Lawrence Weiner and Kim Gordon on the Ins and Outs of Making Stuff. By Kim Gordon "WEINER: I would make art, but I’d have a different attitude toward the whole thing. I’d walk away from all the people carrying their university schooling and academic backgrounds with them. That’s not the art world I entered into in the 1950s and early ’60s. You didn’t need credentials then. Now, most art is based on credentials." " The Abstract Expressionists believed that they really were going to change the world. They also accepted anybody’s work that they thought was interesting. They really didn’t care about the person. For example, you could be a fan of Ad Reinhardt without knowing whether he was on the left or the right. People were just looking at the work. I was attracted to the lack of exclusivity. The real difference was class, and it’s still the same in the art world today. Young people who don’t have to earn money to live have a different attitude toward the art world than those who have to earn it." "WEINER: They’re not artists. Those are people who have decided that art is a profession. Art asks questions. It doesn’t have answers. And as far as being able to accommodate yourself, if you have a hotshot dealer, you have an easier time raising the necessary cash, but it doesn’t change the work." " I think the conceptual art thing is ridiculous. I’m sorry if I’m sounding off about it, but let’s stop giving things classifications so that they can be taught in expensive schools." "WEINER: The ’70s were not so bad as far as opportunities go. As far as money, that was something else. The only thing I can say is that before the art world was taken over by a certain class, it was much more open to people. Now it’s very closed. I listen to conversations. And when you’re listening to somebody who’s 30 years old ask somebody what school they went to in order to know if they can be friends with them, you just have to walk away. You can’t spend your time thinking about them. Those are not people, those are products. And art is not about products, it’s about people." "WEINER: Let me say that my contention and my problems are not with other artists. It’s with society itself. It’s not a competition. Sometimes you get stuck with these sort of middle-class artists, and they really think they’re in competition and they’re not."