WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.160 [New York Close Up] 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:08.900 [Wu Tang Clan's "C.R.E.A.M." playing in the background] 00:00:17.700 --> 00:00:19.460 I don't want to see what I'm working on. 00:00:26.400 --> 00:00:31.940 The head is like the only thing on your body that you can't really see, 00:00:31.949 --> 00:00:35.789 so, I want to make that part without seeing it. 00:00:36.420 --> 00:00:38.400 Kind of like this. 00:00:38.400 --> 00:00:40.360 [Diana Al-Hadid, Artist] 00:00:40.360 --> 00:00:47.680 The work that I make mostly starts without knowing very much about what I'm doing. 00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:49.140 I surrender to that. 00:00:50.809 --> 00:00:55.149 I want to know what I don't know, kind of-- 00:00:55.149 --> 00:00:58.809 want to know the limits of my thinking. 00:01:00.789 --> 00:01:04.739 A lot of my work starts with the material and starts with the careful study of 00:01:04.739 --> 00:01:08.519 what it can do or what it can't do. 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:12.840 It's getting a material to misbehave. 00:01:12.840 --> 00:01:16.060 --[AL-HADID] If we start it here and let it connect to that... 00:01:16.070 --> 00:01:17.030 --[ASSISTANT] Okay. 00:01:17.030 --> 00:01:23.149 [AL-HADID] Asking a good question produces really interesting answers or amazing discoveries. 00:01:23.149 --> 00:01:25.530 --[AL-HADID] So then maybe we start bridging these, like... 00:01:25.530 --> 00:01:26.090 --[ASSISTANT] Yeah. 00:01:26.090 --> 00:01:31.509 [AL-HADID] Artists are making those discoveries all the time, every day, in their studio. 00:01:31.509 --> 00:01:34.889 --[AL-HADID] And they're going to go on here...-ish. 00:01:36.260 --> 00:01:37.160 Maybe. 00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:45.409 I don't make work because I'm interested in something. 00:01:45.409 --> 00:01:47.270 I don't want to explain it to you. 00:01:47.270 --> 00:01:51.790 I'm making it to become interested. 00:01:53.740 --> 00:01:57.980 ["Diana Al-Hadid's Suspended Reality"] 00:01:57.980 --> 00:01:59.980 [1986; Cleveland, Ohio] 00:02:00.700 --> 00:02:05.160 Well, I probably had an atypical childhood. 00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:09.649 When I was in first grade, when I first moved here from Syria, 00:02:09.649 --> 00:02:14.260 you know, I didn't speak English, and couldn't read and write. 00:02:15.400 --> 00:02:19.640 I was the weird immigrant kid that drew a lot. 00:02:19.640 --> 00:02:22.880 [LAUGHS] I should show you what I was drawing. 00:02:22.880 --> 00:02:23.660 [Drawings, c. 1990–94] 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:30.960 My grandma, she's a painter, and she told me if you could learn to draw hands, 00:02:30.970 --> 00:02:34.200 and people, then you were really an artist. 00:02:34.200 --> 00:02:37.900 So [LAUGHS] I tried that. 00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:47.200 I think a lot of kids draw still life, or draw from a photograph, 00:02:47.690 --> 00:02:51.440 but, I wanted my drawing to look more real than the photograph. [LAUGHS] 00:02:52.220 --> 00:02:54.520 [MARIANNE BOESKY] That's amazing! Look at that! 00:02:55.440 --> 00:02:58.280 Okay, who would've thought you could make a drawing like this. 00:02:58.280 --> 00:03:01.079 [AL-HADID] [LAUGHS] I started drawing like that. 00:03:02.520 --> 00:03:03.880 [BOESKY] This is incredible. [ALL LAUGH] 00:03:03.889 --> 00:03:05.469 [Marianne Boesky -- Gallerist] 00:03:05.660 --> 00:03:07.519 [AL-HADID] So, yeah, fast forward to now, 00:03:07.519 --> 00:03:12.840 I think that all of that, probably, middle-school anxiety-- 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:17.310 you know, every little pen mark, every little pencil-- 00:03:17.310 --> 00:03:24.250 was a building of layers and developing something larger. 00:03:26.880 --> 00:03:32.340 You know, I have some rogue interest in physics and math. 00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:35.720 Sculpture is inherently mathematical. 00:03:35.729 --> 00:03:39.789 It lives in this world. It has to obey the laws of gravity, unfortunately. 00:03:43.160 --> 00:03:46.260 I don't know, I think I have painting envy. 00:03:47.200 --> 00:03:50.480 Like, I was looking up northern Renaissance or Mannerist paintings... 00:03:50.480 --> 00:03:51.420 [Paintings, c. 1420–1528] 00:03:51.660 --> 00:03:55.680 They have so many more liberties in terms of scale and mass, 00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:59.740 and especially gravity and levity and illusion. 00:04:00.329 --> 00:04:04.750 You know, I'm dealing with actual space and actual gravity, 00:04:04.750 --> 00:04:11.750 and they get to do things that I wish I could make; but, it's not possible. 00:04:18.060 --> 00:04:20.160 [Sound of metal being sawed] 00:04:21.829 --> 00:04:26.869 [Marianne Boesky Gallery -- Chelsea] 00:04:30.919 --> 00:04:37.919 For me, to get a sculpture to lift off the floor, that's the first way to rebel. 00:04:39.860 --> 00:04:42.900 It's just the main event. 00:04:43.780 --> 00:04:46.199 I do go to great lengths [LAUGHS] to get things off the ground, 00:04:46.199 --> 00:04:47.819 I don't know if people realize, how... 00:04:47.819 --> 00:04:51.949 I mean, always have things just...argh! It's really horrible. 00:04:52.580 --> 00:04:56.080 They want to fall, and they don't fall, miraculously, 00:04:56.080 --> 00:05:00.620 But that's because I work really hard at getting them not to fall. 00:05:03.980 --> 00:05:08.980 That's what I labor with every day, and I think what I want left 00:05:08.990 --> 00:05:13.950 is not to burden you with all of those mechanical details. 00:05:15.120 --> 00:05:17.280 ["At the Vanishing Point" -- 2012] 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:22.780 ["Divided Line" -- 2012] 00:05:26.200 --> 00:05:29.940 Making these large works, what concerns me the most 00:05:29.949 --> 00:05:36.210 is how to get you to pay attention to weight and volume and space 00:05:36.210 --> 00:05:38.770 and interiors and exteriors. 00:05:45.220 --> 00:05:46.720 ["Antonym" -- 2012] 00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:49.780 I don't know, I want to make something that seems really improbable. 00:05:53.220 --> 00:05:55.720 ["Suspended After Image" -- 2012] 00:05:57.020 --> 00:05:59.220 I have enough reality in my life, 00:05:59.229 --> 00:06:04.090 and, not that I live in some weird fantasy world, 00:06:04.090 --> 00:06:07.749 but I want to weigh in a little bit on the other side.