‘I want to see if it’s possible to reinvent a tower’

And what are you doing talking to a hopeless philistine like me?

No,come on. This studio is a place in which I try to excavate a possible future. It’s more like a laboratory. So,welcome to my laboratory.

The thing about public art is that it is also for philistines,isn’t it?

Art is good at being able to do certain things. It’s good at saying,come and look,come and engage. We as artists need to be able to do that and,at the same time,remain serious — about matters of real human aspirations. Why are we here? What are we doing? Where do we go? Art can begin to engage with those questions.

One of the most remarkable things about your work is its scale. In your work,size does matter. It’s almost as if you enjoy being dwarfed by your creations.

One of the tools of sculpture is scale. So why not? There’s something that happens to the viewer,when he is faced with something big enough to be awe-inspiring. I’m really interested in that. It has to do with the idea that art can engage with infinity. Things like scale,colour and form can engage with metaphysical notions about our relation with the world. It’s almost as if they are a more immediate response to those questions,compared with engaging with a book of philosophy.

In an interview with journalist David Frost,you used an interesting expression. You talked about shooting red wax on the walls and leaving a mark there. And you said making a mark is almost like an act of violence. Explain that,it almost sounds political to me.

One starts in the studio. But there are moments in this process of dealing with ordinary objects that allow the imagination to go somewhere else. And sometimes,it can be deeply political,without necessarily having to engage in agitprop.

How?

I made a work called Shooting into the Corner which we will show in Mumbai. It’s a cannon that shoots pellets of wax — 20 kilos of wax in a shot — and it shoots them with huge violence into a corner of the building. Now,it’s obvious that there is a relation between the action and the violence around us.

But also,there are contingent histories,the history of painting. Painting,as a cliche,has been this notion that the artist takes a bag of paint and throws it at the wall of the studio. The corner is fundamental to architecture. So,it’s as if one is doing cultural damage. Shooting at the corner is like taking down one of the pediments of cultural endeavour. So,all sorts of things come out of the process of making work. Are they political? I didn’t set out to make a political work,but a good work accumulates all these layers of meaning.

The other thing you say is that an artist should not speak too much about his work because if you do,there is not much left for the viewer.

What I’ve said is that I’ve nothing to say as an artist. I’m perfectly able to speak about my work. Not having anything to say as an artist is a particular position because what it says is that one doesn’t need to. If I had something to say,I’d be in your profession. The studio,as I’ve said earlier,is a place in which things get discovered. I don’t necessarily know what I’m doing. And it’s the process that allows me to come to new meanings,new aesthetics,to put together things that weren’t apparently together to start with.

You also say you don’t like too many autobiographical elements in your work. You were born in Bombay,went to Doon School. Is there anything autobiographical in your work,a bit of India?

Inevitably. Let’s put it like this. I’ve always said that I’m not really interested in being an ‘Indian’ artist. What I want to do is be the best artist I can be. I’m Indian. My sensibility is Indian. And I welcome that,rejoice in that. But the great battle nowadays is to occupy an aesthetic territory that isn’t just linked to nationality. We don’t do that to American artists,we don’t do that to English artists,but,for some reason,there is a kind of obsessive need to give belonging to artists from South Asia. Why?

Take us through your process of thinking. Do you sketch? Do you draw?

I draw on the walls of the studio. And then from that,some objects start. I’ve been wanting,for many years,to make objects that are almost auto-generated. The fiction that a sculptor works with is that the objects will make themselves. So I invented a machine that churns out these objects,that lays them down. It’s a highly technical,computerised machine. But the objects that come out of it are extremely basic. They are anything but high technology.

So you have a thought and the rest just follows.

No. It’s a longer process. A thought may be the beginning of something. I’ll do a drawing and ask,could this be a form? Then I start to make it. How big is it? How does it relate to your body? It’s a long,discursive process,in which bits get determined as you go along. The whole object,the whole piece doesn’t exist until right at the end.

How does something like the Orbit come into being? This is what you’re building for the London Olympics,sponsored by ArcelorMittal.

I started out wanting to make a tower.

Towers,over the last few hundred years,have always been symmetrical. Symmetry supports itself. But my colleague Cecil Balmond and I want to see if it’s possible in the 21st century to reinvent a tower.

A chaotic tower.

Precisely. A tower that isn’t symmetrical,that winds around itself. I’m also interested in what happens to a viewer. There is a spiral right here (pointing to an image of Orbit),a staircase. Remember that this is 120 metres high. But as you enter,there’s a tall canopy,10 stories high,the underside of which is completely void. By void,I mean it’s a negative form. And here you completely stop,and see how you are in relation to this vast form. Then once you’ve done that for a while,a lift takes you up the tower to a platform. A platform is all about looking outwards. But yet again,there’s a series of events there,which turns the experience inwards. It isn’t just about looking out. So the whole process is very manipulative. It manipulates the viewer into a series of events.

I’ll tell you what it reminds me of. It reminds me of Indian democracy,politics,society: chaotic,wild,asymmetrical,diverse. It seems it can’t sustain itself or stay stable,but it does.

Now I know where you’re coming from,Shekhar. But I also agree that an object of this scale needs to be democratic. What does democratic mean in these circumstances? It means to invite participation. And a work can do that (when it creates) a certain level of fascination. It invites you because it is mysterious. It needs to compel a certain wish to participate.

Can we expect an Anish Kapoor installation at our Parliament? Or the India Gate? Has anybody talked to you about putting up an installation in India?

It’ll be fun. But on a serious level,those kinds of things are there to be done.

We’ll see. There are some discussions going on,amazingly enough,which are quite interesting.

Aren’t you also amazed and disappointed at how little public art there is in India?

It’s true and it’s sad. I think we are rich enough and culturally mature enough to do something about it.

Our skylines have been put together by builders and architects.

Exactly. We need to say that the quality of space,the quality of living is just as important. Not only for the rich. We’ve only just begun to recognise the scale of our soon-to-be massive cities. So we’ve got to understand those spaces and make them liveable.

Is the notion that there is a contradiction between great art and good economics fallacious?

I did this project in Chicago,Cloud Gate. It was an installation in a part of Chicago where property values were very,very low. We went there with some real serious aspirations,I’d say,in terms of quality. And property values went up 10-fold in two years. It makes economic sense in the end. Quality and economics run together. They’re not opposed to each other.

That’s why it’s also disappointing that we did not use the Commonwealth Games to build something of this quality in Delhi.

It’s a shame. Beijing,for whatever one’s view of it politically,did at least get that right at the Olympics. I had problems with its politics,but aesthetically,it was very,very bold.

When did you discover you had this talent?

I was very lucky. I went to art school in the ’70s in the UK. At that time,there couldn’t have been 10 artists making a living here.

When did you realise that you wanted to be an artist?

When I was 17. I always thought,like all good Indian boys,that I was going to be an engineer or a professional.

Did you go to your parents and say I want to go to art school?

I did. And they were horrified. But,bless them,they made it possible. So I came to the UK,I went to art school and as I was saying,in the ’70s,we didn’t imagine that it would be possible to make a living as an artist. By 1980,things had changed. I’ve lived off my work ever since. So I am very lucky to be in a world where art has a certain currency. It’s very important to reach beyond the art world. There’s a big world out there,which is more engaging. It’s important to make work in a language that goes beyond the dialogues of the art world.

Is the journey to India a part of that?

Absolutely. I hope that we can bring in the public to the shows. And not just the art world. We have to be able to say there’s a certain kind of modernity that is properly Indian and belongs to all of us.

Do you keep track of the artistic talent coming out of India?

There are many,many colleagues,across generations. There is a new generation engaged in a certain sort of post-pop sensibility,but prior to that,you know,what amazing talent. There’s much that’s happening in India.

Is there something that you’d like to say to them?

Keep going. We have to fulfil our mission as artists. Not just to identify ourselves in terms of our subcontinental origins but really to fulfil the potential of the individual as an inventor.

We have an identity obsession sometimes.

Yes. I think it gets in the way.

It gets in the way?

As an artist,all inventiveness relies,in the end,on the ability of the artist,man or woman,to invent a world.

To make an aesthetic context. If that context is always a tribute to our Indianness,what we do is rob the inventiveness of the artist. So it does get in the way.

Because if one looks at your life,it’s as if you have been reinventing your identity.

I think we have to,we have to. What is the adventure of living if…

If everything is sorted out the day you’re born.

If you don’t dare to look hard at what you’ve done and why you did it and whether it’s good enough.

That’s the most fascinating thing about you. The daring and the scale,how you challenge yourself and please billlions around the world.

That’s what you have to dare to do as an artist.

That’s why,welcome to India. All of us are waiting.

Thank you very,very much.

(Transcribed by Rajkrishnan Menon; read the full interview at www.indianexpress.com)