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.