Stephen Willats

Looking at It From the Inside – It’s Death Insurance Really
1980
Three panels each 128cm x 81.5cm
Photographic prints, photographic dye, Letraset, ink, gouache
One of four works made for the exhibition, Four Professionals, held at the Lisson Gallery in 1980.
‘Each of the works consists of a sequence of panels ordered according to the individual process of work. For example with the insurance man the process of work is defined as ‘reception of the problem’, ‘negotiation’ and ‘implementation’. Hence three panels. Within each panel there is a problem defined as a question which is directed at the viewer; it invites the viewer to enter that work, to enter into a relationship with the world presented. So there is a question, and related to the question are a set of statements extracted from the interviews and photographs of the participant and of objects in his environment. There is always a disparity between photographs and text. This gap is essential because it is there to make the audience engage in the activity of making their own connections, what I call ‘re-modelling.’
From a leaflet printed for the exhibition.
Further extracts from this leaflet can be read in the entries for each of the four works made for the exhibition:
Sitting Between Two Desks
Fifteen Feet by Eight Feet, and There Are Two of Us in Here
Looking at It From the Inside – It’s Death Insurance Really
From Inside this Institution – Art is a Form of Show Business