Page 56 - Studio International - September 1970

OVERY: Can we talk about mass production OVERY: Or an L.P., or books, for instance, how this is something which is bastardising
when you're only producing a limited edi- which are, I suppose, mass-produced. One art. I can't see that it is.
tion ? doesn't tend to think of books, as being mass- STUDHOLME : Certainly not. But I think
STUDHOLME : Well we can talk about mass produced but they've been mass-produced multiples are not that new in fact. It's just
production on the Segal thing because in fact since before the term came to be used. that over the last I don't know how many
we could physically have made a great many MCEWEN: I think we ought to stick to visual years, this horrifying rigid division set up
more. And I think it is a very well resolved things rather than conceptual things. between painters, sculptors, architects, and
solution to the idea of making a multiple to LEVERETT: What I'm amazed by is this con- designers, is actually being broken down and
have this girl sitting on a chair in a box which cern about multiples, and whether they are art this is being accelerated by artists making
you can have on a wall. But the decision to do or whether they are not art, when one's total multiples and people producing and selling
150 and not 1,050 was not related to the basic environment is practically saturated by articles. It's a whole movement to get away
concept. multiple-type objects, i.e. things which are from saying you're that but not the other.
MCEWEN : The difference is that it could easily produced in large units. This is part of our age. Which is, in this day of specialisation, very
have been hand-made by George Segal. And The whole historical tradition of art up until important I think.
would probably have been more satisfactory now has been the one-off. Simply the pro- OVERY: Surely, despite what David Leverett
in certain respects if it had been. There's no cesses were not as they are now, which is to do has said, the audience is important in the
real essential difference between the multiple with production. Again one could perhaps idea of multiples ?
version of that object and what presumably cite areas where it's happened : pottery has MCEWEN: Well that is a basic thing relevant
he originally made in the first place. Except always been a multiple situation because of its to the set-up that I've got involved in produc-
that there may be a slightly different method process, but art as such, up until relatively ing multiples. It's like making records. If you
of producing an identical cast or something recently anyway, has been a single situation, make a record and it doesn't sell it's an un-
each time. But what we were saying before is a one-off thing. Now we're working in an area successful record. There's no point in getting
that if the artist gets involved with a techno- which by its very nature is an open-ended into huge tool costs and months of work in
logical process at the outset what he produces thing which can go on ad infinitum. producing a situation where you can produce
in the end couldn't have been produced by OVERY: Now in order to talk about mass a lot of a certain piece and then not sell it in
any other means. He couldn't have hand- production one's really got to take into con- justifiable quantities.
made it. I couldn't have hand-fabricated my sideration the audience, or in the case of the OVERY: So, what kind of people do you want
piece; it would have been absolutely out of ordinary mass-produced object, the consumer. your multiples to get across to? Is it the kind
the question. You can't carve styrene in that One is only going to mass-produce a thing of person who would not have bought paint-
way. because there is a mass demand for it. ings in the past? The kind of person who
STUDHOLME : Of course I quite agree with you. LEVERETT: I don't think of an audience when would not even look at paintings in the past
I think you could physically have sat down I'm producing a painting. Why should I or—?
over a long period and made 150 of those. I consider an audience in terms of making a MCEWEN: I don't mind. I suppose it's the
don't see the multiple entirely as a mass- multiple? A multiple is just another area that dream of everyone who has tried to do any-
produced thing. I don't. I see it as objects I happen to be working in. thing in this area that pieces should be avail-
which there are intended to be more than one. OVERY: You could fill your whole room with able in the way any other product is. I've
And just really leave it at that. For instance, multiples, with mass-produced identical ob- heard many times of people starting little
if you had decided that you wanted to put a jects, but surely in thinking in terms of mass operations in this field, both here and in
splash of oil paint on each one of your things production or the multiple you're think- America, talking about how they're going to
that wouldn't have made it any less a ing of these objects as being distributed—not sell them to the large stores. Well I mean it's
multiple would it? necessarily sold but becoming available—to a when you start going into that scene, that you
MCEWEN: Yes, in a sense I think it would. I'm large audience ? understand exactly how difficult it is to sell
not really interested in the word multiple as LEVERETT: No, I'm thinking of the materials, something in a large store which doesn't fit
such. I mean I don't care how you define this which by their nature have an attendant into a defined area, through function or some
word. But I think that there is a difference manufacturing process behind them... If other reason. It's exceedingly difficult. And
between what I'm talking about and what I pick up Perspex shall we say, or acrylic there are, I think, ways of getting round this
George Segal did. sheeting, I'm picking up a whole range of which are beginning to happen. Such as sell-
LEVERETT: There's two separate artists con- processes, of technologies. Now I can't deny ing direct to people who are interested in
cerned. That's the only difference. Or that is a that those processes exist. If I'm going to use buying the pieces, of whom there are a far
difference. Again I agree with McEwen, I'm that material effectively I've got to take them greater number than anyone supposes, who
very cautious about even defining 'multiple'. into account, before I can either use them or can be perfectly ordinary people—anyone
Because again I think that if one is working abuse them. who can afford the price of an L.P. is the way
through a certain process then automatically OVERY: But you could use, for instance, I think of it. And you can get at those people
there will be some manufacturing aspect, and Perspex in a work which might not necessarily in a variety of ways. Through direct mail.
it's the choice of whoever is marketing the end be a multiple and you wouldn't necessarily be You can make yourself available to them,
object to say what quantity should be manu- taking into account all the ramifications of known to them. I think that this should be
factured. The artist's integrity is, to me, mass production, of the normal work-a-day dealt with by structures that are subsidised
solely directed towards solving a particular use of the material. Surely artists have always by the government, such as museums, be-
concern with a medium that he is fascinated taken a material which is used for something cause I see a lot of museums all over the
by. And making damn sure that no conces- else and put it to quite different ends. country, in the provinces, rotting, doing
sions or no compromises are made during that LEvERETT: Yes, well I wouldn't set out to absolutely nothing. Just being open. I mean
process. And if this happens then I think it's make or design a multiple—the materials that why not provide a stimulating atmosphere—I
got a quality that is going to make it more I was interested in would automatically, by don't say that this is a solution to anything.
of a work of art, for want of a definition, and the nature of those materials, turn out to be a I think it's one possible way of bridging this
less of an artifact. multiple situation since they could be mass- undoubted gap.
STUDHOLME : Would you say a film is a produced articles. I find it a little disconcert- OVERY: You mean they would sell multiples
multiple ? ing that 'multiples' is a dirty word, as if some- on museum bookstalls ?