Conversation with Gordon Burn
Exerpt 1 : Exerpt 2
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 Listen to the audio (2 mins)
GB: Did the medicine cabinets come before or after Two Lovers?
Did they happen at the same time? Because there's obviously a direct
link, it seems to me.
DH: I did the medicine cabinets and then jumped back to them in
the installation so there was a step on - the installation was after
the formaldehyde pieces. I did the spot paintings, then the medicine
cabinets, then the formaldehyde pieces and then after that I did
Pharmacy as the installation.
GB: So drugs was the link between them all?
DH: Well drugs but also I always got a kick and still get a kick
out of the fact that there's no medicine involved in Pharmacy the
installation and how much show is involved in the pharmacist and
in the pharmacy and in the drug companies and the medical things.
People's belief is not in the drugs themselves, because in my installation
the drugs themselves are not actually there, and it still creates
that same context.
GB: But certain people said to you that the piece would only work
if the drugs were in the bottles inside the packaging?
DH: But I think they're wrong because there are very few bottles
in a pharmacy obviously you can't see what's in there. I mean you
only have to look at something like thalidomide to see how it can
go wrong.
GB: Do you think it's seems more shallow because there is only
packaging and nothing behind the packaging - in other words no real
drugs inside the bottles and the boxes - I mean Anthony D'Offay
said to you very early on….
DH: I mean Nicholas Logsdail
GB: or whoever it was 'I'd buy the piece if it had the drugs in
it' and you said 'Well it's not going to happen - it's not going
to have the drugs in it'.
DH: But as an artist, my interest is in the packaging, because
obviously I'm not a pharmacist but then to find a very simple way
to look at how this confidence works with medicine companies.
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