Radio interview transcript:
Ed Vaizey
It is time to talk to Nick Hornby, obviously, about his great novels. And also I know it's the wrong. Hornby We've got the sculptor Nick Hornby, who's making his presence felt in London with three significant public commissions unveiled in the capital this year. The latest was just unveiled yesterday. Nick, welcome to the show.
Nick Hornby
Thank you for having me.
Ed Vaizey
Yeah, it's a bit of a Nick Hornby in London. Yeah. What is going on? Your first work is a six tonne, five meter tall equestrian esque work sited in opposite St James's Park tube station. Tell us about that.
Nick Hornby
It's hard to envisage what Equestrian Esk is going to look like. I guess Horsey And it's quite horsey.
Ed Vaizey
Yeah.
Nick Hornby
Yeah, six and a half tonnes. It's a large monumental piece and it came about and if you look around England, there are a lot of men on horses and I'm just not entirely sure that in 2023 that's the type of image we want to have everywhere. So I guess this is dealing with that trope and just slightly twisting it.
Ed Vaizey
Because you're, you're riffing off Richard the Lionheart. Richard the Lionheart sits on a hose outside the entrance to my office, otherwise known as the House of Lords.
Nick Hornby
Exactly. So Westminster Palace is the site of democracy. It's where democracy unfolds. It's quite an incredible place. A Gothic temple. And Richard the Lionheart, you know, in Disney, he comes across as rather wonderful and fluffy. But in truth, he was quite a complicated man.He he went off to the Crusades and slaughtered a lot of a lot of Muslims. And I think that it's worth shining a light on some of those complexities.
Ed Vaizey
And do you think that's what you're. Do you think people walking past the sculpture realized that?
Nick Hornby
So, you know, if you're if you're an ad man, have a break up a Kit Kat, You're trying to deliver a message very clearly.Sculpture art is a little bit more beguiling. My I want to participate in the conversation around public sculpture, which has been very much in the limelight for the last few years. And I want to shine a light on this issue of the trope of the man on the horse. But I don't want to be didactic. My my opinions, my positions are the result of a very particular life, my life and everyone has very different experiences.
Ed Vaizey
So it's quite an evocative site because it used to be the orchards of Westminster Abbey with us.
Nick Hornby
Absolutely.
Ed Vaizey
Yeah. Tell us the story. And that's very evocative for me.
Nick Hornby
Yeah, I mean, it's an extraordinary site. I actually went to school just around the corner at Westminster, and so I know the area very well and there are some incredible public sculptures in the vicinity. The Henry Moor, the Rhodes sculpture, and also Eric Gill within Westminster Cathedral, and in fact, just opposite on St James's Park tube station. There's there are oh, it seems exactly there. There's an Epstein, there's also an Eric Gill and a Henry Moore.
Ed Vaizey
Yes. In fact, I had to fight to save the Henry Moore and Abingdon Gardens because nobody knew who owned it. Talking about not knowing who owns it. I mean, you were commissioned by the property developer North Acre to put this sculpture place. What's it like working with a property developer? I mean, it's not that common for property developers to invest in something. You know, this is not a transaction that's going to make the money putting a large equestrian sculpture on the site of their new development.
Nick Hornby
You know, I think it's pretty brave of them to go with me because it's it's not necessarily celebratory. It's it's posing questions that are complicated. So I'm very grateful they took a punt. And, yeah, you know, the gallery space is very safe. The public domain is is you're much more open, it's much more exposed. But I think we're bringing quite a lot of we're bringing something to the table. I think that the developer gains quite a lot from having the the public art a lot of attention and and discussion. It's also very good value for them.
Ed Vaizey
What happens? Do they they hold a competition you enter or do they decide they're going to work with you and then you work together on what the commission might look like or they decide to work with you and you just get on with it and you say, Ta da, here it is today.
Nick Hornby
Yes. No, I was shortlisted. So typically what happens is they will a an art consultant will shortlist three artists and they ask you to respond to a brief. They can be quite prescriptive the brief or they can be more open ended and then they will hold interviews with those three artists and select one of them. Typically what happens and on this occasion I was the lucky one.
Ed Vaizey
But you seem to be having a run of lucky You bribing people because you've got a second one, as opened in Kensington Gardens in London, which is David Chipperfield, the great architect, has a development there. I mean, he's just won he's won the Pritzker Prize, which is the sort of Nobel Prize of architecture. And I'm hoping I'll come on my show next week because he's giving a big, big speech about architecture next week. But and this is a work called Here and There. And without wishing to be rude to North Acre and their development, I think is a different feeling when you are working with such a well-established architect. I mean, did you talk to David?
Nick Hornby
The North Acre development, Esquire acquiring partners who are extraordinary architects and brilliant. In fact, by coincidence, the third sculpture is also part of a development, the design by Esquire Architects. So there was some crossover there.
Ed Vaizey
So what was your relationship with David Chipperfield when you were doing this sculpture For him? At Kensington Gardens, Did you have a relationship with him?
Nick Hornby
Well, you know, I he is a hero, an incredible architect. Sadly, I haven't had a chance to meet with him yet. And in fact, the second commission came from albeit from Kensington Chelsea. So the the funding came from a section on six. But then the curatorial decisions were made by Kenton and Chelsea.
Ed Vaizey
And so it's on public land, as it were.
Nick Hornby
It is, yes, it's it's on the pavement next to a canning passage, which was formerly lover's lover's lane.
Ed Vaizey
And who and who would pay for that sculpture then, if it's if it's commissioned by Kensington Chelsea.
Nick Hornby
But yeah, so the developer pays for it and yeah it's, it's a little bit frustrating. Like there was an article written by someone in The Guardian who was complaining that Kensington Chelsea were throwing money at luxury art, and that was completely factually incorrect because the Section 106 is a contract with planning with the developer.
So actually it's it's funding from the developer, the Paisley's. And there's no way you could you could divert that to hospital beds.
Ed Vaizey
And tell us about the fund. When you unveiled yesterday. Yes, Do it all, which is a crossover, get this, between Queen Nefertiti and Prince Albert.
Nick Hornby
Yes. Do it all. Well, it was a hardware store. I'm sure Ed you've um
Ed Vaizey
Of Course, it was that terrible mock Egyptian.
Nick Hornby
No, it wasn't that terrible. It was that incredible.
Ed Vaizey
Who was The architect?
Nick Hornby
Postmodern designer Ian Pollard, who is absolute genius. And it was a home base not a do it all. I wanted that that mislabeling was intentional. I grew up in the area and as a as a kid, as a wannabe sculptor, I spent my weekends going to the DIY, still buying bits and pieces, I think.I think in Britain, DIY, much like tea drinking is a is a sort of British obsession. Everyone slightly kind of repaint their, their bathroom. And I wanted to make a celebration of that home base.
Ed Vaizey
But we're good at sculpture. Who your inspirations. We are, I think we are good at sculpture. Yeah
Ed Vaizey
Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth.
Nick Hornby
You know, I am. I'm. I'm guilty of loving all history and so if someone say, Who is the most significant art in your life, I would my knee jerk would be Michelangelo.
Ed Vaizey
I knew youd Say it
Nick Hornby
Michelangelo and Moore and Hepworth. And with them, the sort of patrician of modern British. Yeah.
Ed Vaizey
And you knew you were going to be a sculpture sculptor from a young age?
Nick Hornby
Yeah, I wasn't very good at reading and writing, and so I was not going to be a lawyer. And I'm.
Ed Vaizey
Why do you think you're having a moment in 2023 that you've got these three incredible commissions that are sort of all happening at once?
Nick Hornby
Yeah. So when I graduated, I made some quite large, outlandish objects, but I had no money, so they were temporary. I made a life sized like the Boeing 7 to 7 and a 22 foot pink castle, a copy of the EuroDisney Castle. And they were never going to last. But I got on people's radar and then for about a decade, I was getting shortlisted for public commissions, which was incredibly exciting. But typically I was up against two significant YBAs or already established artists. So I was the wild card. And, you know, I would I would throw my heart and soul into these proposals and and not get them because who in their right mind would, would take a gamble on an artist who doesn't have a track record. And then in 2019, um, I was shortlisted for a sculpture for Harlow, which is a beautiful, beautiful place just outlined outside London as a garden city, fascinating place that has this sculptural tradition. So within the Harlow Collection and your listeners might not know that in fact they have the Henry Moore, Hepworth and Epstein and they have a rota. So an extraordinary collection that's been going on since war. And I shortlisted for that one and I think I just assumed that I was never going to get this gig. So I went in to the interview and I was quite cheeky. I said, okay, so I am the third of three sculptors coming in today, and my hunch is that the first person coming in is going to be presenting you a statue of a man on a chair. And it's going to be it's going to be beautifully made and probably really rather lovely. And I think your local residents will like it.
But it's going to be a bit problematic because who is it going to be immortalising? Is it a man? Is it a woman? Is it a post of colour and the artist? Are they permitted to make that representation? So I basically I suggested that it was deeply problematic and I said maybe the second person is going to present you with a shiny stainless steel blob, which in some respects is fantastic. That avoids the pitfalls of identity politics and all of those complexities in the moment. And whilst it could be a metaphor for quantum mechanics, it could also just be a shiny stainless steel donut. So I said, That's what's happened. And how about I propose the intersection of those two things and we make an object which poses that conundrum as a question. So my pitch was to take the outline of Michelangelo's David and then intersect that with a single line from a Kandinsky drawing. So take the extremity with me. Yes, take the extremity of figuration and you've got the gig, the extremity of abstract. So that long story short, I got the gig. And once you've demonstrated you can make something, the next time you have a pitch is
Ed Vaizey
Exactly what you've got over the line. So that is great. Very quickly, did you know that I have a porno tweeter, a porno texter? He and I was always texts. My show is taking a while and I'm afraid he's used the reference. The fact you've done a Horse sculpture to send me a text, but I'm not going to read it out. But I just want to ask you very quickly, what's your favourite eighties band? Oh, because you have been listening.
Nick Hornby
Duran Duran.
Ed Vaizey
Oh, interesting.
Nick Hornby
Yeah, I sang with them last year.
Ed Vaizey
What?
Nick Hornby
Yeah.
Ed Vaizey
Why did you sing with Duran Duran
Nick Hornby
Party in Italy
Ed Vaizey
What did you sing?
Nick Hornby
Oh, all of it.
Ed Vaizey
Oh, did you sing Rio?
Nick Hornby
We did.
Ed Vaizey
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good.
Nick Hornby
Well, that's what I say. It was time we sang adjacent to in an intimate setting.
Ed Vaizey
Well, that's brilliant. And how many times you be mistaken for the real Nick Hornby?
Nick Hornby
The real Nick Hornby?
Ed Vaizey
Yes.
Nick Hornby
Well, I’ve got dot com. He's got dot, dot UK.
Ed Vaizey
Oh, is that right? So you're the global Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby
I think. Nick Hornby Fantastic.
Ed Vaizey
Have you been accidentally booked for this radio show? Because we thought you were Nick Hornby, the writer.
Nick Hornby
That has happened very, very frequently.
Ed Vaizey
Good. Well, Nick Hornby, this is for you.
Nick Hornby
Thank you for having me on.
Ed Vaizey, Times Radio, 22 Sep 2023