Sculptures Quotations

That is the effect of my sculptures in the public domain: people are making contact with each other again.

I never sold any of my pieces. I had all the money I wanted. Then I would have lost my sculptures and just had more money.

I left Kurdistan in April 2003 with the peshmerga, following their excited advance as Saddam's forces crumbled. First Kirkuk, then Mosul - where looters broke into the city museum and seized its Parthian sculptures - then Tikrit. I reported from Baghdad in month-long stints until the end of 2004.

I am finally getting the chance to build large structures and break preconceptions that my designs are just sculptures for people to be in. But my work always comes down to the human scale.

In Rome, I particularly love the history, churches, sculptures and architecture and the fact that you can walk along a tiny cobbled street and turn the corner to find the Trevi Fountain. London is evocative of other eras and full of history.

Nobody complains that Bernini's sculptures are too darn real, right? Or that Norman Rockwell's paintings are too creepy. Well, robots can seem real and be loved, too. We're trying to make a new art medium out of robotics.

My sculptures cause an uproar, astonishment, and put a smile on your face.

I want people to get inspired by public space - their space. People tend to forget about it because they do the daily thing, but putting up these sculptures breaks the routine.

Sculptures created from found materials like ice and thorns, driftwood, and even bleached kangaroo bones all presuppose that artistic design will yield to the cycles of time and climate, whether over an hour or a decade.

I do everything. Of course, I have 50 people who work for me to do the drudgery of mold making and all the foundry. This is an enormous task. But every stroke in these sculptures is from my hands.

I've been making bronze sculptures for a long time. My sculptures are wholly unsuccessful and uncommercial. No one is even the remotest bit interested in them. So it's almost like my hobby.

People always say that my work is sensational or shocking but there are truly shocking things you could do, and my sculptures don't go anywhere near that.

Picasso never copied African art, which is why this show does not match a specific African work with a Picasso. He took its point of view to express his own art. In his drawings we can see three sketched antelopes which come very close to the Bambara sculptures of antelopes. But then he creates a metamorphosis in which he creates something phenomenal and new.

The art here is playful enough to break down the boundaries of suspicion and fear some people have around contemporary art. Some people have reticence about viewing art, fearing they'll be thought stupid if they don't 'get it.' These sculptures engage them without being threatening, while still adhering to the principles of contemporary art.

The wire metal class is so cool. Students get to make sculptures and colored wire, and the end result is just so fun and creative.

The statues add a sense of culture and something beyond just what students are studying. The sculptures take you somewhere else and some of them can be provocative.

The size thing is not some gimmick or attention-getting trick but a genuine undercurrent of the work. Frank Gehry for instance likes to imagine his buildings as sculptures. I like to imagine my sculptures as architectural.

Barbara and I have been active in the art world for many years, and we believe it is important to support learning in the arts. Additionally, we are avid collectors and have lent and donated many paintings and sculptures to museums. Personally, with the exception of my family, there is nothing that gives me more pleasure than art. It's my true passion.

The relationship between art and a job is not quite linear, but I really love any and all manifestations of art, really respect any kind of artistic impulse, whether it's paintings and sculptures or really good filmmaking or music. I really see the relationships between these different mediums as very fluid.

Dad's idea was to dress up the front of the buildings with sculptures and artwork. I think Dad's vision was if you build something and commit to improving the exterior aesthetically, it's going to draw more people into the area.