Damien Hirst: It went on for three hours, this conversation.
Matthew Barney: Yes, which also felt right to me.
Hirst: Immortality is really desirable, I guess.
Barney: I think it's completely different depending on where it's seen and by whom.
Hirst: There’s no possible way you can get what you want.
Barney: What ends up happening is that as the vehicle moves through different bridges and tunnels into Manhattan, the drawing erases itself and has to start over again.
Hirst: Which I think is what you do anyway as a person, which is why people fall out, split up, get together, get into new bands or new ideas.
Barney: There are several questions in there.
Hirst: I don't really have a beginning.
Barney: The book really lends itself to that, and the notion of the gatefold.
Hirst: A window works like a mirror.
Barney: It probably started as a literal extension of Auto shaft and how five locations could be assigned to the mouthpiece, the bass and tenor drones.
Hirst: It’s like a graveyard, if you want to get metaphorical about it. It makes everything not make sense, there’s this unknown factor.
Barney: If the building could sing, what would it sound like?
Hirst: Totally international.
Totally International
An Idler interview with artist Damien Hirst vs. a Museum In Progress interview with artist Matthew Barney.