Page 47 - Studio International - September 1969

1
Drawing 1967
22 x 32 in.
2
Drawing March 1969
3
Sphingid 1967
Fibreglass, polyurethene, lacquer and brass
5 ft 6 in. x 3 ft x 2 ft 6 in.
Nagakao, Japan, Museum of Modern Art

from your own experiences ? LINDSAY: But abject terror of dying that way— want it to be dense, about (as I've said) the
SANDLE: Well, I think it is a paradigm for not about death, actually. stickiness of experience. I can only do this by
certain human ideas about death. And for SANDLE: Well, actually, death then—I didn't being very, very involved, with the actual
what I can see, why the people have reacted want to die then and at that particular mo- process.
to it and what they have told me, this is some- ment. I thought it was very likely that I would LINDSAY: When can that sculpture or object
thing which comes off very strongly. It's about have done. So all I could do was scream—in an ever leave you ?
the ambiguity of death—it's not the fact that animal way. SANDLE : There is in the process a moment of
one dies and that's it—and the worms eat you LINDSAY: But isn't it extraordinary, Michael, decision-making when part of you says to
up and, you know, finish. One has a very that this obsession with death pushes you yourself that is how it is going to be, then that
ambiguous relationship with death. further into life ! is how it's going to be, come what may.
LINDSAY : I remember in this very room having SANDLE : I think it pushes me into trying to LINDSAY: You've made the decision and then
a five-day interview with Ionesco entirely on mature inside, into a condition where I can the object leaves you. When you start a new
the death-wish, which occupied him since the accept the world as it is. I don't mean the one, what's the process? Why do you ever
age of seven when he looked into a mug and political world or the economical world—I start a new one ? If you have put into that one
saw a black spider. mean certain aspects of life—of mortality—try all the experiences of thirty-two years.
SANDLE : I can understand that. The same to contain it and I find this difficult—I mean— SANDLE : Because you can never completely do
thing obtains for my life : as a child I was I am concerned with transience. Or because that. The interesting thing is about thirty-two
obsessed with death—I was terrified of the idea of these things—I mean—it's not easy for me to years as a receptacle of experience—I mean,
of death. talk very succinctly about my sculpture. It is there is—I have enough ideas to keep me going
It was just something I recognized—a terror — because obviously I am not involved in formal now, if I live to 100, working from a backlog of
I've never seen a dead body, a dead person problems as such. I look at modern sculpture— ideas. One is never satisfied. If I thought it was
—it's just a concept which I found that I had. and it bores the shit out of me because I just true, that I put it all in Oranges and lemons—
I remember seeing (I've told you this), I saw don't know how you make any kind of value it was a very concentrated thing. I did put
Bud Abbot and Lou Costello in 'The Ghost- judgment. everything that I had in it. It was more than
Hunters'. I was terrified—the construction I LINDSAY: To arrive at your complexity one has just a piece of sculpture—it was an attempt to
put on that film—and for years afterwards— to be very disciplined. Is the mark you make on break through a barrier—an emotional and
there's a chase—well, I think they're being each corner, on each crevice, on each contour psychological barrier—a magical act.That was
chased by a black car and people firing from the one you want to make ? why it was done with such intensity. I did it in
the black car. For years and years afterwards SANDLE : Well, it's all I've got. It's an addendum fourteen weeks working night and day.
I thought of black cars with absolute distaste, which leads to the density of the work. I LINDSAY: You see, I think the great change in
you know—unease. believe that—let's go back to what I was saying this sort of artistic output, Michael, is that if
LINDSAY: Could you ever conceive of the idea before—that any position I have vis-a-vis con- you read into the past artists were definitely
that death was a very exciting thing? temporary sculpture is that I find it shallow, working for an audience. Now when you talk
SANDLE: Well—I could—but I must say, when thin, easily forgotten. It's about certain cate- to an artist of integrity, on the whole he is
I was almost electrocuted, all I could feel was gories of experience only. I want my work to be always occupied with fulfilling his own
abject terror. about very many categories of experience. I experiences.