technology. the question is can china be flipped from north to south? >> rose: we continue with part two of my conversation with golf legend jack nicklaus. >> i'm one of the luckiest persons in the world. can you imagine playing a game all your life that you love, and th being able to go into another profession that relates to the game of golf and how i played it, and put on a piece of ground? it will be here long beyond my golf game my lifetime. that to me is pretty lucky. >> rose: we conclude with british artist gavin turk. >> it's my job, i suppose, to be provocative, to try to challenge people's preconceptions. people will arrive to an exhibition with a kind-- with a set of precop acceptions. and i want to try to ask them what those preconceptions are. i think if people can unpack

their own preconceptions it will help them to understand something about how they think. >> rose: david sanger, jack nicklaus, gavin turk when we continue.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: we begin this evening with korea, where the possibilities of war continue to hwang over the peninsula. neither the intentions nor the capabilities of popping i don't think with clear. yesterday the defense intelligence agency expressed moderate confidence that north korea could keploy nuclear missiles using missiles. secretary of state john kerry spoke this morning in seoul to hereassure our allies. >> i want to reiterate the most important things with respects to the tensions that exist here in this region. neither the united states nor the rug o repup lick of korea,

nor the international community, we are all united in the fact that north korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power. >> rose: joining me from washington, d.c. is david sanger, the augustov of "confront and conceal, obama's secret war and the surprise pentagon use of american power." welcome, david. >> great to be back with you, charlie. >> rose: tell me where you think we are as we approach the weekend with rhetoric and reality. >> well, the rhetoric has been extraordinarily strong. the reality has been a little bit better. we've not seen many north korean troop movements. there is a belief there could be a missile test in the next few days. but, you know, we've seen missile tests before. i think there are two big questions right now surrounding this entire, bizarre couple of weeks. the first is, is kim jong un,

the young leader of north korea, playing by the same play book that his father and grandfather played by? and there's reason to think maybe he isn't. the second question is, does he now have the capability to take the nuclear weapons that have been tested three times, shrink them down and fit them atop a missile? the defense intelligence agency we learned through a somewhat remarkable and bizarre disclosure yesterday believes that he does have that capability. others in the intelligence community believe he may not yet, but that he's getting there. and then that question is how does that drive policy? >> rose: how does it drive policy? >> well, if you believe that kim jong un is playing by a different play book, that he is not simply looking to have more aid shoveled his way, not simply looking to hold up the west, throw a temper tantrum and hope that soon we'll build nuclear

reactors as the u.s. agreed to do in late 1990s, or provide more food aid, instead he's looking for something different. then that affects president obama's calculations. what could he be looking for? he may simply be looking for an acknowledgment from the world that north korea is now an established nuclear power and that it's never giving up its nuclear weapons. until now, the basis of all conversations with north korea have been that we're ultimately talking about denuclearizing the korean opinion. meaning that they give everything up and re-enter the sort of world of normal nations. he may be saying right now, no, north korea is going to be more like pakistan. the rest of the world is going to accept that north korea is a nuclear power. and then deal with it on that basis. as the u.s. now does with

pakian, of course, with india, does without saying so with israel. and when you heard john kerry declare in seoul a few hours ago that the u.s. would never acknowledge north korea as a nuclear power, he wasn't saying they don't have nuclear weapons. he was saying the united states will never allow that status quo to remain. he didn't say what we'd do to stop it. and that's why the second issue becomes important. do you believe he's got a missile that he can load a nuclear warhead on to. it's not surprising that the defense intelligence agency is more aggressive on this. first of all, they're responsible for protecting the 28,000 american troops it still in south korea, and tens of thousands more in japan. secondly, they focus on missiles. the intelligence agencies that focus on nuclear weapons tend to be more intent on looking at how hard it is to design a nuclear weapon that can withstand a missile launch and detonate at

the right place at the right time. that's a very difficult science, there some ways harder than building a weapon itself. >> rose: what does the united states do? what are their options if in fact they make a determination that they don't really know what his intention, and there's nothing we can coto stop him, and that he is close to the capacity to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile and deliver it, what is the u.s. option? >> well, charlie, these intelligence reports, particularly the d.i.a. one and the-- what we've learned since, that many of the other intelligence agencies believe that he may be getting to that point soon, help explain the activities of the obama administration over the past few weeks. first, you saw defense secretary chuck hagel announce that the u.s. will bolstering the number of antimissile sites in alaska and in california. and that's a process that will take about two years, two or

three years, which is probably when they think north korea might be ready with a missile that could hilt the united states. meanwhile, they rushed out to guam, which is much closer to north korea, an antimissile system they hadn't planned to deploy for the next two years. that freed up a sea-based antimissile system that they're floating off the korean coast. what they're trying to do is make a case to kim jong un if he shoot off a missile, even in a test, that is headed for a populated area, they're planning to shoot it down. now, they may know seconds after launch that it's headed just out to the open sea, as most-- i think just about all north korean tests have been. in which case, i think they just let it go. but i think this big rush of missile defenses is based on the intelligence that we've now learned something about. >> rose: do we have intelligence about him? is he in charge? does he know-- does he have some rationality about the decisions

he's making? >> charlie, there's a reason that almost anybody who has worked on north korean intelligence will tell that you it's the black hole for the intelligence community. the united states knows far more about iran, because a lot of iranians go in and out of iran all the time, including engineers who work on the nuclear program and go to conferences and so forth. that's part of how the cyber weapon that was aimed at the iranian nuclear program got in to iran. we know a fair bit more about pakistan for the same reason. but because nobody really goes in and out of north korea, particularly north koreans, there's so little exchange, the opportunities for human intelligence-- which is what you really need-- are much more limited. responding kim jong un has been a particularly difficult issue. you'll remember that two or three years ago, the c.i.a. didn't even have a photograph of kim jong un that they trusted. they thought they had one when he was a student-- believed to have been a student in switzerland.

but it really was only when he was designated by his father, who was dying, as his heir, that the c.i.a. really began to focus in on this one of the kim children. we don't know very much about him. year 1, there was a lot of speculation that as a younger, saffier, basketball-interested dick taylor, he would be interested in economic reform. and he certainly attempted some before he took office. the past six months would tell you he's a lot more interested in convincing the generals on whom his authority rests that he's as tough as his father and his grandfather. and in fact, when you look at him, he has made himself look more and more like his grandfather, kim il sung, the revere founder of the country, and whose statues appear in just about every plaza when you walk around in popping i don't

think. >> rose: kerry is in south korea. he will then go to japan and china, what is he hoping to accomplish? >> the most important of those stops is china because china signed on to the lates latest sanctions for, and because the new president of china delivered a speech last weekend in which without naming north korea directly he said no country in the region has the right to send asia into chaos. the question is will the chinese cut off the gray market trade going on between north korea and china right over the border, or maybe turning off their oil for a while. they could easily make the case the oil pipeline that feeds

north korea is getting a bit rusty, a bit out of date. it is a time for a few months of maintenance. that would be a way of sending a signal to the north koreans as they did once briefly before. but so far, we've seen no evidence of chinese are willing to back up their words with action because they've always been fearful, and still are, if north korea ultimately collapsed they'd have a u.s.-backed south korea and its military right on its border. >> rose: there's also this-- the chinese have to worry if the north koreans continue to rattle their sabers, so to speak, american exprgz will see it as military threat and therefore pormore military force into asia and the region and the chinese certainly don't want that. >> that's right. that's exactly what the u.s. has been doing. president obama was on the phone to president ji to make that exact point, that having the u.s. military right in china's neighborhood is just what the chinese are trying to avoid.

and it's interesting from the accounts we've heard, the chinese did not push back. they said they understood why those forces are there. now, of course, if the threats keep going on, the forces will sa stay there and that becomes a bigger problem for the chinese. the big question here is, charlie, is at what point do the chinese decide to reverse the calculus of the past six decades? at what point do they say every time the north koreans come to beijing it's for money or oil or food, and every time the south koreans come to beijing it's to invest in another samsung plant or bring in some kind of technology. the question is can china be flipped from north to south? i think that would be a very long, very slow process. . >> rose: i would assume the chinese and americans worry about this idea-- him jong un does not have an end strategy. he's basically out there wanting

somehow to bring attention to north korea, but if things get out of control, doesn't know how to tame what he let loose. >> that's exactly right. i think there are two scenarios, charlie, that worry the u.s. and the chinese the most. the first is that when you've got some many forces in the region this close in with each other, the opportunity for an error is very high. so the north koreans did what they did three years ago when they sank the south korean ship that went down and killed about 46 south korean sailors, or if they shelled another lightly populated island as they did later in 2010, the south koreans and the new south korean president would have to respond. she'd have to respond to anything that resulted in the loss of life. and that could start up a chain of escalation that kim jong un is not used to managing. not like the old days between

the u.s. and soviet union where people understood how you defuse a situation. there's a second concern, i think, and that goes to collapse. if there is a collapse and if the north koreans have built up their nuclear arsenal, there's going to be a scramble for the nuclear weapons, both the chinese and the u.s. are going to worry that some captain somewhere, someone they don't understand in the north korean military either has a weapon, might think about using a weapon in a desperate way, might try to sell a weapon. there's going to be a big scramble to secure those weapons, and as far as i know, the u.s. and china have never figured out how they would deconflict themselveses in that situation where they were rushing to obtain the same material. >> rose: what does "deconflict" mean? >> it means you could see south korean troops, maybe american special forces troops, maybe chinese troops, all in north korea at the same moment if there was a moment of collapse

trying to make sure that they both had some semblance of control, and that the nuclear weapons were not loose. >> rose: i mean, its most difficult problem, it seems to me, is somehow that nuclear weapons fall into the hands of a nonstate actor because you have less capacity to pressure a nonstate actor than you do a state. >> i think that is a big worry. the good news is there aren't many nonstop actors in north korea. i think that the concern that i hear the most is that a faction of the north korean military breaks away with the weapons and no one is sure who is in charge of those, or even whether they have the knowledge or the codes to use them, if npped they use codes. >> rose: david, before we go, let me try to clear up and help me understand, what happened in washington when the defense intelligence agency says one thing, and james clapper, who

the director of national intelligence, has to step forward to correct or clear the record? what was going on in intelligence services in the united states? >> what was going on, charlie, was a bit of panic, because what a single representative from colorado springs read out at the hearing of the house armed services committee was one declassified paragraph from a seven-page classified report. and that declassified paragraph said they believed the north koreans could plac the weapon with a missile. and this then started a chain of events in which the obama administration wanted to show that it wasn't hyping the threat, that it in fact didn't believe that the d.i.a.'s view was the broad view of the u.s. government. the exact option of what we saw 10 years ago this month about iraqi nuclear weapons.

by the end of the evening there was a statement out from james clapper, the director of national intelligence, who would never have discussed the subject in public previously, who said the d.i.a.'s view is not the consensus view of the intelligence community, and that this capacity has never been established or tested. now, when i asked a senior member of the congress, a republican member of the congress who spends a lot of times looking at this what happened, he said, well, there isn't a consensus now, but they're moving to that consensus fairly rapidly. so it sounds like the d.i.a. was out ahead of where the rest of the intelligence services are. i think it is interesting that the obama administration is doing everything it can to buy itself some more time with this problem and sending clapper out with that statement, bought them some time, they hope. >> rose: thank you, david. >> thank you. >> rose: now part two of my conversation with jack

nicklaus. we continue talking about his life in golf. at your best, has anybody ever been better, at your best? >> i don't know. i wouldn't know whether hogan was, whether snead was, i wouldn't know whether jones was. i wouldn't know weather tiger is. how do you know when you're not playing against them at that point in time? it's only a guess. everybody likes to think that they played at the best time that the game was played. i mean, i know that jones felt that. i'm sure that hogan and snead felt that. i'm sure that i felt that, and i'm sure tiger feels that now. but the game continuously changes. and the game is a different game now than i played. it's a far more pow game. of course, it's a much longer, but, you know, players are players. they're individuals. and i think that jones would have been champion today.

i think hogan and snead would have been champions today. and i think tiger would have changes in hogan's era. i don't know. >> rose: does snead have the best swing you ever saw? >>ing about the rhythm. snead was fantastic. i mean, i played a lot with sam. i first played with him when i was 16 years old, and i was playing in the ohio open, and they wanted me to play an exhibition with sam on a friday afternoon in urbana, ohio, and i was playing in marietta, ohio, 130, 140 miles apart. >> rose: you were how old? >> i was 16. and so bob chemmer said, ," nick, i'll arrange a starting time and you can play late early, and you can go out and play." i shot a 76, and played with snead in the afternoon in urbana. they sent an airplane and brought me over.

>> rose: 16 years old. >> the first time i met him. his rhythm, his golf swing, fantastic. when you're a kid, what do you do? you imitate. the next day i went back to marietta, and imitated sam snead's swing, and won the golf tournament. >> rose: wow. >> i played with hogan and did the same thing opinion i imitated his golf swing for a while. i played with byron nelson, byron nelson a little bit more of the rock. and it didn't work very well for me. but everybody you play with as a kid you imitate. and sam snead, i mean, he was so rhythmic. what an athlete. what flexibility. i mean till the day he died he was still kicking a doorjamb. >> rose: arnold palmer. >> arnold palmer was, you know, a great competitor. i mean, arnold came along at the

time when we needed somebody in the game to take a hold, and he grabbed the imagination of the public. television was coming along. arnold's out there, hitches up his pants, and goes and wins the masters and the u.s. open in 1960 after winning the masters in '58. auburnold played a lot like they did. he had his shirt out, had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, drove it off into the trees. arnold was-- i mean, i was a big arnold palmer fan, too. arnold is 10 years older than i am so i watched arnold play a lot of golf. you love watching a guy do those things. and then i got the chance to play with him. i was 18 years old first time i played with arnold. you know, arnold was just-- he was great for the game. arnold's career as a major championship golfer didn't last a long time. >> rose: five, six year.

>> 58-64. he was very, very good at that point in time. that's when arnold really putted well. he really putted well. and arnold, the type of putter arnold was was the type of putter that probably wasn't going to last because arnold was a guy who did not fear a four-foot putt coming back. and so he's ramming that ball at the hole and ramming at the hole. and i'm going to tell you, you keep putting these all day long, they're going to get to you. and eventually, that's probably-- probably-- i can't say positively because i can't answer that question totally-- but it probably got to arnold because he stopped making the four-footers coming back and stopped getting aggressive going for first putt, and pretty soon he had to change the whole way he putted. > putted. >> rose: seve said every golfer that played after arnold palmer should have given arnold palmer 25% of their earnings

because he changed the game and then you came along, and the rivalry between the two of you, as short as it was. >> i agree with seve on that. everybody owes arnold a real debt of gratitude for what he did. he just happened to be the right guy in the right place. glu two are friends? how would you characterize the friendship? >> i would say very close. we're very close. i mean, i-- you know, i love arnold like a brother. he is-- he's-- we were great competitors. we-- arnold, i was 22 years old, starting on the tour, arnold, of course handled by macormac, arnold would pick me up in columbus and we'd play exhibitions all across the country. we did that a lot. we played the team championships together. we played rider cup together, the canada cup, the world cup. our wives were great friends. we traveled all over the place, had a great time.

and, you know, one of us would beat the other one. we'd finish the day. we'd shake hands. we'd walk away and say, "what are you doing for dinner?" that's neat. that's the kind of friendship we had. we had a period where we sort of split a little bit but that's when arnold left for the senior tour, and i was on the regular tour, and we had about 10 years we didn't play a lot together and when i went on the senior tour we played a lot together and our friendship got closer and we were after the same goals again. arnold is-- i'm very grateful to what arnold did for the game and what he did for me. >> rose: you don't have any regret about this extraordinary game you played, and as you talk about the players, what's amazing to me is what makes golf so great. there is no perfect way to hilt the ball. >> everybody does it differently. >> rose: everybody does it differently. >> exactly. >> rose: there is a different mental attitude about the game.

arnold would take more gambles. you were playing it smarter, as you saw it. when you look at the players today, clearly there's rory. >> who i think is the most talented player out there. >> rose: he's the most talented player-- >> most natural talented player out there today. >> rose: including tiger, including everybody? >> i think more natural than tiger. >> rose: wow. >> i think tiger works too much on being in different places and positions. and one of the things why he has trouble. rory to me swings the golf club more freely, more naturally, on a better plane than anybody playing. >> rose: you can't look at any golfer that you would say i trade my swing for his, you. because what it did for you. >> no, i like my golf swing. i mean, i probably couldn't swing it like somebody else. but as far as watching somebody, i mean, i, rory is-- he's a lot

like snead. from my standpoint. he's got great, easy rhythm. you know, he's -- >> rose: with more power. >> more power. the body flows. the club flows. it's just effortless. and somebody who is an effortless golfer-- tiger is not an effortless golfer. tiger is a very-- he's a very disciplined golfer. and when tiger-- when his driver is not working, tiger has plenty of other guns in his arsenal. he's got all kinds of ways to play the game. and tiger is a smart golfer and he will use those. i don't think rory's learned how to do that yet. rory struggled a little bit this spring, but he's 23 years old. he'll learn. he'll learn when he's not playing well, he'll learn how to win ugly. that's what -- >> rose: what you did

occasionally? >> that's what everybody has to learn. tiger has learned how to win ugly. i had to learn how to do that. you just don't play your best every day. >> rose: what's the difference when you don't play your best, do you know? >> timing most of the time. it's usually timing and you usually get off on it. if you took-- 10 of your friends that you know who play golf, and you put them 200 yards away, and they all swing a golf club, you'll name every one of them, right, because they all have a different swing. they all have their own personality as it relates to their golf swing. and as does rory, as does tiger, as does any of the guys out there. >> rose: designing golf courses is your passion today. the land speaks to you. what does it say to you? >> some land says ugh. some land says wow. >> rose: wow. >> to me, though, my job as a designer is to be able to take any piece of ground, and if it's

an eh piece of ground, i have to make it a wow. that's the creativity that i've got to display and put it on that piece of property. if it's a wow piece of property, then it's my job to use that piece of property and not screw it up. and try to figure out how do i work best to put golf in there so that i don't mess the land up but also bring the best of golf in it. >> rose: because you really want to be able to take the best of it and not damage it and let it speak to you. >> absolutely. >> rose: and use it. >> absolutely. a couple of golf courses that i moved virtually zero dirt and fit a golf course in, and i think they've turned out beautifulry. an example is probably dizz mariver in nebraska. we moved 5,000 yards of earth and the possibly 5,000 we used was to take a little hill off that was halfway to a green on a par 3. so for the golf course itself, we didn't move one yard of dirt to design the golf courses.

we found the golf course. another was prong horn in oregon. that was a piece of property that was absolutely gorgeous. it was lava outrock croppings and everything else, and i think we moved 15,000 yards, and it was all a lake. >> rose: china, big in china now. >> yeah. >> rose: you're building more courses in china than anywhere, i guess? >> china is the up-and-coming place in the world today for the game of golf. chinese has learned golf is a game they can do business, they can have fun. it's a game they can play like we do, a scratch can play about a with a 25 and still enjoy the day. they're starting to learn that and they like-- they love the american way. they love what we do. and i've been in china for over 25 years, and i love going over there to work. >> rose: there is some young

asian golfer coming to play in the masters. >> 14 years old. >> rose: you played with him, you know him? >> he's one of the young players, i'll meet with him. >> rose: you'll be in augusta and meet with him. >> he called and requested that i sit down with him. >> that's great. a 14-year-old guys coming to the masters and he's going to get to play with a man who won six masters-- >> how flattering is that. >> rose: for him? >> for me. >> rose: for you? >> that he want he wants to meet me. he won the nicklaus junior asian tournament, asian amateur and qualified for the masters but he wanted to come and meet me. langley had scizz nickname, and he just wanted to meet me. i'm going to meet with him on wednesday morning. >> rose: is it just china or other parts of asia as well that golf is exploding? >> golf is exploding a lot in china. vietnam. >> rose: japan doesn't have the land. >> japan still plays a lot of golf but they're pretty mature as a golfing nation. korea is building a lot of golf

courses. we've-- but i think china is the big-- the population based in china. india wants to do it, too, but india doesn't have any land. india is i'm guessing 40% of the land mass but about the same population, and they're really-- to find land in india is tough. which brings me to what-- how we design coues in india. it's kind of interesting because people come to us with 30 acres, 60 acres, 80 acres, want to do a golf course. and i say, well, you know, you need 150 acres for a golf course. i said to me that's wrong. to me what you do is say okay. if you've got 50 acres, then what we need to do is design a golf course so you have 50 acres but we need to design a golf ball for that 50 acres. >> rose: ahh. so you change the golf ball. >> i would change the golf. to me you ought to be able to play the game-- we've done it

backwarlds forever. we've always done it because what the golf because does. the golf ball is cheap. it's very inexpensive to design a golf ball. >> rose: they changed it a number of years ago. >> you can change a golf ball short, long, whatever you want to change tvery inexpreness kill. i don't want to change championship golf. championship golf is great. but i'm talking about people learning and playing and getting involved in the game of golf. >> rose: what do you think of those belly putters? >> you know, i've never used one. i always thought they were very awkward. of course i never knew how to use one. so i've been very indifferent on it. but i do support the usga, the ruling bodies of the game of golf. and if they think it's wrong for the game of gorvlg then i will support what they do. >> rose: you've got a lot of things to be proud of, family most importantly. to think five kids, 22 grandchildren.

thanksgiving around here must be like great. >> it's great. >> rose: barbara said it was a circus but great. >> it's a circus, a great circus. i don't know what we had this year, 40-something. >> rose: and you have a job where you can pursue your passion for golf in a different way. >> i'm one of the luckiest persons in the world. you can imagine, playing a game all your life that you love and then being able to go into another profession that related to the game of golf and how i played it and put on a piece of ground. it will be here long beyond my golf game and my lifetime. that to me is pretty lucky. >> rose: you like fly fishing, though, don't you? >> i love to fish. >> rose: fish for bonefish. >> i used to go out and drag bait and all the other stuff, and most of the bigger fish-- i've caught a lot of big fish-- but it's strength and it's-- fly fishing is delicate. it's a little like playing goggle, finesse and precision. i'm a decent fly fisherman.

there are a lot better fishermen than i am. i do enjoy it. the fish doesn't know how old i am. when i throw the little fly in there, is that somebody 25 or 73? ( laughter ) you put it in the right place, he's going to bite it. that's right. >> rose: thank you for this. thank you for letting us visit you here at your home in florida. >> charlie, my pleasure. it's been a long time. we've been trying to do this for 25 years. >> rose: what a perfect opportunity. next week, the masters, 50 years ago you won your first masters. six masters championship. remarkable record. 18 majors. 19 times you came in second. t's an extraordinary achievement in a sport that has added so much to your life and to all of us who love that game and who love the idea of competition. thank you. >> thank you, my pleasure, i appreciate it.

>> rose: gavin turk is here. he came to fame along with damien hearst and tracy he got e of art. it read, gavin turk, sculptor, worked here. he has a new show in new york at david nolan gallery, and here is a look. look. >> an artist at the wheel transporting nothing but conquest to a crusher's yard in a place that doesn't exist. you come in the door. and what you see in front of you are three steel frames, cabinet. inside the cabinets you've got three broken, see the, patinaed,

exhaust pipes or sections of exhaust pipes. they look a little bit like reclining figures or three kind of scientific models of the-- of guts, models of the interior, human interior spaces. and surrounded the cabinets is a series of framed photographs of static moments of smoke, white smoke, with a black background, and then on the back wall, you've got some framed pictures which look like explosion, like this small black explosions on pieces of paper. and then in the final room, literally, the only thing you have in this room is a exacted white van. why is it important for you to cast the objects in bronze rather than simply displaying the objects? >> i think what it does is adds this tare, omp l'oile.

object. a kind of furthering, understanding of the object, you realize it isn't what you thought it was. they're accidental, but they have to be made, yeah. they have to be recreated. >> what is the story behind the crushed transit van? was it your van? >> it was my van, and i drove around in that van probably five years. there is a kind of psychological investment in the van which gets crushed up, left inside the object. leaking words, shaking history. it's here, a given, the journey

begins. >> rose: i am pleased to have gavin turk at this take for the first time. welcome. welcome. >> hi. ( laughter ) >> rose: let me go back to the empty room. so what can dthey say at the royal academy when you said, "here, it is, here-- >> at the royal college basically they said i'd shown insufficient work of the standard required, and i think that was partly due to the fact they didn't really appreciate what i'd made. i think they actually thought that i was trying to make a comment about the then-rector of the royal college. >> rose: what were you trying to do? >> i was trying to look at the idea of art and it's kind of-- doing a course, i suppose, taking a course in art, to look at the future of art. if you could super attenuate why you might be an artist, what you might be left with in the end, in a way what you could hope to achieve with a lifetime of

greatness. and i was trying to, i suppose, play games of reality, of play-- play games of whether something was there or not there. iworked here. worked here. the audience, they come, they see "worked here "and take that away and think, "worked here, worked here, worked here," and the more they think "worked here" the more they realize something is working. >> rose: the more they realize it has meaning? >> i think more they realize that they're having to deal with the idea of meaning. >> rose: there was a story eye have forgotten the object but somebody came into your studio and said, "what's this?" or something our bumped to into it and you said,"be careful, that's 500 quid." and all of a sudden the person began look at what he had knocked over with a different perspective, looking for something maybe he had missed thinking, well, if it's worth 500 quid, something is important here. >> that's right. i think that was-- i think that

was an interesting lesson for me. because i just thought, if you can-- if you can turn a corner and turn a corner, i suppose in people's experience, like for him-- he was-- he was able to understand the idea of value, of money, in relationship to our, and be able to find himself thinking, oh, someone else is willing to pay 500 pounds for this, there's obviously something here i'm not seeing. >> rose: the obvious sort of sophomore question here is how do you define art? >> i think that's something we're all trying to do, aren't we? i mean, i think that you know, that-- in a way, that the definition of art is part of art. the kind of-- the continual redefinition of art is part of art itself. >> then saatchi came along. >> charles saatchi, the collector in london. >> charles saatchi showed my work in a show called "young

british artists 2" and that was in 1995. so this was the next-- there was a series of shows, and they-- they were-- the shows only had like six artists. >> rose: was it helpful to be identified as if. >> i think it was probably helpful because the the media took cold of the oeuvre. you were able to talk about a kind of energy in the art world. >> were you guys friend? >> there was quite a couple oddry. people used to put on shows and they would spend time going to each other's shows, and in a way working with each other. >> rose: but you said saatchi is never close to his artists. >> i think he ethics keep a distance from his artists.

>> rose: why do you think that is? >> i think he wants to be in control. i think the artist has what he thinks of is not very good judgment about how their work would look best. >> rose: do you agree with him? >> not always. ( laughter ) not always. >> rose: there's also the question with you of influence. i think first of during chant, warhol, and who else? >> i mean -- they're probably like male ayersts, boyce, klein, manvony. a lot of artists that have somehow, i suppose like created these conceptual jumps. they've been able to kind of use their art to sort of influence a

kind of conceptual leap somehow, to move the-- our audience into a new space warhol you found a lot in. >> i think for me, warhol game a kind of-- a kind of a background-- like a background noise. like a-- like there's a-- you know, there's a button on everybody's computer which you precious a sort of art button, and if you press it, a high-contrast view of your family, and then changing the color, and it kind of looks like a warhol. and i think the idea is his work has almost become synonymous with the idea of modern art. whichever way you turn, it seems you're always having to phrase or make your work through that filter. >> rose: there was a sculpture you did, i guess it was across from st. paul's cathedral. what was the response to that? >> um-- >> rose: tell me about it. >> basically i have a 12-meter bronze but it's patinaed to look

like a rusty nail sticking out of the ground. >> rose: rusty nail. >> a rusty nail. and -- >> rose: and the idea is? >> well, i think that the idea wass suggestion-- obviously, there's a religious-- an immediate religious connection. it's literally in the shadow of the st. paul's cathedral. but i think -- >> rose: did it go over well? >> did it go over well? i think it did. i mean, i-- the-- the company commissioning it were quite nervous about what the church might think of the nail, but i think that-- i think it went-- i think it went-- i think it went really well. i mean pi think the people appreciated the idea that somehow, like, here's this big meeting point, here's this big sort of statement. and it almost feels like that was theirs before the building was there. >> rose: there's a quote by

t.s. elliot, bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better or at least different. do you like that? >> yeah, i think-- i mean, i hope-- i really hope that there's, you know, a point at which we can improve as artists go on, as they-- as they--, you know, as they go on historically, i i really hope there's a possibility for improvement within artworks rather simply a kind of dissipation. >> rose: having tried t.s. elliot, let me read this quote and see what you think. it's about the indeterminancy of origin, that's what my work is if you feel quotations as though i'm a d.j. recycling other people's work. i'm just doing what everybody else does but more explicitly. what interests me is the sharad

of creativity. >> did i say that? >> rose: yes, you did. ( laughter ) the charade-- to repeat-- the charade of creativity. >> well, the charade possibly is, like, a-- i may have said that because the idea of creativity, obviously, is very complicated and elusive, like the moment i tried to understand the word "creativity, "i get lost. it's a very complicated area. >> rose: trying to understand creativity you get lost. >> i the term, define what creativity is. you start talking in a kind of-- in tongues. you start thinking about creativity as some sort of magic, you start talking about magic or spirits or you start talking about something unknown, an unknown thought. >> rose: what about this idea-- we've talked about this a lot at this table-- it is the

notion that too many people think that art is about some inspiratm some god, that somehow it will come to you that you were going to create something when most artists i know work at it like they were-- like-- like they're obsessed about sort of figuring it out. and step by step, it's choice by choice. that's what art is. >> i think so. i'm -- >> rose: it's not some inspiration from the god. it's not some i'm standing here and that sign wil sun will tell me as it reflects off that thing and reminds me of something i did when i was four. >> things like that do happen as well. i wish that i was able to say, you know, by such and such a point in the future, i will-- i will make such and such a work. sometimes i don't. i can't-- you know, it doesn't come. >> rose: it's beyond your control. >> sometimes it is beyond my

control. sometimes there is a point at which like i-- you know, the idea-- or the world just doesn't arrive on time. at other times, it arrives -- >> rose: early. >. >> sometimes itarchs rise-- yeah -- >> rose: what is the idea? >> the idea. i mean, i suppose it's not just one kind of idea. it's a sense of something which attracts-- almost like a-- the way that a cliche might be born where you'd have somehow like a truth or something that people-- that-- a collection of people choose to move on, and the moment they move on it, it gets -- >> rose: it's almost with you that you're as interested in how people react to some object, that that is what interests you, and that's almost art as much as what they see. >> i mean, i think there is a

sort of-- there is-- part of my job is, i suppose, to be provocative. is to-- is to try to challenge people's preconceptions. people will arrive to an exhibition with a kind-- with a set of preconceptions, and i want to try and ask them what those preconceptions are because i think if people can unpack their own preconceptions, it will help them to understand something about how they think. . >> rose: does beauty play into this? >> um-- >> rose: does poetry play into this? >> i think in the end it's probably ideas-- sort of podeathic ideas that the things actualry stay. theatre things that linger. and i think that they are-- i think that there is a sort of lasting value in poetry. although in a way, it's, again, something difficult to define? >> this is what? >> so basically, this is-- this is a bronze cast-- you actually

have to hold it, i'm afraid, and it comes out. basically, this is a bronze cast and painted to look like the apple core. so basically, what's happened here is that in some ways, it's kind of a story of consciousness. again, maybe it has a sort of religious connotation, the idea of the eaten apple, the apple that -- >> rose: the bite out of the apple. >> idea of something that gets thrown away. the moment where something is-- is sort of exhausted or finished. suddenly that interests me. suddenly i go what is this moment of value lessness? how does that feel. i'm finding myself thinking that the moment that something is valued les, then it's also valuable. >> rose: once it's sawless,

it's valuable. >> yeah gli got it, i got it. so this is? >> again, a bronze cast of the end of the toilet roll, painted back to look like the end of the toilet roll. and i suppose, you know, it's a pipe. so, you know, we have a kind of magrete, this is not a pipe. this is not a pipe. it's a bronze cast that's been abstracted. it's a painting. it's actually got oil paint on it. >> rose: it there's a turkey foil. >> which is actually wood, which is actually plywood, and this has been painted and screen printed. >> rose: here's another quote, "there was a separation between me as a person and me as an artist in the early days, a time-- as time has gone on, my personal life and my art life have intertwined. it's much more difficult for me to step out of myself."

>> hmm. >> rose: do you remember these? >> sort of. rose: meaning what, they were said simply to be provocative? i don't think so. i think they were said to try to explain-- i think the when i started making art it was much more architectural, it was much more separate from myself. i think was-- i was-- as i said, earlier on, i think i was trying to-- i think i was trying to use myself as a kind of material within my work. so i think there was a sense of distance. and now the signature gets recognized or the name gets recognized or my image gets recognized. it's-- it's not so easy to have that separation. . my project kind of slightly blown up in my face. >> rose: do you see yourself

on some journey where you see where you're going? >> sometimes. i think sometimes the-- sometimes where i'm going seems very clear, and it seems everywhere -- >> rose: and at this moment? i don't mean at this table but where you are having finished this exhibition in new york and going back to london tonight? >> i think-- you know, i think that-- i definitely feel that there's a lot more art for me to make. i don't know if that's an answer to the question. >> rose: but you don't quite know what direction it's in, or is it cumulative? >> it is definitely cumulative. there's definitely a point where you-- when i make work into future, i'm certainly picking up on things that i've made before and sort of trying to redesign or trying to reinterpret other works i've made. but then i suppose i'm also trying to-- i suppose i'm trying to change-- you be, you know,

the future as well. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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