Julie Hayward and Sibylle von Halem in conversation with Silvie Aigner
Silvie Aigner
(…)
Julie Hayward, an artist living in Vienna, has also described her objects as cyberorganisms. Coming originally from ceramic art, today she prefers to work mainly with synthetic materials, a combination of leather and textile. Her sculptures are always based on the body, which becomes the scale of reference for her objects. By combining technoid and organic forms Julie Hayward has, in recent years, developed a truly unique formal idiom. This year’s symposium piece in Krastal is Julie Hayward’s first stone sculpture.
(…)
Silvie Aigner: Julie, you deliberately selected a found piece of stone for your piece. Did you adapt your idea to stone or did the concept of your piece only emerge after working with this piece of stone?
Julie Hayward: From the outset it was clear to me that I would not carve out a form from the stone as it is generally done in sculpture. For this reason Sibylle and I did not seek out a cut block but a piece of stone. I had first developed a concept in a drawing and then I looked for a stone with which I could implement my idea. I wanted to integrate the material and elaborate various aspects but not to cut a specific form. The stone had to have corners and edges so that I could mount the metal pipes. It is from here that the stone flows at as it were, creating puddles. I wanted to juxtapose the pathos I had associated with the material until then, with something full of humor, and this on an exceptionally large scale.
(…)
What was the beginning of your collaboration with Sibylle von Halem?
Julie Hayward: This pathfinder function was already necessary for the selection of the stone. In the stone quarry Sibylle looked for a suitable stone and did some preliminary exploration. Initially I was unable to even grasp the dimension of the stone, its size and its presence. I also was very skeptical and ironic about this approach to sculpture, this focus on material. But after this four weeks I have become very careful about making an assessment. Stone has actually become a counterpart, just as it’s always described by sculptors. The stone we found has a personality and especially a history that you perceive as being very present in this work with stone.
Sibylle von Halem: Julie gave me three drawings, each with different concepts. But when we spoke about it together, it became very clear which one would be best suited for this location. Already this early phase of collaborative planning in a dialog on two artistic positions was exciting and also stimulating for my own work. I found Julie’s idea of seeing the piece of stone as a meteorite that had landed in Krastal as particularly fitting for the site.
(…)
Julie, your piece has the title SBKT 190508. What does this mean?
Julie Hayward: In the preparation work I focused intensively on the documentation of meteorites. These are often named after the place where they were found and designated with the date of their discovery. SBKT thus refers to the stone quarry Krastal and 190508 is the date, May 19, 2008, when we found the erratic block for my piece.
Otherwise you often develop large objects, sculptures that are usually identified as environments in a spatial setting. Was working with stone something different?
Julie Hayward: At first I felt a lot of respect for the machines used to work the stone.
Sibylle von Halem: But you quickly got the hang of them.
Julie: But still the resistance that one counters in working the stone was new for me and I had to adjust to it. Mainly I thought that the large barrack-room lawyer would be impossible to handle without using a lot of force. Of course, when you have little experience in working with stone you need a lot more energy. But since I was able to work together with sculptors in the symposium I was able to learn how one works with the machines, in a practical context and not just in theory. This was very important and it’s what made the working possibilities here on site so exceptional. I was able to develop something and gain experience, which wouldn’t have been possible in my studio. Thus I even dared to work with the barrack-room lawyer. The use of one’s own body going along with the movement is important and then you don’t even need so much force.
What was your experience at the symposium? What were you able to convey?
Julie Hayward: Without this invitation I don’t think I would have ever thought about working with stone. So this way I had to give it some thought, to think about what I could implement. But I also had to consider my misgivings, whether I would be able to this at all, to work with the material and the machines. Yet I was immediately taken by the challenge. It was a unique possibility.
Sibylle von Halem: I think it was also important that artists like Julie who had never worked with stone saw where the material came from and were able to literally experience the stone quarry. This means there were experts from the practical work with stone but also the working place.
Julie Hayward: The place is terrific. Sibylle is right in saying that the material lost its anonymity and the special atmosphere of the Krastal stone quarry enabled one to relate to the stone. Apart from that I would never have had the opportunity to technically implement such a sculpture in my studio. Thus the conditions here were perfect: one got the material – the stone – plus the experts and the machines and one was also lodged on site. Like everywhere the interaction with the others at the symposium was also an important factor.
Would you work with stone again?
Julie Haywards: Yes, now I’ve got a taste for it! I liked both the physical work with the material as well as the location.
Printed in:
Catalogue Pathfinder 08, [Kunstwerk] Krastal 2008, p 6–9 (excerpt)
Published on the occasion of the symposium Pathfinder no. 41
(…)
Julie Hayward, an artist living in Vienna, has also described her objects as cyberorganisms. Coming originally from ceramic art, today she prefers to work mainly with synthetic materials, a combination of leather and textile. Her sculptures are always based on the body, which becomes the scale of reference for her objects. By combining technoid and organic forms Julie Hayward has, in recent years, developed a truly unique formal idiom. This year’s symposium piece in Krastal is Julie Hayward’s first stone sculpture.
(…)
Silvie Aigner: Julie, you deliberately selected a found piece of stone for your piece. Did you adapt your idea to stone or did the concept of your piece only emerge after working with this piece of stone?
Julie Hayward: From the outset it was clear to me that I would not carve out a form from the stone as it is generally done in sculpture. For this reason Sibylle and I did not seek out a cut block but a piece of stone. I had first developed a concept in a drawing and then I looked for a stone with which I could implement my idea. I wanted to integrate the material and elaborate various aspects but not to cut a specific form. The stone had to have corners and edges so that I could mount the metal pipes. It is from here that the stone flows at as it were, creating puddles. I wanted to juxtapose the pathos I had associated with the material until then, with something full of humor, and this on an exceptionally large scale.
(…)
What was the beginning of your collaboration with Sibylle von Halem?
Julie Hayward: This pathfinder function was already necessary for the selection of the stone. In the stone quarry Sibylle looked for a suitable stone and did some preliminary exploration. Initially I was unable to even grasp the dimension of the stone, its size and its presence. I also was very skeptical and ironic about this approach to sculpture, this focus on material. But after this four weeks I have become very careful about making an assessment. Stone has actually become a counterpart, just as it’s always described by sculptors. The stone we found has a personality and especially a history that you perceive as being very present in this work with stone.
Sibylle von Halem: Julie gave me three drawings, each with different concepts. But when we spoke about it together, it became very clear which one would be best suited for this location. Already this early phase of collaborative planning in a dialog on two artistic positions was exciting and also stimulating for my own work. I found Julie’s idea of seeing the piece of stone as a meteorite that had landed in Krastal as particularly fitting for the site.
(…)
Julie, your piece has the title SBKT 190508. What does this mean?
Julie Hayward: In the preparation work I focused intensively on the documentation of meteorites. These are often named after the place where they were found and designated with the date of their discovery. SBKT thus refers to the stone quarry Krastal and 190508 is the date, May 19, 2008, when we found the erratic block for my piece.
Otherwise you often develop large objects, sculptures that are usually identified as environments in a spatial setting. Was working with stone something different?
Julie Hayward: At first I felt a lot of respect for the machines used to work the stone.
Sibylle von Halem: But you quickly got the hang of them.
Julie: But still the resistance that one counters in working the stone was new for me and I had to adjust to it. Mainly I thought that the large barrack-room lawyer would be impossible to handle without using a lot of force. Of course, when you have little experience in working with stone you need a lot more energy. But since I was able to work together with sculptors in the symposium I was able to learn how one works with the machines, in a practical context and not just in theory. This was very important and it’s what made the working possibilities here on site so exceptional. I was able to develop something and gain experience, which wouldn’t have been possible in my studio. Thus I even dared to work with the barrack-room lawyer. The use of one’s own body going along with the movement is important and then you don’t even need so much force.
What was your experience at the symposium? What were you able to convey?
Julie Hayward: Without this invitation I don’t think I would have ever thought about working with stone. So this way I had to give it some thought, to think about what I could implement. But I also had to consider my misgivings, whether I would be able to this at all, to work with the material and the machines. Yet I was immediately taken by the challenge. It was a unique possibility.
Sibylle von Halem: I think it was also important that artists like Julie who had never worked with stone saw where the material came from and were able to literally experience the stone quarry. This means there were experts from the practical work with stone but also the working place.
Julie Hayward: The place is terrific. Sibylle is right in saying that the material lost its anonymity and the special atmosphere of the Krastal stone quarry enabled one to relate to the stone. Apart from that I would never have had the opportunity to technically implement such a sculpture in my studio. Thus the conditions here were perfect: one got the material – the stone – plus the experts and the machines and one was also lodged on site. Like everywhere the interaction with the others at the symposium was also an important factor.
Would you work with stone again?
Julie Haywards: Yes, now I’ve got a taste for it! I liked both the physical work with the material as well as the location.
Printed in:
Catalogue Pathfinder 08, [Kunstwerk] Krastal 2008, p 6–9 (excerpt)
Published on the occasion of the symposium Pathfinder no. 41
