toomer labzda talks with BLUE CURRY / featured in blue curry and year one                                    STUDIO IMAGES  1   2   3 

                                                                              

from / studio: nassau, bahamas / london                                                                                           medium: sculpture, predominantly

what do you use most often in your studio?

it's really tricky because i’m almost teaching myself how to make [each new piece] and as i do it, it will involve different tools. i have to figure out what those tools are, and sometimes make them. but when i put a project down and i move onto something else, then a different tool will become completely integral to the way that i'm working. [pause]

i'm trying to think of something overarching, like something i'm using regularly all the time. i don't think there is. so yeah, certain things are incredibly important to me for a short period of time and when i'm finished with them i move on. i think in general i'm a bit fickle that way.

what is your favorite part of the creative process?

probably just that moment when you can see a combination that is really, really going to work. that can happen anywhere–something in a food store, something in a junk shop, something found in the street. you come in contact with an object or a material and you realize that other material you collected three years ago in the studio is the perfect match. it’s that moment, which probably doesn't even register on my face at all, of "ah–those things are going to go together." and that can sometimes be a concept and a material, too. it’s a moment of matchmaking.

what is your earliest memory of art?

i remember doing lots of art projects with my mother on the weekends, upcycling lots of materials. we'd save for weeks–toilet rolls and hand towel rolls–and once we had enough, we'd sit and make a massive haunted castle out of all of these rolls glued together. and then we needed a ghost flying over the top, so my mom would take spiral binding out of a notebook and tape it to the back of a ghost we cut out. she was really big on ingenuity and making do with what you have. 

that probably directly influences a way that i work now. i'm always looking at things and thinking "what would be the incorrect way to use this cup?" or "that's what this is manufactured for, but in how many other ways can i use it?” you can make things look really elegant. like when Dolly Parton says [laughs] "it takes a whole lot of money to look this cheap." but it's the reverse for my work, i think it doesn't take a lot of money to create something very elegant. i'm basically doing a reverse Dolly.

how did you start working in your current medium?

i think my shift occurred when i did my MFA at Goldsmiths. i had a conceptual practice that was very research-based, and maybe at that time i looked at and admired a lot of artists like Simon Starling–people who made work about process. and so i was doing a lot of research, and the outcome was usually some sort of documentation and sometimes a sculpture. but i wasn't confident enough to just say "this is a sculpture." i sort of needed the research to back it up.

i recognized that the thing i like the best is the object–the result of the process. then i went back though the old works, and realized what i had was a lot of sculpture. i moved away from such a research-based practice, and for me it became about the final object at the end.

what was the last exhibition you saw?

it wasn't an art show. well, it wasn't an adult art show. it was something i saw that was done by kids. they'd all made monuments from around the world from found materials. one of the kids had made the London Eye out of a bicycle wheel–really makeshift stuff but beautiful and simple. you see these architectural feats of mastery, like the Gherkin [the skyscraper in london] and how it is designed to allow air to circulate through it–you can only imagine how many plans go into building it. but when it all comes down to it, using some cardboard, duct tape and a sharpie to draw the lines–this kid totally made the Gherkin and it didn't require any plans. we still recognize it as the Gherkin as much as we do the real thing.  it's the image of the thing and how it can be created using very simple materials. that sort of stuff i really enjoy. i think to myself "oh those kids are so smart!" and then i steal their ideas. [laughs] 

is there an artist you’ve always wanted to grab drinks with?

i've always been a big fan of Francis Alys, but i don't think our practices have very much in common. but he's someone i would say i'd love to sit down and have a chat with. we exchanged emails once.  i felt like i was receiving an email from God. [laughs]

i had written to him because there was an article some years ago that someone was writing. i had moved a bit of beach from the Bahamas to Germany for an exhibition, and then around that time he had done a project, When Faith Moves Mountains, and he had people sweep a sand dune. so on a material level, there were comparisons. they wanted to use an image of his work, and a friend had his email address so i just wrote to him. 

but yeah, i would say i could go out for a drink with Francis Alys, because i imagine that–like me–he wouldn't be a big drinker. so we'd nurse one drink for a few hours and chat.

if money was no object, what artwork would you acquire?

that’s really difficult for me to answer. i can go and see an exhibition this afternoon and really enjoy an artist's work, but wouldn't want that work staring at me everyday. if i let any one person dominate my thinking or occupy my brain, i could possibly start to emulate them. so i see artworks, take them onboard and i think i push them off. 

i guess i don't think a great deal about owning artworks. i love to make things myself, but i don't have many of my own works at home. or friends' works. i have close friends who have really incredible practices, but come to think of it, i've never thought about acquiring any of their work. and it's not this "i don't want objects" or wanting a minimal existence. i just never think about having them in my own possession. i guess it just comes from a long time of not having space for it. i don't have space for anything. especially not here [points to head].

is there one thing you wish you could do?

i'm trying to think, because you are always aware of your inadequacies. like "if only i could…"something. [pause] be satisfied. you know what i mean? be satisfied with what i've got and what i'm doing and enjoy it. i think it's an irritating trait that i have–i am easygoing and laid back, but under that skin, i am never satisfied.

if i were maybe it would slow me down or make me smug. and i think smugness is one of the worst character traits you could possibly have. on the one hand i'd like to be able to be satisfied, but my lack of satisfaction is what propels me forward. so, even though i'm saying that i want to be satisfied, i'm not satisfied with that answer. [laughs]

BLUE CURRY interview.pdf

interviewed by Serena Qiu on june 29, 2012  at Saturdays’ backyard, New York  / contact gallery@toomerlabzda.com