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'All artists want to be noticed; I want my work to be noticed'
Simon Patterson, 33, is one of the artists who made London the center of contemporary art in the 1990s. He talks about his work, his friends, his city and the ramifications of being labeled a YBA
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Confessions of a YBA: Simon Robinson defines the Young British Arist
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YBA is supposed to be simply short-hand for young British artist. I'm definitely young, I'm British and I'm an artist. The label was initally a way to describe a group of art students who had got together to kick against their elders in true English fashion. There's a perception that because some of us are creating shock art, going to the Groucho Club, burning the candle at both ends, that we all are. But that isn't the case. Artists do work that is in their nature and I suppose it's not in my nature to be shocking. I don't mind that some of the ybas get most of the attention because they also take the flack. Artists like Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin are quite media-savvy. They put the spotlight on London and on the scene here. All artists want to be noticed; I want my work to be noticed.
I was at Goldsmiths College from 1986 to 1989, the same time as Hirst. I am quite a bit younger than the rest of the ybas, but I was in the "Freeze" show, which sort of kicked the whole YBA-Brit Art thing off. Hirst curated it and it was all done very properly: there was a catalogue and invitations and a great location in the Docklands. Hirst got money from Olympia & York, which built Canary Wharf. (No wonder they went broke.) I think that what impressed people about "Freeze" was the level of professionalism as much as the work. We were a rather precocious bunch; we thought we could put on our own shows, get our work documented, draw an audience. It was arrogant of us, but we thought that we were doing more interesting stuff than what was going on at the time. We thought, "Why do we have to wait? Give us a go." From the outside we looked like a closed shop, but in fact people were quite open to others coming in. If someone was good, they were accepted.
While at Goldsmiths, I did an art book called Republicans — a list of names of all sorts of people. Art books don't make any money — the point is to get your work out to as many people as possible, as cheaply as possible — it's not about handmade paper and vellum. I wanted to use lithography and modern materials. I try to keep away from the obviously crafted. I do make things myself, but I try to make them look as mass-produced as possible.
In 1992 I did what has turned out to be my best-known work so far — The Great Bear — a printed replica of the London Underground map with the station names changed. There are a lot of things I'd put in it that I'd sort of forgotten. For instance, on the Docklands Light Railway I put sinologues — people in Chinese history and culture. On the unfinished bit of the line, I put the names of Chinese human rights activists. There was a Great Bear hanging in 10 Downing St. when the Chinese Premier visited. I don't know if Tony Blair knew or not. Maybe they took it down for his visit or had [Foreign Secretary] Robin Cook lean against it the whole time.
I was one of the nominees for the Tate Gallery's Turner Prize [Britain's most prestigious contemporary art award] in 1996. All the media could find to talk about that year was that we were four blokes. The next year only women were nominated. But now the organizers don't have to court controversy. London's Tate Modern is incredibly popular, proving there is much more interest in contemporary art. As much as people like to say that the Turner Prize has helped young art, I think it's young art that has helped the Turner Prize. And I think that young artists in London have enough depth to keep the city at the forefront of the art world in the near future.
I've never courted controversy, but sometimes you don't have to. I've recently done two wall drawings. In October I did one at the Royal Holloway College in Surrey. It was a schematic of how the rotors of the Enigma decoding machine work. The week I finished it, a stolen Enigma machine turned up at the BBC. My friends joked that I had nicked it for the publicity. The other one [pictured here] was done for a house in Hampstead. It's a wiring diagram of a 1960s Leak amplifier. Now I'm working on a screen-saver. It is a color fade of Pantone colors to the sound of Scottish football announcer John Kavanagh reading the team names in the Scottish league. I'm trying keep it under $35 because I want to sell as many as I can. I love the idea of Kavanagh's sexy voice in all these empty offices at night.
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How to Get Noticed
Turner Prize nominee Simon Patterson on the British art scene
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Tower of Babble
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People To Watch: Eddie Izzard | Sadie Plant | Charles Muirhead | Jeremy Leggett
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PHOTO: STEVE PYKE FOR TIME
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