ROXY MUSIC - ENO: 'I AM A SERIOUS ARTIST'

ENO: 'I AM A SERIOUS ARTIST'

Former ROXY MUSIC star BRIAN ENO is disgusted that people in the UK are unable to accept him as both a credible musician and an artist. The 58-year-old is irritated his artistic career has been largely ignored in his homeland, apart from his SONIC BOOM installation at London's Hayward Gallery, because other countries are far more accepting of the multi-talented. He says, "I am firmly in the 'musician' box here, and people (in the art world) are a little disturbed that I might wear two hats - it smacks of dilettantism, they think. "The rest of Europe doesn't seem to have that compartmentalising mentality, but being a rock musician and a serious artist is regarded with some suspicion, especially in the UK. If you are a musician, you can't be taken seriously as a visual artist and vice versa. "It is an odd prejudice and very alien to me as I have always worked visually and musically. Neither my visual nor my musical directions would have taken shape the way they did without each other."