Sam Taylor-Wood

Sam Taylor-Wood0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is an artist. Aged thirty-seven, she's already won the most promising new artist prize at the Venice Biennale, been nominated for the Turner Prize, and had a major retrospective of her work at London's Hayward Gallery. Married to a successful gallery owner, she moves in star-studded circles, many of whom David Beckham, Jude Law, Dustin Hoffman appear in her work. But none of this came easily. Her parents had divorced and her mother, who'd taken her to live in a yoga centre in Sussex, then walked out on her when she was doing her O-levels, and she struggled to win a place at the college that got her started.

Presenter1:04

Then at the height of her success she was diagnosed with cancer and had a mastectomy.

Presenter1:09

Both background and illness feature strongly in her work. You're afraid of the moment, she says, when somebody says, right, time's up.

Presenter1:18

And you're not ready. She is Sam Taylor Wood.

Presenter1:22

Intimations of mortality, then, Sammy. So you you rush around saying yes to everything, and you keep going, you're frightened to stop.

Sam Taylor-Wood1:28

I do. I find it very difficult to say no to a lot of opportunities that come my way'cause I always feel so grateful for them. And I find it so difficult to say no'cause I just panic all the time that what could be round the corner and I think having faced mortality that's always going to be with me.

Presenter1:43

Mm. It's kind of called conditioning.

Sam Taylor-Wood1:45

Uh

Presenter1:45

Uh

Sam Taylor-Wood1:45

Of its own, really, isn't it? Absolutely, and it just means I'm eternally exhausted.

Presenter1:46

That you see

Presenter1:50

I uh said that your background in illness wrapped itself around your work, and certainly uh it means perhaps inevitably, therefore, there's a lot of emotion in your work. And one of your most recent pieces is Crying Men. And these are not just ordinary men, photographs of

Presenter2:05

Men we all know, the kinds of names I mentioned just now, Dustin Hoffman, Jude Law, and so on. How how do you persuade these guys to cry for you?

Sam Taylor-Wood2:14

Well, none of them knew that they had to cry until I arrived on the day, because I thought if I wrote in the letter that I sent to them that they had to cry, they may not turn up. So it was, you know, a lot of persuasion at the beginning and then a kind of gentle negotiation and then a sort of reluctance, and then finally we'd get to the point. But each one of them reacted so differently. Some of them were really ready and immediately cried, and others took more time. All real tears?

Presenter2:37

And others

Sam Taylor-Wood2:40

Not all real tears, and that's part of the uh

Sam Taylor-Wood2:44

The series of work for me as well is that you're looking at it and you can't tell which are authentic tears.

Presenter2:49

Sometimes there are no tears. I'm thinking of Michael Gambon, who is just looks.

Sam Taylor-Wood2:50

There are no tears.

Sam Taylor-Wood2:55

Yeah.

Presenter2:56

Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood2:56

Tragic. Totally distraught, I know. And also that I felt it wasn't necessary to have actual tears, but to sort of have the sense that they were crying.

Presenter2:57

Yeah.

Presenter3:05

But why? What what are you saying in putting forward these people? And is it important that they are famous men? It is very important.

Sam Taylor-Wood3:13

important that they're famous men because I think

Sam Taylor-Wood3:15

I wanted it to be recognisable actors and people with sort of quite a strong iconic status, so that you're looking at them and because you know who they are, you again question whether the tears are real, because you know they're actors.

Presenter3:29

It's also to do with the fact that they're men. It wouldn't have been effective as effective if it were crying women somehow, would it?

Sam Taylor-Wood3:35

No, I think it has a different inten intensity. And walking into the room with also these powerful men and powerful, strong, iconic people, I think gives it a very different feeling as well.

Presenter3:46

And of course, you have captured another kind of vulnerable male with your David, as in Beckham, which I want to talk to you about in a minute. But let's have your first record. Tell me about this one.

Sam Taylor-Wood3:50

And Zinbek

Sam Taylor-Wood3:55

My first record is Tiny Dancer by Elton John, and this song just immediately brings me up and makes me happy and makes me want to dance.

Sam Taylor-Wood4:06

Uh Blue jean baby.

Sam Taylor-Wood4:09

Ella Labin.

Sam Taylor-Wood4:14

Seamstress for the bang

Sam Taylor-Wood4:19

Radio.

Sam Taylor-Wood4:23

Pirates mine.

Sam Taylor-Wood4:27

You marry a music man.

Sam Taylor-Wood4:33

Valorie

Presenter4:33

Elton John and Tiny Dancers. That'll get you going on your desert island.

Sam Taylor-Wood4:38

Yeah.

Presenter4:40

So crying men are photographs, Sam. Your David is a video. It's an hour and seven minutes long, and it's of David Beckham sleeping. Now, how did it come about, first of all?

Sam Taylor-Wood4:52

It came about the National Portrait Gallery approached me and asked me if I'd be interested in making a portrait of him. And immediately my reaction was actually that I didn't want to because I felt he was the most photographed person in the world. And how was I going to make it my own? And how was I going to do anything different? And so I went away and asked for some time to think about it and then had the idea of him asleep and thought that having that sort of hanging like a painting in the National Portrait Gallery, but as you see the movement and slowly realize that it's a film, that it would be something more interesting and also another way of seeing such a sort of active person and somebody so um

Sam Taylor-Wood5:33

Famous. Iconic again. But how did you do it? I mean, did he fall asleep to order?

Presenter5:34

But how

Sam Taylor-Wood5:38

We planned it so that he would finish his training and that after that he would be tired. Then I set up a camera in a hotel room and he just came in and fell asleep. Just you two in the room. Exactly. I let him sleep for a while and then when I knew that he was I switched on the camera. But you know, he can't even be sort of uh dribbling or ugly even when he's sleeping. No, he's asleep.

Presenter6:02

No, he's a sleeping beauty. But that was obviously an experience for you, an artistic experience for you. Just just I mean, did he wake up after an hour and seven minutes? Is that what happened?

Sam Taylor-Wood6:07

Mm.

Sam Taylor-Wood6:11

Well, then the the camera finished and then I wasn't sure quite what to do, whether to wake him up or to sort of tiptoe out and leave him asleep. We've done it now, David. Exactly. So um just as it finished I sort of started shuffling around and

Presenter6:17

We've done it now, do you?

Sam Taylor-Wood6:24

Sort of started.

Presenter6:25

Yeah.

Presenter6:26

The other element, of course, and we've said he's beautiful, and and the crying men, of course, are also b beautiful in their distress. And then there's you in one of your latest works called Suspended. Will you describe it?

Sam Taylor-Wood6:34

And then

Presenter6:40

Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood6:40

It looks like I'm floating in the air. And I hired a bondage expert to come in for the day and to tie me up in lots of different shapes and positions. And then later, when we spent the day taking the photographs, I took out all the ropes, digitally removed them, so that you don't get a sense of the constraint of the ropes, but you have the opposite in a way. You have a sense of freedom.

Presenter7:04

You appear to be floating, don't you? Whether it's horizontal.

Sam Taylor-Wood7:05

Whether it's horizontally or vertically and there's much more of a sort of lightness of being than if you'd have seen me with the ropes, then it looks torturous like it was.

Presenter7:13

And it's you in a in sort of well it's knickers and a t-shirt really knickers and a vest and your hair hanging down. It's it's you in limbo.

Sam Taylor-Wood7:14

And it's you

Sam Taylor-Wood7:17

Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood7:21

Uh

Presenter7:22

Hmm, exactly.

Presenter7:24

It must have been painful at the time, but it doesn't look painful.

Sam Taylor-Wood7:26

No, and that was part of the idea as well, that you did have this very extreme pain throughout the day for these pictures, but when you see them it's actually a sort of feeling of a freedom from pain.

Presenter7:36

Um And it's is that then

Presenter7:40

To do with I said your illness is wrapped around your work.

Sam Taylor-Wood7:43

I think so. I think, you know, sometimes I I say that my work is often three steps ahead of me. You have these ideas and you don't necessarily know why you're making them or where they've come from. And I think with these it was about that sort of final release from me feeling like I was an ill person, because I was living my life as an ill person. I wasn't frightened of going out, but I'd have fear when I was out and I'd have fear about the most ridiculous things. And I think there came a point where I just actually let go of all of those feelings. And I think these photographs were about kind of reflecting that freedom in myself and just sort of letting go a little bit, but still sort of feeling that it was a state of limbo, that I have let go of it to some extent, but I don't think you ever really let go of it once you've been through it.

Sam Taylor-Wood8:30

Yeah.

Presenter8:30

Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood8:30

Got number two.

Sam Taylor-Wood8:31

Record number two is Wild is the Wind by Nina Simone and it's just one of those records I put on when I want to be sort of carried somewhere else.

Sam Taylor-Wood8:42

Give me m

Speaker 48:54

Satisfy this heart

Speaker 49:01

Rena

Presenter9:05

Let the wind blow. Wild is the Wind by Nina Simone. So tell me, Sam Taylorwood, about this sort of wiggly route to your artistic purpose. Was it always there, this this desire to do something with art?

Sam Taylor-Wood9:20

No, it wasn't always there. I think I was always quite driven inside, and I think that might have been, you know, to do with how I was brought up and under what circumstances, and more a drive just to get the hell out.

Presenter9:32

So tell me about that. Give me a a little thumbnail sketch then of of I mean, you were born in Streatham and all was fine, mum and dad and all was fine, but then the marriage broke up.

Sam Taylor-Wood9:39

Uh

Sam Taylor-Wood9:40

All was fine.

Sam Taylor-Wood9:42

Yeah, my mum and my dad split up, I think, when I was around nine. Then we suddenly upped and moved from London and moved down to Crowborough in East Sussex. And suddenly I had gone from, you know, sort of stratum ice rink in the cinema every Saturday and sort of very urban life to nothing and countryside with a new father and a new life and in this sort of very dark, horrible house which was called Sunny Villa. And Sunny Villa was the yoga centre. Yeah, Sunny Villa became a yoga centre and we lived a sort of very basic, fairly hippie existence. You know, I don't know. It was very strange. And then one day she disappeared.

Presenter10:20

And then my

Sam Taylor-Wood10:22

And then, yeah, one day she came home and handed me a note and said, uh, give this to

Sam Taylor-Wood10:29

Your stepdad, because I'm leaving you all. And I said.

Sam Taylor-Wood10:33

Okay, where are you going? and she said, I'll call and let you know when I've when I know what I'm doing. And then we just didn't see her for a while. And it was a very strange, very uncomfortable time. And, you know, we were young. I was probably

Sam Taylor-Wood10:46

fifteen, I think, and my sister was eleven and my brother was just four. So we were all sort of left and my stepfather, you know, didn't handle it too well and we were just, you know, in a right old mess, I think.

Presenter11:00

You know, other people coming to the house have become a kind of commune.

Sam Taylor-Wood11:03

Yeah, a lot of people would sort of float in and out and people we didn't know very well and it it just became a sort of boundaryless environment. And um And then one day you saw her. And then one day I saw her and she was living um three doors away.

Presenter11:11

Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood11:16

Which is really extraordinary. Yeah, I was walking on my way to school and I saw a blind go up in this kitchen.

Sam Taylor-Wood11:24

window and she was there and the blind quickly came back down again. And I thought, you know, I still can't quite believe it that she was um just there. Yeah, quite extraordinary. And then in the end you moved out?

Presenter11:34

And then on the

Sam Taylor-Wood11:35

Yeah, in the end I just I couldn't really quite cope with it and I left and just got a bedset and signed on the doll and then got into the local college and but by then I was about sixteen.

Sam Taylor-Wood11:49

Yeah, I'd failed I'd pretty much failed them. But I had yeah, I had s I for the luck of having a great art teacher who sort of took me under her wing and encouraged me and helped me put together a portfolio to try and get me into college. And art therefore was a refuge. What about the bedset? Oh, that was a hideous place. It was in a building with just lots of sort of older men and I was living in the attic and the attic was divided into two rooms. So it was sort of split down the middle so it was tiny. And there was another older man living in the room next to me and I think there was four old men on the floor below and three men on the so yeah, I was the only girl in this house. Was it frightening? It was quite frightening but also I felt that it was I did actually have a sense of excitement and freedom and adventure about it, although I did sort of put chairs up against my door at night. And I think I was lucky that I got into art college. I think that's what saved me.

Presenter12:30

To frighten

Sam Taylor-Wood12:45

And then from there I s I got into the system. I was away from the disaster of it all.

Sam Taylor-Wood12:52

Third record. Third record is The Rolling Stones and its Sympathy for the Devil. And for me it's like a call to action, this song. It's j just like a sort of I don't know. You can't sit down, I think, when you hear this song.

Speaker 413:04

Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of will.

Speaker 313:10

And hey.

Speaker 313:12

I've been around for a long, long year Stole many men

Sam Taylor-Wood13:17

Uh

Speaker 313:17

Uh

Sam Taylor-Wood13:18

So do they.

Sam Taylor-Wood13:21

I was round when Jesus Christ had his moments of doubt and pain.

Sam Taylor-Wood13:29

Me think I'm sure the f

Speaker 413:30

Fighter

Presenter13:32

Rolling Stones and Sympathy for the Devil. So via this rather tortuous route, gathering the right qualifications as you went, you arrived finally at Goldsmiths College, I think, in your early twenties, by the turn of the decade into the nineteen ninety.

Sam Taylor-Wood13:43

Yeah.

Presenter13:46

You said it was the equivalent of going to a Swiss finishing school for you. What does that mean?

Sam Taylor-Wood13:50

What does that mean? I think because I'd sort of come, you know, this very peculiar route to finally get to the the point where I wanted to be, the place I thought I wanted to be. I'd been to this other college, North East London Polytechnic, which was out in Plasto, and I started my degree there. So I went from this very sort of rough East London college into a goldsmith's, where people had discussions and they talked very intellectually about art. And I'd never come across this before, and I'd never come across that environment, and it did. It felt like a very sort of, I don't know, Swiss finishing school.

Presenter14:24

And of course there were people there who were to become very famous Damien Hurst, Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas all there, just just ahead of you, I think.

Sam Taylor-Wood14:31

They were. They were a couple of years ahead of me, and it was quite sort of daunting actually having them there, already having collectors coming and buying things, galleries offering representation. But it's interesting looking back.

Presenter14:42

isn't it, that we you know, who would have been your role models, as it were, until they began? Because everything presumably that you knew about then as an aspiring young artist harked back to the sixties to kind of Bridget Riley, David Hockney.

Sam Taylor-Wood14:58

Absolutely, and when we were at Goldsmiths, we were really encouraged to sort of think and believe for the first time.

Sam Taylor-Wood15:05

that we could be artists and it was a profession and it was a worthy profession and that we could go into the world and we could be what we wanted to be. But I get

Presenter15:13

Get the impression that you were still slightly intimidated about the idea of of of being an artist, capital B A A. You know, you left there and you didn't do any art, you weren't making pieces of any kind, why not?

Sam Taylor-Wood15:19

Capital B

Sam Taylor-Wood15:25

Why not? No, I left this sort of in a spiral and a spin in my mind as to what I wanted to do with my life and I didn't really feel I had the confidence then and it took sort of going off to work in the Royal Opera House which is where I went. That gave me the confidence and then I got a job at Camden Palace nightclub and that gave me the determination because I knew that was not what I wanted to do. You were managing the nightclub weren't you? Yeah it was insane and I was working all hours of the night and it was just awful and backed with the inspiration I'd got from the Royal Opera House the two things I think just made me sort of realize this is what I want to do and I did start to have the ideas and then I had the courage and then the determination came with it. Record number four. Record number four is Orpheus and Euradici by Gluck and it's for me one of the most beautiful pieces of music and when I first started working at the Royal Opera House Jochen Kowowski was singing it there. I walked in on him when he was just warming up for it and I didn't believe that that was his real voice so I laughed which was very much the wrong thing to do but here he sings it and it is incredible.

Presenter15:47

Anyone

Presenter15:49

Yeah.

Presenter17:27

The opening of Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice, with Jochan Kowalski as Orpheus, with members of the Berlin Radio Chorus and the Chamber Orchestra Karl Philippe Emmanuel Bach conducted by Hartmut Henschen.

Presenter17:38

So you were a dresser, Sam Taylor Wood, at at the Royal Opera House. I think you were sort of doing the quick changes with Plaza Do Domingo in the wings, hmm.

Sam Taylor-Wood17:43

Um

Sam Taylor-Wood17:47

Absolutely. I applied to the Opera House and I said I wanted to come and work there. I didn't mind what I did. I just wanted to be in an environment which I thought might be interesting. And they said that they had an opening in the men's wardrobe as a dresser, but it was temporary because they don't normally like girls to go in there. When I first arrived, I felt like I'd fallen in love. I was in this environment that was just magical, and it stayed with me, and I love it still there.

Presenter18:10

And then you got the sack'cause they found a man. Exactly.

Presenter18:14

And you've used opera, of course, in one of your pieces, if not several. Certainly in one called Killing Time, which was in tape written. It's a film installation, isn't it? Four characters sitting at home drinking and smoking, and then suddenly

Presenter18:29

Richard Strauss's Elektra.

Sam Taylor-Wood18:30

Exactly.

Presenter18:31

Exactly.

Sam Taylor-Wood18:34

I made f made four of my friends learn um the words, each to one character, each of um Elektra. You know, these people were almost mouthing their aspirations and passions and but sort of feeling very flat and that existence was quite banal.

Presenter18:52

Hmm.

Presenter18:53

So you got sacked from the Opera House, you went to work in this nightclub, which sounds pretty tacky and horrid and pretty low ebb.

Sam Taylor-Wood18:55

Entirely.

Sam Taylor-Wood18:58

Mm.

Presenter19:01

What was the catalyst then? What suddenly made you start thinking I can be an artist? What happened?

Sam Taylor-Wood19:07

I was working there and I was working from sort of five in the evening till sort of five in the morning and it was killing me because to stay awake I'd drink cans of coke, eat Miles bars, packets of digestive biscuits, anything filled with sugar and I

Sam Taylor-Wood19:21

You know, ballooned in weight. I looked awful. I wasn't sleeping. And a friend of mine stood me in front of the mirror and just said, Please just look at yourself. And I did, and I sent the keys of the nightclub back. And then I thought about it, that the three men, Basil, Ray, and Steve, who were the bouncers on the door of the nightclub, were the only people I could trust and were my friends. I took them to the Tate Gallery and took photographs of them standing in front of paintings, Lord Leighton and Franz Klein.

Sam Taylor-Wood19:52

and Mark Rothko, and I had them sort of assume the position of your name's not down and you're not coming in, um but in front of these great masterpieces and I think that was partly how I was feeling. I couldn't uh this was obstructing

Sam Taylor-Wood20:06

My life, and I had to sort of get back into the world that I now felt comfortable to go back into.

Presenter20:11

Then these things were exhibited in London and in New York. I mean, you you you were launched.

Sam Taylor-Wood20:15

I mean you you you

Sam Taylor-Wood20:17

Yeah, they were the beginning, and I think it was because I'd finally found a way of being utterly true to myself, which people could see in the work.

Presenter20:26

Pickle number five.

Sam Taylor-Wood20:28

Um record number five is um Caetano Veloso. This song is just such a beautiful song, and my daughter really loves this song, and when I first played it I left the room and came back and found her hugging the speaker, and so this has a very special place with me.

Sam Taylor-Wood20:50

Yo tendo la ra palimpia yertar de la ma

Sam Taylor-Wood20:57

Yeah.

Speaker 320:57

Addicta de la la vero.

Sam Taylor-Wood21:01

Rabula Boo La Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood21:05

And one thing.

Presenter21:10

La movie

Sam Taylor-Wood21:12

Uh

Presenter21:13

Caetano Velosso Antonada de Luna Lena. So by the mid-nineties, Sam, you were a working artist and you were being courted by the trendiest art dealer in town, Jay Jopling, whom you were to marry and indeed are still married to. You've taken a lot of stick for that, really, haven't you? Inevitably, people, critics saying you wouldn't have made it if you hadn't married. I know, and people often say to me, You have a huge advantage, and I don't.

Sam Taylor-Wood21:29

Yeah.

Presenter21:39

And be safe in the knowledge that, in fact, you came a very hard route. You kind of earned it, really, haven't you? Exactly. That's what I feel like. I earned the love of a good man.

Sam Taylor-Wood21:43

Very good.

Presenter21:49

But there were more uh tests of strength to come really in your life, weren't there? Because you you you married and produced your daughter Angelica in the spring of 1997, which turned out to be a

Sam Taylor-Wood21:52

Yeah.

Presenter21:59

A pretty full year, as they say.

Sam Taylor-Wood22:00

A pretty

Sam Taylor-Wood22:01

It was a fool here, it was a lot of uh mixed blessings. Um Angelica was born in April and after she was born I just couldn't recover from the birth and I kept going to the doctor and going back to the doctor saying I didn't feel well and and um and everything was explained away as postnatal. But actually what it turned out was that I actually had colon cancer. And it wasn't until December that I was diagnosed by another doctor and I was sort of whipped into hospital very quickly and rather poignantly I was operated on on Christmas Eve and so I then missed Angelica's first Christmas which still tortures me and then but then I was sort of told on New Year's Day that it was okay that the cancer hadn't spread so it was sort of two quite strangely sort of poignant days to have both pieces of action and news.

Presenter22:54

Yeah.

Presenter22:56

And during all of this time you'd also got that nomination and you'd won the prize in fact from the Venice Biennale, hadn't you, Philippe?

Sam Taylor-Wood22:59

Well the prize

Sam Taylor-Wood23:02

Yeah, so that's the only thing.

Sam Taylor-Wood23:09

And uh and we got married that year as well.

Presenter23:09

Amazing.

Presenter23:12

And then there's You know, spool on another two or three years and you've got cancer again. I know, and not LinkedIn, hmm.

Sam Taylor-Wood23:18

Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood23:19

No, they were both primary cancers and um it was just very unlucky. And um then the second time when I had breast cancer diagnosed, I mean it was like the world just fell from me. I completely and utterly just dissipated and I wasn't sure how I was going to get through it. And

Sam Taylor-Wood23:40

But very quickly, I think, you know, having a child, I felt I had no option. I had to get through it, and I was going to get through it. And then I.

Sam Taylor-Wood23:49

Got very single-minded and very determined. And I took it very seriously, and I stopped working and I.

Sam Taylor-Wood23:56

put all my sort of creative energy back inwards instead of spending it.

Presenter24:00

Hmm.

Sam Taylor-Wood24:00

And you had the mistake to me. You had chemotherapy.

Presenter24:02

Therapy. Yeah, I had the full works. Did you? Took a long time, I'm sure, to make a

Sam Taylor-Wood24:06

It did. It took a a long time and I think it still takes a long time. It takes a long time or if you ever recover from something like that. And I think as a woman, you know, losing a breast is one of the hardest things to go through because you do feel like a sort of big loss of part of your sexuality. And to recover from that is a whole other thing to recover from on top of the cancer and the chemotherapy.

Presenter24:30

And you created um a a work of art reflecting all of that, which I want to ask you about, but let's pause for record number six then.

Sam Taylor-Wood24:36

Record number six is Nick Cave Black Hair, and this I think is one of the most beautiful sort of love poems written.

Sam Taylor-Wood24:44

It's very romantic. I know, and I often dream that I've got black hair and it's about me, and I lie in bed and listen to it.

Speaker 424:53

Last night my kisses were banked in black hair

Speaker 425:03

And in my bed my lover, her hair was midnight black.

Speaker 425:13

And all her mystery dwelled within her black haze

Presenter25:18

Nicave and black hair. Um the work then that you did that that showed you coming out of that awful time you've just been describing um was called uh is called Self-Portrait in Single Breasted Suit, um single-breasted pun, holding a hair pun because you

Sam Taylor-Wood25:32

Holding a head.

Sam Taylor-Wood25:35

Yes. Because you still got your hair. That's exactly why I made the piece. And you know, a lot of people said to me, What sort of work will you make after this experience? And I have to say, it was the last thing on my mind, and I wasn't even thinking about making work ever again at the time. In fact, when you go through something like that, you think I want to go and live on a desert island. So I hadn't thought about.

Presenter25:53

My

Sam Taylor-Wood25:55

work, but I got asked so often that I almost made this piece as an answer to what everyone sort of almost wanted. And so I I thought I had to be how I am about it a little bit, which is, you know, I I can be lighthearted about it.

Presenter26:08

Two

Sam Taylor-Wood26:09

Uh

Presenter26:09

Well, you say that. I mean, it is yes, it is humorous because of these puns and so on, but but, you know, there's also something.

Sam Taylor-Wood26:10

And when you

Sam Taylor-Wood26:13

But but

Presenter26:17

Well, some one critic said that it was like a kind of long scream, really, of of of fear of

Sam Taylor-Wood26:20

Really off of

Presenter26:23

loss of so much, really. I mean, whether whether it's your femininity, as you were saying just now, or or or just peace of mind, I suppose.

Sam Taylor-Wood26:24

True.

Sam Taylor-Wood26:27

And just now.

Sam Taylor-Wood26:30

No, it is. I think, you know, it it is at face value when you look at it quite an amusing image. I'm standing there in a suit and I'm holding up this sort of stuffed hair which is sort of leaping over my head. And then I think, you know, if you know a little bit about my history and the title, then suddenly it goes from an amusing image to something completely different. It sort of suddenly delves into a deep, dark place. But that for me was one of two pieces I made that really m sort of explained

Sam Taylor-Wood27:00

how I felt a bit, I think. And I can't shake it. I think, you know, once you've had that ini that experience and, you know, I'm an artist who projects how I sort of think about the world and my thoughts, you can't escape it.

Presenter27:01

Hi.

Presenter27:13

Hmm. Becko number seven.

Sam Taylor-Wood27:15

The seventh record is Johnny Cash and his version of U2's 1. I discovered Johnny Cash sort of relatively recently and once I discovered him I became very obsessed by him and listened to everything. And I have been working on this idea of a film about William Blake with the actor Ray Winstone. And I was having difficulty trying to sort of figure out who Blake was or how best I could show who he was. And I was listening to all the Johnny Cash music as I was travelling around America. And I came home and I had one of those sort of Eureka middle of the night moments where I thought Johnny Cash and William Blake are almost the same person.

Speaker 327:59

Is it getting better?

Speaker 328:03

Or do you feel the same?

Speaker 328:09

Will it make it easier on you now?

Speaker 328:14

Got someone to blame?

Speaker 328:17

You said one love

Speaker 328:21

One life when it's one lead.

Speaker 328:26

In the night

Presenter28:28

Johnny Cash and one. Um what about the parental figures in your life then, mother, father, stepfather, who didn't, as we've heard, do the greatest job of giving you a kind of

Sam Taylor-Wood28:39

Yeah.

Presenter28:39

Stable background. Are they proud, impressed? Do they feel they contributed?

Sam Taylor-Wood28:45

I think my My dad is very proud now.

Sam Taylor-Wood28:49

I th and I think, you know, that for a while they were very confused about what I was doing with my life, but I think uh I think now they're seem to be quite happy.

Speaker 328:58

Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood28:59

Yeah, we we've become a m a lot closer now. It took a long time to repair our relationship and I think the repair came was when I had Angelica and I realized how easy it was to make mistakes even though hers were a bit bigger than most. Um I think I just had to sort of let go of the anger and I felt also I was too tired and I was too busy with my own sort of sufferings to have anger mixed in with it.

Presenter29:25

Yeah. But you found another family, I mean, through your husband, through Jay Jopley. I mean the the the

Sam Taylor-Wood29:28

Yeah.

Presenter29:30

That gives you so much, I presume, because it's everything that

Sam Taylor-Wood29:33

That you never have.

Presenter29:33

Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood29:33

It's absolutely everything I never had, and it's everything I yearned for. I wanted a sort of well, a normal life, um and straightforward parents and stability and without the chaos. Um but yeah, now that I have my own family, yeah, I'm very sort of content with that.

Presenter29:50

What about going to a desert island? Um what's the one of your imagination feel like? Do you think it's a sort of bit like that terrible bedsit in Hastings, or is it a desirable place?

Sam Taylor-Wood29:59

It's a desirable place. I actually like being quite solitary. I I seem to be sort of somebody who likes being very social, but on the outside. But I think on the inside I'm very comfortable on my own. Last record. My last record is Rufus Wainwright, My Phone's On Vibrate for You. And I think he's got the most unusual voice and the most beautiful voice, and he writes the most fantastic lyrics. It's a great line, isn't it? It is. And I think on a desert island, you might sort of long for a vibrating telephone.

Sam Taylor-Wood30:33

My phone's on fibrillating for you But still I never ever feel from you

Sam Taylor-Wood30:47

And okay, now we're bored.

Sam Taylor-Wood30:54

Who wants to turn back in to the top?

Presenter31:02

Rufus Wainwright and Vibrate, or my phone's on Vibrate for You. Great title. Now, if you could only take one of those eight, Sam.

Presenter31:11

Um

Sam Taylor-Wood31:12

I am. It was hard enough to sort of narrow my songs down to eight. If I could only take one, I'd take Elton John's Tiny Dancer, mainly because it's such a hard song to sing along to, and I'd like to go to the desert island and master it. What about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

Presenter31:12

When you look at

Presenter31:28

What about your

Sam Taylor-Wood31:30

The book I wanted to take is Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters. I think one of the poems in the Epiphany is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read and I read it again and again and again. And also that one, because it talks about London, will sort of transport me back here because I'm sure I'll be very homesick. And your luxury.

Sam Taylor-Wood31:53

My luxury is um a karaoke machine.

Sam Taylor-Wood31:58

Because I do like to sing along to all these songs, and I think out there I won't be able to s take any of all the other songs that I want to take, so I'll be able to sing them to myself, by myself, and I'll do it only after sunset, so I don't drive myself insane. Sam Taylor Wood, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. Thank you so much.

Presenter32:17

Yeah.

Sam Taylor-Wood32:25

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio forward.

Speaker 433:10

Yeah.