The Distance from Here to There - Interview

David Raymond Conroy and Gil Leung

About the slip from it being present and it not being present; that there may be some space in (between) the work being present, and there not being any work present.

1/ I try to Forget but it’s just a Reminder (2008), charcoal on paper

I liked the way it seems to be self-reflexive, reflexive about its own romanticism, because, it was a life drawing of a nude woman who was turning away. That it was an old drawing and the paper was fading the opposite way, discolouring from white. That I hope it is unclear how it is made, to not disclose how it was made. There was something interesting in this turning away and disappearing. She’s disappearing in real life and she’s turning away in the picture. Yes she’s disappearing and no.

2/ Blivet (II) (2007) inkjet print, frame and window mount mat

A blivet is a political situation that has gotten out of hand, or a military situation. The object is an impossible object, but it isn’t a normal blivet; it is an endless object, it just goes around in itself. The background of the work is the art dept of MoMA San Francisco, photographing the back of Robert Rauschenberg’s erased De Kooning. Which incidentally is one of the reasons I produced the I try to Forget but it’s just a Reminder drawing. I liked Robert Rauschenberg’s rubbing out of De Kooning, and showing the rubbed out work as his own. The impossible object is someone else's picture from the Internet but I’d made it mine, by covering up another picture that isn’t there anyway. The reason I like impossible objects is because they are like conundrums for one thing, and that they have the quality of being either more than they appear to be, or maybe more accurately more then they are because of how they appear.

3/ You are what you love and not what loves you back (I have never been more proud to own a CD) (2007) double-sided screen print on paper

So it is a review of a record of one my favourite bands that was posted by another fan on Amazon, but of course because it is a fan’s review it is really only full of praise. So I wanted to do something about enjoying the review as much as enjoying the work, so it is like enjoying the relationship with the thing, instead of enjoying the thing itself. I thought I would try and make the review talk about that; talk about the review as much as it talked about the thing it was reviewing. So I edited the review so that you could read it as a text that spoke about itself, but then it is printed in such a way that, if the conditions are right, you can read what it is about as secondary. If it just talks about itself I’m not interested in it, if it just talks about something else then that is just a straight review. My interest is in the relationship with the relationship. I thought it was funny because at the end it makes a claim for its own genius, and that seems to break the kind of romantic pathos. I think that you read it and it’s a bit self-aggrandising and then you’re forced to take a opinion as to whether it is or isn’t genius. But later you realise it was a review of something else that someone else had thought was genius, so then your relationship with it would flip a bit, judder. I would be happy if it did that.

4/ A History of Photography (2007) photograph, frame and window mount mat

All the little pictures look like types of photography, it is luck that it happened like that, but of course it isn’t lucky because it is there, because it works, it was tried and then chosen.

5/ All Revolutions are not the Same (2008) drawing, frame

So it is like an image, the idea is that it is like a life drawing thing, just an exercise in skill, appearance, draughtsmanship and all those things. But then by turning it you politicise it, or… you give it the aesthetics of being political, because you don’t actually politicise it. So by turning back again, or… I turn the picture in the frame to make it into this political symbol, but then I turn the frame, to turn it back into its original context. But then this turning it back feels like a more genuine political gesture. So why I was interested in it, is that I was… you know I don’t like it when works look political but aren’t really political, and I think that it might be more usefully political to stand against that overt politicisation in art. Its politics are in its just being a drawing and not a political motif. I am aware that it is a drawing that was turned into a fist that was turned again. The politics of the fist are different to the politics of turning it down. All language is the language of politics. The words are the same. When it is just a political motif it is not genuinely political, it just looks like it is about something. To turn once, doesn’t say anything, but in turning it again it feels like it does actually say something. The revolutions are not the same, 90º to make it the fist, is like a visual gag, no genuine political statement, turning it again seems to be more, it says something that just one revolution didn’t. I am interested that the second revolution returns it to it original position but yet just not having moved at all in the first place doesn’t do enough; it takes too much projection from the viewer. This is useful for me to say something, to say what I think about making art.

6/ Triple Mono (2008) three 12" record sleeves

I was thinking about Jeff wall’s Stereo photograph. He said that he took the stereo panel out of the work, and I always really liked that work mostly because of the big panel that said STEREO on it. So I thought maybe it would be nice to just show a lightbox that said stereo on it, He had asked the person who bought it not to show the stereo panel of the Stereo work, because it was too bright. I thought, well if it is going spare maybe it could be shown. Then I thought if you were going to show the panel, maybe it should be two panels that said stereo, or if you were just going to show one, it should just say mono on it… what font, how you would show it? Then I thought just show a mono record, then I thought it would be wrong if it wasn’t a monochrome, so then I thought about how to make a mono record a monochrome. And that is how it started.

7/ When the Going was Good (2008) inkjet print

Two watches that are in sync, it reminded me of wearing two watches, which seemed pointless and extravagant, and they are driver’s watches, they are desk divers, they are tools that aren’t going to be used. But they are desired because they are designed for a purpose. And they are in sync which made me think of The Lovers by Torres, and I thought it was like a holiday snap of the lovers. I wanted it to be about happier times, I wanted it to seem, because it seemed slightly out... it seemed like a memory, you know like it was a holiday snap. The Torres clocks go out of time, that is the point of them, so this would be like a holiday snap. But wearing two watches would be a show off thing, it would be unusual; like people would take a picture of themselves wearing a crown just because they had access to it to one day, They would take a picture of it. There are no connected streams between these two things necessarily. They are connected for me, because they both exist; those expensive watches, just for show, and also that they are like that Torres thing. So they are connected in the picture, but I have no idea whether anyone else is going to know that. But of course you know now and so you’ve gained that, but maybe you’ve lost more.

8/ This Sentence Is My Heart (Going Out) To You With Arms Outstretched Yearnin’ For that Someone To Make you Stay Until You Understand There Will Always Be You and Me Both Under my Skin (2008) audio CD and case

An idea of an exercise in self-reflexivity. I wanted to make a mix tape, where the title of the mix tape said something about the title of the mix tape and the mix tape itself. It starts with ‘This Sentence’ because in making it I was trying to make it say a sentence. I suppose to some degree, I think that if you make a work it is always somewhat of a self-portrait. A mix tape is something to give to girls or mates, or people you just know. I suppose I thought, that if you chose your favourite songs for a public showing, you would chose the coolest songs, but if there is another remit which is more important, then perhaps you end up putting more in, it would somehow be a more honest portrait.

9/ The Thing (2008), two posters, drawing pins

It is a poster of a band that I like and a poster by an artist that I like. I like making things that look like they are broken, or happen by accident, or maybe look like they have been trying to make themselves look like they have been broken. But I don’t actually make work that looks like that. I am not under the impression that it would really fool anyone but I like to make the effort to continue as if I believe that it would. The two posters, when I did that I was thinking one poster had slipped down to reveal another poster, but of course it hasn’t. Like when people tear billboards off and something happens that is funny between the two posters. But that doesn’t work in art galleries. So it was more in an effort of doing something with two posters, just to see what would happen. But now when you have these two posters they don’t look like they have slipped, they just look like they have been put on top of one another, but I don’t think you could ever come to this, have arrived at this without accident. I’m interested in courting that kind of thing like as if it was luck or maybe it would look like it was a fake mistake. I hope in some way it would seem marvellous... in its luck.
Say I would look at them and think that they were convincingly pretending to be more careless then they are, trying to adopt some aesthetic that obviously they would fail to do. But somehow in doing so there is some kind of latent revelatory experience that can be had. Maybe the magic happens later, and maybe it works better because of that.

10/ a, e, f, h, I, m, o, r, t, u (2005), Every a, e, f, h, I, m, o, r t and u on a single sheet of Letraset, paper

The statement ‘I am true of heart’ would be written using a technique that necessitates its failure. I hoped it would be a bit like when things look like they are broken. I thought it was about failing but then you can’t make a piece of work that is bound to fail, because in making it you would succeed. But equally on the other hand, it is like ‘I am true of heart’, and you continue despite the problems, so it would be both. Both failing to fail and striving to continue depending on how you read it. I don’t think you can think both at once, I think you can flip around between them. I think if you talk about ‘I am’ it is personalised, so you might think that this person failed to fail or it is a gesture about being true of heart, striving despite. Of course you set up your own device; either way it ends up as I, I, I, I, I, I anyway so it doesn’t really get past itself or myself but that is honest I think.

From a conversation with Gil Leung 08/10/08, all questions have been omitted.

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