sculptures honour various historical and culturalfigures. but how should society commemorate controversial people from the past? barbara chase riboud, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. we re sitting here at a major exhibition of your work called infinite folds, and you started your artistic training at the age of seven. how on earth did you know at that early age that you wanted to become an artist? i didn t know i wanted to be an artist. it was my mother and my grandmother who decided that i was going to have something to do with the arts. they weren t quite sure what. you were 16 and you were the youngest person to ever have a work acquired by moma, the museum of modern art in new york. it was reba, which was a woodcut print of a young girl with a plant next to her. and you have said that success as a child came easily to me, and that i grew up as a confident, curious child, not willing to settle for anything but the best. were you always very ambitious from an early age
controversial people from the past? barbara chase riboud, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. we re sitting here at a major exhibition of your work called infinite folds, and you started your artistic training at the age of seven. how on earth did you know at that early age that you wanted to become an artist? i didn t know i wanted to be an artist. it was my mother and my grandmother who decided that i was going to have something to do with the arts. they weren t quite sure what. you were 16 and you were the youngest person to ever have a work acquired by moma, the museum of modern art in new york. it was reba, which was a woodcut print of a young girl with a plant next to her. and you have said that success as a child came easily to me, and that i grew up as a confident, curious child, not willing to settle for anything but the best. were you always very ambitious from an early age? i wouldn t call it ambition. i didn t know what it was. i knew that i wanted to do somethin
you were 16 and you were the youngest person to ever have a work acquired by moma, the museum of modern art in new york. it was reba, which was a woodcut print of a young girl with a plant next to her. and you have said that success as a child came easily to me, and that i grew up as a confident, curious child, not willing to settle for anything but the best. were you always very ambitious from an early age? i wouldn t call it ambition. i didn t know what it was. i knew that i wanted to do something, you know, significant, but i had no idea what and i had no idea how. and i had no concept of the world except my little family, which is very small. you know, it was very intimate. and it seemed to me that the world was intimate too. i mean, i didn t. i wasn t afraid of people and i wasn t afraid of the world. i wasn t afraid of, um. ..stepping out and having opinions about things. 0k. well, that lack of fear
i wasn t afraid of, um. ..stepping out and having opinions about things. 0k. well, that lack of fear and stepping out is very much reflected in your work. you have a very innovative, experimentative approach to your work, and you forge figures in bronze, for instance, using animal bones and vegetable matter. mm hm. you know? and we re looking at adam and eve from 1958, which is being shown publicly for the first time, and it depicts two figures entwined underneath a tree canopy. and you completed that whilst you were at the american academy in rome. but, you know, art critics, barbara, find it very hard to describe the genre of your work. how would you, in a nutshell, describe it? it is hard to describe. and it changed so much over the years, which are very long. and i would say that i m
wasn t afraid of the world. i wasn t afraid of, um. ..stepping out and having opinions about things. 0k. well, that lack of fear and stepping out is very much reflected in your work. you have a very innovative, experimentative approach to your work, and you forge figures in bronze, for instance, using animal bones and vegetable matter. mm hm. you know? and we re looking at adam and eve from 1958, which is being shown publicly for the first time, and it depicts two figures entwined underneath a tree canopy. and you completed that whilst you were at the american academy in rome. but, you know, art critics, barbara, find it very hard to describe the genre of your work. how would you, in a nutshell, describe it? it is hard to describe. and it changed so much over the years, which are very long.