Raymond Pettibon: There’s no set formula.
Helmut Lang: It’s not about good taste or bad taste.
Pettibon: No, it’s all an abstraction, even the money. It’s a licensing thing, government payoffs, special interests.
Lang: Things often appear different when you are looking at them from the outside.
Pettibon: But I don’t think that’s possible.
Lang: Then you just have to let it go.
Pettibon: It drew so much attention to itself, it was so perverse, that it became begrudgingly accepted.
Lang: What's left now is just a phantom of the spirit which was there, but that's good enough.
Pettibon: The distinction is hardly there.
Lang: I know. When the first tourists came, we put flowers, stones, and sticks into little plastic ice cream cups.
Pettibon: That’s not what I mean. I’m kind of thinking out loud as I go along here, which in an interview is dangerous. The stakes are just too high nowadays.
Lang: We did a show, which was completely naïve and crazy.
Pettibon: But as a subject matter, on paper, there’s something to it, there’s something to write about there.
Lang: It was about contact, exchange, doing things, working together; it wasn't as ghettoized.
Pettibon: There’s not much of an emotional involvement or commitment to it.
Lang: On the one hand, it should mean nothing.
Pettibon: Maybe in fashion.
Lang: Fashion is an expression and a reaction.
Pettibon: No question. But I raise dogs for fighting.