Linder's Portal
January 2012

Barbara Hepworth's Spring (1966). Bowness, Hepworth Estate; photo © Tate 2007
Linder, author of The Wire 336 Epiphanies article on the work of artist Barbara Hepworth, shares her top picks of the web.
Barbara
Hepworth interview, 1968. Here, Hepworth talks
about her work, her breathing and her hands. In her garden and
studio you can hear the church clock chiming, gulls crying and the
Atlantic Ocean at high tide. The soundtrack and the sculptures have
survived the artist, it's a perfectly formed legacy.
An account of the Fugs levitating the Pentagon in
1967 Hepworth made her first pierced-form
sculpture in 1931. The Fugs decided to pierce the Pentagon in 1967.
They wanted to release the accumulated demons there that were
prolonging America's war with Vietnam. Hepworth used her mallet and
chisel, the Fugs used guitars, daisies and chants – needs must when
the devil drives.
Your Actions Are My
Dreams The day before making a new work, I become
very inarticulate and have the vocabulary of a three year old.
Hence in this short Tate film, I manage to say, "I just need to
sleep".
Ustaad Ranbir Singh
playing Rāg Tilang on the dilruba Ustaad Ranbir
Singh is my dilruba teacher at the Raj Academy of Asian Music. The
name, dilruba, means "heart stealer" – the bowed sound of the
twenty-five strings is said to be so sweet that it steals your
heart away. Ustaad Ranbir Singh plays like an angel and I follow
him as a loyal and ineffective thief.
Professor
Surinder Singh of the Raj Academy of Asian Music
One of the earliest lessons that Professor Surinder Singh taught me
was how to "decompose my mind to compose my life". At the time, my
mind very definitely did not want to be decomposed, it still
doesn't, so I have to begin my Naad yoga practice at 5am each day,
when my mind is still asleep. That way the resistance to change is
minimal and the piercing with the naad, the sacred sound current,
is effortless. Composure then has a fighting chance for the rest of
the day.
Stuart
McCallum Stuart McCallum's use of strings has all
of Hepworth's paradoxical curiosity and certainty, he's an adept
sonic heart stealer too. Stuart and I are working on a series of
recordings using voice and various stringed instruments – the
dilruba, the harp, the guitar and more. We never quite know where
we're going until we get there. Here Stuart plays La
Cigale and I play with flora.
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