| After Martin the person who impressed me most, at this show, was Carl Plackman. He had a room full of 'stuff' not a million miles away from Martins work. They graduated from the College at the same time, along with Richard Wentworth, they seemed to be a little distant from each other, in conversation. In later years I had a couple of strained conversations with Carl and just assumed it was because I was a bit of an arsehole, not serious enough. Last year I went to a retrospective of his at the Picker Gallery in Kingston, put together after his death. The catalogue gave me some insight into him. He was a private man and didn't enjoy the boozy badinage of pub talk and the schmoozing of art openings and these were the only times I met him. |
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Nigel Hall was also in the show. This was the sort of work I really didn't like at the time. It wasn't theatrical, romantic enough for me, now its the sort of work I'm drawn to, having become sick of the autobiographical and personal poetic. Martin and Nigel developed a volatile relationship, similar to mine and Martins and I got to know Nigel a fair bit. I seem to remember we had a lot of arguments, but then I was always arguing at that time. When Nigel left his job as Head of Post-Grad Sculpture at Chelsea, a few people were drinking in his office. He was on the phone calling people he knew all around the world, mostly America. He passed the phone to me saying 'call who you like', and, of course, I had nobody I could call. |