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M.V. Yes there’s a picture in there of one of them. Well, it looks
like it’s in a museum.
C.A.Is there? Oh yes, I think that’s Tullie House Museum.
M.V. Oh, that is Tullie House?
C.A.That one?
M.V. No, it wasn’t that one, it was with ceramic...
C.A.Yeah, that’s Tullie House.
M.V. Oh right, so you created that but...
C.A. Yeah, they had a very valuable collection of ceramics so we put
one in that cupboard. Looked great, that’s an excellent example.
M.V. So, can you relate all this to notions of craft work? The value
of craft work?
C.A. No, no. I’m saying that glibly but you have to remember that I
was trained in a craft, painting. Without being modest, I became very skilled
at it, because you would, anybody would, and you can find a quote in the
‘Sunday Times’ by me in 1972 saying that, “In terms of craft, I’m not very
interested”. I mean, what I am interested in, the integrity in my work
is not that I go from squares to circles over fifty years or you know,
get deeply involved in the earth or whatever. The integrity in my work
is, it’s about production of meaning. Who produces meaning and who controls
meaning. I mean, we live in a blizzard of meanings but the meanings that
are being constructed for us, by advertising, by the media, by all these
things, by Macdonalds you know, are not our meanings in the meanings in
the multi national corporations, they’re not our meanings. I’m concerned
about trying to find the meaning, the correct meaning for something like
the meaning for ‘Wuthering Heights’ for example.
M.V. I mean, I’m interested when you say “Correct meaning”.
C.A. Well, the correct one for me, you know. I’m not talking about politically
correct now.
M.V. But it does sound like you’re talking about a single interpretation.
C.A. No, no, that’s too simple. I suppose
what I’m saying is “Look, I became an artist because I can’t see anything,
and I’m trying to see things” you know, and one of the great artists I
admire is Joseph Beuys, but I think he’s wrong and I’ve said this
to him. I didn’t know him very well but I did say this to him, he says,
“I catch a man when he is free, when he is etc.” and I said “Look, you’re
never free, you know, because inside your head there are all these conflicting
meanings coming at you from all kinds of places, you know. You’re telling
me something about art history. Somebody’s telling me about ceramics.
Then the Daily Mirror’s telling me something else, Macdonalds and so on.
So there’s all these things, and trying to see clearly what, say, let’s
take ‘Wuthering Heights’. What’s going on there? Do I have to take the
professor of English Literature’s interpretation of it? Well, no I don’t,
and I want to try and find out that meaning and if it relates to me in
some way, and try and explain it.
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