Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/383350
3 Q & A 1. You were born in Israel but have lived and worked in New York since 1975. Have you found over the years that the American influence has become more dominant? I was born and raised on a farm in Israel so the foundation of my artistic sensibility and my incredible love for the earth were developed there. In that sense, I'm an Israeli sculptor. However, it wasn't until I moved to New York, aged 24, that I discovered the local bluestone and slate that comprise the majority of my work, which has shaped me as an American sculptor. Although these two countries have definitely made me into who I am today as a sculptor, I also believe that one's connection to Mother Earth is universal, and therefore exists no matter where one is. 2. At the heart of your practice are the materials and your process. How important is it where you source them and can you elaborate on your process? It is very important for me to be able to source the materials from the immediate environment I live and work in. When I arrived in New York I saw workers ripping up the sidewalks in my area. All of the sidewalks in SoHo were bluestone, and the workmen were throwing the pieces of stone away. I suddenly had free materials to which I felt a primal connection! I had a shopping cart and I went around and picked up this natural stone from the urban environment. This relationship serves as a constant reminder of my connection to Mother Earth. Regarding my process, I carve each individual piece of stone with a hammer and chisel, exposing the stratified layers of stone. I stack these stones to create figurative sculptures. My process parallels natural transformations in stone, and also recalls ancient methods of construction that relied on the cut and weight of the stone rather than on mortar. I then glue and bolt the stones together for safety and permanency. The pieces look as though created by wind, water or other natural forces. 3. Why did you decide to work in bronze? Casting my stone sculptures in bronze came very naturally to me. I have always had a great respect for the tradition of bronze work in figurative sculpture and casting my work in bronze connects it to that tradition. I also keep one bronze from each edition to loan to municipalities and museums for shows, which allows me to share my work with the public throughout the world. 4. Your work has been placed in many prominent collections, private and public, around the world- are there any of particular significance to you? It's a great pleasure for me to know that many private collectors enjoy living with my work – it's become part of their lives. I'm very proud of all of my public pieces, as they offer a wonderful, informal way for the public to interact with my work. The most significant to me is "Asaf and Yo'ah" at the Time Warner Center in New York. Living nearby, this installation allows me to watch the public reacting to my work. I believe that this interaction is where art exists. In 1986, the addition of my sculpture "Shani" to The Metropolitan Museum's collection was also personally very rewarding. This is a museum I visit often, it is a great source of inspiration for my work, and so this was a moment of great recognition by my city. 5. Your work references Man as a universal symbol. Why did you decide to personalise the figures by naming them? In the beginning names were only given to identify each piece. When I started doing figurative work I was living in SoHo. I had a mattress in my studio that was always being slept on by an Israeli relation or family friend. I would name my pieces after whoever was there at the time. So Yonatan visited and the piece was "Yonatan", then Moshe visited and it was "Moshe". It was only later on that someone pointed out that all of my sculpture titles were Biblical names, and so I decided to honour my roots and to use the Old Testament as the source for the names of my pieces. 6. What is the significance that animals hold for you? As I grew up on a farm, my relationship to animals is very personal. I depict animals that have had a strong connection to humans for thousands of years. I remember watching sheep in the desert: when they walk, they gather together. Where they touch, several layers of stone connect the sheep. The same is true for my figures – for instance, in the way that a woman hugs a man. The layers of stone connect the figures or animals in a primal way. I incorporated animals into my work as a means of further exploring the connection between humans and nature. 7. Your recent slate relief piece "Family Relief" is quite different, stylistically, from your other work. What was the inspiration for this? Were you looking at reliefs from antiquity? "Family Relief" is the first of a new series that I'm extremely excited to work on. Although the pieces generally follow the same rules that my free-standing figures adhere to, they present their own set of considerations, allowing me to expand my vocabulary and create human poses that I could not have done in my free-standing sculptures. I've already finished quite a few clay studies for the next reliefs that I'm going to be working on in the next few years. And yes, I looked at both ancient and contemporary relief work for inspiration.