Page 48 - Studio International - September 1969

SANDLE: I think this must come into it. Very I used to think—they were quite probably 4
Drawing for Per Gesualdo February 1969
much so. I would say that I'm working for an common fantasies, but notwithstanding, I Photographs: Hugh Green
audience. If I make a decision that this is going would have felt very naked without them.
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to be a —in the primary sense a paradigm case LINDSAY: Yes. I would say to you, Mike, that Per Gesualdo in progress, Spring 1969
for my experience—it is also positing... that, the visual artist is in much graver difficulties Fibreglass, lacquer and brass
well, it is going to be a paradigm—if I'm than anything he conceives nowadays, because 6
lucky—if I'm honest—if I'm not mistaken it's in fact the visual influences from childhood Sheet of working drawings February 1967
going to be a universal paradigm. Okay, you come through not as very deep influences but
cannot say I am now going to construct a as sort of passing phenomena—it's things that
universal paradigm for death—because you are presented to you like in films or on tele-
could fall flat on your face—you could use vision and so on. So in fact to have a presence
emblems or whatever—the sort of sign every- in one's own work of art must be very, very
one reacts to, but it may be nothing, it may difficult now. Because it means that the
add up to nothing, just trite and banal. public is not educated to be in front of a
LINDSAY: Is the audience going to perceive presence. When you saw 'awe', I call it a
your experiences ? presence. I mean I feel it in your sculpture, and
SANDLE: I think that if they are—if they feel a for this reason I am so very attached and
degree of awe—if they feel awe then they're fascinated and interested in it and believe in it.
sharing the primary experience that has led It has a presence that most things have not for
me to make it. I would be satisfied. If they feel me any more. And therefore I was very
disquiet, if it effects them in that way, then interested to find out how you achieved it,
obviously they're sharing the kind of experi- because I did not expect you to answer that
ence that led me to such effort ... I think it is you achieved it through something of the
possible, yes. American dream. I thought you achieved it by
LINDSAY: But you have a very ironical side to a much more inner spiritual experience.
your character, Michael. So how do you SANDLE : The American dream which I am
manage to transcend that side in front of the talking about now—childhood experience—I mirror with five different angles.
awe that you want to impart with the finished mean I'm not taken in by the American dream SANDLE: This is probably a good illustration.
thing? I mean you may have a labyrinthine —something that I have consciously reacted Yes. I would deny that human sexuality was
mind, but you have a very direct satirical, against particularly when I was in my late— the thing behind my work. I would deny that
ironic attitude too. early—middle twenties. I was not going to be out of hand. But I think that what is involved
SANDLE : That comes into the things that one seduced by that kind of rubbish. But one has to in death—it's pretty obvious that you can't
accepts. One doesn't accept, but one realizes accept that no matter how banal or corny the escape sex which is involved in life, and yet it
that one has these centres to one's personality. ideas are, the construction put on them—it has been my experience—I have seen it in-
Which are, dread, awe, fear, disquiet—that really does relate to your inner life—the fact volved in death. When one says death, one
one has other areas where one experiences—I that I thought of death in terms of a paradig- isn't necessarily talking about the death of the
mean I have quite ludicrous thoughts, I don't matic Deadwood Dick doesn't in any way take body—one's talking about the death of the
mind telling you—I used to, not quite so much away from the fact that I was involved in a spirit—or the death of the personality—decay—
now—used to have definite marked feelings of very basic, human dread of—one thinks in and it must surely be true that sex is not some-
megalomania which I recognize as such. And terms of—or as a child one thought in terms of thing which—all right, this isn't superficial,
they were ludicrous, heroic thoughts, you see. going off a hero figure. Again this is a sort of— casual sex—but one sees that there's a limit—a
It amused me to have what one might say part of—or was part of human mythology. It's conflict—it's something which effects people,
were baroque Hollywood fantasies. I saw them a question of having a capacity for experienc- something which is a very powerful force. I
as such. ing human attitudes and the fact that it may have been coming to terms with my own
LINDSAY: What do you mean, baroque Holly- come from the excess—the banalities of a sexuality—my ideas about sex, my fantasies—
wood fantasies ? Hollywood dream factory—it doesn't negate particularly my fantasies about sex. For me my
SANDLE: Mannered. them because it is a construct from within work has been a way of effecting a psycho-
LINDSAY : But were they impelled by something using that as material. This is—happened to be analysis. I did have a lot of pressures on me. I
you saw ? part of the raw material of my life. I mean I got certain aspects of my own life, particularly
SANDLE : Of course they were, they were com- can remember all sorts of ridiculous private my fantasy life, which caused me a great deal
pounded of the Hollywood doctrine. As a child fantasies I had as a result of the cinema. Which of very real disquiet. I think it still does cause
I went to the pictures — is something just to be accepted. me disquiet.
LINDSAY : In fact films have had an enormous LINDSAY: Where do you seek your experiences LINDSAY : Do you resolve it with another person,
effect. now ? or do you resolve it on your own? Do you find
SANDLE : I wouldn't say 'enormous' but some- SANDLE: They are within me. They are a com- another person can resolve it with you ?
where along the line you realize you've got pound of being in the present so that my day- SANDLE : It's difficult to say. I think that clearly
attitudes and you want to know where they've to-day experience of just walking around with the answer to that is yes. But there are aspects
come from. As a child, not so much now but as my eyes open, I may see something which will of one's own soul, shall we say, that can only be
a child, I realized I had all kinds of fantasies match something which has been buried for resolved by oneself. I see it all as a process, an
which were made up of my reactions to the a moment. And I do quite a lot of drawings for ontological process, primarily—and the work
cinema. Hence, as a child, I used to think that the reason that I dredge up from my experi- then is to this end, a development—which is
when I died I would have a gold tomb of my- ence these—they start as being ideas. The more based on certain chance things in my life—you
self as Deadwood Dick, you see with a real I think about them, the more they have _know, accidents or developments or environ-
gun, all in gold, and for some reason or other become solidified into something. ment—that one realizes that these conflicts—it's
that comforted me and I thought, well, I LINDSAY: I don't see sex as being something that not a sexual conflict but a conflict between
could accept the idea of death provided I've motivates you, I see you looking at it in—at being extremely puritan and extremely
got a tomb that is of me, in this fantasy. And about five different angles, as if you had a sensual.
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