Ivor Davies at his studio in Cardiff, South Wales
ID: A few of us who had known and worked with Gustav read papers on various events we had shared with him and on aspects of his personality and history. I expect these will be published eventually. I have been asked to take part in a repeat of a different 1960s show with other people: I had shown at a gallery called ‘Signals’ which specialised in kinetic art, a minimal form which I was developing through the early sixties. Its minimalism preceded or led up to even more dramatic aspects of nullification elsewhere in DIAS. I shall have to restore and clean these particular pieces for the curator to see before the end of this month. The exhibition will be in London, then Mexico City. A&M: Much of current Contemporary Conceptual art is by artists who draw badly (a badge of honour) and whose videos are a low quality (my opinion); but accepted as Art. You are a Master Painter and accomplished draughtsman mixing Classical Fine Art with Abstraction. Do you feel Art is threatened by practices today that some see as a fall in standards and how this will manifest itself in years to come? ID: I think that at all times there have been short-lived art forms which have disappeared or have been re-discovered years later. Being able to draw helps you do what you want to do in other ways, painting, abstract painting, sculpture,
16
architecture, designing things logically or illogically as you like in your life. A&M: The prophetic ‘Levantine City’ sculpture -1956/57 caused me to go “WOW” when I first viewed it in the National Museum of Wales exhibition. I like to think my intelligence and senses were informed and developed before computer saturation and media saturation; which in my opinion has numbed the masses and robbed them of the ability to breathe spiritually. Our current visual reality is both beautiful and a nightmare. 1966 was not long after WW11. Today we may as well declare we have been in WW111 for the past three decades. Just not on our doorstep, but safely from the comfort of the TV screen. “Levantine City” would make a fitting reminder of cruelty. Have you ever considered having the sculpture realized in Public places? ID: Yes. I think I’d like to enlarge something like that. It was associated with a few paintings from 1954 and ‘55, one called ‘Disintegrating’ and experiments with poetry writing from then up to 1961. A&M: Thank you, Ivor, we certainly hope to see this one day, it would represent an important legacy of your work for the benefit of the community.