WEBVTT 00:00:05.837 --> 00:00:10.802 Paul McCarthy: "Piccadilly Circus" 00:00:12.957 --> 00:00:18.573 I questioned it, in the beginning, as to whether to do it. 00:00:18.689 --> 00:00:25.055 Like, too didactic. Stay away from it. Too political. Stay away from it. 00:00:27.439 --> 00:00:33.488 Bin Laden, Bush, Queen... It was too specific. 00:00:35.115 --> 00:00:38.640 These are like puppets, you know. 00:00:49.722 --> 00:00:54.072 Hauser and Wirth--the gallery--was looking to... 00:00:54.072 --> 00:00:58.505 Start a gallery in London, and they had some buildings they were looking at. 00:00:58.505 --> 00:01:05.789 I was in London, and they invited me to go look at one building they were looking at. 00:01:05.789 --> 00:01:13.776 And it was this bank in Piccadilly. It had been an operating bank, I think, up until a few years before that. 00:01:14.730 --> 00:01:19.846 So, the teller windows were all there, everything was in place. 00:01:23.330 --> 00:01:29.592 And I went to see it one night. It had a balcony, and I was kind of standing at the balcony. 00:01:29.592 --> 00:01:34.637 I said, "Wow it would be great to shoot a film or a video in this building." 00:01:37.530 --> 00:01:44.319 I'm interested in how the camera sees it and what the forms are. 00:01:45.568 --> 00:01:57.136 One way I see it is really quite beautiful. In another way, there's certain revulsion of smashing food. 00:01:57.878 --> 00:02:06.603 The drawer gets completely caked with food, and it was never taken out of the drawer, and later rots. 00:02:08.223 --> 00:02:18.170 Like in one layer, I kind of know that it creates a reaction. In another way, it's quite beautiful, the rotting food, you know. 00:02:23.270 --> 00:02:32.254 This thing of.. Films made like play. You know, like kids putting on plays. 00:02:32.787 --> 00:02:42.956 Or films made that way. You just go "Okay, I'll be the Queen, you be Bush. Okay, we're going to have a party now." 00:02:43.057 --> 00:02:53.694 That kind of direction, as opposed to a scripted, constructed, very loose, very much like pretend-and-play. 00:02:56.269 --> 00:03:05.331 I knew that this part where Bush would cut his head, you know, was all going to happen. I knew that would take place. 00:03:05.331 --> 00:03:08.897 And I knew the Queens would paint. But in a way I didn't know... 00:03:08.897 --> 00:03:17.025 It was just like an improvisation between these people with the paint and the knives and the cutting, 00:03:17.025 --> 00:03:22.892 And that that would go on for a period of time, right. 00:03:23.409 --> 00:03:33.886 I knew, by putting myself and these three people that I knew in that situation, they would respond and improvise off of each other. 00:03:33.886 --> 00:03:41.690 And I knew by putting certain things in the room to give them to use, they would feed off of all that. 00:03:44.424 --> 00:03:47.007 [smothered sound]... Don't move! 00:03:47.007 --> 00:03:51.760 I don't know whether I was looking for truth in there. I was just building a piece. 00:03:51.760 --> 00:03:55.794 I was making a work of art.