Start the tape.
“I always felt the need to bring a new objectivity to” ladders.
Who’s speaking? Every interview is a junkyard of voices; you believe, I insist, we all think. Allow me to explain. I am the partial interviewer, veiled in script. I am the interviewee that spoke and the one that was written later in my absence. We are all various understandings of the Work, and the work’s value. But which one of us is interested in forklift trucks?
What do you want to say about interviews? That we’re too in love with them? That they fill in narratives of how and why art works? How and why does your art work. I can’t tell you now that you’ve asked me. How do you understand it? If you enjoy it you must understand it. There’s no need to say ‘What about your lines? What about your materials? “Being intelligible is not what it seems.” What’s interesting about this interview is the rhetorical skill, it’s so dependent on an unambiguous persona. Only he could answer a question like that. Somebody said something impulsive at a point in time, somebody wrote something rational and that moment is now a monument. Ask her about her plan. The question is always the answer is always a statement about your current project. That’s not a question. But do you agree or disagree. With what? With whether the question or answer is the making of criticism.
It’s probably more like an exercise in understanding a journalist. The golden egg is a recording of someone’s meltdown. The best way to achieve this is to cause someone to have a meltdown. Tell us about the moment of your public failure and if you can’t please be silent. You mustn’t insult me by understanding me. My way of being critical is my way of showing you that I care. I care enough to ask what you think about how logos have changed? And how did the move to go all white come about? It was my brief. People must be so bored of decision making. Explain your strategies for escaping phallocentricism? Silence. I had my first exhibition in Warsaw, with photographs of my actions. Untitled (November 1976) was in it, as was Untitled (18 November 1976) and other things I had done.
Is an apologia even necessary, and what’s the difference between what you decided and what you can’t decide? Decision making. I am interested in the initial impulse that led to your ‘actions’, what did you do before this? I was doing drawings in a notepad then I did collage. What have you heard others say about your work? What they say is true. How did you end up in Poland? It was for my second exhibition. Could you explain the train journey in detail, including the coffee and the sandwich and the book you read. Maybe that’s when I had the idea. What have you heard others say about your work? What they say is wrong.
It’s a shame this interview is too circumscribed for you to say anything surprising. Was that your intention? If you enjoy it you understand it. Everyone talks about what a wonderful structure Number 32 has. (What I mean is) if they only knew how arbitrary that decision was. Now the biographers are calling and I can’t remember what is true and what isn’t. Why are you using forklift trucks? I’m fascinated by them. You are not fascinated by them. I can’t talk about intention, everything I do is a surprise.
(This article can be found in next month’s Vacuum magazine)
