I met Stanley Donwood a few years ago in a basement in Soho.
I heard it used to be a sex dungeon. By the time I was sitting across from him
at a small wooden table it had turned into an art gallery. It was a pleasure
chatting with him. Donwood is the kind of intuitive and intelligent man that
you wish would appear on your left at every dinner party. Below is our
interview, published in Exit magazine.
DRAWING HOOKS OUT
OF YOUR THROAT
Stanley Donwood
is an English artist and writer who is famous for designing Radiohead’s album
artwork. He has been collaborating with
Thom Yorke for almost two decades. Donwood runs a studio called Slowly Downward
Manufactory and he regularly exhibits his distinctive linocuts, paintings, and
drawings in galleries around the world. When
not creating visual art, he writes dark but lively prose. EXIT met up with
Donwood before his recent show at the Outsider’s Gallery in London to discuss
the next Radiohead album, Thom Yorke, writing, and how temperature affects art.
The next Radiohead album is described as a newspaper
album with tiny pieces of artwork held together with plastic. What was the
inspiration behind the design?
I’ve always
really loved newspapers, their tactile quality, that crappy paper. Newspapers
are on their way out. I like dying media. They have a poignancy that I don’t
find in things like Twitter. But maybe when Twitter is dying maybe the last
Tweet will be the saddest thing we’ve heard for years. The last daily newspaper
we can buy will be an impossibly sad thing. So I wanted to use the format of a
newspaper because a newspaper doesn’t pretend to be anything other than of the
moment. Because a newspaper is so ephemeral that if you leave it out in the
sunlight it will decay and go yellow and if you leave it out long enough there
will be nothing left. (For this album) I wanted to make the opposite of an
archival quality coffee table book. No future.
What’s Thom Yorke like? Is he quite serious? I read
that when you collaborate one of you does something then the other destroys it.
Then you mend it back and forth.
It depends on the
time of day. We get on very well. We haven’t had an argument yet in twenty
years. We just destroy each other’s work and then keep working at it. Keep
battling until you get to the point where the conflict is resolved and that’s
the end. We both like it after a lot of
toing and froing.
Do you find English weather and temperament inspirational
or limiting?
I don’t know.
It’s an interesting idea. My dad always said the reason why the industrial
revolution happened in England was because it’s so miserable that people are
just desperate for something to do… There’s something about the pessimism that
when I’m not here after a while I miss it. I really like the Mediterranean and
California, places where it’s sunny and nice. You can do nothing (there.) I
love it. Essentially I’m extremely lazy. Something in the appalling weather in
this country forces me to go do something… to keep warm, half the time.
I agree. I’m so much happier in warm weather, but
it’s hard getting anything done.
Exactly! But
what’s the point of getting anything done? It’s natural to not do anything.
I thought, I’ve got some books in my head; I should
go somewhere cold.
If you want to be
miserable, go to Scandanavia. (He jokes)
I’ve got this weird fascination with Scandinavia, places like Sweden, Norway
and Iceland. I’ve never been but I’d like to go. Just to see what would happen.
I’m really interested in snow, whiteness, and the idea of where the land and
the sky blurs. Like when you’re on a boat and there’s really bad weather and
you can’t see what’s the sky and what’s the sea. I imagine it’s like that in
Northern latitudes. Is that snow falling or settling? It correlates with your
mind. You don’t know what’s up or what’s down, what’s far or what’s near.
Is bleakness required for good art?
No, though I see
what you’re saying. I really like the Aboriginal art that is done in a very
bright, sunny environment, and all those dots and dream paintings. That very
colourful style of painting. You also get that with the French Impressionists
when they were down in the Southern regions of France…and the Fauves, they were
called Wild Beasts. I didn’t quite understand it until I went down to some of
the towns where the Fauves were. They were doing this artwork that was very
bright, messy and amazing. I got there
and after a few days I realized why you would make work like that because that’s
how you feel. Bright, messy and amazing. There’s nothing wrong with that. I
like that. Where I come from, artwork is more didactic.
To what extent does art history and political history
inform what you’re doing now?
Probably a lot
more than I think. Art history is something that I’m incredibly ignorant
about. I went to Art College but I was
sufficiently arrogant to not go to any of the lectures about art history,
little bastard. Since then I’ve started to learn about art history and
political history. So I’ve read lots of books about it and it’s made me realize
how little I actually know. The certainties I held when I was 20 are now
uncertainties at the best, vagrancies at the worst. Vague ideas.
There is a lot of writing on your website. Do you spend
more time writing or doing visual art?
There is some
kind of weird lock in my brain if I can’t work visually. I spend a lot of
nights not being able to think then I start thinking I’m really shit, I should
stop and get a job. That’s when I’m really low.
I can’t do any visual artwork and that’s when I write, usually quite
late at night. Then the other thing
happens. I think what I’ve written is atrocious and despicable. Then I start
doing artwork again. I can’t do the two at the same time. It’s impossible. It’s
over a couple of weeks. One will fail and then one will emerge. Writing particularly is like drawing fish
hooks out of your throat. It’s horrible. But necessary. Because you can’t leave
them there.
Interview by Margo Fortuny. Exit Magazine,
Spring/Summer 2011
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Check out Donwood's new J.G. Ballard-inspired exhibition 'Dream Cargo' at the Lawrence Alkin Gallery in London through April 25th, 2015.
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| Kindness of Women, Stanley Donwood, 2015 |
Faber & Faber have recently published several books by Stanley Donwood, which can
be found here.
