0:00:29 > 0:00:34In the history of British art, Sir Anthony Caro stands as a man of steel.
0:00:34 > 0:00:39Literally so in his choice of the material that brought him to prominence in the 1960s,
0:00:39 > 0:00:46when he began to weld together separate elements to create complex interlocking sculptures,
0:00:46 > 0:00:52leading to a series of large pieces in rusted, painted or rolled metal called The Flats.
0:00:52 > 0:00:57But he has also been metaphorically steely in the single-minded spirit of his career.
0:00:57 > 0:01:02Departing from the example of his mentor, the great British artist, Henry Moore,
0:01:02 > 0:01:07to sculpt in a variety of materials, including paper and different styles.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13When you look back at those decades of completed pieces,
0:01:13 > 0:01:18do you have a clear sense of where they came from or is there an element of mystery for you?
0:01:18 > 0:01:21I think you put
0:01:21 > 0:01:26yourself in a frame of mind to make art.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30When I go into the studio, I don't work on the most difficult thing,
0:01:30 > 0:01:36I start work on something I've almost got right and that gives me a bit of confidence and I go onto the next one
0:01:36 > 0:01:41and by the end of the morning I'm beginning to do the difficult things.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44Whether there is any mysteriousness,
0:01:44 > 0:01:48I don't know where it comes from.
0:01:48 > 0:01:55But I...I hesitate to invest
0:01:55 > 0:01:59the practice of sculpture with more than
0:01:59 > 0:02:02practical, down-to-earth things.
0:02:02 > 0:02:06I think I was asked some time in the early days,
0:02:06 > 0:02:09you know, "What do you think sculpture is?"
0:02:09 > 0:02:12And I said, sculpture is something outside of which you are.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16And then that made me think.
0:02:16 > 0:02:22Why should it not be something inside of which you are, as well as outside?
0:02:22 > 0:02:25Which is why I tried to make The Tower.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29And then I made Halifax Steps and so on,
0:02:29 > 0:02:32which is a work you can walk through.
0:02:32 > 0:02:38And now I'm thinking, maybe it could be something with only an inside and not an outside.
0:02:38 > 0:02:44All these are possibilities because you get trapped even by your own
0:02:44 > 0:02:49assumptions, your own statements are something you have to watch out for.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52They can... hold you like that, too.
0:02:52 > 0:02:57So always I think, don't take anything for granted.
0:02:57 > 0:03:00Do you feel always in control of what you're doing?
0:03:00 > 0:03:05I hope not. I think it's a dialogue between me and the stuff.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09And we've got to talk to each other and I have to listen
0:03:09 > 0:03:16to what these pieces of steel, wood, paper, whatever I'm working in, suggest.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19So, yes, I have a good idea of where I'm going
0:03:19 > 0:03:24but I don't want to be bound by it.
0:03:24 > 0:03:27I don't plan it ahead of time
0:03:27 > 0:03:30and say, I'm going to make this.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33I have an idea of where things are going.
0:03:33 > 0:03:35I mean, the direction things are going.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39But I let them talk to me, I let the stuff talk to me.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45There's a play by Sir Tom Stoppard, a fellow member of the Order of Merit,
0:03:45 > 0:03:49in which an artist is so worried about whether art can be justified
0:03:49 > 0:03:54that he ends up in a world where so many people are starving that he ends up making edible art,
0:03:54 > 0:04:00which he decides is the only solution, which is a very Stoppardian joke.
0:04:00 > 0:04:05Have you had periods in your life of worrying that art cannot be justified socially?
0:04:05 > 0:04:08Early on I felt that
0:04:08 > 0:04:10being a sculptor wasn't enough
0:04:10 > 0:04:15and that's why I was very keen to teach and I did teach.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19I think that justification was a sort of social thing
0:04:19 > 0:04:24but I don't think art needs that sort of justification.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27I mean, in the end we should be justifying Shakespeare.
0:04:27 > 0:04:31We should be justifying Rembrandt.
0:04:31 > 0:04:33And it's not all great.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37But...it's worth doing.
0:04:38 > 0:04:43It seems to me that the spirit or the soul or whatever has to be fed.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48And that decision early on to move sculpture off the plinth,
0:04:48 > 0:04:52that was just an instinct you had?
0:04:52 > 0:04:57No, I wanted to make it more... something like two people talking to each other
0:04:57 > 0:05:04rather than looking up at something and never having any contact.
0:05:04 > 0:05:10All the ones in Trafalgar Square, say, most of those...men on horses,
0:05:10 > 0:05:11they're just...
0:05:13 > 0:05:18..giving honour to these unknown generals.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23And I wanted to stop sculpture being that and make it something
0:05:23 > 0:05:29much more to involve us, to involve us personally.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32So it was literally a levelling,
0:05:32 > 0:05:36which some people would see as a political instinct, but was it?
0:05:36 > 0:05:40You happen to get taken up like that a bit.
0:05:40 > 0:05:42So much so that people were saying,
0:05:42 > 0:05:48the Tate Gallery is wrong because it's got steps up to it.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51It's bonkers!
0:05:51 > 0:05:56It's what people now call democratising, in that it's more welcoming in that way.
0:05:57 > 0:06:03I think what you're saying is absolutely right and how I hate that idea of democratising!
0:06:03 > 0:06:09How you perceive a sculpture, whether you look up at it, whether you look down,
0:06:09 > 0:06:12whether you walk into it, whether you walk through it,
0:06:12 > 0:06:14all these are very important decisions.
0:06:14 > 0:06:19But to start to talk in a political way about it is anathema to me.
0:06:19 > 0:06:23'They want to even sit down, they'll sit down for a second, you know,
0:06:23 > 0:06:26'and then get the feeling of what the space is like around them
0:06:26 > 0:06:28'up again, onto the next.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32'That sort of thing is what I want people to experience with this.'
0:06:32 > 0:06:39The table sculptures you did, they, in a way, are part of that line, aren't they?
0:06:39 > 0:06:44Because it's about putting a sculpture on something everyday and normal?
0:06:44 > 0:06:45Well, it's a level.
0:06:45 > 0:06:50And I want it to be on a level, like on a table.
0:06:50 > 0:06:52And the difference between
0:06:52 > 0:07:00putting things on a table and putting them on the floor is -
0:07:00 > 0:07:03one, that the table's got an edge and the floor hasn't,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07and two, is they attract your hand.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09They're to do with the hand somewhere.
0:07:09 > 0:07:16So I started by putting handles on the sculptures and then by making them go over the edge
0:07:16 > 0:07:21and then, as I made more, I got freer and didn't even do that sometimes.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23If we talk about your childhood.
0:07:23 > 0:07:27Born in 1924, so if we look back historically,
0:07:27 > 0:07:31you're in a country, we now know, between two World Wars
0:07:31 > 0:07:35and you were growing up during a Depression.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38How conscious were you growing up or looking back
0:07:38 > 0:07:41of those tensions in Britain?
0:07:41 > 0:07:47I think one is totally involved with oneself and growing up.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50When you're eight or ten-years-old,
0:07:50 > 0:07:55you don't care about what's going on in the world, you care about just about living.
0:07:55 > 0:07:57But, of course, when the war came along,
0:07:57 > 0:08:01I was very... That hit all our lives a lot.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07And you were the son of a Surrey stockbroker, you went to Charterhouse.
0:08:07 > 0:08:11It looks on paper a very comfortable upbringing, but was it?
0:08:11 > 0:08:14Yes, very comfortable.
0:08:15 > 0:08:22We had a nice house, my parents used to ride a lot and they used to go hunting and things.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29And we had a farm and a nice garden
0:08:29 > 0:08:34and we used to play with the neighbours on bicycles and things.
0:08:34 > 0:08:36It was very nice indeed. It was fine.
0:08:36 > 0:08:40School was not so nice but I think those years are never so nice.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Why not so nice? Were you bullied?
0:08:43 > 0:08:45A bit, yes. But...
0:08:47 > 0:08:53I think the teenage years are tough years for a boy, they probably are for a girl, too.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56But they're not nice, particularly.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00Did they have any artistic interests, your parents?
0:09:00 > 0:09:02My mother
0:09:02 > 0:09:04did paint a little.
0:09:04 > 0:09:08She did a lot of embroidery and a lot of work with
0:09:08 > 0:09:11cloth and things like that.
0:09:11 > 0:09:16And jolly well, she did it very well. She really was a sort of an artist manque.
0:09:17 > 0:09:19My father had very good taste.
0:09:21 > 0:09:26So he could judge paintings and things of art,
0:09:26 > 0:09:30though he couldn't do it at all. He was very fumble-fisted.
0:09:30 > 0:09:34He wasn't good with his hands.
0:09:34 > 0:09:39But I think my mother's artistic-ness
0:09:39 > 0:09:41was a big influence.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44We're always interested with people who become artists,
0:09:44 > 0:09:47whether there was ever a moment where an art teacher said,
0:09:47 > 0:09:50"My God, you've got some talent here, boy."
0:09:50 > 0:09:51Did that ever happen to you?
0:09:51 > 0:09:57I don't think so. In fact, I was trying to think, certainly not at Charterhouse.
0:10:00 > 0:10:03I used to attend Farnham Art School occasionally
0:10:03 > 0:10:10but I was never...particularly... singled out.
0:10:11 > 0:10:16And I don't think, really, that it occurred at all for me. Not really.
0:10:16 > 0:10:19Some artists, when they look back, art was the lesson that
0:10:19 > 0:10:22they really enjoyed but you didn't have that at all?
0:10:22 > 0:10:28I did take the School Certificate in art.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32I had to do Moses in the bulrushes.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36And I didn't get a credit, I just got a pass.
0:10:36 > 0:10:38OK.
0:10:38 > 0:10:40It didn't put me off enough.
0:10:40 > 0:10:45I obviously was quite, deep down, quite confident.
0:10:45 > 0:10:48Did you always have a clear sense of what you wanted to do?
0:10:48 > 0:10:53Not really because I had the impression
0:10:53 > 0:10:56that being an artist was really a hobby.
0:10:56 > 0:11:02And my family thought that artists were not serious people.
0:11:02 > 0:11:08They used to say, don't be an artist, don't be a dilettante.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12For a long time I didn't know what I was going to do.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16I was going to try... My father said, you know,
0:11:16 > 0:11:21"Do you like...you like drawing, you like mathematics.
0:11:21 > 0:11:27"Try and be an architect." So I went to work for a little while in an architect's office.
0:11:27 > 0:11:29And then engineering.
0:11:31 > 0:11:33And I didn't know what I was going to do.
0:11:33 > 0:11:38I think that was a big problem to my parents because I couldn't really make up my mind.
0:11:38 > 0:11:42And at one time they said,
0:11:42 > 0:11:47"Well, you're keen on reading aloud, perhaps you should be a newsreader."
0:11:47 > 0:11:51You try everything like that and
0:11:51 > 0:11:55finally, I think, I had sort of
0:11:55 > 0:11:59been pushing to become a sculptor or an artist of some sort.
0:11:59 > 0:12:05And finally I wrote to my father
0:12:05 > 0:12:07and said, I would like to do it.
0:12:09 > 0:12:15And we visited the teacher of sculpture at St Martin's, funnily enough.
0:12:15 > 0:12:19And I had a sculpture that I'd made, a head.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24And we went and looked at it, we jumped in a taxi and
0:12:24 > 0:12:25he gave me an opinion about it,
0:12:25 > 0:12:31he gave my father an opinion about it and my father paid a fee of £5 or whatever it was
0:12:31 > 0:12:35and he looked at this thing and he said, you son's never going to be any good.
0:12:35 > 0:12:41So my father was very delighted that I could go into his office then.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44Which is something I didn't really want to do.
0:12:44 > 0:12:49But finally he consented, my father consented and said,
0:12:49 > 0:12:55"OK, if you want to be a sculptor, you're going to find life hard.
0:12:55 > 0:12:59"You're not going to be able to afford to get married and have children, you know,
0:12:59 > 0:13:04"but if that's what you want..." And he backed me to the hilt.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06The art then becomes much more serious because you went to
0:13:06 > 0:13:09Regent Street Polytechnic, the Royal Academy Schools.
0:13:09 > 0:13:14Were you totally committed by then to becoming an artist?
0:13:14 > 0:13:16I felt that I'd got approval and I was serious
0:13:16 > 0:13:21and I was professional and if I was going to be a portrait sculptor or whatever,
0:13:21 > 0:13:23I was going to do it as well as I could.
0:13:23 > 0:13:24I wasn't going to be a dilettante,
0:13:24 > 0:13:28I was going to show it was a real thing, not a game.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32By 1949 you were married, by 1951 you had the first of your sons.
0:13:32 > 0:13:37Was it a struggle to bring up a family while trying to become an artist?
0:13:37 > 0:13:41Well, I was very fortunate in that my wife
0:13:41 > 0:13:47took an awful lot of the work, of the bringing-up work.
0:13:47 > 0:13:53And at the same time she was tremendously helpful with me and my work.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57We would talk about the art I made, talk about where we were going.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00And she would give me ideas. I mean...
0:14:00 > 0:14:05I could show you one sculpture after another that she's had input on.
0:14:05 > 0:14:07I am very lucky that way.
0:14:07 > 0:14:09Artists vary in that way.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12Some artists don't want any kind of outside help.
0:14:12 > 0:14:17But you have always found it useful to have that relationship?
0:14:17 > 0:14:18Absolutely, and I think...
0:14:19 > 0:14:24I don't like the idea of being shut up in your inspiration box
0:14:24 > 0:14:28because I think those inspiration boxes don't always work.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31Or don't work at all for some people.
0:14:31 > 0:14:33I love to play, have a sort of ping-pong
0:14:33 > 0:14:39and throw ideas out and watch them come back
0:14:39 > 0:14:41and work with people.
0:14:41 > 0:14:47I mean, it's like TS Eliot used to ask Ezra Pound, "What do you think?"
0:14:47 > 0:14:51And I have always felt, "What do you think?"
0:14:51 > 0:14:54And a big question for the partners of artists is
0:14:54 > 0:14:55how honest they can be.
0:14:55 > 0:15:00There was a playwright's wife who famously said that all she was allowed to say was,
0:15:00 > 0:15:05- "It's even better than the last one."- Oh, no!- Is Sheila allowed to say, "No, it doesn't work?"
0:15:05 > 0:15:07Oh, very much so.
0:15:07 > 0:15:11And she will come in and I'll say, "What do you think of that?"
0:15:11 > 0:15:16And she'll say, "I think you've got trouble on the right-hand side."
0:15:16 > 0:15:21Now, that's terrific, you know? So you pay attention.
0:15:21 > 0:15:23But the funny thing is,
0:15:23 > 0:15:26if there is an area
0:15:26 > 0:15:31that I'm uncomfortable about, she'll pick on it without being told.
0:15:31 > 0:15:36And so, obviously, our minds are getting...pretty close.
0:15:36 > 0:15:38What about critics?
0:15:38 > 0:15:40Is what critics say of any interest to you?
0:15:40 > 0:15:45Well, in just exactly the same way, the American ones have given me a lot.
0:15:45 > 0:15:50And I'm excited when they come to England and say...
0:15:50 > 0:15:54And you say, "Let's have a morning in the studio," and they'll come in,
0:15:54 > 0:15:57you show them the work, and say,
0:15:57 > 0:16:00"What do you think about that?"
0:16:00 > 0:16:04And they'll say, you know, "Ever thought of doing this?"
0:16:04 > 0:16:07And I love that. I love that.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12But for some reason, it hasn't taken on here very much.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15And in those early figurative works, Woman With Flowers,
0:16:15 > 0:16:20Woman On Her Back, Woman Waking Up - how significant were human models?
0:16:20 > 0:16:23I mean, Sheila is in there somewhere, is she?
0:16:23 > 0:16:27Not in those particular lumps!
0:16:27 > 0:16:29I did a couple of heads of Sheila and so on, yes.
0:16:29 > 0:16:33But I was trying to get beyond normal likeness,
0:16:33 > 0:16:36so I did a little series of smiling heads.
0:16:37 > 0:16:43And the smile was more important than the nose and the eyes and things.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46It was the smile I was trying to portray.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48And again, the lying down figure -
0:16:48 > 0:16:53it was lying downness, the physicality of what it felt like,
0:16:53 > 0:16:58with the weight of your body pushing onto the ground.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00That was what I wanted to express.
0:17:00 > 0:17:05In the 1950s, you went to work for Henry Moore.
0:17:05 > 0:17:10There's a drawing in your back catalogue which has the intriguing caption,
0:17:10 > 0:17:16"Seated Woman, 1951, with corrections by Henry Moore."
0:17:16 > 0:17:20Did he give a lot of formal tuition in that way?
0:17:20 > 0:17:22He was very generous to me.
0:17:22 > 0:17:25I never understood drawing until I went to Henry's.
0:17:25 > 0:17:30We'd talk a lot about art and he'd say, "Show me what you did."
0:17:30 > 0:17:34And I would show him and he said... He would say,
0:17:34 > 0:17:37"You must observe the laws of light.
0:17:37 > 0:17:41"You need to pay attention to perspective,
0:17:41 > 0:17:46"when things are closer to you, they're more intense. So the blacks are blacker."
0:17:47 > 0:17:49I mean, all these things which I didn't know.
0:17:49 > 0:17:53Nobody ever taught me this at the Academy Schools, which was where I did my drawing.
0:17:53 > 0:17:58Because they were painters who taught drawing,
0:17:58 > 0:18:01so they would try to get you to draw like Ingres.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04But a sculptor doesn't see like Ingres.
0:18:04 > 0:18:06He sees much more in a three-dimensional...
0:18:06 > 0:18:08thing way.
0:18:08 > 0:18:12And Henry taught me that and it was marvellous.
0:18:14 > 0:18:20And those little drawings that he did on the sides of my drawings
0:18:20 > 0:18:24are very revealing to me,
0:18:24 > 0:18:26were very revealing at the time.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29Henry Moore, according to biographies,
0:18:29 > 0:18:32could be quite fiery and difficult with people.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35- Was he ever so with you? - Never. Never.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38He was a really nice man.
0:18:38 > 0:18:40When I was with him -
0:18:40 > 0:18:45he wasn't really that big a success until after I'd left.
0:18:45 > 0:18:49But I never saw him being fiery with anybody. Not at all.
0:18:49 > 0:18:53He later became fantastically famous,
0:18:53 > 0:18:56- almost on a level of Picasso, that kind of fame.- Oh, yes.
0:18:56 > 0:19:00He was on talk shows, adverts - the whole lot.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03Is that a model you've tried not to follow?
0:19:03 > 0:19:07You've lived more quietly as an artist, I think.
0:19:07 > 0:19:12Well, I think it's a dangerous model to follow, and I didn't want to ever do that.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16But I don't think anybody ever asked me to do it! But, I mean,
0:19:16 > 0:19:19I think people have had their fill
0:19:19 > 0:19:22with the sort of fame of Henry Moore.
0:19:24 > 0:19:29I remember the article that was called The Greatest Living Englishman.
0:19:29 > 0:19:31That's an amazing thing to say.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34And Henry was in that position.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40And he was one who had greatness thrust upon him.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43It's tough to cope with that, I'm sure.
0:19:43 > 0:19:48You taught for a long period of time at Saint Martins School.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51Some of the students who later became very well-known -
0:19:51 > 0:19:53Richard Deacon, Richard Long,
0:19:53 > 0:19:55Barry Flanagan, Gilbert and George -
0:19:55 > 0:20:01did you always know the ones who would come through to prominence?
0:20:01 > 0:20:02No. No.
0:20:04 > 0:20:08And a lot of very good ones...
0:20:08 > 0:20:10never got prominent,
0:20:10 > 0:20:15which is a real sorrow to me,
0:20:15 > 0:20:20that these terrific works they made are in the basement somewhere,
0:20:20 > 0:20:24'or broken up, or something. I mean...
0:20:25 > 0:20:28'That's bad luck.'
0:20:28 > 0:20:30I don't think you're thinking right.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32Why not?
0:20:32 > 0:20:34Well, have you tried assembling?
0:20:34 > 0:20:36- Yes.- You're succeeding?
0:20:36 > 0:20:38I don't know, I was trying to find out.
0:20:38 > 0:20:41Well, good luck. If you succeed... Well, good luck.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43But it seems to me that...
0:20:43 > 0:20:47you're going to be in a lot more trouble trying to sell your art
0:20:47 > 0:20:50before you're really ready than if you were digging roads.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54I'm not suggesting you should dig roads, but if you were teaching,
0:20:54 > 0:20:58or if you were doing something that you could make some money at, you could, you know...
0:20:58 > 0:21:01But not your art. Keep your art clean,
0:21:01 > 0:21:06keep your art for what you do for yourself.
0:21:06 > 0:21:08Don't do it for anybody else.
0:21:08 > 0:21:12Saint Martins was a cradle of people
0:21:12 > 0:21:16who took sculpture seriously and tried to...
0:21:16 > 0:21:20refused to accept the assumptions
0:21:20 > 0:21:25that a lot of the world was accepting, that a lot of other sculptors were accepting.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28Are you conscious of having been influenced by Henry Moore?
0:21:28 > 0:21:33I suppose particularly in that early, figurative work is the most obvious.
0:21:33 > 0:21:36The early work was absolutely influenced by Henry Moore.
0:21:36 > 0:21:39When I was at Henry Moore's,
0:21:39 > 0:21:42I made things that were very much, you know,
0:21:42 > 0:21:44bad Henry Moore's.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46Well, not...
0:21:46 > 0:21:49They were a bit different.
0:21:49 > 0:21:51I mean, I made a standing figure,
0:21:51 > 0:21:54but I learned a lot from Henry Moore.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57And then later,
0:21:57 > 0:22:02I remember one time, coming into London
0:22:02 > 0:22:06and going to the Tate Gallery and seeing a Picasso and a Bacon.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10And I thought to myself, "There is a different sort of art one could make.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13"One doesn't have to make art so much like Moore."
0:22:13 > 0:22:16And I think my work when I left Moore
0:22:16 > 0:22:21was more influenced by Picasso and Dubuffet
0:22:21 > 0:22:25and de Kooning than it was by Moore.
0:22:25 > 0:22:30And when critics look back, they see you moving, particularly in that early phase,
0:22:30 > 0:22:32from figurative work to abstract work.
0:22:32 > 0:22:37Were you consciously making decisions, or was it a matter of instinct you were following?
0:22:37 > 0:22:42When I was young, I always said, "The one thing I know I'm never going to do is make abstract art."
0:22:42 > 0:22:46But, of course, what I saw abstract art as being,
0:22:46 > 0:22:52was something very cold and something very clinical, and I didn't want that.
0:22:52 > 0:22:56Well, I'd got as far as I could get with the figure.
0:22:59 > 0:23:01I used to make the figure
0:23:01 > 0:23:05using a lot of natural forms.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09I would go down to Porlock Weir with a wheelbarrow
0:23:09 > 0:23:13and pick up stones, which I would incorporate in my sculpture.
0:23:13 > 0:23:18I even tried to take the casts of some of the rocks.
0:23:19 > 0:23:22And I started by putting plaster on -
0:23:22 > 0:23:28I used to have to wait until the tide came in enough to be able to release it.
0:23:28 > 0:23:31But then I started using rubber moulds on those things.
0:23:31 > 0:23:33And I would go back with a lot...
0:23:37 > 0:23:40..of vocabulary, really, of parts.
0:23:40 > 0:23:46And I would make them with figures...into figures.
0:23:46 > 0:23:49But then I began to see that the figure was...
0:23:49 > 0:23:52It was more the figure than it was sculpture.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54And I really thought to myself,
0:23:54 > 0:24:00"I must make sculpture essentially,
0:24:00 > 0:24:02"not figure sculpture."
0:24:02 > 0:24:06When you went to America and you met there David Smith -
0:24:06 > 0:24:10an American sculptor who died tragically young -
0:24:10 > 0:24:12he had a huge influence on you.
0:24:12 > 0:24:14He was a wonderful sculptor.
0:24:14 > 0:24:18Well, he and Henry Moore...
0:24:18 > 0:24:22how I see them, they were my fathers in sculpture. And they were.
0:24:22 > 0:24:27But with Henry, I was a student, I was a pupil, more like.
0:24:27 > 0:24:31And a dogsbody in the studio.
0:24:31 > 0:24:33With David Smith,
0:24:33 > 0:24:37although there was a big difference in age between him and me,
0:24:37 > 0:24:41every other sculptor was a competitor with him.
0:24:41 > 0:24:45So he treated you as an equal, he treated me as an equal.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48And I...
0:24:48 > 0:24:50And I learned from him...
0:24:53 > 0:24:56..but it was never like his teaching me.
0:24:56 > 0:25:01It was when you went up there and you saw this amazing...
0:25:01 > 0:25:03These two fields.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07And he could look out on those fields and see 80 sculptures,
0:25:07 > 0:25:10he'd make 80 sculptures, let's say, or 100 sculptures,
0:25:10 > 0:25:12all of which were sitting out there.
0:25:12 > 0:25:14Nobody liked them,
0:25:14 > 0:25:19and you understood what his life was like.
0:25:19 > 0:25:25I think he put them out to prove to himself that he was a sculptor.
0:25:26 > 0:25:32When you began to exhibit, did Henry Moore comment on your work?
0:25:32 > 0:25:36No, but when I left Henry, he bought a couple of my sculptures, which was wonderful.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39But when I had my show at the Museum of Modern Art,
0:25:39 > 0:25:42I sent him a catalogue but he didn't answer.
0:25:42 > 0:25:47And, I mean, I saw him from time to time, but he didn't like that sort of work.
0:25:49 > 0:25:55Henry used to say that sculpture is like...
0:25:55 > 0:25:58It's about the pressures inside,
0:25:58 > 0:26:02the pressures in the body, the pressure IN a fist.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06All these knuckles pushing out is... that's what sculpture's about.
0:26:09 > 0:26:13And I think the sculpture I was making
0:26:13 > 0:26:16was a response to Cubism.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19And so it was much more linear,
0:26:19 > 0:26:23much thinner, much more plain.
0:26:23 > 0:26:28And I remember looking at a book of sculpture with Henry,
0:26:28 > 0:26:32and when we came to a David Smith, he said, "That's not sculpture."
0:26:32 > 0:26:36So there was... It was a different world.
0:26:36 > 0:26:39One of the key things that David Smith gave you, I think,
0:26:39 > 0:26:42was the working with steel, the idea of welding.
0:26:42 > 0:26:48But it wasn't really so much David Smith's example. A critic,
0:26:48 > 0:26:52Clement Greenberg, said to me, "If you want to change your art, change your habits."
0:26:52 > 0:26:58And I think that that was what got me going that way,
0:26:58 > 0:27:03because I thought, "Well, I'll go down to the scrap yard and try and get some steel."
0:27:03 > 0:27:06And I didn't even know how to stick it together.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10You know, I'd say, "How do you stick it together?"
0:27:10 > 0:27:12Well, you either bolt it or weld it.
0:27:12 > 0:27:14So you learned welding?
0:27:14 > 0:27:18Yes. Very badly. I'm not a good welder.
0:27:18 > 0:27:19'I don't enjoy it that much.
0:27:19 > 0:27:23'It's not... People say, "Oh, don't you love welding?" No, I don't.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27'I love putting it there,
0:27:27 > 0:27:30'if it doesn't work, taking it off.
0:27:30 > 0:27:31'But I don't want...
0:27:31 > 0:27:34'to be into sticking things.'
0:27:35 > 0:27:38Well, I will join this to this, Charlie.
0:27:38 > 0:27:42And exactly in the position it's in, and, erm...
0:27:43 > 0:27:46No, I think we should... Would do you think we should do?
0:27:46 > 0:27:48Have a plate under here?
0:27:48 > 0:27:52Looking back, the sticking things together was hugely significant, wasn't it?
0:27:52 > 0:27:55If we look at something such as Early One Morning,
0:27:55 > 0:27:59that was one of your key decisions, that you could join a number of elements together
0:27:59 > 0:28:01rather than have the single block
0:28:01 > 0:28:04that Henry Moore had mainly worked with?
0:28:04 > 0:28:05Yes, absolutely.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09And it was, and that's what I mean when I say it was to do with Cubism,
0:28:09 > 0:28:13it is a kind of breaking up of the object.
0:28:13 > 0:28:16It's shattering the object.
0:28:16 > 0:28:18And I think that...
0:28:18 > 0:28:25that decision leads to a different sort of art...
0:28:25 > 0:28:27and you are...
0:28:27 > 0:28:32and when you're not necessarily working from the figure,
0:28:32 > 0:28:37you tend to go towards painting or towards architecture.
0:28:41 > 0:28:43And I think that in those early days,
0:28:43 > 0:28:46it went very much towards painting, my sculpture.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49Could you say something about the way in which you use titles?
0:28:49 > 0:28:51Early One Morning is a good example.
0:28:51 > 0:28:55There could be an Edward Hopper reference there, and yet it's an abstract word.
0:28:55 > 0:29:01- But was that intended? - No, I think I was thinking of Early One Morning, the song.
0:29:01 > 0:29:09But I mean, then, for example, Prairie I called Prairie because the colour of it was Prairie gold.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13Pompadour, the colour was Pompadour pink.
0:29:13 > 0:29:18I mean, somebody else has given the colour a name and I took it.
0:29:18 > 0:29:21I'd never know how to name sculptures.
0:29:21 > 0:29:23I've got a book of racehorse titles.
0:29:23 > 0:29:30I look at those, you know, and sometimes something rings a bell.
0:29:32 > 0:29:36I hope it does, but, erm...
0:29:40 > 0:29:47It's like in the old days, the colour and the title were the two last things in the sculpture.
0:29:47 > 0:29:49And in a way,
0:29:49 > 0:29:55I think, you know, there's a little, a little signpost there, that's all.
0:29:55 > 0:29:59And do you really sometimes take them from a race horse?
0:29:59 > 0:30:03Oh, yes. I have some sculptures that I've just been making,
0:30:03 > 0:30:07and I have to give them titles.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10I rather dread it. It's difficult.
0:30:10 > 0:30:12You know?
0:30:12 > 0:30:16And this last show I had, I call them "up" something
0:30:16 > 0:30:18because they were all upright.
0:30:18 > 0:30:23But that was a problem. You know, are they all part of the same thing?
0:30:23 > 0:30:26It is a sort of whole literary edition.
0:30:26 > 0:30:29In the 1970s, some major works,
0:30:29 > 0:30:37Great and The Flat, and The Flat was a huge series of works, but that,
0:30:37 > 0:30:40particularly at that stage, you were working in factories.
0:30:40 > 0:30:46I mean, the significance is the scale of those pieces and the use of heavy-lifting equipment.
0:30:46 > 0:30:48I don't think they're very heavy,
0:30:48 > 0:30:52but I think it's not scale, it's size of those, really.
0:30:52 > 0:31:00They're still the same human scale as the earlier pieces but I think in the '70s, it was very different.
0:31:00 > 0:31:07The '60s were about...dreams.
0:31:07 > 0:31:08About going to the moon.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12And when the '70s came along, and this was the time,
0:31:12 > 0:31:14that was the time of Kennedy.
0:31:14 > 0:31:17And when the '70s came along, it was down-to-earth stuff.
0:31:17 > 0:31:19And Richard Nixon?
0:31:19 > 0:31:21Well, later, yes.
0:31:21 > 0:31:26But it became very much to do with the reality of things.
0:31:26 > 0:31:32So I think that did have an influence on not painting a sculpture so much
0:31:32 > 0:31:36as letting them be steel, letting them look like steel.
0:31:36 > 0:31:38They were steel, let them be steel.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42They'd got rough edges, let them have their rough edges.
0:31:42 > 0:31:48I don't think I said all this...consciously,
0:31:48 > 0:31:51but I think it was at the back of my mind. I'm looking back.
0:31:51 > 0:31:58I've seen sculptors who work with rock or with wood, agonising between different pieces.
0:31:58 > 0:32:01But do you have that?
0:32:01 > 0:32:03It's that selection process?
0:32:03 > 0:32:09Oh, I think I select a piece out of what I call my "piece pit".
0:32:09 > 0:32:11My scrap stuff there.
0:32:14 > 0:32:18And then I will go along later on and say, I've got just the piece that goes there.
0:32:18 > 0:32:21And I may not have used it,
0:32:21 > 0:32:23I may have got it ten years ago.
0:32:23 > 0:32:29But I remember it. Oh, I know that piece, that can go in there, that's just what I'm looking for.
0:32:29 > 0:32:30You know, that happens to me.
0:32:30 > 0:32:34Even within steel, there are variations. Rusted steel.
0:32:34 > 0:32:40At one point you've got soft roll-end steel from County Durham, I think.
0:32:40 > 0:32:46Were you constantly reading Steel Today magazine, if there is such a thing, or do you research materials?
0:32:46 > 0:32:53No, I got into those roll-ends because I worked for a little while in Italy,
0:32:53 > 0:32:57and they used sculpture which had these rolled ends.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02And they're the bits that normally get thrown away
0:33:02 > 0:33:04in England or America.
0:33:04 > 0:33:09I realised that they were chopping off these rather nice pieces which I could use.
0:33:09 > 0:33:15You know, rolling steel out is very much like rolling out pastry.
0:33:15 > 0:33:21And it comes in very thick and big and white hot.
0:33:21 > 0:33:26And as it cools, they push it through and it gets thinner and thinner,
0:33:26 > 0:33:28until in the end it's only as thick as that.
0:33:30 > 0:33:36And in the process, the end obviously doesn't keep its squareness
0:33:36 > 0:33:39and those are the pieces that I found I could use.
0:33:39 > 0:33:41So I said, don't throw those away, I'll have them.
0:33:41 > 0:33:45And the range of materials, for a viewer it's to do with
0:33:45 > 0:33:48the expectations we have of the physical world.
0:33:48 > 0:33:53So we think of steel as something very solid and paper as something very flimsy.
0:33:53 > 0:33:56But a sculpture can play with those expectations?
0:33:56 > 0:33:59Why does it have to be? Yes, exactly.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02I mean, I remember making a steel sculpture early on
0:34:02 > 0:34:05and an architect friend said, that's not how you use steel.
0:34:05 > 0:34:07Well, let's use it in a different way.
0:34:07 > 0:34:10And I've found by using paper
0:34:10 > 0:34:17that the paper specialist chap could make a piece of paper
0:34:17 > 0:34:21bend like that and it held the bend because he put something into it,
0:34:21 > 0:34:23I think some plaster or something,
0:34:23 > 0:34:28that, next morning when it was dry, it took up that position.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32And he knows about the memory of paper and that sort of thing.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35And you learn a lot by working with these people
0:34:35 > 0:34:38because they know about the material.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41I was going to say that throughout your career it's a very broad
0:34:41 > 0:34:44range of materials but also forms and practices.
0:34:44 > 0:34:48It's again about not closing off avenues.
0:34:48 > 0:34:52Absolutely. I mean, to make the same sort of thing
0:34:52 > 0:34:56or to have a format that was laid down for you, I think, would be boring.
0:34:56 > 0:34:58It would bore me to death.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04It also means, however, that also your work is very hard to recognise.
0:35:04 > 0:35:09Well, that's the decision you've made, but if, for example, Antony Gormley,
0:35:09 > 0:35:12you could show a lot of people an Antony Gormley
0:35:12 > 0:35:16and they'd spot it immediately, whereas your... you'd be much more elusive.
0:35:16 > 0:35:20Even people that know quite a lot about art might not say it was you.
0:35:20 > 0:35:21I'm delighted.
0:35:21 > 0:35:26When somebody comes to my studio and I show them something new,
0:35:26 > 0:35:29they say, gosh, that looks like a new artist did that,
0:35:29 > 0:35:35a new painter that I've never heard, new sculptor I've never heard of, that pleases me very much.
0:35:35 > 0:35:41Two particular works from the 1990s - the Trojan War and The Last Judgment,
0:35:41 > 0:35:43there's a range of materials in those.
0:35:43 > 0:35:46Ceramics, steel, terracotta, wood.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49But also, we talked about titles earlier.
0:35:49 > 0:35:52Those works, they invite people to think that you,
0:35:52 > 0:35:55as someone who came out of the Second World War,
0:35:55 > 0:35:57has lived to see other wars,
0:35:57 > 0:36:01to see you as commenting on the century that you've lived in.
0:36:01 > 0:36:03I do think they were influenced.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06I think that The Last Judgement was influenced by the fact
0:36:06 > 0:36:13that every day, I was looking at pictures of Bosnia and Serbia, and so on, on the television.
0:36:13 > 0:36:15And I do think it got to me, that.
0:36:17 > 0:36:23The Trojan War started by my going down to the south of France
0:36:23 > 0:36:25and working with a ceramist called Hans Spinner.
0:36:25 > 0:36:30And we went into the studio and Hans said,
0:36:30 > 0:36:32"Start away, Tony."
0:36:34 > 0:36:37And I said, "I don't know what I'm going to do. You start."
0:36:37 > 0:36:41He said, "Nobody's ever said that to me before."
0:36:41 > 0:36:45But he took up a piece, a lump of clay,
0:36:45 > 0:36:50which he called a bread, which is a great block.
0:36:50 > 0:36:54And he picked it up and he threw it down onto the floor.
0:36:54 > 0:36:57I said, "OK, now I know. Now I know where I am."
0:36:57 > 0:37:02I could see that that his way of working was a very physical way of working.
0:37:02 > 0:37:05I started pushing things into it
0:37:05 > 0:37:11and putting my fingers in, putting sticks in and so on.
0:37:11 > 0:37:16And when I'd done a lot of them, I said, "Fire them, Hans, and send them to me in London."
0:37:16 > 0:37:19And I went into the studio and there they were,
0:37:19 > 0:37:24in their boxes, these fired things.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27And I said, "They are warriors.
0:37:27 > 0:37:30"They are warriors and they are gods."
0:37:30 > 0:37:35And so that was how The Trojan War came about.
0:37:35 > 0:37:38In the last couple of decades, there's been the rise of something
0:37:38 > 0:37:44known as "public art", these big, visible commissions for works in cities or beside roads.
0:37:44 > 0:37:49Is that an idea that appeals to you, public art, in that sense?
0:37:49 > 0:37:54There is a place for good art in public places.
0:37:54 > 0:37:58The trouble is, it's very often so large and not very good.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02And we have to watch that, because it's so visible.
0:38:02 > 0:38:09And I tried to pull art off its pedestal,
0:38:09 > 0:38:13off its position of being a monument,
0:38:13 > 0:38:18to being a high... A work of high art.
0:38:18 > 0:38:20Like a painting.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26And so really, in a way, I think what I did
0:38:26 > 0:38:34was to put it more into the gallery or the house and out of the streets.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37I assume you don't want to give examples of the bad ones?
0:38:37 > 0:38:41I can't give examples of the bad ones,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44but just look at our streets.
0:38:44 > 0:38:46And I'd rather give examples of the good ones.
0:38:46 > 0:38:52I mean, there's a wonderful statue of Charles I looking down Whitehall,
0:38:52 > 0:38:54which is just marvellous.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57You go round that at 20 mph, you can't see it properly.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01It ought to be on a place where you could look at it as a pedestrian.
0:39:01 > 0:39:09And in fact, I am thinking at the moment about a sculpture for Park Avenue in New York
0:39:09 > 0:39:14which is good to be seen from a taxi or car going to it at 30 mph.
0:39:14 > 0:39:16So it's a very, very long sculpture, it will be.
0:39:16 > 0:39:20But something like Gormley's Angel of the North, is that something you respond to?
0:39:20 > 0:39:23I think the great thing about the Angel of the North
0:39:23 > 0:39:29is that everybody sees it and notices it and it is a tremendous...
0:39:30 > 0:39:34..thing for the eyes. It captures you and that's great.
0:39:34 > 0:39:38And when those big commissions have come up in Britain,
0:39:38 > 0:39:42There's the vacant fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square and various commissions.
0:39:42 > 0:39:48- Have you been approached, have people tried to tempt you to apply for those?- Early on, yes.
0:39:48 > 0:39:53Early on, they tried to get me to do something on the fourth plinth.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57And that's a heck of a difficult problem.
0:39:57 > 0:40:00And I don't think anybody's really solved it yet.
0:40:00 > 0:40:05And I thought, I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking in that direction,
0:40:05 > 0:40:07and I decided not to do it.
0:40:07 > 0:40:10But people have asked me to do these things
0:40:10 > 0:40:15and sometimes I've responded,
0:40:15 > 0:40:18for example, in the Millennium Bridge.
0:40:18 > 0:40:24But the original idea goes and it gets watered down
0:40:24 > 0:40:28and various reasons...
0:40:28 > 0:40:33The thing is less so than one would like.
0:40:33 > 0:40:36And so by and large, I would prefer to do my own stuff.
0:40:36 > 0:40:41Your big recent commission, the Eglise de Saint Jean-Baptiste in France, the church,
0:40:41 > 0:40:46was that artistic or religious interest in that work?
0:40:46 > 0:40:48No, it was an art project.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52That whole area has been fought over so much,
0:40:52 > 0:40:59I thought maybe that I should do something about war and mutilation
0:40:59 > 0:41:01and the horrors of war.
0:41:01 > 0:41:03But when the Bishop...
0:41:03 > 0:41:10I said that to the Bishop, he said, "No, don't go that route if you can help it."
0:41:10 > 0:41:16Because there's so much of it, you know, there's all these cemeteries all round.
0:41:16 > 0:41:20I wanted it to be a place
0:41:20 > 0:41:24of quiet contemplation and worship.
0:41:24 > 0:41:28And for that reason, I insisted that there was a way into it
0:41:28 > 0:41:31which didn't necessarily lead you through the church,
0:41:31 > 0:41:33but went straight to the street.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39It was religious in a sense,
0:41:39 > 0:41:42but isn't art religious?
0:41:42 > 0:41:48Isn't making art about being quiet,
0:41:48 > 0:41:54and looking at art about being in a tranquil state?
0:41:54 > 0:41:57A place where you could worship God
0:41:57 > 0:42:02or you could think about your own role in the world
0:42:02 > 0:42:06or all the things you'd think about, you know, in a church?
0:42:06 > 0:42:09And I was given a very free hand.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12And therefore, it was a pleasure.
0:42:12 > 0:42:15But usually, it's somebody else's dreams, not your own.
0:42:15 > 0:42:17I was going to say, on that question of a free hand,
0:42:17 > 0:42:20because in some of these public commissions,
0:42:20 > 0:42:24the public are encouraged to vote on the one that they most want.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27In general, in your career, it's difficult to use that term "the public",
0:42:27 > 0:42:32but do you take any interest in what the public wants or do you do what you want?
0:42:32 > 0:42:34No, absolutely none at all.
0:42:34 > 0:42:39I'm very sorry, but the public doesn't...
0:42:42 > 0:42:46I mean, it's like asking the public to judge a piece of music.
0:42:46 > 0:42:49How can they do it? They don't know the language.
0:42:49 > 0:42:54In the old days, Lorenzo de' Medici was the one who made up his mind,
0:42:54 > 0:42:58didn't ask all the courtiers, what do you think, chaps?
0:43:00 > 0:43:04This is a sculpture by world-famous sculptor Anthony Caro.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07It cost £15,000, but as far as the students
0:43:07 > 0:43:09of this college are concerned,
0:43:09 > 0:43:12it makes a far better bicycle rack than it does a work of art.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15The first day I came in, I thought it was a bike rack.
0:43:15 > 0:43:19The main thing is whether you get some pleasure and whether you get some...
0:43:19 > 0:43:24Whether it lifts your heart a little bit as you walk out of that building there.
0:43:24 > 0:43:26Does it lift anybody's hearts?
0:43:26 > 0:43:29Not really, no. Do you...
0:43:29 > 0:43:34Do you object to it having a use, I mean, people putting bikes on it? Do you object to that?
0:43:34 > 0:43:39Well, I think as you get more used to it, you'll respect it more and you won't put bicycles on it.
0:43:39 > 0:43:43Is there a correct response to one of your pieces
0:43:43 > 0:43:46or can people literally read in whatever they want?
0:43:50 > 0:43:54I think there's no reading into it at all.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57I think it's a question of going with it.
0:43:59 > 0:44:04And kind of leaving yourself out of it.
0:44:04 > 0:44:06And I don't want the art to be used.
0:44:06 > 0:44:09I want the art to stand in its own right
0:44:09 > 0:44:10and you come to it
0:44:10 > 0:44:12and it comes to you -
0:44:12 > 0:44:14you're working together.
0:44:14 > 0:44:18It's interesting that when you go to
0:44:18 > 0:44:21the National Gallery,
0:44:21 > 0:44:27or somewhere, and you see people looking at paintings.
0:44:28 > 0:44:32And they move from one foot to the other.
0:44:34 > 0:44:37They're trying to get comfortable physically
0:44:37 > 0:44:40with the picture, they're trying to get in touch with the picture.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43And that's what I think I would like
0:44:43 > 0:44:45people to do with my sculpture -
0:44:45 > 0:44:48to get in touch with it.
0:44:48 > 0:44:50So, it's going to say some things.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54I don't quite know what, but it's like music, it's like music.
0:44:54 > 0:44:59Where you're talking about, that we shouldn't be thinking about democracy or feminism,
0:44:59 > 0:45:01We should be, literally, getting above that?
0:45:01 > 0:45:04Well, I don't want to give any rules to anybody,
0:45:04 > 0:45:07but, no, I agree with you, it's about the spirit...
0:45:09 > 0:45:10..hopefully.
0:45:14 > 0:45:18And I think that our lives are not about the spirit, at the moment.
0:45:18 > 0:45:24They're very much about the body and they're very much materialistic, and we've got to get above this.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28And I remember earliest times, going to New York,
0:45:28 > 0:45:33where people were so busy - rushing about the streets,
0:45:33 > 0:45:36doing jobs and so on,
0:45:36 > 0:45:40making money...eating.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44And I thought to myself, "Why do they need the Met?
0:45:44 > 0:45:46"Why do they want to go into the Met so badly?"
0:45:46 > 0:45:52Well, they want a few minutes of looking out to their minds, their souls.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55Another possibility that has arisen in the later part of your career
0:45:55 > 0:46:00is computers, which some artists, and particularly some architects and designers, use.
0:46:00 > 0:46:03Have you ever been tempted by computers?
0:46:03 > 0:46:06No. I wish that I could.
0:46:06 > 0:46:11I wish that there was something that I could make,
0:46:11 > 0:46:17a hologram of a sculpture, and change it, without it being real.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22But the holograms didn't catch on. They didn't seem to catch on much.
0:46:22 > 0:46:28I think architects do use, quite a lot, computers,
0:46:28 > 0:46:30for walking you through buildings and so on.
0:46:32 > 0:46:34But I can't use a computer,
0:46:34 > 0:46:40because I haven't found a way that it could help me with my work yet.
0:46:40 > 0:46:43I mean, some people are using computers...
0:46:43 > 0:46:48I know somebody who sets his computer up,
0:46:48 > 0:46:51switches it on and goes to bed
0:46:51 > 0:46:56and, next morning, he's got a piece of sculpture.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59It's amazing what a computer can do,
0:46:59 > 0:47:01but I don't want to work like that.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06I want it to be more hands-on, I want it to be more me in it.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09I think sculpture is a physical job
0:47:09 > 0:47:15and it's about being in the world and it's about ourselves,
0:47:15 > 0:47:18our bodies, and what it feels like to be in the world.
0:47:18 > 0:47:23Some sculptors work with their own body, from their own body,
0:47:23 > 0:47:27but you've never really been in that direction, not obviously?
0:47:27 > 0:47:31No, I think that size is terribly important.
0:47:31 > 0:47:37The width of my arms outstretched, the height, my height, and so on.
0:47:37 > 0:47:43These are really a lot of the things, the parameters, that you work with.
0:47:43 > 0:47:49You shouldn't try to get, sort of, at least,
0:47:49 > 0:47:52I think, this is one of the difficulties
0:47:52 > 0:47:55with monumental sculpture, is it gets outside that
0:47:55 > 0:47:58and I don't want to get outside that, if I can help it.
0:47:58 > 0:48:00To remain within the human scale?
0:48:00 > 0:48:02Yes, somehow.
0:48:02 > 0:48:07And that's hard to do with outdoor things, because
0:48:07 > 0:48:12the air eats into the sculpture and reduces it,
0:48:12 > 0:48:17so you have to tend to make things fatter, bigger,
0:48:17 > 0:48:21more "there" than...
0:48:21 > 0:48:24You can't take anything for granted with outdoor sculpture.
0:48:24 > 0:48:27How significant is it to you, because it matters to some people
0:48:27 > 0:48:31and particularly some journalists, how much of the work the artist
0:48:31 > 0:48:35does himself or herself?
0:48:35 > 0:48:40No, I'm delighted I have people working for me. Not a lot.
0:48:40 > 0:48:45I have students come for two or three after they've finished at art school.
0:48:45 > 0:48:48They come and do an apprenticeship here, really.
0:48:48 > 0:48:51They learn to weld very well, they learn that sort of stuff.
0:48:51 > 0:48:55They learn how a studio works - all the stuff I learned at Henry Moore's.
0:48:55 > 0:48:58After you finish school,
0:48:58 > 0:49:01it's very good to have a while
0:49:01 > 0:49:05learning how it's going to be in the world.
0:49:05 > 0:49:09You have to pay attention to doing things in a professional way.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14You can't be sloppy,
0:49:14 > 0:49:16especially with sculpture.
0:49:16 > 0:49:18You can't run in the studio, because it's dangerous.
0:49:18 > 0:49:22And you have to, you know, you have to be careful
0:49:22 > 0:49:27that things can be demountable and if they're too big to go
0:49:27 > 0:49:32in one piece, they have to come to pieces, and so on.
0:49:32 > 0:49:38So you've got to have a bit of savvy about practical things.
0:49:38 > 0:49:44'I'm very happy that people should make the sculptures that I want,
0:49:44 > 0:49:48'but I have to watch everything.'
0:49:48 > 0:49:55I don't ring up on the telephone and say, "I want a 6-foot box" or something. Well, no.
0:49:55 > 0:49:58I want to feel it and to see it and to look at it.
0:49:58 > 0:50:02And so when I...
0:50:02 > 0:50:04You know, if somebody says...
0:50:06 > 0:50:09.."Perhaps... How would it be if that happened?"
0:50:09 > 0:50:11"Let's try it Let's try it."
0:50:11 > 0:50:12Then I can tell.
0:50:12 > 0:50:16The latter part of your career has overlapped with the rise
0:50:16 > 0:50:19of the so-called "young British artists" - Tracey Emin,
0:50:19 > 0:50:21Damien Hirst, and so on.
0:50:21 > 0:50:25Do you look with interest and/or pleasure at their work?
0:50:26 > 0:50:29I look at their work a certain amount,
0:50:29 > 0:50:32but they are talking a different language from me.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34I belong to a different time from them.
0:50:34 > 0:50:36It's not for me to judge them.
0:50:36 > 0:50:42Is it inevitable that the one generation will dislike the work of the next?
0:50:42 > 0:50:44Well, I think, probably, it is.
0:50:45 > 0:50:51Because our thinking in the '60s and '70s is so utterly different from our thinking now.
0:50:53 > 0:50:58And in a way, I belong to those,
0:50:58 > 0:51:03to the end of the last decades of the last century,
0:51:03 > 0:51:08when there was a sort of tide and I was riding it.
0:51:08 > 0:51:13I was riding it like surfing on that.
0:51:13 > 0:51:18Now it's not the same, but I have to go on my own way, so in a way,
0:51:18 > 0:51:22my vision gets more tunnel-visioned - gets less interested
0:51:22 > 0:51:25in what young people are doing all the time.
0:51:25 > 0:51:30But I'd be interested and I hope to see, and occasionally, I've seen things I like very much.
0:51:30 > 0:51:32- Do you want to specify?- No.
0:51:32 > 0:51:33MARK CHUCKLES
0:51:33 > 0:51:40When you look at the work of some of the people you taught, are you conscious of having influenced them?
0:51:40 > 0:51:42Can you see connections?
0:51:42 > 0:51:45I mean, Gilbert and George, I think, is hard to see.
0:51:45 > 0:51:48No, not Gilbert and George.
0:51:48 > 0:51:53I think that where I had a connection with them was when we were thinking,
0:51:53 > 0:51:57in the very earliest days, we were thinking
0:51:57 > 0:52:00all along the same sort of lines.
0:52:01 > 0:52:04When Gilbert and George gave us all
0:52:04 > 0:52:11baked beans in ice-cream cones, and things like this, I mean,
0:52:11 > 0:52:13it was a joke.
0:52:13 > 0:52:15It was great fun and it was a joke.
0:52:17 > 0:52:22And nice people, but I didn't have anything to talk to them about, art wise.
0:52:24 > 0:52:29Especially in recent years, we've seen huge sums of money paid for art.
0:52:29 > 0:52:33Can that be justified, perhaps, particularly, in a recession?
0:52:34 > 0:52:36I've no idea.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39Can you put a value on a Rembrandt?
0:52:39 > 0:52:40A real value?
0:52:40 > 0:52:42A money value?
0:52:42 > 0:52:45Its value is not a money value.
0:52:45 > 0:52:51I think it's very extraordinary tha you can take two pictures
0:52:51 > 0:52:55and one is worth three pounds and the other is worth three million
0:52:55 > 0:53:00and they are so similar. I mean, that is extraordinary, but it's just a fact of life.
0:53:00 > 0:53:05And I think, you know,
0:53:05 > 0:53:08I go with all those things that are happening like that.
0:53:08 > 0:53:11They don't bother me too much.
0:53:11 > 0:53:13I think that's the world we live in, you know.
0:53:13 > 0:53:16Ageing has different effects in different professions.
0:53:16 > 0:53:19It would be difficult to be a professional footballer
0:53:19 > 0:53:24at the age of 86, but it doesn't matter in art or in writing.
0:53:24 > 0:53:29But are you conscious of ageing changing what you can do?
0:53:29 > 0:53:32Well, I think not actually in what I make.
0:53:34 > 0:53:40But of course, one's conscious that you get tired more easily and...
0:53:43 > 0:53:45..you know, you can't lift things as much.
0:53:45 > 0:53:51But I'm lucky because these other younger people do and they spoil me.
0:53:53 > 0:53:57But I want to look forward, I don't want to think about,
0:53:57 > 0:53:59"My God, I'm 86."
0:53:59 > 0:54:01You don't feel different at 86.
0:54:01 > 0:54:05You just...the body is not quite as efficient as it used to be.
0:54:05 > 0:54:10I mean, your inside is the same inside.
0:54:10 > 0:54:13We're all given a slice of time to live through.
0:54:13 > 0:54:18When you look back, are you glad to have lived through the times you did?
0:54:18 > 0:54:21I'm glad that I lived...
0:54:23 > 0:54:29..in the same times as Matisse and Picasso.
0:54:29 > 0:54:33They are giants, they are giants.
0:54:33 > 0:54:36And they really did change our lives a lot.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40Picasso broke so much open,
0:54:40 > 0:54:41made so much happen.
0:54:41 > 0:54:44I remember coming back from America...
0:54:46 > 0:54:52..and my wife greeted me with the words,
0:54:52 > 0:54:56not, "Did you have a good flight?" or something, but, "Picasso's dead."
0:54:56 > 0:54:58It was so important to us.
0:54:58 > 0:55:01Picasso was so important.
0:55:02 > 0:55:09And, yes, there were great sculptors, well, great painters at any rate, in the century before,
0:55:09 > 0:55:14but every three or 400 years you get people as great as that.
0:55:14 > 0:55:16So I'm very glad about that.
0:55:16 > 0:55:19I'm not terribly happy about what's happening now.
0:55:20 > 0:55:27I don't see... I don't see this as a very fruitful time...
0:55:29 > 0:55:30..in painting and sculpture.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34It's not as fruitful as it used to be.
0:55:36 > 0:55:42In the old days, when you had a show,
0:55:42 > 0:55:46people would talk to you about the work in great detail.
0:55:47 > 0:55:50Now the tendency is to say, "Did you sell anything?"
0:55:50 > 0:55:53And I think that's a loss.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56The government say that the arts have to be cut
0:55:56 > 0:55:59in the same way as every other area of the public sector.
0:55:59 > 0:56:05Do you accept that or should, as some people argue, the arts be protected in some way?
0:56:05 > 0:56:07I don't want cuts...
0:56:09 > 0:56:12..but there are more important things than art.
0:56:14 > 0:56:16People's lives are more important.
0:56:18 > 0:56:21Whether we are fighting in Afghanistan is more important,
0:56:21 > 0:56:25whether people are getting pushed out of their houses.
0:56:27 > 0:56:32There are many, many things about life that are more important.
0:56:32 > 0:56:37Art is, it's not exactly a luxury, but it's not the meat.
0:56:37 > 0:56:43The meat is us and being alive and living in freedom.
0:56:43 > 0:56:48Do you care, or think about, the future judgment on your own work?
0:56:49 > 0:56:51No, obviously, I do.
0:56:51 > 0:56:56Obviously, I want my work to live...
0:56:57 > 0:57:03..and to go on giving pleasure and lifting people's spirits.
0:57:06 > 0:57:08But you can't do anything about it.
0:57:08 > 0:57:10It either happens or it doesn't.
0:57:10 > 0:57:16You get on with it, you make it and you let it go out into the world
0:57:16 > 0:57:19and then it's on its own, like a child.
0:57:19 > 0:57:23It's not something that you keep on rewriting history.
0:57:23 > 0:57:28Are there still pieces that you dream of making that have eluded you over the years?
0:57:28 > 0:57:33Not over the years, but there are pieces I dream of making and I hope I'll go on and make them.
0:57:33 > 0:57:39I think in moments of uncertainty and depression,
0:57:39 > 0:57:42you start to think about your life and you start to think about,
0:57:42 > 0:57:47"Maybe I'll make a centre
0:57:47 > 0:57:53"for...sculpture" or something.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56I did think of those things and then I thought to myself,
0:57:56 > 0:57:59"That's not really what I'm about. What I'm really about is making art."
0:57:59 > 0:58:02So I'll go on making art till I drop.
0:58:02 > 0:58:06And it may get worse or it may get better or it may...
0:58:06 > 0:58:08I don't know what's going to happen.
0:58:08 > 0:58:12But it's my activity
0:58:12 > 0:58:14and it's the thing I want to keep doing.
0:58:14 > 0:58:15It's fun.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18- Anthony Caro, thank you. - Thank you, Mark.
0:58:40 > 0:58:43Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:43 > 0:58:46E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk