Eno sits down with Israeli designer Ron Arad and waxes poetic about his connection to visual art and his entanglements with the art world at large.

In this interview from ARTE France’s “Encounter” program, Brian Eno goes into his progression of thoughts as he came of age as an artist. It was the mid sixties, and Eno was studying painting and experimental music at uni in the south coast of England. He was leaning towards the visual arts but soon became bored of the cultural obsession with conceptual art at the time. From what he could gather, the emerging rock n’ roll scene was far more exciting and had no canon in which he had to fit into.

A few years later Eno would emerge as the synth player in the popular band Roxy Music and he’s been inextricably linked to music since; though he underscores in the interview, it’s not music that defines him even if that’s what he’s most known for. 

Perhaps one of the most endearing moments of the interview is when Eno proudly tells the story of how he managed to “make use of the facilities”, when Marcel Duchamp’s conceptual piece “Fountain” was on display at the Tate Modern in New York. He’s full of boyish mischief here, and the lengths he went to evade museum guards is impressive. Eno explores so much more in this candid conversation between new friends and we highly recommend viewing the entire interview if you’re not familiar with Eno’s approach to art.