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M.V. Yes, so did, looking back, well you were obviously in Liverpool
at a very significant moment, and it would probably have seemed even more
significant by 1965 or, or not?
No, no it didn’t, no. I mean the key
moment for my generation was Elvis Presley singing ‘Heartbreak
Hotel’ in 1956 when I was 16, and for a while, for working class kids
that was an incredibly liberating moment because, I mean, if you listen
to the words. They’re quite banal but if you look at the way in which
he did that and sang that and the way in which he allowed black culture
to penetrate white culture in a way that Picasso had done
quite deliberately. Allowed African images to penetrate the hegemony of
Western culture, you know. I don’t think it’s an appropriation in a kind
of imperialist way as some people would argue. I think it actually, I
think it enfranchised our generation, what Elvis did, in a different way
than anything else comparable at our level, a working-class level. Although
it might, and I’ve said this in lectures, I mean, I gave a lecture at
Georgetown University last year, and I said “Although this might not be
true for young, white, working-class women” but a couple of people, a
couple of women came up to me afterwards and said, “No, it did actually
liberate us because... .“, and there was a woman who gave a talk afterwards
which basically said that Elvis brought out what we now call the feminine
side but also brought sex back into Christianity. You know, after St.
Paul had kind of removed it and kind of changed the thing. So, it could
well be argued that the masculinisation of history in the last 2 to 3000
years was at its turning point there. As well as many other places of
course, but that was one of the key moments in one sense and that you
know, the movement and the easy access to emotion. All that stuff that
had previously been thought of as women. So that was the key moment for
my generation because I was sixteen in 1956 and the word ‘teenager’ was
just beginning to be developed, and the other thing was that at Liverpool
you know, as you mentioned. What was very interesting about Liverpool
and that experience was all of a sudden we found we could write about
things around us, or paint about things around us. We didn’t have to go
to Hollywood. We didn’t have to have Nelson Riddle. We actually made our
own thing there and it’s only later that it gets appropriated, you know,
and commercialised and so on, and so, and that grew out of because we
did it with very cheap instruments and....
M.V. What about the Royal College? What was going on
at the Royal College in the ‘60s and Pop Art or Richard
Hamilton
C.A. Well, no,
Richard Hamilton was always kind of a little bit of an outsider
because he was considered to be a graphic designer, although they were
discussing stuff at the ICA. The old ICA in Dover Street, and there are
still kind of debates as to who invented Pop Art and of course
neither of them did. So he was a little bit of an outsider and he was
at Newcastle and they wouldn’t allow him into the Fine Art areas. So you
know, although Pop Art was affecting a few people at Liverpool,
for example, we hadn’t heard of Warhol ‘till maybe ‘62 or ‘63.
I mean the key exhibitions at that particular time were Rauschenberg
and Johns at the Whitechapel and then another big influence at
that particular time was Francis Bacon, because we had a show at
the Tate then. So there was all that going on, there was a kind of thing,
a kind of, you know, not snobbery as much as a kind of rivalry between
the three schools. The Slade was thought to be the realist Edwardian
emphasis on life drawing. The Academy was the 18th century emphasis
on craft skills and all of that, and the Royal College was thought
to be a bit flash. A bit graphic designery and you know. The Academy was
a place where abstract painting was being practised I guess. Although
there was still, obviously some at the Royal College but we probably
thought David Hockney a talented illustrator with a great talent
for publicity. I still think that, I like him but that’s how I think of
him.
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