Transciption below:
Lionheart
And I'm joined by someone who absolutely I'm enthralled by. All right. He's a great guy, but he's someone who is masterful in his talent. So right there are many of you would say, I'm going to get into the world of being a sculptor, being eyes, but very few people can do it to the magnitude of this gentleman right now. Right. He's won prizes. He's been in countless museums. Tate Britain, Southbank Center, Leighton House, Tesco, Jeff out. You've done the rounds my friend. International, please give me a huge welcome bring to the show to British sculptor Nick Hornby.
Nick Hornby
Its good to be back on the show. Thank you for having me today.
Lionheart
My friend. You are someone who is absolutely a favourite of mine. I think every time I see you, I just jump on you, give you a big hug.
Nick Hornby
This is true. We are bear huggers.
Lionheart
We are bear hug is. But but we are artists.
Nick Hornby
I also know a lot about you. I know your secrets. Lying, huh?
Lionheart
What secrets do you think we should be talking about? I can lower the mic. You know I can. I can definitely lower the mic. Right.
Nick Hornby
So you've been claiming to not be a napper, and we all know why.
Lionheart
A why is that your sleep talker? I'm a sleepwalker.
Nick Hornby
I've heard you were even a sleep singer.
Lionheart
I don't know who told.
Nick Hornby
You this comes out? I don't.
Lionheart
Know who told you this.
Nick Hornby
Horrible noises powering.
Lionheart
Like a I've tried to sing late at night and it's been horrendous. It's been absolutely horrendous. I bet you can sing.
Nick Hornby
You know, I was the chorus, too, actually. Yeah, it was.
Lionheart
All right, let's start from the beginning. All right. So let's say 12 year old Nick. Did you always want to be an artist?
Nick Hornby
You know what? It's that it's that stupid thing in life where you do something and you are relatively good at it as a kid. And then you think, why not? I'll do the next step and do the next step. And then, lo and behold, you're on your toes. You've gone to art school and you're unemployable.
Lionheart
You're skipping, you're skipping.
Nick Hornby
So of which point you can't get any other job. So your career was over.
Lionheart
You was going to be a lawyer as well.
Nick Hornby
It would have been fun, wouldn't it?
Lionheart
Oh, my goodness. No, I wouldn't think so. All right. So what was your first artistic endeavor before you went into school and start to focus on school?
Nick Hornby
Like right was it has got to be Legos. Yeah.
Lionheart
Do you remember what you made so vividly?
Nick Hornby
I do. They used to have a little tugboat. It was tiny. And what I did was I it was made of two pieces, effectively. The front in the back. Yeah. And then you put a little mountain top and I took it apart and turned it into a tug Titanic. Mm. And this grew from, you know, 20 centimeters to about two meters.
Lionheart
It was really fun. And that's when you knew I this is something that I want to pursue. Lego has been the genesis for many people's creative careers. I don't think it gets the benefits that it really deserves. I have. But from that moment, you then, you know, catapult yourself into the world of art. It's not easy, right? You know, there there's a lot of glamor that we can see on social media, on websites and etc..
Lionheart
But it takes a lot of growth, right?
Nick Hornby
This is when you say glamor. I'm always so amused and confused. How do we not still hang onto the idea of the garrets, you know, cutting off the air like.
Lionheart
In 2023?
Nick Hornby
You really you really think that.
Lionheart
Oh, I'm someone who and we are mutual friend. There's so many artists to write. The other day I saw a friend of mine or I do a talk near sculptor now sculpture piece and there were people surrounding him in a circle. I think he had a microphone quite confident. Right. That's glamorous to me. People gathered during working hours to witness the unveiling of an art piece.
Nick Hornby
It was glamorous. It was really it was really exciting.
Lionheart
So I'm talking about Nick right now. Why Nick over you right now?
Nick Hornby
I had I had a I had I had a mike. And so my my impromptu speech did become a wrap.
Lionheart
And he didn't bring me he didn't bring me. We didn't we collaboration.
Nick Hornby
Of of my very, very generous commissioners who were expecting an Arab light and sensible speech. But I went off on one.
Lionheart
I think this is where your sense of, you know, not falling into the archetype of what an artist is makes you more human to me.
Nick Hornby
Oh, you're going to say, you know, I think my one bent as a sculptor is I. I predominantly care about interpretation. I care about what other people think of the thing. It doesn't really matter what I think or why I'm doing it. You do this activity you put out into the public realm, and then it's what you know, what does what is the view of think of it.
Nick Hornby
And yeah, this year we're making three public sculptures which are very much in not in my own private personal space. And the it's a it's a it's a real buzz to witness. I was there a few days ago at lunchtime and they were like 20 people sitting around the base of this thing and pointing at it and being, I think I can see a horse like, what's that?
Nick Hornby
What is what does it mean?
Lionheart
Study in it, folks. All right. There is a huge, distinguished man and I want my BBC regular in a few minutes notice. Right. You can right. Create, you know, piece things together at home. And it's a private viewing. You know, you can share it with a friend and say, hey, this is something that I've created. Public art is for everyone.
Nick Hornby
So what do we think about it at the moment? What do your listeners think? So 20, 23 years ago, yeah. Public. Public statues, these dusty things came into the the into popular consciousness pretty dramatically in Bristol with the toppling of Colston. And I quite rightly, quite rightly think that the toppling of this horrendous statue and we're currently in the building that's got the gill currently being rectified.
Nick Hornby
So yeah, 2023. Is that, is that conversation, is that debate still relevant and pertinent?
Lionheart
I love that you've got.
Nick Hornby
What do you think what your listeners think? Oh, I care about it because this year I'm installing three public commissions. I'm a privileged white man, age 43. I don't quite know what the relevance of my voice, who I'm entitled to make representations of. What do you think?
Lionheart
I can't wait for you my. My perspective. So my BBC radio on a family who want to join the conversation. Please give us a cool one zero 800 731 2000 or send us a text on eight one trouble free when it comes to being an artist. All right, let let let's call out the descriptions and the objectives that we can use when it comes to being an artist.
Lionheart
I think there is a a knowing that many of us hope for. We don't always find it. We don't always think, you know, this is who I'm meant to be. There are some people who are quite confident, say, I was destined to be an artist, but I started off as a poet. Right. You know, I wanted to write, to relinquish myself of emotions that put me into a bad headspace.
Lionheart
So I needed a a filtering system to feel better about myself. I thought you.
Nick Hornby
Underground was architecture.
Lionheart
It was. But I wasn't destined to be an architect. My dad forced me to be an architect.
Nick Hornby
But also, when you say poet, I mean, poetry is such an abstraction, isn't it? I mean, isn't it? I do think of it as a medium or a vehicle. It's almost this sort of it's the umbrella, which I would say just describes abstract thinking. You know, you can you can be you can be doing a drawing and it can be done in a poetic fashion.
Lionheart
Or and that's because your sculptures, your sculptures are very poetic in their own nature. But there's a bigger challenge here, which is we can use poetic language to describe the art, but it doesn't always mean it's poetic.
Nick Hornby
You seem really interested in the idea of the genesis of some, I guess because you're saying you're you've you've shaped shifted.
Lionheart
Yeah, I have but it's your voice which I'm really, really curious about because you have pieces which almost speak without speaking. You walk past these buildings all the time. I spoke about architecture, right, every single day. And we're hoping that they don't have an element of being boring, a mundane quality. Right. We need them to come alive. There needs to be something in or around them that makes them say, I want to go eat my lunch and feel like I'm safe.
Lionheart
From the relationship that broke up with my friend that passed away or some argument I had with my boss. You give us a sense of respite for that space. And then to some degree, I think artists such as yourself should be working architects more often. You should be an integral part of the urban landscape.
Nick Hornby
I have actually had the opportunity a few times to work with architects from the for the beginning of projects. And it's it's such a, it's such a beautiful and magical dialog, especially when it's right at the beginning. It's one of the if you walk around the city, you might notice the occasional shiny stainless steel donut plonked into the middle of a plaza.
Nick Hornby
And sometimes that can feel a bit just just randomly, you know, not really unpremeditated. And that happens all too often. And very occasionally you've got a chance to comment at the outset and have a dialog. I did a project for a building in New York on Fifth Avenue. The UN does, and the architect of the building was this guy, Tony Chai.
Nick Hornby
He's completely brilliant and it just so happened. We are both obsessed with both structuralism and pluralism and multiple perspectives. And so normally when you walk into a hotel, this was I did this ten years ago and to ten years ago, you'd walk in and in front of you. That would be a desk. Yeah. And an enormous bunch of flowers.
Nick Hornby
And then behind that desk was normally a pretty white blond girl that was kind of what you.
Lionheart
Were talking about, the lobby area. Right, exactly.
Nick Hornby
You know, and it was this sort of awful barrier and generic system. And he wanted to and sort of brain. So he wanted to turn that on his head. Wow. So what happened was we we took the desk and we shot it into the middle of the room. We packed all of the computers inside that, and it became a plinth.
Nick Hornby
We got rid of the flowers because you don't need to have that sort of unnecessary decorative ornament.
Lionheart
It's so ancient, I can see this in my head.
Nick Hornby
And instead what we did was and also the lobby we had, there were about 12 different pathways to to walk around to navigate through to the library or to the breakfast area. And he wanted to he wants to be frictionless. The idea for Uber was this idea of frictionless travel. He ten years ago, he wanted this experience, the lobby.
Nick Hornby
So you just.
Lionheart
You he's.
Nick Hornby
A genius. You would drift in with your luggage. And instead of having the barrier of this desk, someone would approach you with an iPad. And whilst you're walking with your bag through the lobby, you would be checked in, so there would be no pausing. And then this was ten years and you'd look up and they're standing 12 feet was this white random sculpture thing, which was my like, things are random.
Lionheart
I don't understand. You're very humble. I think you need to move away from the humble because, you know, not and I'm sorry to interject there, I'm very aware of our time. And I want to make sure we have a huge focus on the unveiling of your many sculptures, because it's not just one.
Nick Hornby
Yes. Okay. We have we have today. I am I need to nap because last night we had the unveiling of the first of three public commissions going up in London. And, you know, we spoke about earlier why my sculptor the reason I'm a sculptor is because of public art. I went to school in Westminster and every single day on the way to school I went past this enormous sculpture by Epstein and I was obsessed with it.
Nick Hornby
Later I discovered that Henry Moore, just by Parliament, which is this huge, bulbous, tactile thing which you wanted to touch and stroke. And next to that there's Rodin's bugs of color. I became a sculptor because of public art. It's out there. You could see it, you could touch it. You could touch this stuff. You're invited to. So, yeah.
Nick Hornby
So yesterday I launched my first contribution to that same space.
Lionheart
How does that we're going to talk about the sculpture piece, right? But how does that feel knowing that you've come from a place, a genesis where you wanted to, you know, be among the greats, you now among the great?
Nick Hornby
Well, I mean, hardly. But what's what's thought is, you know, you have you have this radio station is your platform to invite discussion and debate. Yeah. And all the people are writers and journalists. And my medium is objects. And if you're trying to articulate an argument, choosing to do that with something which is static. Yeah. Immobile is quite a strange way to want to actually have debate, but that's that's what I do.
Nick Hornby
My job is to try to articulate questions in these things. And that's because I think the built environment and objects are incredibly powerful. You know, I put it to you guys listening, how often do you drift through spaces and you're somewhat unconscious of these things which are in your peripheral vision? You might not notice, but I'm I'm pretty certain that having a monumental impact, unconscious impact on what you're thinking there, they're probably reaffirming Victorian values, you know, around London, everywhere you go, you see men on horses wielding weapon and and that isn't I don't think that's necessarily the type of ideals and values that we want to be having is as representing us today.
Lionheart
Oh, okay. I need to challenge you on that one. All right. I'm going to get in trouble because we're going over a period of time. But I think this is really rich. I think this is really rich and really fruitful. All right. From a BBC regular on a familiar forgive me, where we are having quite a very, very fruitful talk.
Lionheart
Do you know what I think is very unique about your work in the in the world of having, you know, sculptures around buildings and around places? Is your work capitalizes on needing to be needing to be seen from various angles? And it's not just a piece that you can walk past horizontally and be like, okay, I've seen it, I understand it.
Lionheart
Now I know what it's doing. You provoke, you know, the nuance of diverse thought through a very static, stoic.
Nick Hornby
I mean, people say to you, what's your point of view? And if you take apart that sentence, what is your point of view? What your what you're saying is that your either single perspective is determining how you understand things. And if you move your perspective where you are looking from, if you are conscious of where you are from and you are aware that all of your ideas are determined by them, that can be very, very revealing.
Nick Hornby
And yes, this sculpture which we installed yesterday from one particular angle, you see the perfect silhouette of Richard the Lionheart. Yeah, a rather problematic 12th century king and rich. The Lionheart is manifest as a sculpture just outside the House of Parliament, 1851 classic Victorian sculpture and Lionheart. Richard the Lionheart is depicted in the cartoons. In the Disney cartoons, this wonderful man.
Nick Hornby
In truth, he wasn't a great man. Although to caveat that I'm not critiquing him. I'm trying to make us ask questions and so what I've done is you see this outline and if you move a few millimeters, it starts to unfold and perpendicular from 90 degrees your left with this car length as shape the sort of lyrical beautiful line and yeah, you know, like a parrot I could bang on for a long time about so that the ideas and the specificity of these references but ostensibly anyone will notice that this is from one angle a man on a horse which feels a bit fragile.
Nick Hornby
It's sort of self toppling. I've tried to make a self toppling statue and the line, if I was to tell you, is from Tristram Shandygaff, which is a really, really, really important text within the context of literary theory. It's the first visual book and sort of led the way towards semiotics and postmodernism, but you might just see this wavy line and and you'll be posed with this question of what does it mean to disrupt this figurative image?
Nick Hornby
And and I've set up a binary of figuration and abstraction, but all of that stuff anyone hopefully will get just from looking at it and walking around it.
Lionheart
And I'm also going to add to your genius, and I believe this is a conscious effort from you as an artist, which is when we see materials, there are assumptions about how heavy and weighty they are. You can make drawings look like an elegant feather or stationary. How you do that, only you will be able to describe that to us.
Lionheart
But I've witnessed this and the.
Nick Hornby
Poet has spoken yet. The poet, Please come and writes my essays for my catalogs.
Lionheart
Your manifesto for the world. All right, we need to do this right. Where can people experience and, you know, almost a commune around your art pieces where where can they do this and when can happen?
Nick Hornby
So there's no commune. But but you're allowed to walk past catch in your eye. And hopefully it might just make you think about something or pose a question and where. It's just opposite St James's Park Tube Station. Yes, it's just funny tube station. I don't tend to it's like it's it's it's about 20 meters from Westminster Abbey. So it's a it's a great location.
Nick Hornby
It's a.
Lionheart
Great location.
Nick Hornby
It's called Orchard Place, which is a new they've invented a new street. They bulldoze the whole site and they've created this beautiful pedestrian avenue and slap bang in the center. We have this rather enormous plinth. And on top of it is this is this little sculpture.
Lionheart
So essentially go out of your way. All right. Even if you're going east, west, south, if it doesn't matter, go out of your way and go visit, spend some time with it. Particularly the sun is out. Or I can only imagine that the sun reflecting off the front is absolutely breathtaking. Make sure you go and spend some time.
Lionheart
And I would also say that's, you know, art is human. Art is a human's form of comparative nature, right? It's the thing that comes from us that represents our own experiences. And even if you're referencing, you know, a person's past life, you're bringing a richness to it for your own lens. We add our own secondary to that lens as well.
Lionheart
So, my friends, please go check it out. And Nick, there's more happening. It's not just that there's more happening. Where can people find out more from you, more your work that is going to be revealed very, very soon?
Nick Hornby
Yeah. Well, look, first hit me up the m8. Yes. If you see this thing and take pictures and you and you and you hate it, let me know. You know, this is my first public sculpture and it is up forever now and it's the my sole intention was to invite debate and have conversation. So please do. And if you have the patience to wait around, then two weeks later is the second one going up?
Nick Hornby
It's just outside the David Chipperfield building on High Street, Kensington, opposite the park. And it's a three and a half meter bronze piece. It's it's a fun object. I'm doing the patina on it right now. It being installed on Wednesday. It takes a figure from this painting called The Wanderer and intersected with another line from Tristram Shandy. And the result is it's similar but very different.
Nick Hornby
This one actually is a sort of portrait to my father while he has Alzheimer's. And then the last one is going off in September, and it's a mad object called Do It All. It's built on the the former sites of a homebase store built by this postmodern architect called Ian Pollard, who was incredible. And the home based all used to look like an Egyptian temple.
Nick Hornby
It was a really eccentric. We need to talk more about the really eccentric place. And, you know, British, we are obsessed with drinking tea and DIY on Saturday afternoon. What are you doing? I'm going to go to the Homeware store and buy a pot of paint to repaint the door of the loo, which is gone moldy. Oh, we have it.
Nick Hornby
It's all I ever do to walk up. I remember it's. And they bulldozed this incredible homebase, which was like where I'd go every weekend. And I wanted to make a homage to that. So the sculpture has the the owl on its head and intersects it with the facade of the album memorial as a whole. Can of worms there.
Nick Hornby
But we haven't got time to talk about that.
Lionheart
We don't, unfortunately. But I would welcome every one of my BBC radio unfamiliar to connect with Nick Hornby on this.
Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby. The Artist Beyond. Nick Hornby The writer.
Lionheart
Sorry, not the writer.
Nick Hornby
Your producer was very disappointed that I wasn't the writer he was.
Lionheart
It is like he's smiling. It's there right now. And I just want to say, this is all as a dear friend of mine and of this show, you have such a very calming way about speaking about your art and the fact that you are so inviting about discourse also says to me that you're a different kind of artist, the one that we need, the one who provides a voice for his art that also welcomes Amplify the voices of others wherever it fits in or doesn't fit in with your view.
Lionheart
And I think that's such a beautiful thing to have. So thank you, my friend.
Nick Hornby
Thanks for having me on the show.