Page 18 - Studio International - January 1966

Forge Well, this is what I wanted to ask you. If you
Rainfall 1964 Steel painted green 4ft. high x 8ft. 3in. x 4ft. 4in.
Bennington 1964 Painted steel 3ft. 4in. high x 13ft. 10in. x 11ft. 1 bin.
Pulse 1964 Painted steel 1ft. 9 1/2 in high x 4ft. 8in. x 9ft. 7in.
got to the point where you were working in some
anonymous material, it would still be a technique of
joining one thing to another, would it?
Caro You can't of course see very far ahead what
you're going to make next, but as I see, this is the way
that my mind has been working since I started to do
this sort of thing, and probably would go on.
Forge Would it be possible to put into words why
this way of working has this particular hold for you ?
Why, if you can make one form or relationship of forms
by joining one piece to another, can you not make the
thing as a whole piece?
Caro Perhaps it would be easier if I explained the way
that I set about these sort of things. I have a piece
which I put in my studio, and it strikes me as being
O.K. ; but that it just needs something—or maybe a
number of things—to make it work. Very much like
a note, to which you add another note and you finally
have a piece of music. And I don't think there's anything
basically against working in the way you suggest, it's
just that it hasn't come to mind, especially with these
particular materials. I think this whole operation for me
doesn't come out of a concept in the mind, it comes 4
out of some vague idea, plus the stuff.
Forge The actual stuff ?
Caro Yes, the presence of the stuff in fact. You have
to lift it and put it here and that leads you to do other
things, just as a painter is influenced by the viscosity
of paint.
Forge This perhaps suggests the reason why the
structure of your pieces is somehow very distinct from
the structure of other abstract sculpture which, I think,
could also be said to be based on a sort of additive
principle but which explores some very clear cut
formalistic concept. I suppose constructivism itself, -
the tradition of constructivism, is one which embraces
the idea of additive sculpture, but it's also based on very A
strong formal concepts. Would you say that your
sculpture was formalistic?
Caro No. I don't think it is. For me, it's to do with a
fusion of form and content into something like an
expression. It's not easy to get the right words for this.
Forge But the main impulse is a direct relationship
with the thing, as a thing, isn't it?
Caro Yes.
Forge For the onlooker in the gallery, very much of
that character, the actual character of the piece is
connected with the fact that it's one colour, rather
than another, that there is a piece of blue iron or a
sheet of yellow steel or whatever it might be. Now at
what point does colour enter into your relationship
with the work ?
Caro At the end. I find that I make the work, and I
have to coat it with some anti-rust material unless it's
going to have some different treatment altogether.
And then I give it a colour. Sometimes the colour's
wrong for the sculpture, in which case it has to be
re-painted, sometimes it seems to call for a certain
colour. But it's to do with the emotive character of a
thing.