Conversation with Gordon Burn
Exerpt 1 : Exerpt 2
: Exerpt 3 : Exerpt 4 : Exerpt
5 : Exerpt 6
 Listen to the audio (2 mins 15 secs)
GB: Have you never spoken about the structure of the cabinets that
hold the drugs? Because, that to me, seems to be as important as
what's on the shelves in a way? And I saw the Late Show and they
were saying, 'Oh they were really cheaply made'. I didn't realise
that they were a reproduction of a replica pharmacy cabinets. How
far did you go into that - did you go into a company that made cabinets
for pharmacies?
DH: I just found an old sideboard that I liked and I made it in
white. It was like a body, like an abdomen, a kind of bottom half
and the top and the head.
GB: You must have been interested in Donald Judd?
DH: Yes, but I think the medicine companies were aswell.
GB: Also people who made shelves for things to stand on - those
New York artists you'd seen at Saatchi gallery in 1987 who would
stand back and they were making shelves for things, and they putting
things on shelves?
DH: Yeah but there's an element in medicine when you start realising
that you've got to wash your hands before you start messing around
with people's bodies because you're going to get an infection -
so it creates a minimalism - you use minimalism to avoid infection.
You know, you wear white coats because then you can see blood on
it - you can see where all these things can start to occur. So that
works in minimalism as well - like as a society that's why that
art makes sense. With clear forms and perfect edges then people
can feel secure. It's a confidence.
GB: I never noticed that before.
DH: Well that's good. No, it's true.
GB: Something new. But I sort of realised that's probably why it
was, that people wear white.
DH: Yes, or green, light green. They never wear red. It's for that
kind of cleanliness - but it can be physical as well as emotional
or spiritual. I mean it's your own decay which upsets you - it's
like an ashtray or when you wear your clothes in.
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