Somerhing which is still absent from your workis any referenceto class. In your book, 1 think conservatism in Engiand if you want to. / vorking class bockground When yo anznow do you gnore a large part of yo ickground and experience? You haven engaged, for example, with the working class reality of Bradford since your very early works.
In Bradford one painted what one saw: a city full of dark streets. There is a painting 1 did — it's never been reproduced anywhere - called 4 View of Bradford from Earls Court. It's abstraction, but it's got lots of frontals of little men on it and it has the Bradford motto, WICH I5:00 Bradford bus, labor omnia vincir: work make a link. The moment you put from Cars Court vou reste il can't beg vouse FILW We've falked about art beine shar in on itself One way of working towards a solution mighr be to choose suhjecis that relate to the ives of a greater number of people.
Lagree, of course. That's why I am always painting the figure. You can interest people who don't know much about painting: ibe people's lives. They gef interested BAB BE EE BIT.
modernism, people painted the figure. But, as vom have miled English art remained conservative. Much of it related only to middle class experience. Now you recognise that, but you don 'tiry and break indown. Painting the figure ismot, in itseif enaugh?
there were exceptions Englishart, like Hogarth, But, in the 1960s, I and a lot of other people beliered that England. Now 1 see it wasn't a breakdown But from 1962 to 1965, this breakdownof WAS Something changed; bur it didn't change anhine lke as much as people thought. 1 remember being shocked as a boy Bradford when I read Orwell's Rood to Wigan Pler. He says that the middle classes all thought that the working class smelled. I couldn't believe that when 1 read it. 1 thought, now why would they think that? Now, obviously, things have changed, But the divisions are still very mach there.
That's why you have problems with the Arts Council The official art world in have a certain view of'art. That's why they because it covers things up. 1 now realise that, but l've only sust becun to scoit that The very conventions which comventions: they were port and parcel the medie classes way of sering the werid. Perhaps. But one has to remember that the middle classes were the only people, in a sense, who did view the world. The peasant, after all, does not view the world at all; so you cannot just say chat it's that. It's a bit more complicated After all, there are some exceptions. Hogarth wasa better artist than most, Heescape from the erstacronic patrons by peoishing engravings; this gose him a much wider audience and greater freedom, You have sought a bigger audience than that which Now, you don't get the increased audience duction. I'm aware that I reached a rather wants an audicnce. Bur I have a conflict about this. I lock myself in bere; 1 don't go out much; the silly art world 1 try and ignore. Hogarth had it casier. In his day the conventions were accepted. There was no tradition of a counter-conception that he had lo deal wich. It's more difficult now every in because you have to deal with that as well. Don't sou think you could make a much wider breakthrowen df instead of paining Californian swimmine pools, art devices in more ambitious subject matter? Ehone fo one day problems to deal with. Ie's complex and difficult. Sometimes I feel like putting off dealine with a great big sometimes subjectsaredeceptive. Yousee a Seury thiel Calloria es notiete In California it's not.
England had a hot climate things would be in quire different, Inscontent is not quite what icappears in Bradford, A swimming pool in Bradford would be foolish.
Ter ner criticiving swieming pool. finde weythrough to realism, in hisday, l pointed stone-breakers and peasents. Tow ralk about how hard it is for working class Personally, I think that's criminal, Really criminal. I Wil lake every opportunity...
Yonare ino position to bring the experience of these people to the centre of the concerns of art. Bur you don't.
I have spoken abour that many limes, thought.
You've spoken about it. Bat Eie talkine abour what you paint On the canvas. The subject. The problemis are always immense. One thing you have to guard against is chat if you let the subject might finish up with illustration, Ein nor sarine you showid er the subjec completei dominate' the issue completely. picture that has a lot of meaning for a lot of people. I think the idea of making pictures for 25 people in the art world is crazy and ridiculous. It should be sopped; in some way it should be pointed out that it can't go on. In this way old Fyle Roberison was trine to say that Unfortunately he just tried to articulate it from... a not quite right point of view, Kisaj has seid chat he woald fike to be A Painer of the Peopic', He gor the phrase wand it that way?
I would, actually. But why have you said solutions?
said abour how subject. But differens Hay.
picture..] Now you because you paint La lew other things. well as his. actually lead outwards, that you are not interested in Kitaj"
Part showid break out, nogwine a new subject marter, and all the rest, whar does he point? Portreits of John The Orientalist, a fantastic imagioar references. He makes the same mistake as chose he opposed kimself lo. You in suffer from this same closkre. (somerhine is to energe frow this Kitaj-Hockney alternative, row'il have to begin by breaking through ther. In know what you mean, But, for instance. Henry Geldzahler over there... [pointing ro I've painted him before; I'm painti g him again. He'sone of the lew people 1 talk to a great deal about art, even though we don't agree about it.
SOULC once completely devoted to formatism. Personally, ne safriend, a ratber amusing person. warm in his way, quite serious. A bit lazy. Tomint himin his predicamenrs fils in with The ruining shows a screen covered with productions of printings and he oking at them, He's a formolist art expe tooking ur images of images of other pointings. Formalist pointing is pamerin abort printing in one sense; this is paintin about pointing in anorber, feel vou are trapped, You wantro ger through to realicy; what socro the or screen, the reul world bar you can't, or poir won?, go throngi The painting is called Looking et pectures on a screen: this means tbat the spectator is the painting. [Wales up to carvas. 1 If you 've por yourself to here, in front of the canyas, whoever you are, then he is looking at pictures on a screen, but so are vou. You behind the screen as a slight escape. But I haven't goe round to il. Now that peinting is not just about art. 1 know that it has hundreds of shortcoitutes, but 1 cannet make up my mod what they are. You're saying, probably it's the subjoc matter that really starts the problem. I'm not that sure. I think the subject matter can You wiked abour your cariy painting, in pour book, as rung in part conscions propoganda for acceptance of homo sexuality. Whar seemis zo me fundamental abour your work — and it is nomerhing the crires always avod — is thai it is painted from a specifically homosexuu! wewpoin Well, 1 think 1 gave up homosexua propaganda a long time ago. I'm not sur about what you are saying. I really don't knew, Jam homosexual. T've never had an erutic thought, or au erotic experience, with a lemale. A Jot of people like to make cu that it dominates one's life. Sections of the media are alwave focusins on it Jad Hassan, in his film, tried to make out it was a dominant thing Whereas 1 look at it in a quite different way. I don't think it's dominant at all. Et's important, of course. bex 15 an unporant motivation in everybody's life. Perhaps you are right. In the art world context, it's underplayed; in the modia, they overde it. Nobody seems to have gor the true balance.
Berger's thess seeers right aboud how mos European printings of wonen, have beer produced by men who destre worten to br passive as a result, in mary such pointings women have no personality or sexualty af their own. The is commoniy represented as inutiable and supine. Now this was a limitation introdaced infe vision and representation by a scruci mode. One af the thingr that makes pour pointine distinerive is charit indica es anorher way of sering the figure and the world, because pour sexualizy is aiso distinct.
And that's where thear world doesnot deal with it. I agree with what you've just said Yes. But, really, l've bardly done any male nudes. I do only very fes. Somebody pointed our that the tradition of the male nude in art is of strength, a symbol of strength and power sensuouseroticis. Tomake the male nude the tradition. I read tbat once about my paintine somewbere. But the only thing 1s there's only two or three pictures on that; is nor a tecurting theme.
Your many double portraits seem to amour sera fairty consistent exploration of the doubes and possibilites of two people trying to relate to euch other, is that fauri Well, about the portrait of my parents, my father said hethought that the portrast - in bis words, tItshows| concentrate'. Recause be steading the book. My mother, whe isa Wele bit more aware, sensed it was about something eise. He's in his own world. My mother is sat there, rather patiently, doing what I say. My Father cannot de that. He finally picks up a book to look at the hidden thie. Many people would read ir that was. The problem is that when you look at a picture of two people, you are going to read many, many things into it You are forced to, Formalist criticisan tries • to avoidthis; 1 think that' sa real criticisan of its criticisms.
Jeet there are zwo opposing tendencies ir Tour recent wowy. On the one nono. tr breakthrough in the printine HOUr orher works like the Louvre's windows. The formeris becoming more concret: you are inokerg for ways a) grasping reai people in en image. But in the Jater workt, which seem to descend from A Bigger Splash, the figure hus vanished alfogether, or is as best on absen! presence, and the visihie world inself again seems threatened. On the one hand you have this reflective, Mercisstic, art screen; on the orher, a very defimire arrempr to break throwgh, Do pou feef that's true? Yes. I think that when the work is misinterpreted, it is this which is mis interpreted. Collectively, people don 1 se the essentis strusee. But adont that al times perhapsit smot very clear. 1 still chink failings. I don'1 make it that clear. The la interested du formal problems; but the mon-las audience 1 inerested int lhei. and criticise coeur. Si I'm wedeed in beiween. I don't care really, One just coes on cursuine it anvaar, cing can't really stop. Some things just bave to be donc.
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE, 15-31 December 1977, page 22