Wil Malone

Wil Malone is a musician, producer and responsible for the string arrangements of Massive Attack’s ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ and The Verve’s ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ – two songs that featured on our playlist ‘Pop Meets the Classics’ (January 2011 post).

As a musician, Malone was a member of the psychedelic bands ‘Orange Bicycle’ and ‘Motherlight’ and classical instruments feature prominently on his solo album ‘Wil Malone’ and the soundtrack for the horror movie ‘Death Line’. Malone mentions Samuel Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’, Paul Buckmaster’s string arrangements for Elton John’s albums and David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ as big inspirations for his own string arrangements.

Earlier this month, Anne Dudley explained on our blog how the string arrangements of ABC’s ‘Lexicon of Love’ orginated and here Wil Malone shares, the origins of the string arrangements of ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ and ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’.

‘Unfinished Sympathy’

With ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ it was the band and the producer who asked me to do the string arrangements for the song. I remember, the track was originally eight minutes long and they let me hear many demos of the song; all sorts of constructions and different ways of doing it. I asked them what they had in mind for the string arrangements of the track and it was Massive’s producer Jonny Dollar – he was highly responsible for putting together the track – who said: “do what you feel like”.

The reason for inclusion of the string arrangements was to be supportive. In my view, in pop music, strings have to be supportive to the vocal, although they also have to give a boot and a sense of tension. If you have a rough track, it’s good to have the strings as a classical contrast sound so that you create a tension, a suspense going on all the time between the roughness of the track and the purity and classical feel. In pop music you’re usually working on a track with bass, drums, guitar, synthesizer, vocals and the strings have to blend with all that. My approach for ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ was that it’s a really open track: basically it’s just a groove – keyboards, and a great vocal by Sara Nelson – so you just let it drift, just let it chill.

With most string arrangements that I do, the strings are ‘put back’ in the mix. In other words they are so quiet you don’t really hear them, or they’re mixed up, so that you can just hear the top lines; but on ‘Unfinished Sympathy’, the strings are exposed. You can really hear them and I think that makes something different.

The string arrangements were played by 42 session players in EMI Abbey Road studio 1. I wanted to make the sound rich so that it vibrates in your chest and stomach, but to also keep it cool, so not so much vibrato – hit the bar lines very accurately. When you are writing, descriptively, in classical music there are emotions that you want the orchestra to have or play, but in pop music that isn’t true. There is no point in writing instructions like ‘dolce’ unless it really means something; basically it is a different way of writing for strings in pop music as you’re writing to a mix, you’re trying to blend your sound into the sound that is on the track.

‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’

Richard Ashcroft, the singer-songwriter of The Verve, asked me to write the arrangements for their track ‘History’ from their second album ‘A Northern Soul’. He liked what I had done and he asked me to write the strings for ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ for their album ‘Urban Hymns’. And this track came up and they played me a riff [Malone hums the tune of ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’] and they said that’s what we want. So I wrote it and but I wanted to have it a bit more bounce, jump if you like, and I added some bits and pieces. And it’s always on the same chord, quite Arabic – it doesn’t change.

Also in this song the strings are very pronounced and that’s why people talk about it, because you can hear them. Apart from Richard’s voice, they became the most important element of the song. The strings were basically performed by the same team of session musicians who did ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ but done by a smaller group of 24 people at Olympic Studio. My instructions to the musicians were to make the strings tough, determined, not pretty, not to make them poetic.

Emotional response

When people hear a string ensemble playing together, sometimes, they are emotionally moved by it. I have seen them cry on sessions when they hear it; but as the person who has written the string arrangement, I know what they’re going to sound like, so I’m not going to cry about them, I will just be happy when they sound great. In a certain sense all show business, film, music, etc is a form of manipulation. The benefit, thus, is for the person ‘receiving it’. That’s what you try to do: to put a bit of humour in it, or some wit, maybe a bit of elegance or create an unnerving effect. That’s what great string arrangements can do.

Written by Thierry Somers

Anne Dudley

Throughout her career Anne Dudley has experimented with many musical genres. She has been a member of the avant-garde synthpop group, Art of Noise, who used innovative ways of ‘sampling’; has created many film scores, including ‘Black Book’, ‘The Crying Game’ and ‘The Full Monty’ (for which she won an Academy Award); has been the musical director of Bill Bailey's ‘Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra’; and, most recently, she created her first opera ‘The Doctor’s Tale’ in collaboration with Terry Jones (one of the members of Monty Python).

Dudley is also renowned as a string arranger: she arranged and conducted a Russian-school classical music opening theme for Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Two Tribes’ and the epic string arrangements for ABC’s album ‘The Lexicon of Love’.

Two of the fifteen songs on our play list ‘Pop Meets the Classics’ (January 2011) featured Dudley’s string arrangements. Here, in her own words, Dudley shares how the string arrangements of ABC’s ‘Lexicon of Love’ originated; explains the difference between ‘real’ strings and strings created on a synthesizer; and how it feels to be standing on the conductor’s rostrum.

The big epic sound

In 1980 Trevor Horn was producing ABC. At that time the band didn’t have a keyboard player or a bass player, but they had some really good songs and lyrics that Martin Fry had written. As the songs were in a basic form, Trevor wanted to re-arrange them; to have them become more interestingly structurally and to build a much bigger epic sound around the ‘bare bones’ of the band.

I had worked with Trevor before on a few things and he asked me to do the string arrangements of the songs. The first track on which we worked with ABC was ‘Poison Arrow’, which was released as a single and was quite successful [It reached #6 on the UK singles chart]. The next main single was ‘The Look of Love’ for which Trevor wanted a big string arrangement on the song. This seemed a great opportunity to do something big and bold.

We recorded the strings in Abbey Road in Studio 1 and had, what I considered, a quite large string section in those days – probably about thirty musicians. We had the full string arrangements, violins, cello’s, contrabasses, and a brass and winds section – so we used the whole spectrum sound.

When I first heard the mix of ‘The Look of Love’ I was quite surprised how Trevor really featured the strings, which became a major part of the whole sound. They had more importance that I had first envisioned. They weren’t just the icing on the cake: they were the substance of the cake and a lot of commentators spoke about “the big epic sound” after the album came out.

‘All of My Heart’

It was one of the last songs we did. To be honest, I thought it was a very dull song. By this stage, after recording most of songs, we were very confident that the strings would give it something really different and elevate it above the ordinary. Thus, there are some really bold counter melodies in the strings’ part; and at the end of the song I took the opportunity of doing something quite intricate, quite complex. I was very pleased with the sound of the ending. It went somewhere else, it seemed slightly English pastoral, Ralph Vaughan Williams-esque.

I’m also very happy with ‘Valentine’s Day’, which starts with these manic arpeggio’s. Again, there was nothing really in the song until we put the strings on it and we made a feature out of the arrangement of the song.

It’s quite interesting to look back at the things one does. The album, as a whole, has a distinctive character about which I’m quite pleased.

Fun and joyful

In the lyrics on the album there are some funny lines, for example in ‘The Look of Love’: “If you judge a book by the cover / Then you judge the look by the lover”. It’s meaningless but it sounds important. I have always liked humour in music, which is a very rare and difficult thing to do; if there is a little tongue in cheek in it then I’m very happy about that. I suppose the string arrangements on ‘The Lexicon of Love’ are quite fun and joyful. It’s very grandiose as it swoops up to the high octaves – perhaps just a little bit over the top. A little bit too good to be true –quite lush and extravagant.

Strings vs. synthesizers

I believe records where the string arrangements have been recorded with ‘real’ strings will sound less dated, than those when the strings were played on a synthesizer. For example, Ultravox’s ‘Vienna’, a record of the 1980s, sounds very dated to me. I think it is a great song but the strings really don’t sound like strings. It would have been a different record if the strings were done by an orchestra, although now, it has this wonderful synthetic 1980s gloss to it.

On the rostrum

When you’re conducting an orchestra the sound of strings playing together can evoke an emotional response. It lifts your spirit when the strings start playing together. It’s almost like a sort of manipulative thing. I don’t really know why. I sometimes put it down to energy. When you got 30 or 40 musicians in a studio in front of you they are giving you a lot of energy. If you are recording strings, even if they play quite quietly, you can sort of feel that energy. It’s quite difficult to get anything like that if you’re just using synthesizers because you haven’t got the energy of all these musicians.

I’m not the world’s best conductor but I want to be there on the rostrum conducting the musicians because I think they like to have direct communication with whomever has written the notes. And to be on the rostrum is a nice feeling. I wouldn’t swap it for the world.

Written by Thierry Somers

Anne Dudley and Terry Jones’ opera ‘The Doctor’s Tale’ – a tale about a devoted doctor, whose patients love him and who has a wonderful cure rate, but the General Medical Council say he has to stop practising because he is a dog – is commisioned and prodcued by ROH2, and performed from 8-16 April at the Lindbury Studio Theatre in London.

Shaun Samson

One of the highlights of the Central Saint Martins MA collection presented at London Fashion Week (February, 2011) was the work of the young designer Shaun Samson. The work of the graphic artist M.C. Escher was one of the inspirations of Samson’s menswear collection for which he fused plaid wool, Aran knitwear and denim into a single fabric, using the ‘felting’ treatment. Samson presented a visually arresting collection that looked sophisticated, artistic and minimalistic.

In our interview with Samson talked about the process of the ‘felting’ treatment, Louise Wilson’s contribution to his MA collection, and what he considers to be the difference in struggles between ‘young’ and established designers.

200%: How long did you work on your MA collection?

Shaun Samson: I started research during the Summer holiday before my final year, and worked on it up to the Press Show in February 2011. Thus, I’d say it was around six months, similar to working on a normal Fall collection. During that time, though, there was a lot of “shit work" that lead to absolutely nothing. Toward the end of that six months, however, everything was scratched and I started over again. I used the same reference points, but revamped all the shapes. I think after working on a project for too long it becomes harder to have a new opinion on it, and becomes harder to see what you need to do to make it fresh.

200%: What made you come up with the idea to fuse Aran knit wool, denim and tartan into a single fabric for your MA collection?

Shaun Samson: In my research I looked at traditional men’s workwear, transfiguration, and the work of M.C. Escher, from which I wondered if I could recreate the idea of something morphing into another thing in real life. I’d seen ‘felting’ as a treatment to decoratively apply one fabric onto another, which was a starting point for my technical research – then, I wanted to see how far I could push it. When I was felting those small samples of wool to denim and to linen I started to imagine how it would look in large scale if I joined a whole garment onto another. That's from where the idea of fusing Aran knits to all these other fabrics came into the picture. 

200%: Could you share something about the process of the ‘felting’ treatment that you discovered during this time?

Shaun Samson: I actually have to do everything on the reverse side of the fabric, so I never see exactly how I’m felting. It’s only when I take the fabric out of the machine and turn it right side up where I see what I've felted. I had to learn to be really intuitive to the process to get it to finally work the way I wanted it to.

200%: Can you say what is was that Louise Wilson (Central Saint Martins Master of Fashion Course Director) contributed to your education throughout the MA course?

Shaun Samson: Louise has an extensive knowledge of fashion and shares it with each of her students. She keeps it from being just another collection, and knows how to make things more special. At the end of the day, though, it is up to each student to take her advice or not. I thought I was “hot shit” coming onto the MA with amazing marks from my BA collection. Louise made sure that everyone, including me, was “knocked off their high horse” from the day we started the course. 

200%: Was there any advice she provided to students that remains with you?

Shaun Samson: Her first piece of advice was eloquently clear: “It's right to be wrong”. I still have the sheet of paper she gave us taped to my wall in my room.

200%: What did she mean with “It’s right to be wrong”? Did she gave that sheet of paper with this advice to all students on the first day of the course?

Shaun Samson: Louise walked into the classroom on that first day, and, instead of giving a long welcoming speech and overview of the course, she passed out this piece of paper that she had photocopied and read it aloud. It was akin to one of those calendars with ‘daily affirmations’, but this one, I believe, she especially thought would resonate with us students. It read:

It's Right to Be Wrong

Start being wrong and suddenly anything is possible.

You’re no longer trying to be infallible

You're in the unknown. There’s no way of knowing what can happen, but there’s more chances of it being amazing than if you try to be right.

Of course, being wrong is a risk.

People worry about suggesting stupid ideas because of what others will think.

You will have been in meetings where ‘new thinking’ has been called for, and at your original suggestion.

Instead of saying, “That's the kind of suggestion that leads us to a novel situation”, the room goes quiet, they look up to the ceiling, roll their eyes and return to the discussion.

Risks are a measure of people. People who won't take them are trying to preserve what they have.

People who do take them often end up by having more.

Some risks have a future, and some people call them wrong. But being right may be like walking backwards proving where you've been.

Being wrong isn't in the future, or in the past.

Being wrong isn't anywhere but being here.

Best place to be, eh?

I don't think she does this every year. She probably read this the day before the course began and decided to share it with the class.  But it's definitely advice that I consider when I'm questioning my work and want to push it further.

200%: As a student of Louise Wilson how would you describe her teaching style?

Shaun Samson: Necessary. I don’t think I would have grown the way that I did on her course had it not been for the way she treated me. I think she has a special knack for being able to understand a person’s personality to know how to get to their core; and she treats everyone accordingly to that. She’ll be really excited with some, whilst antipathetic with others at different points during their collection. It’s hard not to take things personally when the criticism is purely about the work. For me, what made me feel most like an asshole was when she was fairly calm and guilted me into thinking that I failed her expectations. Then there were other times where her precise attention to detail brought out the best of me – during which times, I’d shake during tutorials, which is just as bad. I will never ‘falter on a hemline’ ever again. It's actually quite amazing how she does it.

200%: Whilst the MA fashion show is the end exam, were there other objectives and / or goals for you in participating in this show?

Shaun Samson: I've always wanted to start my own label, so being in the press show was a great way to launch myself out into the real world. But I didn't just do the MA in hopes that I would get into the show. I really wanted to work with Professor Louise Wilson as a teacher/mentor. I'm always up for a good challenge, but didn't really know how to prepare myself for how intense the course really was.

200%: What makes you interested in menswear?

Shaun Samson: I studied Menswear because it's the only thing I want to do. I doubt that I will ever have a women’s line.

200%: Why do you feel so strongly about menswear? Is there something specific that appeals to you in menswear which you don't find in womenswear?

Shaun Samson: With womenswear the possibilities are endless, but there is a certain line with menswear that men will not cross. I like seeing how far I can push that line without compromising a man’s masculinity: it’s just different designing for guys – they want to be cool. 

200%: There are many designers who design for men. Do you perceive that there is a gap in the market that you can fill and if yes, what do you think you can do differently or revolutionize?

Shaun Samson: I think I design for a man that isn’t represented in fashion, otherwise I wouldn't feel the need to start my own label. I make men’s’ modern street wear, or at least that’s the best way that I can describe it if you have to put me in a box. I actually like being in this grey area. I don’t have to abide by any rules that make me specifically a ‘tailor’ or ‘luxury designer’. I use other devices to present fashion on the modern man, like felting...ha!

200%: According to Toby Bateman (buying director at Mr Porter, the online luxury retailer for men) “Men want a guide to buying the white shirt or jeans that works best for them, rather than seeing what’s the cutting edge of fashion”. Do you agree with him? Do men tend to be a little conservative in what they wear and not go too far, or is that a cliché?

Shaun Samson: It’s not just men that are conservative; some women are the same. Personally, I think the men that follow these ‘guides’ are the crazy fashion victims that tend to go for the cutting edge of fashion. No normal straight fashionable man would want anyone telling them what to wear. It would be too gay.

200%: Could you explain how important is wearability for you as a designer?

Shaun Samson: Of course it’s important. I'd like guys to wear my clothes everyday, although I know they won’t. Most of the people I know are precious about designer clothing, because when you spend so much money on it, people give it a sense of preciousness which isn’t for everyday. I like people that treat their luxury garments as another piece of clothing, because in the end clothes are meant to be worn.

200%: Has the work of the Raf Simons influenced you?

Shaun Samson: He represents the modern man very well. I like his silhouette and admire his contribution to menswear every season. It’s hard not to applaud his work when he’s been so successful at being Raf Simons for so many years. His designs are quite timeless. You can wear anything from his past collections at any time and still be cool. I’d love to have that much might.

200%: Invariably designers face struggles and make sacrifices. As a ‘young’ designer do you consider your struggles different compared to ‘established’ designers?

Shaun Samson: Obviously, as a new designer getting my label started is definitely harder than those that already have their label up and running. Establishing the business side is a lot of unglamorous work, but it needs to be done, on top the work that I need to do to design my next collection. But I’d say that as a young designer there’s so much more creative potential. Established brands have a customer to whom they have to cater. I don't have to worry about selling...yet.

Interview written and conducted by Thierry Somers.

Images: Photographer: Pelle Crepin, Art Direction: Rob Meyers for RBPMstudio, Design: RBPMstudio, Grooming: Christopher Sweeney, Model: Tom Lander @ Select

Richard Phillips (Part 2)

In the second part of our interview with Richard Phillips we spoke with him as to why society is obsessed with celebrity culture; Kim Kadarshian’s talent; how his painting method has changed over the past year; and why Warhol's ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ no longer has relevance.

200%: Why do you believe society is obsessed with celebrity culture?

Richard Phillips: As the gap between the wealthy and poor continues to increase, and the large public educational systems remove any notion of art from their curricula, a vacuum is created that is filled by opportunistic entertainment conglomerates who produce the fantasy of celebrity culture and its exceptional lifestyle separate and unto itself.

200%: How does “the large public educational systems remove any notion of art from their curricula”?

Richard Phillips: The public school systems across the country have systematically cut the budgets for arts education. In the absence of arts education children are left to believe that entertainment systems media constitutes the sum total of art. If the art that is housed in museums gains exposure to this audience it is only in relation to whether it has entertainment celebrity endorsement.

200%: Can you further explain how you consider this illustrate society’s obsession with celebrity culture?

Richard Phillips: Reality programming, in which I myself have been involved via the Bravo television series ‘Work of Art’, shows that the language of art is not immune from this logic. The obsession exists in the careful construction of a psychological potential for irrationally assuming that the one-sided recognition of passively viewing a ‘star’ is somehow shared and amounts to intimacy. This fiction is a powerful one, which leads to the need for compensation in the form of consumable goods that are star-like or seen being worn by stars. Once complete this circuit is like the distorted dopamine receptor of an addict that must be filled again, but with more powerful drugs.

200%: It has been reported by 'The Daily Beast' that "celebrity culture is over". They say that the price for paparazzi photos is down 31 percent; photo budgets of celebrity obsessed magazine 'US Weekly' has fallen from $8m to $5m; and US sales of celebrity-licensed products. e.g. perfumes, are decreasing. Do you see this as signals that celebrity culture is over, or is there a certain celebrity fatigue amongst the public whereby it's in a waning phase as celebrity fascination is always with us to a greater or lesser extent?

Richard Phillips: There are bound to be periods of over celebrification. Fatigue occurs when the production of the form exceeds demand. The specialization of blogs, websites and now Twitter is to distribute the minutiae of needless information about every A to D-listed star. At a certain point attrition and consolidation are inevitable, as in any marketplace. The backlash is articulated at present in the propulsion of the non-celebrity celebrities of reality productions, for they increase the potential that the next superstar may be in fact ourselves. Warhol's fifteen minutes no longer has any relevance and seems as quaint as twenty-cent gallon of gas.

200%: What is your view about people like Kim Kardashian of whom it has been said "don’t need any talent whatsoever to be able to become a celebrity".

Richard Phillips: Kim Kardashian's talent IS the production of celebrity itself. Those who say that she has no talent are hanging on to an antiquated idea that equates a conventional separation of celebrity being the result of a distinctively recognized set of accomplishments. Her ability to understand the reductive constituent components of what it takes to create and maintain the full-time presence of celebrity is what sets her apart from all reality personalities and has placed her in context with those who achieved celebrity through older methods.

200%: Do you consider that your understanding of painting has developed further (increased depth of knowledge) in the last few years? Have you become more proficient in photorealism, or painting flesh tones?

Richard Phillips: Over the past year and a half my painting method has changed in some specific ways.

Rather than developing an image from a charcoal drawing, I've switched to pastels because it allows me to focus on color and drawing at the same time in preparation for my painting. The advantage of this change is the immediacy pastels create to my subjects and the move away from photographic imitation. In the construction of my paintings I have worked with the paint maker Robert Doak and the printing studio Axel Fine Arts in Brooklyn to come up with a way of technically screening my composite images in paint onto a traditional ground. I therefore start from a photo silk screened grisaille which is ready to accept the final stage of my painting. This dramatically reduces the time a painting takes to create and makes the process more responsive.

Since it is, in effect, painting out an existing photographic image, it is precisely anti-photorealistic and entirely sensibility based. This accounts for a greater sense of presence of flesh like our own.

200%: John Currin told me that "you're very good at finishing  paintings". Can you describe how you know when and / or how to finish a painting?

Richard Phillips: As one of my paintings moves toward conclusion, the options for changes decrease to the point where the painting literally turns the corner and starts rejecting further effort. If I go past that point, adding or changing anything forces me to immediately backtrack and reestablish what was the finished state. This was very much the case with the last painting of the group, Dakota Fanning. That point came when I was working on the last section of her hair, and after nine previous paintings, I knew unquestionably that it was time to stop.

Interview written and conducted by Thierry Somers, with contribution by Marie Drysdale.

Paintings: Richard Phillips, Zac Efron, 2010, Oil on Linen, 95 x 78 in. (241.3 x 198.1 cm), © the artist, Courtesy White Cube

Richard Phillips, “Most Wanted”, 
28 January - 5 March 2011, White Cube, Hoxton Square

Louise Wilson

As London gears up for ‘London Fashion Week’, 200% brings you an interview with Professor Louise Wilson OBE, Central Saint Martins Master of Fashion Course Director. Wilson is known for her deconstruct-then-reconstruct teaching style, and clear and outspoken views. Here she explains why “preparing” students for business is not the primary role of CSM; why she longs for “fashion to be unfashionable”, and whether there are any benefits for her to give interviews.

200%: Each year you review many portfolios from young, aspiring, fashion designers who apply for Central Saint Martins. How do you spot if someone has talent; for what qualities are you searching?


Louise Wilson: My job description is not to spot talent; my job description is 
Course Director. If I was a talent spotter, I would be called a ‘talent spotter’. I’m an educator: thus I’m looking for people that are interested in their subject, some of whom may become talented, but the premis of Central Saint Martins MA course is to educate people. Thus, whilst not being spotted as talented, with an education, you can still contribute to the design world. Saint Martins is tagged with this ‘star-talent-spotting’ label: but, when you’re here in the building, that’s not what we’re about – that’s other peoples’ projections.



200%: For what do you look when you review a portfolio?


Louise Wilson: I look for different skills: some people have cutting skills, some design or colour skills, some research skills, and some have it all. Whilst some people have only one or two skills, you take them in the hope you can drag the other skills out of them.

200%: Do you also teach your students the business side of the job?


Louise Wilson: No, because we’re too busy teaching them the creative aspect of the job, and we can not and should not be expected to do everything.

200%: Somehow, though, you teach your students the business side of the job as they all go on to have quite successful businesses.

Louise Wilson: I don’t think we do anything in particular, as we don’t give any lectures specific to business as it’s in-built! In-built in the briefs; in-built when we speak to them; in-built into dialogues, and with people that they meet and whom we suggest they meet. Whilst this is how we “prepare” them for business, this is not our primary role. We’re an Art college, and I never say we “prepare” them for business. Many art colleges have tried to tackle business and it has not been a success.

200%: It appears that some fashion journalists make your name synonymous with the words of ‘fearsome’, ‘opinionated’, or ‘abrasive’ when they refer to your teaching style. Does it bother you how you’re portrayed in the press?


Louise Wilson: Yes, it can be quite irritating and stupid. It bothers me in the respect that, if a 
multinational company was considering employing me as a consultant they may be put off, which is complete bullshit as I have previously worked as a consultant for Donna [Karan] and others. The rest of the time I don’t really give it much thought. Luckily I have another life, so I couldn’t care less. I also realize that a lot of people don’t even read most of the interviews, but it’s guaranteed that when it’s truly nasty it’s in the most well-read publications.

200%: Is there any benefit for you to give interviews?

Louise Wilson: The interviews don’t bring anything compared with, for instance, that it does for a film actor. If you’re an actor like 
Brad Pitt, you’re selling a 
film and when you do those press interviews you’re getting paid technically. That’s been negotiated, it’s in your contract. If I give time to do press interviews I’m taking time out from teaching that I have to make up at another time. I’m not getting paid and there is no benefit. Whereas every other sector when you read interviews there is a knock-on effect, there’s a product to buy or they benefit somehow in kind, like the actor promoting a film. With education there is 
nothing to buy. What happens in education is you give more and more
 of yourself and then you realize you get less and less back. My mother is upset by some of the articles. There is little or no benefit and I have thought 
like that for years.

Central Saint Martins has a good reputation; the MA has a good reputation. It’s a reputation defined by it’s work, its moniker, not by me or how many interviews I do as the work stands for itself. This is why I’m sort of 
ambivalent about interviews on me because it [Central Saint
 Martins] will continue long after I’ve
 gone, as the college is bigger
 than any one person.

200%: Thus, does it concern you that the public’s perception of the MA Fashion course is that it is ‘Louise Wilson’?

Louise Wilson: Yes a concern is that you have a group of
 students that think they’re coming to be taught by me, which is wrong 
as they’re coming to be taught by a great course team. It shouldn’t matter whether I’m there or not. They’re coming here to do 
their own work. It’s only when they do their own work that I can even give them a critique.

I was just recently talking with a student who was asking for an 
address for something and I knew he was looking at me as if to say “why don’t you
 have it in a rolodex”, which is stupid as the rolodex would have to be as 
big as this desk. If you’re just handing over numbers 
and information that would be useless. A student has to start at the 
beginning. It’s the whole process of them making a phone call, them sending an e-mail, try this and that. It’s not just giving them a contact 
because they miss the whole journey of what they might find on the way.
 I like being with young people and seeing them get better. That’s very rewarding.


200%: Do you have an explanation as to why there is always this pressure
on fashion to deliver more?

Louise Wilson: In the 1990s, fashion produced Hussein Chalayan and Alexander McQueen, amongst others; in the 1980s fashion produced John Galliano and Rei Kawakubo. They all created things that had never happened before that have stood the test of time. Thus, with such success, there is always this pressure on fashion to deliver more.

200%: The incubation period of fashion is not as long as, for instance, product design, as people expect fashion to be constantly associated with ‘new’ things.

Louise Wilson: Fashion is very fashionable. I’m longing for it 
to be become unfashionable. Maybe they could do architecture and 
product design in reality shows and find ‘The Next Top Kettle’. Those
 subjects are allowed much more time to incubate. People revere Marc Newson and people like him. They have much longer incubation periods and there is maybe less pressure on them. But fashion is quite naff 
because fashion is fashionable. It’s debatable what is fashionable 
because Nokia phones are fashionable, but they are not classified as fashion even now fashion people may well be designing them and coming up with 
colours for them. But it’s not related as fashion, because fashion is 
only allowed to be clothes on models, but fashion is a much wider
 spectrum than that.

Written by Thierry Somers and Marie Drysdale.

Picture: Greg Kessler (http://www.gobackstage.blogspot.com)

Richard Phillips (Part 1)

For the second time, 200% meets the artist Richard Phillips and interviewed him on his latest White Cube exhibition ‘Most Wanted’ – a series of ten paintings of "ten of America's most instantly recognizable celebrities".

We spoke with Phillips what triggered him to come up with the idea of ‘Most Wanted’; the rehearsed, red-carpet expressions of powerful stars; the competing interests that corporate luxury and entertainment systems have in shaping and deciding what constitutes contemporary art; and his view on MoMA’s status as a place of great popular interest, “not unlike a Planet Hollywood or a Hard Rock Café”.

200%: Was there a specific cultural experience, observation or fascination that triggered you to come up with the idea of 'Most Wanted'?

Richard Phillips: The initial inspirations for my ‘Most Wanted’ series came from a combination of experiences involving art, politics, media, luxury, and celebrity endorsement. During a visit to the Venice biennial I visited the Doges Palace and within it the large Hall of Doges. Ringing the room were portraits of the Doges, who ruled the city-state over the years. These portraits, all in similar scale and painted by Tintoretto and his son, served a political purpose beyond their record of legacy, which was to communicate an image of stability, intimidation and authority to any visiting dignitary who entered the chamber. Here, painting is used as an articulation of secular power and wealth.

Later, I attended a fundraiser for ‘The Kitchen’, the avant-garde performance space in New York. At the entrance was a step-and-repeat logo backdrop intended to create endorsement opportunities for visiting celebrities who were attending the event, to lend popular legitimacy to The Kitchen’s program and to create a context of exceptional importance for the attendees.

200%: What do you mean by “popular legitimacy”?

Richard Phillips: By having celebrities pose in front of the brand logo of ‘The Kitchen’, the institution and its members are granted a photographically verifiable status of being celebrity worthy. The proximity of a celebrity to The Kitchen’s fundraising apparatus lends a sense of legitimacy within popular culture at large. Without this celebrity endorsement, the institution would be left outside of, or seen as illegitimate within, the context of the dominant popular culture that associatively determines its worthiness of attendance.

200%: Were there any further experiences that contributed to the idea of 'Most Wanted'?

Richard Phillips: Yes. Within this time frame I was asked to license two of my painting images for the CW television network's production of the hit show ‘Gossip Girl’. When visiting the show’s new set where my paintings were installed, the way in which the producers, directors, actors and crew worked so responsively together to synthesize a first production of pop culture using real time cultural information from all sectors had a lasting impression on me. The painting facsimiles served as a visual backdrop for this dramatic synthesis and appeared a form of cultural collateral that now had a chance to reach large audiences around the world.

Following the ‘Gossip Girl’ collaboration, I was approached by MAC Cosmetics regarding a commission, painting for their artist series. As I was in the middle of a deadline for an exhibition, I was unable to make a dedicated painting for them. Thus, I proposed hiring the best-known photo retoucher, Pascal Dangin, to digitally retouch one of my paintings to create the appearance that MAC products had been applied within the image of that painting. The completed digital painting was used as point-of-sale advertisement in over 1,200 store locations around the world. The integration of a commercial brand product in an existing painting, to be sold as the “Richard Phillips” line of cosmetics, deepened the connections between that which had been previously segregated – art’s need to remain distinct in its relation to commercial objectives.  Now, the sanctity of both art and, in this case, fashion could co-promote their exceptional roles in consumer culture.

One last influential experience occurred in the MoMA lobby during the opening night of the Tim Burton exhibition. I was standing next to a trustee, and we observed the large crowd gathered near the entrance and the crush of photographers lined up in front of the step-and-repeat backdrop emblazoned with MoMA and luxury brand logos. Tim Burton and Johnny Depp walked in; the crowd screamed and the photo flashes blasted off at a blinding rate. The trustee turned to me and said that this was an important moment for the museum. I agreed and said that the power of celebrity had finally merged completely with the institution of modern art, where all of the work in the museum would be put firmly into context with the power of the global entertainment system, not just as conferrer of celebrity legitimacy by proximity but as content and product. The presence of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp within the Museum of Modern Art not only meant that by going to MoMA one may be entering a celebrity approved environment and engaging in celebrity approved activities, but in the case of this specific show, the content and products within the exhibition and therefore institution were solely focused on the promotion of celebrities themselves. The art within the rest of the museum could now be seen within the context of official celebrity production that in turn raises MoMA’s status as a place of great popular interest, not unlike a Planet Hollywood or a Hard Rock Café.  The exhibition went on to set all attendance records and inaugurated MoMA into the present.

The combination of these experiences led me to make the decision to dedicate this body of work to the irreducible logic of art’s total subordination to luxury brands and celebrity endorsement.

200%: What was your selection criteria to select these as “ten of America's most instantly recognizable celebrities...", as people would suggest that there are others more 'instantly recognizable' than Taylor Momsen... as opposed to, say, Scarlett Johansson.

Richard Phillips: My selection criteria evolved from an initial conversation with Stephan Gan and Dominic Sidhu of VMAN magazine for a proposed layout of the top ten male celebrities working today. Due to deadlines, the original proposal of ten men was reduced to five, and the medium was changed from paint to pastels. The first group proposed comprised more established actors such as Brad Pitt, Viggo Mortensen and George Clooney. I urged that we consider younger actors who were involved in various disciplines of television, cinema and music. My relation to 'Gossip Girl' had a roll in the inclusion of Chase Crawford, and from there it was a matter of discussion regarding which stars hold the highest degree of influence and popularity in the various mediums and represent the biggest brands in entertainment such as Disney. Their roles as tween and teen idols were also factored in. Held over from the original list was Leonardo DiCaprio, who casts a long shadow having arisen from preteen television stardom to teen heartthrob and then to respected Oscar-winning actor. He literally serves as the template for the kind of success to which any of the other young actors could aspire. The young women followed the selection of the men using similar criteria, with the additional stipulation that they be born after 1990. I felt it important to connect to a younger generation and to create a distinction between the thresholds of pop acumen. Chase Crawford, Taylor Momsen and Zac Efron may be unknown to you, but only if you're too old!

200%: From where did you select the poses of the celebrities?

Richard Phillips: The poses were selected from an aggregation of red carpet images drawn from celebrity blogs. The exact poses are the ones each of the stars creates when standing on the red carpet in front of step-and-repeats. Their expressions are rehearsed and coached so that they can print a stable presentation that functions for any endorsement opportunity. To start the process, my studio managers and I individually gathered images on our computers, which we narrowed down to our own top three shots for each star. We then got together and selected the winning pose from the final nine. This last image served as the basis to create a working composite image.

200%: Is there a particular point with this body of work about which you would like the public to ponder?

Richard Phillips: The point I would like people to pause and consider is their relationship to the competing interests that corporate luxury and entertainment systems have in shaping and deciding what constitutes contemporary art, as they exert financial pressure and determine legitimacy by proximity to their products and celebrity brands. The convention of large scale figurative portraiture that negates the instant assimilation of the photo serves to present the contraction of physical human presence when considering the irrational desires initiated by the image of celebrity and fashion brands. The logo-covered front and back walls of the step-and-repeat emphasize the omnipresence of the almost celestial, and certainly inescapable, influence of these brands on all cultural praxis.

200%: On the press release of 'Most Wanted' it is stated that you "selected ten of America’s most instantly recognizable celebrities to create distilled portraits of powerful stars exhibiting their rehearsed, red-carpet expressions” – do you know if celebrities actually rehearse red-carpet expressions with a coach beforehand for the cameras?

Richard Phillips: As I mentioned above, many of the celebrities do rehearse their expressions with the aid of coaches, just as they might work with acting or stunt coaches on the set of or in preparation for a film. When building a celebrity brand it is essential that the projected image of a star remain consistent for endorsement purposes.

200%: How did the paparazzi pictures and 'external' information (from the tabloids or other mediums) influence your depiction of these stars in your paintings?

Richard Phillips: The source photos that inspired the paintings influenced the images in a couple of ways. The distance of the subject to the lens and the relative clarity of the images were important because they establish the feeling of hard or soft focus in relation to the step-and-repeat. The universal use of the strobe flash suppressed the illusion of volume in the portraits. Because of the scale of the paintings, being nearly 2.5 meters tall, these factors are greatly exaggerated when standing in front of the works.

200%: Did the external information about these people, i.e. gossip in magazines, sound-bites on entertainment shows, public image etc, influence your depiction of them on the canvas?

Richard Phillips: The depictions of the celebrities were influenced by the external information about these people in so far as the choice of the best red carpet expression needed to match the overall projection of the popular image of the star that is constantly promoted in the magazines and entertainment shows.

200%: Did you paint these celebrities against 'step and repeat' backdrops to illustrate that these celebrities are used as pawns to sell products?

Richard Phillips: No. They are by no means pawns. The presence of a celebrity at an event is the result of a carefully orchestrated deal, where a brand’s celebrity relations representative has reached out to the star’s manager as well as their publicist and set the conditions for a compensatory agreement. There is an implicit understanding that celebrities must perform in these endorsement situations not only for financial gain but for maintenance of a level of influence.

TO BE CONTINUED

In the second part of our interview with Richard Phillips he shares his thoughts on: why society is obsessed with celebrity culture; Kim Kadarshian’s talent; how his painting method has changed over the past year; and why Warhol's ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ no longer has relevance.

Interview written and conducted by Thierry Somers, with contribution by Marie Drysdale.

Painting: Richard Phillips, Taylor Momsen, 2010, Oil on Linen, 95 x 78 in. (241.3 x 198.1 cm) 

© the artist Courtesy White Cube 

Richard Phillips, 'Most Wanted', 28 January - 5 March 2011, White Cube, Hoxton Square

More Richard Phillips in the first issue of 200%: 

www.200-percent.com