Page 57 - Studio International - December 1970

all worked out beforehand and appear purer. than before, but· I don't really think of my read social comment in it. That is, I'm com­
Your question was, is there any basic differ­ earlier work as lacking in subtlety. It may be menting on something, certainly. I don't
ence-I really don't think there is. They're all that my early work is less 'Pop' than people think it's direct and I don't think I'm saying
done methodically, step by step. If a print think, and that my recent work, though more that society is bad. That's not the meaning of
doesn't work, I throw it away. In the case of subtle in appearance, is more 'Pop'. How­ the Cathedrals or Modern Heads or Peace
the paintings, I can erase and change parts ever, I have a feeling one shouldn't probe too Through Chemi-stry. But obviously they com­
until I, am satisfied-I can add things that closely into this thought: ment on some aspects of our society. They
weren't in the original stencils. With the JC But your current work is very remote from observe society and come out.of our society.
prints, everything is done before the final your earlier images. I mean previously you JC But this is nothing to do with traditional
printing, but the process is very much the selected images that were about a decade Realism?
same. I do the dots first, then the colours and old. Now your images range back almost a RL Well, Realism has usually meant vulgari­
finally the black lines. That's not true of the hundred years. Of course, your early Cezanne zation. I think the idea of discussing ideas
Cathedrals, of course, which have no black paintings went back to the same time, but about art apart from the specific artists is
lines. It's all only methodical up to a point you seem to be focusing on a period about silly. Maybe that's a fault of a certain type of
and gets chan,ged arpund whenever it ,is forty years or more in the past. Have you any abstract criticism which really deals in the
unsatisfactory. In fact, it's very hard to say. idea why? philosophy of an idea, and it doesn't seem to
JC Well, it is always taken for granted that RL The comics, and paintings of Picasso, matter so much which artists are discussed.
it's possible to work at a greater scale in Mondrian, Monet and W.P.A. murals, as It's a question of the strength of an artist as
paintings, and that there is more freedom to well as the modern h�ads and designed against the strength of an idea. ,
be impulsive, whereas printmaking is more objects, are all available to me as repro­ JC Or style?
systematic and has less possibilities of being ductions. The fact that the comic book and :aL Yes, because a style or a critical idea
impulsive. In retrospect, and from your own advertising art were done more recently considered independently from the particular
position and work, how do you now view the doesn't make them any more available to me artist can be fairly meaningless.
Pop style? than any other source of my images. I mean, JC But you really don't see yourself as some­
RL That's really a tough question because it's still other people's graphic or three­ one separate from the abstract artists in
there are lots of ways to get at this. I don't dimensional works that I use, and that's formal qualities, do you?
know if my current work is more or less what I was using in the early sixties. 'The fact RL No, not fundamentally. But my work isn't
Pop than before. The subject of my recent that some of the images happened to be about form. It's about seeing. I'm excited
paintings and prints is still a vulgarization of advertising art is almost incidental. about seeing things and I'm interested in the
Monet's Cathedrals. I mean they're a vulgari­ JC You still deny there is any social com­ way I think other people saw things. I
zation in the regular sense of the word in that ment in your work? suppose 'seeing' at its most profound level
I'm industrializing his hnages. Also, I think RL I don't think I deliberately put it in, let's may be synonymous with form, or rather form
my imagery is taking on more subtler aspects put it that way, but it's pretty hard not to is the result of unified seeing. O

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