Interview with Tony Cragg: Sculpture Cannot Be a Power **

Sculpture is a three-dimensional art and it will occupy a certain space. This is the nature of sculpture. But no matter where it is placed, sculptures are always sculptures. Due to the rise of installation art, it is almost fashionable to place too much emphasis on the venue. However, doing so will impose too much restraint on art, and I am not interested in the art of bondage.

Sanlian Life Weekly: When you heard about the "Super Organic" exhibition that came to the Central Academy of Fine Arts last time, this exhibition space made you very interested. In your creation, how much emphasis will be placed on this element of "space"?

Cragg: Sculpture is a three-dimensional art. It will occupy a certain space. This is the nature of the sculpture. But no matter where it is placed, sculptures are always sculptures. Regarding my work, it may be necessary to emphasize one difference, namely that “Sculpture is not a device”, so I don’t think much of the site issue. This venue is very good, but it does not mean much to me because the venue is not an art. Due to the rise of installation art, it is almost fashionable to place too much emphasis on the venue. However, doing so will impose too much restraint on art, and I am not interested in the art of bondage.

Sanlian Life Weekly: Could it be understood that this is your opinion on the difference between installation and sculpture?

Cragg: Do you know what the word "installation" means? This means that winter puts the animals in the shed, and "install" means entering the barn. Etymologically, it has little to do with art and sculpture.

When I was in my 20s, that is, the 1960s and 1970s, installation art was just in its ascendant at the time because of its current nature and local conditions. It was a revolutionary concept 40 or 50 years ago. But now it is not so important. Who cares about installation art? If you put a lot of cows in a blue room, you just fill a blue room. In the 1960s and 1970s, the significance of installation art was that it enabled artists to create art in spaces that were not so artistic, such as French churches, factories in Scotland, and “non-art spaces” such as these. Great response. Now, to be honest, I think it's almost absurd to think about installing installation art in museums.

Just now you asked about the question of space. In the current art world, the space has become too territorial, and people are trying to “occupy” some of the venues. This has become a successful strategy, and I think that in the artistic creation The introduction of "successful learning strategies" does not help.

Sanlian Life Weekly: Space is not important to you, then the color? You have done brightly colored plastic sculptures. In recent years, you used the painting technology of the automotive industry for bronze sculptures.

Cragg: Color? It is a strange question. Should you ask the painter? There are two kinds of colors for me. One is the color of the material itself, such as the color of wood is the same, this color can show the material's external and internal nature. There is also a surface color, and my interest in surface colors is not so great because it can be applied at will. I hope that color can reflect the function of materials. Triple Life Weekly: How about volume? Now there seems to be a tendency that paintings or sculptures are all pursuing to enlarge the work to some sort of impressive volume in order to achieve a difference. What do you think about this issue?

Krague: First of all, volume size has nothing to do with artistic influence. Some extraordinary sculptures are small in size. These two concepts cannot be confused. Sculpting is a difficult process, so I usually start with small works, such as the size of freehand. When I begin to further expand the connotation and external form of the work, the volume will become larger. Sculptures of this size are usually completed on the table or stool or on the work bench, so they will be displayed on the stand. When the body mass is large enough, it can only be done by moving to the ground and it can only be displayed on the ground. You see, now we are faced with a ground sculpture (which is relatively large and cannot be placed on a table). When the sculpture reaches this size, you will immediately have a physical reaction to it, as if you are opposite. Standing is another person, and you are in an equal relationship. This is the starting point for consideration of volume.

The next thing to consider is the shape of the sculpture, which is what it is doing. For me, the most interesting object is still the human body, because every inch of our body is meaningful. When we see the human body, it will naturally produce a perceptual and rational response. It is the form we are most familiar with. Everyone Yes, but full of fun. The physical relationship between the audience and the sculpture implies a form of interest.

Of course, when the volume of a sculpture reaches a certain degree, its effect will resemble the European sculpture of the 19th century. Any sculpture symbolizes and flaunts power—the royal family, the church, the industrial giant, or the power of the country. This tendency is still present, so I personally would avoid creating sculptures that feel too strong or too oppressive. The indoor exhibition itself has a limit on the volume. Of course, you can challenge this space limitation as much as Richard Serra did. He thinks this is very fun. It is his problem, but the ground Load capacity and portal size are always limited. When you go outdoors, the environment is very different. Suddenly the environment becomes open. All buildings, vehicles, and trees are much larger than your sculpture. With limited materials, the problem becomes even more tricky. But even outdoors, I don’t want to create particularly large sculptures. Although I have also done relatively large sculptures, for me, body mass has never been the focus. There is no need to compete for space, which also has little effect on artistic effects. You must be careful not to let sculpture become another kind of power**. I hope my works are emotional.

Sanlian Life Weekly: You are very impressed with the use of materials. For example, you often use industrial materials and waste that others have neglected. Is this similar to Kunellis, an artist of "Poverty Art", expressing similar relations between material and ideas?

Cragg: We had a beautiful head when we were children, but it was empty. Then you slowly discovered that you could form a concept in your brain. You know what color is, what the sound is, and learn the language, and all this comes from The process of storing external information in the mind. If the external environment is a barren city and the natural environment deteriorates, your thinking will not be so rich because the material you experience is limited. I am a materialist, and I believe that art forms can be enriched by various man-made materials. Generally speaking, human decisions on materials are often primitive and simple. Therefore, what we create is a kind of "Realistic reality". The forest is complex and full of wildness. Artificial fields are tedious and the urban environment is worse. This is very important for sculptors like me.

I think Kunelis is an outstanding artist, but I have almost nothing in common with him. I think his art form is closer to drama. He once occupied an important position in the aesthetic discovery of new materials in the 1960s and 1970s. However, I think it is very dramatic, and it also contains some kind of sociopolitical theory. I and these Theory has nothing to do.

Sanlian Life Weekly: Just now I saw that you were bringing people to "assemble" the famous "Cathedral", using the factory's waste gear. Does this work have nothing to do with the industrial social background of the seventies or eighties?

Cragg: This sculpture is not entirely made of steel. Of course, the main material is metal. Since 1974, I have made a lot of materials myself, very simple materials, as a gesture against minimalism. In the student days I still enjoyed the minimalist works, but later I felt too cold, too American, too conceptual, so I abandoned it and tried to make geometric shapes with less likely materials. Industrial production tends to make some very simple geometric shapes because they are cheap and easy, so many products are round. The "Cathedral" is a large pile of round objects that are completely scattered when not assembled. Sometimes the audience will wonder if the works are fixed or not, and the result is painful. Therefore, the museum always asked me to fix it when it was on display. However, once it is fixed, it no longer acts as an "adhesive" by gravity. I also feel that it can be placed wherever it is, without having to be in the museum.

After that, I realized that there are actually two ways to describe the world: one is organic, and the other is geometry. Both are aesthetic ways of expressing the surrounding things. They are neither unintersecting nor fuzzy. I am an extreme geographer. This is my starting point in the 1970s: everything around me is made up of extremely simple geometric shapes. This way the environment becomes uninteresting, so how to use these simple geometric shapes to create More interesting and emotional things became the starting point.