Frequently asked questions PART 1

Excerpts from questions that were sent by the London press (and others) and answered by email in 2007

Q. When did you first meet Damien Hirst?

JL. I first met him in 1992.

Q. What types of paintings was he working on at that time?

JL. He was working on what he called, “patch paintings”. He also had some gigantic spot paintings.

Q. What did the patch paintings look like?

JL. They looked like blotches of paint on Francis Bacon’s art studio wall.

Q. What kind of paintings were you working on at the time?

JL. I was doing psychedelic looking pour paintings on canvas and on stainless steel. They were made out of house paint and metallic car paint.

Q. Did you show these to him?

JL. Yes, I showed some of the earlier ones to him in my studio. I know he also saw them at the Cohen gallery and I was told he really liked them. I remember he said they were “sexy”.

The native navigated his canoe by the stars and peacefully disappeared into the Bermuda triangle. # 2 Acrylic lacquer on canvas. 5ft x7ft. 1993 Q. At what point did you give him the Carolina Science Catalogue?

JL. It was early 1993. He came over one day with the English painter Danny Moynihan and told me that he was looking for a butterfly source in the US. So I gave him my spare copy of the Carolina Science Catalogue on the condition that he not do the human anatomical pieces, since I was working on them. I marked the pages that I was doing with yellow stickers for him (so there wouldn’t be any confusion on his part). He agreed and said he would only stick to animals and butterflies and he seemed to be very grateful.

Q. So, did anything happen to your friendship with Damien as a result of this?

JL. No, nothing really. Some problems did arise later on for him when he told me that his art dealer (Jay Joplin) told him that I was a "bad influence" on him and that he didn’t want him hanging out with me anymore. He told him he wanted him to hang around with Jeff Koons instead.

Q. What did he mean by you being a "bad influence"?

JL. I don't know exactly, but I think it was because he was getting a bit out of control with the drinking, drugs and other things. At one time, he called a prominent art collector a "fucking pig" to her face. John LeKay. Study for yin and yang. conjoined medical modals. 1990 Q. What has that got to do with you?

JL. Nothing, but you have to understand that at the time I was doing Pig Magazine and was going under the pseudonym of John Decay. I was a bit wild in those days, so it was also the sort of thing I would say back then. This is before I went through my inner alchemy as it were.

Q. At what point did you notice that you had an influence on his work?

JL. I had just exhibited the Separation of Church and State piece with the decapitated mother and child statue separated. Thereafter, he did a sculpture that won him the Turner prize, based on a piece in the science catalogue I had given him, called Mother and Child Divided. An animal mother and child divided (cows), but his was almost exactly like the image in the catalogue.

Q. So, this did not bother or affect you in any way?

JL. No, at the time it didn't bother me because these things are not so clear cut or black and white.

Q. How do you mean that?

JL: You can take anything and twist it a bit and call it your own. In some ways, we all do that to a degree with things we love or are inspired by. I think it's really a matter of degree and how much of a piece you take and how you make it your own. I think that's where the art is. If you can do it and make it your own by adding or subtracting something to it without it being a blatant rip off.

Ideas have a way of seeping in, it’s like planting a seed in From Pig magazine someone's mind, and they end up growing by themselves. You see something and sometimes forget you've even seen it then at a later point it comes out in your work.

Q. Did he do anything to help you in return? JL. No, it wasn't in return, but he had already helped me to find an art dealer and he introduced me to others and was very encouraging of my work and even interviewed me about my sculptures for the show, The Separation of Church and State.

One time he and Maia (his girlfriend) also defended me when I was being attacked by some backbiting artists. He said he was going to include me in his group shows and also wanted me to meet Charles Saatchi and others like him. So it worked both ways. We even worked together on one of my projects, Pig magazine - Vol. 6. He even wanted to do the cover of my book, Year of the Pig.

Q. Did he ever introduce you to Saatchi or include you in any of his group shows?

JL. No. He never did, but I ended up in other group shows with him anyway through other dealers. I also heard that he took Saatchi and Alex James to see my work in London and was looking for me, this was some time later on. About 3 years later.

Q. When you did the interview with the London Times, you stated that you inspired and influenced his work. How did you mean this?

JL. Well, I meant essentially that he was influenced and inspired by my work. He saw and was privy to both the subject matter and things that I was thinking about and working on at the time. As well as getting a lot of use from the Carolina science catalogue that I gave him. John LeKay. Spiritus Callidus # 1 (Crystal skull) Paradichlorobenzene. 1993 Q. Were you upset at the time when he started doing the anatomical pieces --- the specific pieces that you had a handshake agreement with him not to do?

JL. Well it seemed a bit peculiar since I was working on resuscitation dolls, anatomical mannequins, skeletal and medical human plastinated body parts and I had specifically marked up the one’s that I was doing in the catalogue that I gave him so that he would not duplicate my ideas. Especially since we were in the same gallery at the time and it would have been odd; two artists in the same gallery making the same kind of work.

Then a couple of years later when I saw his exhibit at Gagosian gallery in 1995, I was taken aback at seeing his new psychedelic spin paintings that looked very similar to Walter Robinson spin painting my psychedelic spill paintings that I made with hairdryers, electric fans and a rigged up swivel table, I left a note at the Gagosian gallery desk for him to call me about it. What he was doing. But again his were a bit different. He had seen mine several times at my studio and at the gallery that I was showing at the time. His were much more kinetic than mine, but the similar psychedelic hippy type of feel was there as were his humorous irreverent titles.

Mine were based on and inspired by human pathology slides of cancer, Aids and other viruses and exotic diseases from pictures in the science catalogue that I gave him. I've been interested in diseases for a long time. Especially Ebola, AIDS, cancer and leprosy; particularly flesh eating viruses. However, I found out later that the New York painter, Walter Robinson, was the first to do psychedelic spin paintings in the late 80s before Damien’s spins and my pour paintings. So, I was not the first.

Q. Were there other specific works of yours that you feel inspired his work?

JL. Well, yes, a few years later I saw a photo of a piece called “Hymn” that he did. This looked just like the anatomical mannequin I had marked up in the catalogue I gave him. The only difference was that he had cast it in bronze, blown it up, made it 20 feet tall and made it more grandiose.

There were other works Damien did that caught my eye. For example, in 2006, he did a piece in Mexico of a crucified lamb that looked just like mine, except his was in a fancy vitrine with formaldehyde. My lamb was entitled “This is my body, this is my blood” and was nailed to a piece of cheap plywood. This was the sculpture that I showed him photos of in my studio years before; the one I have pictures of on my website. So again, the gist of the idea is there. John LeKay. This is my body, This is my blood. 1987 Lamb on wood.

Q. When did you hear about his diamond skull piece?

JL. It was years later. Sometime in 2006 when a mutual friend called me up and said “John, you won't believe what Damien has done, he is doing a skull covered in diamonds. It looks just like your work and he is selling it for 100 million dollars." Q. What did you think about this?

JL: At first I thought it might be some kind of a joke, and I laughed, then I read about it on artnet. I remember feeling these mixed emotions, feeling a bit shocked, but simultaneously flattered by it, then a bit gutted and thought here we go again, even though his was different; different materials etc. I mean diamonds are much more expensive crystals than a urinal cake or Swarovski crystals, but the idea was basically the same. A skull covered with crystals

Q. How did you feel about Damien on a personal level?

JL. I liked him on a personal level and we seemed to get along. We had quite a few things in common, he also liked Francis Bacon and he was a lot of fun to be around; very funny, like a stand up comedian, also bright and very generous at times.

Q. What did you think of his new work in general?

JL. Without commenting on any specific pieces, any way you look at it, he has a good sense of colour, form, composition and use of titles. I also appreciate his sense of humor.

Q. Have you ever tried to get in touch with him?

JL. Yes, years ago; a few times by John LeKay. Sangulipe II (Bloody gobbet) 2005 email and once on the phone.

In 2006, he replied back to me by email a couple of times through his secretary Robin, his studio called "Science". I asked him to do an interview for Heyoka magazine about his new work in Mexico. His lamb piece and other things.

Q. What was his reply?.

JL. Robin, his assistant said he was worn out or words to that effect and was going on vacation, but she sent me an image of one of his pieces (see left) when I told him I was doing a piece called 6 Easy Pieces about his and my work. I later told him I would make up a mock interview about his work. He requested through his secretary "please don't publish it", so I did not. Then not too long after this, about a month or so, I heard from a mutual acquaintance about him doing a skull piece with diamonds. A year later when I saw the image, I showed it to some people and it was unanimous.

Q: How does re-visiting all of this make you feel? Does it bother you? You really have no resentment towards him?

JL: The only thing about any of this that interests me is looking beneath the surface at things like karma, cause and effect, as well as why this was happening in the first place. Knowing and seeing what this was really about on a deeper level. I look at this sort of thing in a metaphysical as Damien Hirst Name of the father. well as a philosophical manner. These things happen for a reason. Karma has its own laws, its own way of sorting this stuff out. The best thing to do is to step aside and allow it to do its thing and not to perpetuate or create any more of it.

Q: Why did you decide to do an interview about it now after more than fifteen years of silence on this subject?

JL: Because since I spoke out about the Damien skull thing in The Times last year, there has been a lot of interest and questions in exactly what happened. So, I wanted to set the historical record straight from my perspective as to how and why something like this could happen in the first place. Since there is more to this story than meets the eye.

June 2009

Q. In a recent interview for Interview Magazine, Anthony Hayden Guest asked Damien Hirst the following question, "Other artists have attacked you for using their ideas. John LeKay said the skulls were his idea. John Armleder never actually said it, he's too sophisticated, but that the spots were his idea-that he was doing spot paintings. And some say Walter Robinson did the spin paintings first."

Damien Hirst replied, "Fuck 'em all! Who knows? Before I went to Goldsmiths, I sort of tried to be original. But then there's just so much in the world, and so much of it is derivative. Everything comes from somewhere and it's just such a mish-mash. At Goldsmiths we were kind of freed. You don't have to worry about that! If it looks good, it is good. I remember the fly piece and I remember thinking about the direct references of that. Like Dan Graham for the steel-and-glass, the bus shelter-type things. And Bruce Nauman was in the neons. You know, the fly killer. And then Bacon obviously in the meat. Even Naum Gabo with the flies in space. It's an amalgam, a mish-mash of everything you've ever seen before. Like my medicine cabinets were from Koons.

If you are constantly creating visual things, you are getting loads of ideas from everywhere. I think that there's only been one idea and that was fucking painting your hand red in blood and stamping it on the cave wall. And then, after that, we've all just ripped that off and copied it. But what I think is probably different about our generation is that we never felt the need to be original. That kind of frees you up to do what you want. I mean, like the spot paintings. There was Larry Poons." Anthony Hayden Guest's entire interview here.

How do you feel about Damien's reply to Anthony Hayden Guest's comments?

JL: It sounds a bit convoluted but obviously one could read Damien's answer in several ways. However I would rather not read anything into it.

But I spoke with Anthony Hayden Guest about this later and he said, “you know why Giacometti never allowed Picasso into his studio”?

Anthony Hayden Guest

Q. Damien stated in 2006 that, "Luckily for me, when I went to art school, we were of a generation where we didn't have any shame about stealing other people's ideas. You call it a tribute, don't you?"

What do you think that he is saying by this?

JL. Who knows but it obviously speaks for itself.

Q. Damien has stated that "stealing other artist's ideas and not having to be original is liberating". Do you feel this way as well? Damien Hirst

JL. No it’s easier. Being lazy.

For example, take Damien's pharmacy piece. Then take a look at Joseph Cornell's Pharmacy piece from 1943. Looks almost identical to many of Damien's pieces. This is what I mean. As Damien said "most work is derivative”.

Q. Damien sued Cartrain for copyright infringement as well as confiscated his work. Why didn't you follow in the same footsteps and sue Damien for stealing your ideas?

JL. I've been asked that a lot, but I don't think anyone has a copyright on a Mayan skull.

Q. Why do you think Damien was so upset after seeing your work? Do you think it was because you had done this sort of work years before him?

Pharmacy by Joseph Cornel 1943

JL. I don't know, but I was told it really bothered him. I mean it obviously bothered him - to the point of him smashing up the kitchen in the apartment he was staying in, at that time in New York.

The reality is I was doing that sort of work in the 80s; full-bodied animals I mean.

Q. When did this occur?

4 JL. It was just before he won the Turner prize back in 93.

Q. Where was he staying?

JL. He was staying at the NY painter, Julian Lethbrige's apartment in New York. We were both showing with Tanya Bonakdar at the time and it really complicated matters.

At that point he had done the shark piece, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of someone living and a Thousand years with the cows head only, (no full bodied animals). Soon after, he did Mother and child divided, right out of the Biological Science Catalogue book I gave him. A short time later, he did the piece Away from the flock, in a show I was supposed to be in at the Serpentine gallery in London, entitled Some went mad some ran away. For some reason, Damien changed his mind and did not include my work.

Not too long after this my Delirium of the Neutral Angel show was suddenly postponed and later was canceled. This was the third time this had happened.

Q: What about his "fuck em all" comment, meaning you?

JL: Again, it speaks for itself and not going to respond to this sort of thing.

Q: What about the New York press being so quiet?

JL: Well, who wants to see their investments depreciated?

Q: What about your art career?

JL: It has made it virtually impossible to show my own work on these particular subjects

Q: Why is it impossible to show your work?

JL: Because now everyone who sees it now says it looks like a Damien Hirst.

THE END

6 EASY PIECES

Damien Hirst. For the Love of God . 2007

John LeKay. Spiritus calidus 1993.

John LeKay, This is my Body, This is my Blood. 1987. (I showed this image to Damien in my studio in Damien Hirst, Name of The Father 2006 1992)

John LeKay 1991. Untitled for Death and Dying. Readymade from Carolina biological catalogue. (I told Damien I was working on this and marked it up on the Damien Hirst. Hymn. 2004 catalogue I gave him in 1993)

Damien Hirst 2005

John LeKay 1993.

This series of paintings first exhibited at the Cohen gallery project room, June 1993. Based on human pathology slides from Carolina biological. (Damien also saw these at Cohen gallery and the first one in my studio in 1992)

Picture from the Carolina biological science catalogue

Cancer of the lungs

John LeKay 1993. Revolt contre la morte. (cancer painting) Exhibited at the project room of Cohen gallery. NY. summer 1993