Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A sculptor celebrated for pioneering works using industrial materials like girders, nuts, bolts, and painted primary colours, revolutionising sculpture.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466: III. Allegro assai
Arthur Rubinstein, RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, Alfred Wallenstein
I like to have music while I'm working and I'd like to have music that applies in some way to my work, so that I could say, well, yes, there's a sort of similarity there.
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98: IV. Allegro energico e passionato
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti
Brahms has a significance for me because he's not just heavy, he's partly sort of romantic and he's partly classical. And I like particularly this record because he really takes a sort of emotional thing and makes it classical, he makes it a fugue.
String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59, No. 1 'Razumovsky': I. Allegro
I think it was the first one of the first bits of Beethoven that I listened to and enjoyed very much. I think the quartets are really marvelous and they're very deep and tough music.
The Gondoliers: 'The Duke of Plaza-Toro'
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, New Symphony Orchestra of London, Isidore Godfrey
I always liked Big Gilbert and Sullivan. I think it was great fun. I enjoyed it very much. And we used to sing this one in the car with my two sons and my wife we'd all take apart and have the fun of singing this together.
String Quartet in F major, Op. 77, No. 2: I. Moderato
I take some Haydn because I'm very fond of Haydn. There's not too much him in it, it's just music.
Messiah, HWV 56: 'The Trumpet Shall Sound'
Robert Tear, English Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras
Well, we you talked about the trumpets in the Last Judgment, and here are some trumpets in in the Massah.
I love this record. Um and I love Ella Fitzgerald's singing of it. And it's light, it's fun, you can't be serious all the time.
String Quintet in C major, D. 956: I. Allegro ma non troppoFavourite
Melos Quartet, Mstislav Rostropovich
A beautiful piece of music that I love.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:19Is it your self-appointed task to keep pushing ahead, always to try to do something new, something different?
It's what I want to do for me. I want to challenge myself. And if I didn't do things that were a bit difficult, uh I wouldn't be living.
Presenter asks
1:36How do you get your inspiration for these different things you do?
All sorts of things get you going. Um seeing a piece of steel lying on the floor in a certain configuration, it can even come from from going to the theatre. or a book.
Presenter asks
10:30If your father had had anything to do with it at the beginning, you wouldn't have gone in for sculpture, would you?
Well, he wanted me to go into his firm. He was a stockbroker, and he wanted me to go into the city. And I hated the idea, hated it. And so, uh He said, Well, what do you want to do? I didn't know. Be an engineer, be an architect. And I tried all these things. And, um Finally, in the end, after I got an engineering degree, and gone into the Navy 'cause it was at the end of the war, and um I said, I really do want to do this sculpture, you know and he said, Well, you better do it then So he gave in in the end. He gave in and then he was very supportive, but I'm glad it happened that way, that I had to struggle to do it, because It made me take myself seriously as a sculptor, or take take sculpture seriously, and do the job properly.
The keepsakes
The book
Leo Tolstoy
Well, you've got to give me War and Peace,'cause it's a it's a tough one. Uh there's a lot of it, so I'll be able to read a lot. But it's somehow it's got the whole of life in it.
The luxury
Oh, I'd have to take some glue. Because I've got to be able to stick things together somehow. Shells, driftwood and everything. And then when I get back to uh to England we'll show them in the um take gallery.
Presenter asks
16:24What did you get from the experience of working for Henry Moore?
But one thing he taught me What it means to be a sculptor, a serious sculptor, what it's like in a sculptor's studio. It's quite different from art school, and he I learnt it. I learnt that from him. But then again, he was a very warm man, and he knew I was really interested in sculpture, and we'd talk a lot about art. And I would draw at the Royal Academy Schools, and I never understood drawing, and when I got back, he would criticise those drawings. It was amazing. I've got hundreds of drawings, with little drawings by Henry on the corner saying, Look, the light's coming from here, you can't make the shadow there, and so on. So he taught me about that, how a sculptor draws, as opposed to how a painter draws.
Presenter asks
19:42How and when did you make the huge leap that said let's do away with the plinth, let's do away with all things figurative?
I simply couldn't make the sculpture real enough by making a person and the person However, life size I made it. However much I set it on our ground and tried to make it like a real thing, it was still kind of a a pretence. It was like a model, it was clay. And so, um, I went to America and when I was in America, I started to feel freer in America. I started to feel far less bound by history. And Then I said, Well, let's go into another material. And I tried something in steel, and some more in aluminium, and so on. and then I was able to get straight to the material, straight to the feeling.
Presenter asks
24:57Where does all the imagery in [your sculpture] The Last Judgment come from?
I don't know, but I felt forced. Into Doing something. which had a resonance of what was happening in the world. I think it forced itself on me. That's all that happened really. I I knew I was going to do the Last Judgment … But I knew I wanted to make the last judgment. It came from the f I think it came from the war in Kosovo and and and the sort of um I was seeing so much horrors on the television and so on, and I I just reacted to it.
“I liked being stuck in that garage, because I was right up against it, and I couldn't make aesthetic decisions. I had to make decisions of what the sculpture felt it wanted.”
“I want the sculpture really to be to be A real entity and more like talking between two of us than... General stuck upon the plinth. Completely separated from our world. I wanted to be very much part of our world and very much, have very much that same... One-to-one thing.”
“I think if I'd ever if I'd been a stockbroker, I would have done it in a half baked way, and I would have made a mess of it.”
“We were taking that thingness out of sculpture, and that was that was a new a new thing to do. It's more like a dance. It's more like more like music.”