Page 53 - Studio International - December 1965

Phillip King

0: Why the preoccupation with a cone shape?
A: First of all I started making elements stand up by
their mutual pressure at the top, thus forming a triangle.
This seemed a way of getting out of the standing piling
up idea, without losing anything. In an attempt to
make mass less a question of weight in the material, I
started using the split cone, and the elements became
sheets in the shape of semi-cones. More recently I
have come to use the cone more because it is such an
extremely stable shape, that has maximum mass for its
volume and can allow maximum manceuvrability in an
effort to make mass controllable in terms of shape,
volume, surface, colour, contour, space .

0: You seem to be uninterested in using engineering
processes in your work. True?
A: Yes.

0: If you had unlimited money would your working
processes change much? Are you impeded at all by
_Q_Qb__aving the ideal amount of money to work with?
How do you think money affects a sculptor's work?
(For example, could you do a lot more work not from
the point of view of producing more objects for sale,
but of realizing your ideas with greater intensity,
getting further along and deeper.)
A: No-money would mean more time to work.
Possibly casting work in harder materials but I would
Genghis Khan 1963 around a bursting event using flowing forms, bounded still work in polyester resin as I find it a very flexible
Plastic medium.
7 X 12 ft. in by side walls and the ground.
Collection: Stuyvesant Foundation Associations tend to be more about general human
symbolic gestures or phenomenal events than about 0: There appears to be rather vague mythological
particular objects. As far as a segmental view of nature overtones to your work. True 7 Why, and what is your
is concerned. The fact that the total unity is so evident attitude towards the whole question of mythology?
in my work would perhaps make the parts seem like A: None.
segments of the whole. I am concerned however with
giving the parts an individual character. The changes 0: Comment: The majority of your images appear to
and variations of these parts are made through simple be basically frontal (at least, in comparison to Caro).
directions like distance from ground, or away from Have you anything specific to say about this, for
the centre, or directions to the right or the left from a example, the question of emblemism, etc.
frontal position, positions of parts in the zones of A: I do not want my sculpture to have a main viewing
verticality, horizontality or obliqueness. A parallel in point or front, but to be a front. Because once a
nature would be the refraction of an object between air sculpture is given a front or main viewing point, there
and water. Shape changes as a new zone is entered. is a danger that the rest may become a matter of design
and elaboration only. Where sides and back follow
0: Some writers have connected your work with cleverly the general impetus given by the front.
surrealism. (There are obviously many different I want to avoid having to make my secondary
aspects: a lot depends on what they mean by sur­ decisions other than the initial ones that contain the
realism). Do you have any particular view? If so, what? meaning of the sculpture. These initial and fundamental
A: I would say that one could count on the fingers of decisions however take place in three dimensional
one hand the artists of the 20th century that could be pace. Frontal sculpture perhaps, but not flat sculpture.
said not to have some sort of connection with Two dimensional elements exist but they play against
surrealism, in its broadest sense. I don't think I am three dimensional ones and articulate the objects
amongst those few. according to its needs. Outside contour can work with
or against inside shape, making it more or less tangible.
0: What does scale mean to you? Do you deliberately The use of simple horizontal vertical co-ordinates, tend
distort the size of familiar forms? Is the size of your to make points along the sculpture more measurable
image critical in any way? How do you know? to the viewer. The manner in which the sculpture
A: Associations with objects of known size from the occupies the ground may be manifestly clear also.
outside world helps. For example the rope at the top The ground contour will be regular or perhaps areas of
of Tra-/a-!a and my own physical size is the standard common ground to the viewer may be visible inside
gauge adopted and I may move up or down from these the sculpture. But these tangible factors may disappear
according to the pull of associations. But it is not just or be reduced in relation to other factors. For instance,
a matter of eye level. My own skin area or shape the all round contour of Genghis Khan has more formal
complexity, or volume, will also be a guide to determine entity than the ground contour and it also echoes it
size. Proportions may be gauged this way too. It is a and dominates it, thereby helping to make the sculpture
matter of accommodating all these factors together. float off the ground. ■
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