The Chapel Hill weekly., 1962-12-09

ly that the second half Of the
twentieth century belonged to the
sculptor, and ] agree with this.
Sculpture has developed so
much >. chronological advances.
-. plastics. Painters still work
with paint. l mean, they have
the large molecule theory, but
in the end they're still spreading
paint on canvas. But sculptors
can do so much more now. l
certainly think it's going to go
farther in North Carolina.
Some people say they don't
like modern sculpture because it
doesn't look like anything. It's
a matter of experience. People
think of Greek sculpture as be-
ing sculpture something clas-
sic they know it They
look, say, at this work of mine
that won the prize, and they say
it doesn't look like anything.
Well. it depends on. your expert
ence. what you know. If you on
ly know a little bit, then your
experience is only a little bit.
If you know a lot, then your ex-
pefience is a lot. The value in
a piece of sculpture is what you
don't know about it, the uncer-
talntieS it has. The more uncer-
tainties, then the more informa-
tion it holds. People ask me all
the time about piece of sculp-
ture, What does it mean?' That's
a non-question. People are al
ways asking this non-question.
l say, 1t means everything a
non-answer for a non-question.
If they say, What is it?' l say
Its a piece of sculpture.
Look at it this way. Some
one asks this question and | ask,
do you read newspapers? Yes.
What do you do when you've
finished the newspaper? Throw
it away. He throws it away.
He's finished with it. He knows
it. 1t doesn't have any more
information for him. Do you read
Ezra Pound? Yes. When you've
finished reading Ezra Pound,
what do you do with the book?
Put it on the shelf. Why? Be-
cause l don't understand it. All!
He doesn't understand it, so he
keeps it, puts it on the shelf, he
can read it again later. It has
more information for him
''Venus de Milo? Do you know
where it is? Well, it's in the
Louvre. If you go into the Louv-
re the guard will just point off
somewhere, and that will be the
Venus de Milo. A little farther
on he'll just point again, and that
will be the Mona Lisa. The Mona
Lisa has become a sort of myth.
There was a DadaiSt who eX-
hibited a reproduction of the
Mona Lisa with a mustache
painted on it. I'm much more
interested in that -. Good or
bad, | can't tell good or bad, |
can only tell what I'm interested
in, what's imaginative. Good
taste, bad taste, don't know
anything about that.
"You want some coffee? We
have to make it,"
He wandered languidly out of
his little alcove office into anoth-
er room. The room looks like an
ordinary basement being used as
q sculpture classroom. That is
just what it is.
"YOu see these students in
here? It's quarter after ten. My
class in beginning sculpture does
MT start until eleven, but they're
in here. If you come down here
at ten o'clock at night, you'll find
somebody here, myself included"
The students were bent over
benches, working with clay. One
was hacksawing piece of steel.
Despite their casual conversation,
they were very intent. Mr.. How
ard ambled back into his alcove,
sat in his red leather swivel
chair, and began experimenting
with patterns of telegrammatic
sentences.
"We walk around in three di-
menSionS never think OF it,
walking around in an enormous
sculpture, the world Paint
ers take three dimensions and
lay them flat must take a
tremendous intellectual jump to
do that painting is an in
teHectual art sculpture is an
emotional art one man called
painting see space and sculp-
ture> feel space That's pretty
good. ! once almost got thrown
out of the Museum of Modern
Art because l walked up and
touched a piece of sculpture. But
you learn to feel with your eyes.
:. problem of visual commune
cation. | have thought of ex-