Did you feel a kinship to the artists in the "Pictures" show?
I've never said this before, but Doug Crimp actually asked me to be in that show. I read his essay and told him it was for shit, that it sounded like Roland Barthes. We haven't spoken since.
[...]
Do you think the critics [in the '80s] understood what you were doing?
I wasn't aware that there was much critical writing in the '80s about my work. I think people were more focused on David Salle, Schnabel, Fischl, Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer.
Well, I remember one person gushing about your work's "complete eventlessness."
That sounds like cartoon language. Kind of like when Susan Sontag describes taking a photograph as a "soft murder."
I gave Richard Prince a hard time in that last post--yeah, really threw a spanner in his career path--but I like his work, just not those upstate NY photos. The framed celebrity pics and collectibles in a recent Barbara Gladstone show (hmm, a lot of black and white there) were smart and hilarious. Also, he has a great "cranky man" interview in the March 2003 Artforum. Here are some excerpts:
- tom moody 3-05-2003 9:02 am