a welcome to so because visionaries me sophie shepherd, not to pablo picasso. ones famously said that sculpture is the art of intelligence . well to day i sit down with the sculptor, intellectual and philosopher, sir anthony quirley. antony gormley. it's great to have you in our show today, lo fi to for you to well we started out by saying that, you know, we're not like a program that specializes in art or sculpture. we go to see big visionaries from different fields just to pretty much talk about life. so hopefully that's what we're gonna do today. good news, i look forward. okay. so when i look at what you do, you aspire to make audiences really think white. not narrow, but then you've chosen such a personal thing body to make people think about things that are really out there. why body? why so why the most personal thing in the world? because we all live inside ones and her i just want to start with the only thing that i could really be certain off, which is that yeah, i exist. i exist in a place that we call a bully. and i guess there's so many illusions about the body that we call it my body. but of course it has its own agenda. it's part of a bigger system. and i think just to start with the intimate but also the thing that is common to all of us, we all live inside the body. we all live at the other side of appearance. and i guess thing here out the body principally as a place rather than object thinking. oh it as a place where we yeah arrive to consciousness and then see about how a body connects to light to air, to space. or i guess that's my project and i it's interesting because at our school, in a way you learn about other art. and i really wanted to start from 1st principles learning about life, i mean, or trying to make things that connect with life. and i think that means principally through feeling and where does feeling come from, from the body. so you could say my, my project is anthropological rather than aesthetic. i want to, i want to use the space a lot as a test grant, asking really simple questions. what does it feel like to be alive? what is our relationship to space into each other and to all living things? what is our relationship to time? and you could say, well, these are big philosophical questions. what are you doing? trying to make objects that relate to these questions and i say, well, i think that culture can be an objective, materialized full of skips is of skepticism. asking the socratic question. we're not certainly talk a lot about i statics versus the concept and, and the way your works are perceived by a wide range of audiences. but before that little bit more about the body and you, because i've also believed always believed to friends, is the best writer, writes his masterpiece, when he knows exactly what he's writing about when he's lived that story, right. and i mean, it must be the same thing for you working with the bodies right is but except the fact that you've cast yourself literally cast it yourself. um, what do you find in buddies? because i know you were german college and go to basil. it's used to say that, you know, sculpture is like archaeology unique and you find something what he did when you were doing fine when you dig into the body. if you think of what we admire and i admire to in michelangelo, o bernini is that he manages to render into the crystalline and fix substance of marble. something of my tell a t o f over over feeling carried by that to me. and i, i guess for me rather than trying to, ah, illustrate vitality by an understanding of anatomy. i want to start with, with, with, with life itself. i don't just make body works, but all of the bodies that i make start with a lived moment of human time. my own. and it's really a, a, a question of life in a way, accepting the condition of sculpture and what is the condition of sculpture. it's still, it's silent and it captures time. we have consciousness, sculpture has time and it weights and it weights for our ability to move in time to think to feel. and this for me, rather than trying to make the inert into a movie, allow the stillness in the silence of sculpture to provoke us, viewers into movement. and anyway, this for me is, yeah, the challenge for me this, this potential of sculpture to live in the elements. it doesn't need an institution, doesn't need a label, doesn't need a title. how do we return to that function of sculpture in which it begins to articulate our relationship with the earth and, and with time? well, you're saying right there about this culture, they doesn't need a title. if, if needed a label, it just needs to be, to start to articulate within the space. do you feel the same about the bike, the whole story of human in evolution? this is an extraordinary one, because we all started or sapient. save it and started coming out of africa maybe 70000 years ago. but there were several other attempts to leave africa that failed earth. the 1st modern human is probably 300000000 years. so we haven't changed much since. and her story 3 100000. what am i saying? 300000 and i, i would say we, we, we've changed very little. and that's the problem. as yo, wilson says, you know, we have paleolithic, her emotions, medieval institutions, and anna, godlike technology. and the combination of these 3, barry, you could say historically distinct seeks fixes within our psycho physical makeup. i rendered us pretty dangerous both to ourselves and to the, to the planet. simply because we are still going on the flight from flight. we are still treat, treating terrorists territory and the availability of, of all resources as, as things we have to fight for and capture which is very primitive because it's just, we have never in terms of our extended arm in terms of technology. human kind has never had such amazing capability and it's but it's a tragedy. i think it's a little talking more about the human nature rather than a human body. i do agree that no, i phone 1500 has been able to change the fact that humans killed us for a piece of land and peace and brag 1020500 years ago that they still continue to do that. so yeah, we don't evolve as a human nature along with technology, but the road to body does change. i mean, if you think of how it used to be treated like it object and now little by little, you sort of get hold of it and you know, you are the owner, your body and more. we go on, you know, less. anyone is allowed to tell you what to do with your body. so in that sense, the role of a body of a human body has certainly changed in society. you know, agree? i don't agree. i think it's so very remarkable. for example, how in a video, greek, ideals of bodily beauty are still very current. i mean, extraordinarily, sir. so it, you know, gibbons the world over a use paxil item or video sculpture us as kind of promotional or. busy or, you know, i conic models for, for the programs that they offer. and i think what you're talking about is, is the necessary change of the sexual kind of role in position which society is constantly re addressing. but we seem to go round around in circles. i mean, i think there's more sexual plasticity these days and then before, but then when you look back at human history or certainly across all cultures. ha, i'm after that i tis of was extremely, i understood, respected even, worshipped in, in, in the time of america in athens. the, a, yeah, the, the acceptance. so f o, forbes of homosexuality, we're, we're, we're again understood, integrated, i, i, i'm, i'm very dubious about notions of progress being inscribed in the body, anthony, and then take a short break right now when we come back, we'll continue talking to sculpture and philosophers are anthony golly, we're talking pretty much about the purpose of sculptures and art in our life. stay with us. with july, an annual festival in st. petersburg dedicated to dusting epsky with a great writer, thinker and psychologist, or people often tend to his work to understand russia and russians, perhaps even themselves with a single movie. it would be, think about the matter vehicle of why do you need them changing a reader, transforming them as they read. that's a dust i ask is unique ability to stay. ascii wants to tell us you can better yourself. he makes you face your true self. are we good man beyond conventions, rules of schemes, beyond boundaries and time. dostoevsky is a global brand whose classics, everyone knows. i'm never a hm . ah and were back with sculpture philosopher, sir anthony gormley. anthony. when you do your installations, she does amazing sculptures of all sizes. and you say that this is to provoke people to think to, to move. you do have a precise idea of where you would want them to move probably. now when you say, for instance, i will go on doing as much as i can to make pieces that encourage people to think openly about what is possible for our spaces in the evolution of life. what is possible for our species in evolution of life? well, i think that we have to, 1st of all, reconsider what is, what is life and the renaissance had this notion of a man as to the measure of all things. and it's very clear from the work of everybody from love look through true or wilson that we are totally embedded in the biosphere and the biosphere is entirely responsible for the extraordinary relationship of gases that our body totally depends on. if there was only 18 percent oxygen in there, or there was 25 percent the our whole metabolism would not exist. the history of photosynthesis, in terms of the 4000000000 years of her life on this planet, is what has formed that atmosphere. and her, i think that may be on its purpose. now having released itself from the need to illustrate, either religious or state orthodoxies, is to start to ask those questions about how human being fits within total being. that means all i forms are on, on this planet and, and it's of a very different order to man as the measure of all things. it is a man and maybe as the point of reflection of all things. i think we've come now at the beginning, over another millennium to realize that actually are as to return those freedoms to the viewer to the world, to, to all conscious beings and say, this object which is really a space of possibility can be used as her location will pull across the co creation of meaning. so there's no determined truth. there is no, there is no, as it were a value system that this work attempts to approach. but together, maybe in using this work as a lens or an instrument to examine our own experience in the world around us. we can begin together to create something of value. you're saying about a, you know, concept versus i static and that's what modern art has come to. no one really cares about the form or the beauty. it's really about the concept, which is a good thing. and it is supposed to give the viewer the freedom that you inspire to gave. so you can examine yourself and live in your place in space and time. but then again, it has come to a point where 8, anyone pretty much who draws a line can say this is art without any concept or any craft behind it and sell it for a $1000000.00. and that's just, you know, for me up, mind boggling. they has come to that, and 2nd of all, the concept that they put into modern art, i don't want to, i don't want to sound mad, but i'm kinda sick of people doing it all around, you know, the concept that it put them on or not. it dictates you what to think. it does not give you the freedom to, to examine yourself into space and life and, and the beginnings and the ends of the universe. well, i see that we, we have to exercise a discrimination as well as sympathetic interest in our engagement with each other and in all of the experiences that the world offers . i'm not, i'm, i'm not unhappy about the fact that there are more artists with doing more work than they were before. but it does, you know what i am proposing the beholders share if you like. what, what, what the potential offers in terms of a place of co production of meaning you, you, you don't, you don't need to answer the invitation of every work saying, look at me, i'm really, you know, i think that we the good thing about the proliferation allowed in our time is that actually, everybody has to in some senses, are simply for, for a survival sake decide quite quickly. this is something that is speaking to me. this is something that i want to in a way, invest time and attention to or not. and in every age has always been a lot of bad art bad up and but i feel like now more than ever, especially with internet, anyone who is not lazy comes himself an artist shouldn't be. there's some sort of a mechanism to sort artist out of non artists. well, i think that it's, it's not such a bad thing and everybody does it and how we go. he just puts a greater burden of responsibility on the look at to that to a has to be the critic and the judge, which i think is fine artists, no longer wait for the approval of the elders and betters. they make shows for themselves in old factories or on the road or anywhere. and there's a sense in which i think all of the orthodoxies of an administered culture have collapsed. and you could say there are sad losses as a result of that. so that the notion of counterculture has somewhat disintegrated in the face of this proliferation of creativity. em. but i think on the whole, for me, the fact that now there are more galleries, there are more collectors. there are more shows means that there is a genuine collective consciousness about the creativity of our time. and in a way, the need to deal with it. so to decide what is worthy of your attention and what isn't. and i, i think that's during the old days you know, your football team, you'd know particular players. but in britain certainly you wouldn't know your artists and, but that's not true anymore. everybody's gotten opinion about damian and no one is arguing with that. everyone knows her artist said they're just wait a good thing. so yes and no, it's a good thing. but like, should there be some standards? i mean, imagine who is good to administer standards. i know sounds like 1994. i don't know a ministry of beauty, a shockey, it isn't important anymore in art today, put some sort of standards. i mean hear me out. imagine if instead of your amazing mind boggling north angel, it was some weird installation that no one really understood no standard, but it is art for someone else who made it. and then people have to look at it every day. or you can do with it. i mean, it's not a piece of chicken, the cookie can eat for yourself and you're done with it. this is something that you put in a space, not your personal space, but you put it out there for people. i think this is a really good question. what it was, what gives anyone the right as it were to litter the world with things that were not asked for by as it were, communities or people. when you do decide to work in the collective space, i think you have to work with the collective body. so you say my angel is not my angel. i had an idea. but that, that, that idea was already a response to a desire over community. a community that had been told by the middle of the eighty's that it has no future that it actually had no meaning. i at this idea i went to this place that had been told that it had no future and said work, what can we do? what can we do together to deny that in a way government audit? and this was a amazing collective coming together. we found ship builders who could been ship plate to want to, to make the form of the body. we use this in a way analogy of the ribs of a ship to rethink the body as a vessel. and we work with the engineers of newcastle university with our virtual reality department in sunderland university. it was really, there were maybe 200 people involved in that evolution of that. and what was it? well, it's a very pre modern idea of art. this is a totem. this is a totem or a fetish that that is a focus of a collective belief in a place. the community of that place in a way, the common language of making of that place, the angel of mon, or stands in an industrial valley. we have hundreds of little factories down there . the other side, it's just moorland. and somehow this relationship it's, it's, it's, it's embedded in the texture of real life. and that's where for me is the most magic thing is somehow like putting this object that wasn't there before into this place. does the place itself become reflective? and then you begin, you're invited to think what is the relationship between this moorland and these factories. and you, you're invited to look at the landscape itself, not in the way that you might look at the cloud or a landscape painting, but the landscape itself as a picture, a picture that's telling you about human values and about our feeling about the future. it's been such a pleasure talking to you as well. sure, thank you. thank you very nice. a ah price fixing is the problem. if you want a free market, you've got to let the market be free. you can have half of the market free. and then half the market fixed, you end up with the problem that we have today. ah, we have recently, of course the un started the united states, talking about human rights talking about press freedom. if you get a tool, the tool you go can other words, she's got to be consistent. cast out on the one hand we believe press freedom, but on the other hand, we're going to exclude julia. massage. now think of your property and audit stations. choice is really nice. you want to be really mad about the, the caching turning here in australia, what they just don't understand them. right. what is the starting citizen which comes down with ah hey, i don't think i've ever missed an episode of shark tank until mark cuban got a low one period in the last year, but up till then i was on board with the team. always love laurie, good near you, of course, know her as the one who always wants to go to q b c with it and get some of the things that are in everybody's households and scrub daddy can. yes, he, you see that? absolutely. everywhere. she's made a mint and she made a lot of friends along the way. good lady, laurie grenadier right after this son, dennis miller plus one thing. thank folks. welcome to dennis miller plus one. well, this is exciting for me, laurie greer is a prolific inventor and entrepreneur having created over $500.00 products long time shark on the hit show shark tank, which season 13, i believe is currently airing fridays on a b, c. and a sweet woman. it seems laurie grenadine, how are you? i'm good, i'm good. thank you. i have to comment about those tiers of heavens. i tell them it . what is the saying? is that a crocodile here? like what, what do you call it tier? that's not really here. no, there are times when that fireman's kids came on, that's the all time. why bought episode with that cutting board and i yeah, yeah, that's the most beautiful moment. busy lucia, i listen, i love the show, but that moment when those 3 kids and i thought boy, this poor man's dead. but can you ever imagine what a legacy he left forever? those 3 beautiful. a buell and self asserted kids with the cutting board that he had read. i just thought this is the beauty of the show. and he did, they cut the cabin and he was a little it was a little for clint. yeah, i always read him about clint moments because i, i tell him, you know, they're really hard. but those kids i asked to say they are by chance people and it's been so great getting to know them. they're just wonderful. and that was a moment they took all our breath really, really impact you as a person.