doing a residency up there, and I had this gigantic studio and it was massive, it was like a thousand square feet. which I shared with Tim, and you could like drive cars in, make massive fuck off sculpture, to go from that to nothing, where I had to start from scratch, just a desk really, and to always have an active artistic mind when you start... there's Mark Wallinger! He shows with Anthony Reynolds. He's just off there now. Did you see what he was wearing?
M.S.: He looked quite rough!
S.W.: I'm a real one for spotting them... A Starfucker!
M.S.: But that piece was about that.
S.W.: Oh definitely. Because when I came to London, I was like oh there they are that's so and so, and no-one else gave a shat. They just didn't care you know, they were so laid back, born and bred in London! Are you actually from London?
M.S.: No Somerset.
S.W.: But that's what it is I think isn't it?
M.S.: Yeh, you come to the big city and it's like 'Wow!'
S.W.: Yeh!
M.S.: Me and my friend went to the Turner prize talk at the Tate.
S.W.: Was that this years?
M.S.: It was like Hilton Kramer, Michael Craig Martin, Sarah Kent and all people like that speaking, and when we were waiting to go in, with our free wine, it was like, serious hob-nobbing...
S.W.: How much were the tickets?
M.S.: A fiver with the concession.
S.W.: So you had to get your five quids worth of free wine.
M.S.: Oh yeh!
S.W.: I mean when we came to London we didn't know anybody really, because we just moved here because Tim was going to the Royal College. And we started going out, finding out where all the openings were, and we'd sometimes go to two or three a night, go from one to the other to the other, and it's your nightlife really, because it's so expensive living in London that you know, if you go to a few private views you can just get blasted. I mean we'd been in London for about two weeks, and we gatecrashed the Turner prize opening, you know with Damien Hirst and all that. We managed to find somebody... we knew one of the judges, who, Robert Hopper, who used to be based at Dean Clough. So it was like there we were at the gates, terrified and he pulled up in a taxi, and we didn't really speak to him, and it was like the first time we'd really spoken to him!
And it was that sort of situation, he got us in. It was brilliant because we were just wondering around getting absolutely pissed! And then we went on to another one after that at the ICA, it's a brilliant way of meeting people you know. It's a way of showing your face, you know the whole thing with the magazine covers because people are subliminally taking in your face and your name. It's in the back of their minds. I was speaking to this guy in the Salama Caro gallery the other day, and he said to me, don't I know you from somewhere? And it was from our show, because you know he'd seen my face on the magazine covers. It's that way of advertising myself. By showing yourself in the real world, it's like building up your track record. It's just another part of it you know. Sort of looking at the London art scene, where nobody wants to know you unless you've got a good track record. You know you've got to have gone to certain London colleges, shown your work at certain galleries, shown with certain people before anyone'll recognize you, you know.
M.S.: I mean I’m finding that now, at Kingston, and there's this big thing about having gone to St. Martin's, Chelsea, the Royal College, and Goldsmiths as well, what do you think about all that, the Goldsmiths thing?
S.W.: Artist as entrepreneur?
M.S.: Like with the Goldsmiths' group of people, they were all trying to be stars.
S.W.: I think it all helps, I mean I didn't really know much about it all when it was happening, because I was in Nottingham. You know, you don't really have much to do with, you know when you come to London you're in touch with the smaller galleries, but when I found out about them I thought, that's just what I've been doing. I'm just in the wrong place. We were out there, hustling for work, and giving people business cards and they were sending them back, even at that stage atNottingham, I feel so behind, and that's why I think we're going at it full throttle when we come to London. Because we had to catch up a whole five or six years in five or six months. Even with the warehouse show I felt like we were doing like a crash course in contemporary art, the London scene if you like.
M.S.: How did you go about getting the 'LIFT' show?
S.W.: Well when we first came to London we were looking after a lot of controversy surrounding Tim's interim show, the red tape, about the Royal College and all that, and I think Tim realized that, if we were in London, five or six years ago, he probably wouldn't have been at the Royal College, he probably would have been more suited to Goldsmiths'. The Idea that you've got to support yourself, and I think that whole attitude makes those artists what they are. The fact that they've got to go out there and support themselves, without a grant, and they’ve got their own studio. Not being part of an institution makes them what they are.
S.W.: They're out there go getting it aren't they, they're not smothered. You know, being looked after.
M.S.: But do you think there's like a thing attached to Goldsmiths', like a you read it in the 'TimeOut' reviews, an installation by someone, a recent Goldsmiths' graduate.
S.W.: The Cool School. Yeh, it's got a bit of a tag to it. I don't know, when it happened in (88 or '89 or whenever, and it's had repercussions for years after that hasn't it, I think there's still people who are trying to tag onto that. I mean it's probably getting a bit watered down now, it's like crying out for there to be a new focus really...
M.S.: Was that what the Atlantis show was trying to do?
S.W.: Yeh I s'pose so but looking back on it we probably got the wrong artists involved, because they were a group of artists that I thought we had so much in common with. when we talked to them and all that, but looking back on it, I think we had less in common than we thought. It was a good advert, the 'LIFT' show was because names out, and forming the basis of a reputation I s'pose, but I s’pose Chris Ofili, with the elephant shit paintings was probably the guy that we're most in touch with. The rest of them, looking back on it, I don't think we had much in common with, anymore. But since then it's been good because people have come to us, after having that show, and other artists have come to us and started talking about their ideas, and we've built up another group of people that we're trying to show with, that was going to happen in the summer but I think that's probably too soon. We'll probably try and do it in the autumn again. A group of people that we're wining and dining if you like. And getting to know them, we're going to New York with them, because I'm doing a project with a guy over there, whose really really got the sa»e things in con.on, which is what we thought the LIFT show was all about. But looking back on it, I don't think it was.
M.S.: Did you have any famous people come to the Atlantis show?
S.W.: What. like Vic Reeves?
M.S.: How do you feel about that side of it?
S.W.: You have to stop yourself because all of a sudden you get these, you know. people that you spend your life spotting, coming down to look at you. Which I thought, I didn't know how to handle that...
M.S.: Like that Starfucker thing...
S.W.: Yeh, you know you can't stop yourself from going up to them and trying to say something. Like we were down there one Sunday and Vic Reeves came down there with his wife and his kids, and it was like 'That's Vic Reeves that is!' and me and Tim were sitting there, going No it's not and he was like wondering up to him but didn't know what to say you know, he was like standing there looking at his work, taking photos of it, of Tim's stuff, and... the flash painting, he was standing right in front of it and, with his baby there as well looking at it, it was like really weird. I don't know, all of a sudden, I s'pose that's London for you isn't it, we had like artists down like David Mach and Eric Bainbridge, lots of people like that, which was quite funny because like David Mach came up to me and said 'I think the magazine covers work really well', and I really didn't know what to say, I had to wander off somewhere because you know it was really quite funny, him commenting on my work. It was quite weird.
M.S.: I've been trying to work out who was using this artist as superstar thing first and are using it now...
S.W.: You mean artists who use it?
M.S.: Yeh, and I thought It was people like yourself, Gavin Turk, Koons, Mark Kostabi. Itai Doron, you know, ‘other selves. Do you think that there is a difference between the American way of doing it, and the British way of doing it?
S.W.: Yes definitely. I think it's the whole attitude of how the audience perceives it and I was thinking about that last night as well. People, in England, are so reserved... they almost don't want to accept it. I think if I was doing this in America, I'd have much greater success and quicker. But I think it'd be better to struggle in London and try and see if it works I s’pose, I'm not going to give up if you like. Because it's almost more of a challenge here, and if I tried to do it in America, and it'd probably happen too quickly for you to experiment with the idea maybe.
M.S.: Yeh but the idea behind the artist as superstar thing is about getting fame quickly... like that Gavin Turk 'Cave' piece, he didn't really need to make anything after that, do you know what I mean?
S.W.: But I s'pose that's the difference between what Gavin does and what I do. He did it, it was a mistake almost. I don't think he did it, I mean you're talking about the 'Cave' piece, making him into a star...
M.S.: Yeh. it's like the monument to the career.
S.W.: To the artist, right, I'm looking at it in terms of the controversy that was surrounding it.
M.S.: That's like the end thing isn't it, like after his death. Like he was a famous sculptor...
S.W.: But you know it doesn't mean that he has to die, you know he left theRoyal College, and that was it you know, almost like a prison, I did my two years there, I did my time. Here's my monument to it sort of thing.
M.S.: It's almost like, who was this Gavin Turk character? He must have been someone famous.
S.W.: Yeh that's right, and like the pieces in his show, like his stool, you know looking up his own arse, I s’pose there's elements of...
M.S.: It's like what you were saying about Tim, you know who was Tim Noble oh he must have been someone famous.
S.W.: Well it was like the whole thing, like the article, when we were talking about the idea of displaying his own rubbish for his show, it was almost relating back to what Gavin Turk had done. Like Gavin Turk worked here for whatever, 1989 to 91 or something like that, and that rubbish piece, related to that piece that he did you know, this is my rubbish sort of thing. That's why we decided in a way not to do it.It probably did relate too much to that. If I just did the magazine it becomes something else.
M.S.: Have you had any feedback from the 'LIFT' show? Or the magazine article or the adverts...
S.W.: What the real ones? Yeh, of course they've read them, loads of people have. I s'pose the power of advertising is so great because like that'Independent' article, for instance, you forget how nationwide that newspaper is.
M.S.: But it's only for a day isn't it.
S.W.: But it comes back. The memory of it lasts, because it came back to Tim about a year ago, well it's not even a year ago that it happened, about six months later, that there's a guy who's a friend of Tim's brother, who works in a ski resort in Chamonix in France, where all the rich guys ski, and a guy, who didn't really know Tim, and didn't know this other guy, was in the ski resort discussing art... He started talking about this artist who was displaying this shit and the cream in a show in London and he was talking about the whole concept of hype and all this sort of stuff, and it boils down and he says yes his name's Tim Noble and this guy, he'd remembered his name! And this guy who was a friend of Tim's brother, said... ‘Fucking hellI know him’ and he went back a few months later and he told Tim's brother about the story in a pub and he nearly fell off his stool. And then he told Tim when he last saw his brother, and people were talking about him that he didn't even know. So the hype's working, people still talk about that whole incident.
S.W.: You know it was such a powerful thing and it was almost a knock at the Royal College. It was raising questions about art college I s'pose. The shit and the cream, I think that's what the piece is about. Knocking the fact that the Royal College expects to put you on a pedestal...
M.S.: I mean, there are always people who are going to make it, and at art college you can weed it out in the first couple of weeks.
S.W.: You can say 'they're going to make it'. I don't know, a lot of people think that you've got it so easy but it's a hell of a lot of hard work. You've got to make it happen really. People don't just come to you and say oh you're brilliant, I think you've got to work at it you know.I mean, we put a hell of a lot of hours into what we do, wether it's physical stuff you know or being at home at midnight writing notes for this meeting, you know it was just all pouring out I didn't mean to do that I was just, it led me onto somewhere, it made me spill out all these thoughts I had regarding what I'd just done. This long series of work you know.
M.S.: This interview is like almost confirming it isn't it? Like confirming the star thing...
S.W.: What you interviewing me makes me important!
M.S.: I mean I'm going to go back to Kingston and do my seminar, and even more people are going to know about your work.
(Interview cassette ends)
