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Ursula von Rydingsvard in "Ecology" - Season 4 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

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    URSULA VON RYDINGSVARD:
    My work is so labor intensive that often
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    I'm doing things that are highly repetitive
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    in order to get to the end of 
    the piece or of the project.
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    It's actually pretty easy to have an image,
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    but to realize it is a deep deal.
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    Often when you're in the 
    process of realizing an image,
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    it's going somewhere else.
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    If that tangent starts going off in 
    a place that feels more exciting,
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    that's what I go with.
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    I grew up as one of seven children
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    in the post-World War II refugee 
    camps for Polish people in Germany.
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    My parents were extraordinary survivors,
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    and my home was one in which 
    words were not used very often,
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    and in fact anybody that used too 
    many words was automatically suspect.
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    I drank from the world through visual means.
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    That was a huge source of the 
    information by which I lived.
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    I learned you smile but you ration that.
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    You laugh, but not very frequently,
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    and really at appropriate times.
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    And that working hard was the answer to life.
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    I almost think of it as the way 
    that the Shakers might live.
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    We stayed in wooden barracks,
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    raw wooden floors, raw wooden walls
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    and raw wooden ceilings so
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    somewhere in my blood I'm 
    dipping into that source.
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    I build everything out of cedar.
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    Very neutral. Almost like a piece of paper.
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    When we build the sculpture, 
    we build it layer by layer.
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    I draw the outside lines of each 
    of the pieces that you see here.
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    The cutters cut them.
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    We put them back here.
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    We then mark it precisely.
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    On the outside--you see some 
    of these marks on the outside?
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    And on the inside, on the top portions these marks
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    are actually the most precise of all
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    so that if any one of these pieces 
    were to be tossed or to be lost,
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    we could find them and put 
    them back where they belong.
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    We build it and screw it all together.
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    And then we take it off layer by layer by layer
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    in order to glue it layer by layer.
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    The cutters by the way are 
    the princes of my studio.
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    There are cutters who cut lyrically,
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    there are cutters who cut very aggressively,
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    and depending on what I need, that's who I use.
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    In order to make an organic form you 
    need to have many, many straight cuts.
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    The surface is a kind of landscape 
    that I get carried away with.
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    My definition of a landscape 
    that could also have to do with
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    the kind of psychological landscape 
    or an emotional landscape.
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    Graphite is a very, very fine 
    powder and because it's so fine,
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    it's able to get into the pores of the cedar.
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    I really put it on in a very hefty way so that
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    I really grind it with a brush into the surface.
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    And then we scoured the surface to further define
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    what I wanted the surface to do
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    because that surface is extremely important to me
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    in terms of communicating emotionally.
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    I never do a model–
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    I never do drawings for my works–
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    because they close me in.
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    Because they limit my options.
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    You can't get too predictable.
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    You have to have surprises all over the place.
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    If for nothing else, then 
    just to keep my head going–
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    keep my mind alive.
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    But I think to have any level of interest
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    you have to have some sort of combat, you know,
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    that's occurring within the work.
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    And anger has been a tremendous 
    mobilizing force for me.
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    I'm grateful to my anger.
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    The confrontation in part lies 
    with my struggle with the cedar.
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    It's always telling me what it needs to do
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    and I think that I'm trying to 
    tell it what I want it to do.
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    This is a sculpture that I want 
    to look as though it's ravaged.
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    As though it's been kind of beaten up by life.
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    Anything that has to do with chaos is as 
    interesting if not more so than order.
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    This is a machine that's meant only 
    for metal to grind on top of wood
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    and what it does is it burns its surface.
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    For me, that's what gives it a whole 
    other landscape and a whole other depth.
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    Mine are definitely not utilitarian objects
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    but I learned from that which is vernacular.
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    I consider these my drawings.
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    They are three-dimensional but 
    they're actually quite complicated
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    in terms of all of the markings on their surface.
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    This is chalk and that's graphite.
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    It's made out of wood--out of cedar, obviously–
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    but it's still lace because it 
    wanders in a way that's very wayward
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    and it's very open.
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    You can see through it.
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    I deliberately, consciously,
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    set out to make it feel and look light.
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    I love the man-made and nature kind of 
    really becoming fused or becoming one.
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    For the project at Madison Square Park,
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    the urethane bonnet, I wanted a transparent look–
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    a look of walls that the light went through.
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    I wanted a very agitated surface and the hood that 
    is over the bonnet is almost like a little porch.
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    It's very erratic and it's very celebratory
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    and it needed that translucency of the light.
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    I think there were twelve marriages 
    that took place inside the bonnet.
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    Certainly that part of the 
    piece was a big success.
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    I do have books that I've written in.
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    I use this as a way to talk to myself
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    and I write down my dreams,
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    documenting them is one of the 
    things that makes me feel lighter.
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    I draw because it's something that 
    I like to do from time to time.
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    I've never shown my drawings–
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    I'm very shy about my drawings.
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    They really are mine.
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    I can't help but think right now that
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    maybe the best drawings are the 
    ones that I leave for a while.
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    Let it gestate because as time goes by
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    I think it becomes more and more obvious.
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    This particular drawing I've 
    worked on for I think over a year.
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    It's almost like a patchwork quilt you know?
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    And I think of these things not really as sewing,
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    maybe as cuts that the surgeon then sews later.
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    I think of them as a kind of landscape 
    that you look at from the top.
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    This piece is the most baroque 
    piece that I've done in my life.
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    It's also the kind of landscape 
    you find on a human body.
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    The interiors of these pouches 
    had a tremendous amount to do with
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    defining what the exterior does.
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    I want people to enjoy the 
    voluptuousness of the piece.
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    I want the piece to walk with them.
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    I feel that anchoring these 
    structures and anchoring these forms
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    is a part of the power behind how it speaks.
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    Gravity serves an incredibly 
    important purpose for me.
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    This wall pocket has a flat, flat back
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    because it actually can edge up against a wall.
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    There's kind of a humbleness to it.
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    There's almost an introverted feel that it has.
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    I need the inside to be as 
    carefully considered as the outside.
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    And I have this idea of almost like 
    something that would–
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    you know, almost like something that a body could excavate from.
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    You know, could sort of be 
    molded with and then escape from.
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    My whole cedar studio is loaded 
    with pieces that are unfinished
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    and I need all of those things 
    in my environment to feed me,
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    to give me always options.
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    Nothing can exist in my head without opposites.
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    The opposites don't have to be complete opposites,
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    but they can be things that 
    don't ordinarily belong together.
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    Within a piece that has tremendous 
    amount of agitation and agony,
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    there can also be something very hushed
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    and very quiet and very lyrical and very humane–
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    also within the context of something that 
    feels as though it's full of violence.
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    That within it one can have 
    something that feels humble
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    and that feels as though it's capable 
    of giving you a "głaskać po głowie" –
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    the capacity of petting you on the 
    head in a most gentle sort of way.
Title:
Ursula von Rydingsvard in "Ecology" - Season 4 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
Art21
Project:
"Art in the Twenty-First Century" broadcast series

English (United States) subtitles

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