I arrived in Paris in the mid-1960s and have always lived within three blocks of where I now live, in the Cour de Rohan, a series of three courtyards in the middle of the city. It is very picturesque, with its large green iron gates and its cobblestones, and at the entrance is the tower of Philip Augustus, part of the old city walls built around 1400. This small area was the seat of the French Revolution, where people wrote and distributed Le Journal du Peuple, a series of pamphlets intended to steer things in the right direction and inspire the elimination of all aristocrats. It is a place full of ghosts because of its history. But I usually ignore that; you cannot be haunted by the past.
I live on the top floors of my building, and my studios on the ground floor. Still, the work might as well be done while I’m on the stairs and watching someone prune the trees out the window, or once I’ve stepped into the courtyard, where I hang out. On one side of the house is Le Procope, the oldest restaurant in Paris, where diners eat on the sidewalk and on the other side various creative people live. One is a designer for the opera. Another organizes fashion shows. And the Giacometti Foundation has moved into the building in front of my studio. So it is a secluded but animated existence.
I usually sleep in four hour segments and I move very seamlessly between dreaming and waking periods. Seeing my work, maybe you can make your way to the cave of the dream world. There are times when I have to struggle to know what day it is. And I like to work on many things at once. For example, today I was asked to do an environmental project for the summer months in King’s Cross, near London train station. I’m also working on a municipal complex near the harbor in Oslo to coincide with the opening of the Museum of Modern Art in that city. Tomorrow we will present models for tapestries to the Gobelins factory. And now I have an exhibition at the Barbara Hepworth Museum in Yorkshire, England. I do what I think is interesting.
I go acrobatic from the idea to the finished work – it’s like I can feel the clouds shift and the light come and go. But because I use a lot of fibers and textiles, I am also quite specific in my way of working; unlike a video artist or a digital artist, I am physically involved in the creation of all my work. It is a manual exercise, but filtered through the optics of architecture, photography, form, material and color. A few years ago I received an honorary degree from my school – I went to Yale in the 50’s – and it made me very happy because it confirmed my choice to work and live as an artist. It meant that I could contribute something to the other fields, and so I’m looking for what that could be, unlike a lot of artists, who just want to express themselves.
This interview has been edited and abridged.
