Full transcript: Heidi Locher on London Real
8:01 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. This is Nick Gabriel, and joining us today is Heidi Locher, who is a artist and architect. She’s been involved with buildings in London, such as the Soho Theatre, and most recently she’s had an exhibition here in shortage called Hotel California, which quite frankly impressed the hell out of me and Nick. Heidi, welcome.
8:23 Thank you. Thanks, lovely to be here. That, I mean, that exhibit was just, it was a real, I don’t know, trip for us. It was been 5 or 10,000 square ft. It was visual.
8:33 There was some, there was film there. There was a set. I’m actually going to play on our video feed now, just some clips, from what Heidi filmed and some clips from her exhibit. So if you’re listening on iTunes, if you go to YouTube, Channel London Real TV, you can see some of Heidi’s art and get an idea for what we saw. He GL us, how do you start from the inception of that idea, and then get to the fruition and and the creation of an exhibit like that.
10:41 What’s the process, and how long does that take? Well, in this case I think it took from about March. It’s a really immersive process, and which is why I completely love it where you just take a conceptual idea and you take it all the way through the start of this particular project was I was in an open top car in LA Sunset Strip in the evening with my with my fabulous mate Simon Moore, who’s a writer up in the hills in LA, and on the radio came one of my favorite songs, which is the Eagles song Hotel California, and we smiled rile Riley at each other and then we started just talking about what Mark says.
11:25 You know, as little people, as young people, as you’re growing up, as you’re emerging, not the sort of nature nurture thing, not that argument, but actually the incidents and circumstances of your own childhood that make you who you are. And then that seed stayed with me, and I was brought up in a hotel, and so I started thinking about my life when I was very little, which I don’t think you often do. I don’t think you really investigate your childhood unless something really traumatic has happened, and you know, being marked by things can be little things and big things, and they make up the parcel that is used.
12:05 So the next day I was sitting very luxuriously by his swimming pool, starting to sort of sketch and storyboard that. The idea of Hotel California, and the idea was to take my own journey and think about that very per, you know, very deeply as a sort of deeply personal thing, and then somehow it emerged as a sort of every man thing, every woman thing, because we’ve all been through those things, and then we hit, you know, teenagehood, and you know, the child meets the adult, and then it’s, you know, again how do we emerge, how do we find our identity and become an adult in the world and make our way, and then hopefully, and I’m, I’m hoping, I’ve got my fingers crossed that through maturity we find some sort of Redemption, and there is a sort of catharsis, so that was the rhythm of the story, and being a project person and being a sort of project family I spoke to my son in New York, who’s, you know, learning, training to be a filmmaker.
13:06 He’s a film school at SVA in New York, and he got quite interested in the idea and we started exchanging chats, but that would have been a very normal thing for us to do about any of our projects within our family, but then he got really intrigued, and then that was a really dynamic part for me too, and we SP started speaking as it were as fine artist and filmmaker, and so the two languages came together, and that’s how the central piece of the project came together. How would you describe Hotel California to people that haven’t been there? What, in terms of seeing the film you did or the exhibit, both?
13:44 Yeah. Well, the Hotel California as as an exhibit was a way of telling the story in three parts. So the initial story was the movie the film, the short film that I made with Frederick Paxton, and that was, the idea of that was that you were the voyeur, that you were, you know, constantly going past a hotel bedroom, and it was shown on three screens, and the three screens were double-sided, as it were, so you could see the film from one side and from the other, so you walk around these screens, and the film was looping around these screens, so you were constantly being taken into a hotel bedroom and viewing a piece of action, and the film was shot on an epic red slow motion camera, so you’re brought right into, you know, the action, and then it was slowed right down for you to sort of perceive, and my idea as an artist was that each frame was like some beautiful, perfect Renaissance painting with all the detail, and Fred’s thrust as a filmmaker was to make sure the action was really exciting, and had come up with this wonderful idea of putting the camera on a track so you were constantly going from one room to the next room, and then black, and then the next room, and then black, and then the next room, so you weren’t quite sure in what order you meant to see things or what you were doing, so that you were the voyeur in that particular room, in a darkened space, and you’re watching a female in a hotel room, and she’s alone, yeah, and it’s her three ages.
15:27 So there is a child There is a teenager, a young adult, and then there is a mature woman, but it was the same actress. Same actress. That’s what kind of threw me. I don’t know, did you, did that throw you at all, Nick, or did you? I didn’t actually pick up the fact that it was a woman in three phases of her life.
15:45 I mean, I was just so trying to take everything in, but that was a conscious choice you made to use the same actress, right? Yeah. I thought it was important. We didn’t want to kind of, you know, play with the idea of, we weren’t trying to be real. We were trying to, or have an idea and take you to an atmosphere, a place where you could, even though you were voyeur in that first gallery, you hopefully would start to identify, you know, and a bit like Lost in Translation, that kind of geography of loneliness you know, where you are away from home, and you know, you’ve chosen often to be there because it’s meant to be a wonderful city, and you’re a tourist, or you might have been for work or whatever, but so you know, and strange things happen in hotel rooms.
16:29 You know, everything happens in hotel rooms, you know, and then of course the chamber maid comes the next day and clears it away, and another set of people, yeah, come, you know, so it can be very discombobulating, or it can feel very wonderful. You know, and often, and the main, you know, the main feature in a way in the film is the bed, you know, and everything happens on the bed. Um, in a hotel, everything does happen on the bed, exactly. That’s, you know, you throw your clothes down, you read, yeah, if you’re, you read the script or you sketch your sketches and you watch TV and you order room service, and everything, so we wanted all of that to be present, and then people could kind of, you know, find their way in.
17:10 And then in the next gallery. The idea was that you were the person. So on that day we also directed a second camera, which was a stills camera, a very close-up camera. So whilst Fred was directing the actress, you know, the main thrust of the film, there was another camera being directed, which were just very slow still shots, very close up and then that allowed us to speak about the story in a very, very personal way, that you were now the person. Okay, so that’s what the still photos were about, that were the still, you know, the big light boxes.
17:47 I have, I have to ask you. A lot of people listening to this, you know, this isn’t normally a show about art and artists, and I think a lot of people find, have a hard time relating to art, and they’re like oh, this is Heidi, some artist, I’m not an artist. I’m an MMA fighter or I work in the industry, or I’m a plumber, and what do you say to that, to people that find, they find it, what’s the word I’m looking for? Just, it’s hard to relate to something like that.
18:12 Yeah, and I think, but I think that’s why, in a way, well, it’s a great job to have, you know, to be an artist and architect and so on, because you can play around with ideas, and everybody has a, you know, an inner landscape, and you know, it doesn’t, it doesn’t have to be high fluen, you know. You might have, you know, I don’t know had a tiff with your girlfriend, or you feel sad about something, or, you know, life hasn’t quite dealt you the hand you wanted to, but within the whole exhibition, what we were trying to do, what I was trying to do was create a world, so if you are dealing with these quite difficult things, you want to create a whole world for Some people just adored the music, for instance, the film, what was that music? It’s, it was composed by a guy called Allegri, okay, and it’s called Have Mercy.
19:07 Oh God, and it was composed in about 1600 for the Pope, for a particular Saints Day, as I understand it, you know, and it’s played at the Vatican once a year, and okay, so it’s a very sort of spiritual, so you know, piece of music like being in a monastery, or exactly. So we, we’re trying to transport people to another place, and then see how that felt, see whether that was interesting to them, you know, and I think a bit like, you know, I don’t know whether you’ve seen Kill Bill, Tarantino’s movie. He always deals with very difficult subjects in a very specific way, and in that specific movie he dealt with it, you know, with cartoons.
19:53 So there was, there’s a piece in that which is about incest, you know. The manga, Japanese car, exactly. And so I think that’s quite an interesting thing. So this is, you know, this is, you know, quite difficult material in terms of, you know, and of course you’re taking things to an extreme because you’re trying to make a point. So it’s about how a child is marked, you know, by, you could say, a dark for boing, but whatever that dark for boing is, we’ve all had those things perhaps in our childhood, and then as you know, saying earlier, you then, you know, hit adulthood.
20:25 I mean, sorry, sorry, teenagehood, and then you, you know, go on to mature. So it’s really just exploring those different ages of man of, of woman, you know, on a very general level, and then you can go in as much as you want, and then in the next gallery you can feel, you know, after the short film, you can feel whether you want to be part of that thing. And the characters were donated, as I think we mentioned, by color. So the child was shot in a red set, and the teenager was shot in a blue set, and the mature woman was set in a sort of golden yellow set, and you kept with the same actress for all three.
21:01 Is it because you didn’t want it to be obvious? I mean, is that what art is ultimately? It’s just, it’s not obvious. Yeah. I think, I think for me it’s a way of letting other people in and not being arrogant, saying, look, these are things that I think are interesting.
21:15 I mean, in architecture you have a brief and you solve problems, and that’s your job. So you might, you know, you might be dealing with very, very interesting conceptual ideas, but the idea is to solve those problems and have an end product. I think in Fine Art you’re allowed to just put those ideas out there and say, you know, Brian, have, what do you think? What do you think, you know, it? That’s what we do anyway.
21:42 That’s what we do every week. Yeah, we just put stuff out there. We don’t like it doesn’t have to have utility or a purpose. It’s just expression. It’s just exploring those things, you know, and so I think that’s what we’re hoping to do.
21:53 So you don’t think of, say, a target audience per se for your art? Do you think who’s going to get something out of this, or should a 5-year-old be able to get something out of it? Or definitely old. AB absolutely. And it’s a really smart and interesting question.
22:07 Absolutely, and you know I really don’t like the, you know, the arrogance that, in a way, surrounds the art world, and I think it should be, you know, that anybody can go in there and get something from it, you know, and actually, as a person, I hate reading reviews before I go and see something. I want to just feel what I feel afterwards. I’m then fascinated to understand, you know, what was in the artist’s or filmmaker’s or architect’s mind. That’s fantastic, you know, and of course it feels like a great privilege to have that detail, but I initially want to, you know, just go and see something and feel it.
22:45 We, we used to have a great tradition, where every Friday night we’d go and see a film, and it was called Friday Night Film Club, and the only ideal was that the film had just opened, and the idea was you didn’t read a review of it, and it’s the best gift, cuz you just go, and as soon as you come out we used to stand in a circle, and everybody gives it marks out of 10, not to be competitive, but just you get that gut reaction. Then you might go away and you chat and you think, oh, really, it really shouldn’t have been an eight. It was more like a six, or go, I really should have given it a nine.
23:16 That I didn’t realize that and I gave it a four, but actually the truth of the matter was that you were just feeling what you wanted to feel, and we had, in the second gallery where we had, you know, you mentioned that we had the light boxes. We also had three big tents, which were lit from above, and they had a series of 21 stills, which was telling, if you like, the story. It was another way of making a film, but it was, they were sort of rather grandly called photo-romans, which were a sort of an homage to a filmmaker called Marker, who made La Jetée, and there was great chat at the time of whether it was really a film, because it was a series of stills, and that particular film was about hidden memory, which of course our film is about hidden memory.
24:03 But the tents were fantastic, and I would find, you know, kids just sitting in them, being bathed in the yellow light, or bathed in the blue light, or BL, you know, and adults as well, and people would just go and sit in the tents and be, again, marked by the color, but just to really enjoy the spaces. So it’s very playful in that way. The one, the one thing that kills me is that that that exhibit is not, is gone now. I know, it’s sad. For 3 weeks, four weeks, four weeks, yeah, something like that.
24:30 Yeah, I mean, how do you deal with something like that as an artist, you know, because you put this out there and it was like this crazy experience, and now it’s gone. The fact that it’s transient makes it even more powerful, right, or more precious. But well, I guess, please answer. I suppose, I suppose that’s part of our cultural life, that that’s what happens, and you step aside so someone else can show you something else, and go, oh, look at this. Have you thought about this?
24:52 You know, and of course, you know, I would have loved it to be there longer, and it was beginning to get quite a momentum, and people were coming back two or three times and bringing their friends, cuz they were joy enjoying the interactiveness of it, you know, and the difference between the three galleries and we haven’t mentioned the last gallery, which in fact was the set which we had then deconstructed. So it was a very straightforward set that I had designed as a hotel room, with actually the fourth wall missing, so you were the voyeur. But in the final gallery I wanted it to be just apocalyptic.
25:31 And so it was shot with the blue light, and the wind machine was still going, and so it was as if all the human beings that had ever been in that room had left, you know, and you were just left with this space, and then you then could put yourself back there. And what did that feel like, you know, coming back to the hotel rooms and how you felt, that they left the lasting impression on you. Do you believe in the idea that spaces, rooms, can have certain energies that are beyond what’s available to the eye, that can affect you on a deep level, might even be a spiritual level, or what, however you want to call it?
26:10 Yeah, I really do, and I would, and in a way I would have to argue that, as you know, as having been trained as sort of an architect, that you hope that you can influence people’s lives by the way you design, design the space that they live in or they work in. But I also, I do feel they carry memories, and they carry a sort of karma. So basically you’re not going to have any of your architectural designs built upon an Indian burial ground. Let’s hope not.
26:38 Well, maybe, you know, maybe that would be cool, and maybe I think we do have to respect those things that matter, and I think you learn that too, if, if hopefully you’re not an arrogant architect, if people come to you with a project, you listen to their brief, and you listen to what matters to them, and then you try and respond to that. Somebody recently came to a house that fairly recently finished, for the family up in Hampstead, very, very modern piece, and they said, well, what do you just like about it? And I said, well, it’s hard for me to say what I dislike about it, because we just designed it for our family, you know, but if you came to me with a brief, and you know, it would be a very different spot, because I would be trying to respond to what makes you feel, you know, good or how you like to work or how you like to live.
27:25 So do you ever walk into a hotel room, or into a gallery, or into a a theater, and just instantly feel, oh, this is there something wrong with the energy of the space? I do, and I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t use those terms, but I wouldn’t, I would understand exactly what you meant by them, and I think that when a piece of architecture really sings, and in a way has a spiritual level, whatever it is, whether it is an office or somewhere you live or a theater, it means that somebody has invested in a huge conception idea, and also being very, very mindful of the complete language that they bring to that thing, so everything feels relaxed and good to you.
28:09 And that’s, I would, I sometimes, sort of, when people ask me what I mean by that, I liken to you know, if you go to a restaurant and it’s just a lovely atmosphere, and it’s a good place, but the waiter is really annoying, you know, or the food just takes so long to come. You’re suddenly conscious that the food hasn’t come, that this person is not getting what you need or whatever, and then you feel uncomfortable, but as soon as everything sort of runs smoothly and you get the vibe of the place, and you just feel completely comfortable. So for me that’s when architecture really works.
28:44 But there’s, it’s basically, it’s a function of Gestalt more than anything else. What’s that word? Sorry, if I’m not mistaken, Gestalt is theal. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.
28:54 Yes, I think so. Yes, is that like a Fu version German, or what is that? Everything in the right place. Well, I guess all is when it, something becomes more than the sum of its parts. If I’m not mistaken, it’s like, did you revisit a bunch of like Hotel movies like The Shining, Lost in Translation, somewhere before you did this exhibit?
29:12 I, I didn’t. Can’t think of any others. You breakfast at Tiffany’s? Like, to have gone to. Yeah, breakfast at Tiffany’s.
29:21 The wow, she was a proper woman wasn’t she? Yeah, she was really on a game. Yeah, definitely. No, I mean, I think I didn’t revisit them. I just, I was very aware of them, and so, and they were also became a kind of common language that I could use with Frederick, in order to try and explain what I might have in my head.
29:42 So when I spoke about the hotel room, I spoke about The Shining, and then he could, he then came with all the thoughts about the cameras, and so you know how we could lay a track and do it in a, you know, specific way that we have done it. You know, that movie still freaks me out if I’m alone and it comes on, and he’s playing in the hallway and the little girls show up and the elevator opens up with the blood. I mean, I will get physically scared. I mean, it’s, it is something creepy about it.
30:08 It’s still one of the most scary movies, isn’t it? It is, yeah. And I have seen it reasonably recently, yeah, and you know, and the hotel room and the twins, that twinning thing too, you know, and the mirror image, and all of those things just so powerful. Empty hotel is a scary thing, isn’t it? Yeah, and also I think the, the way that it all seems so reasonable up front, doesn’t it?
30:34 And everybody’s reasonable and fine, and then slowly, almost like the dream secrets, you know. In the, do you remember the rush of red water and blood? Is the blood? Yeah, but but that you don’t, that doesn’t come to way later on, and so the sort of fantasy things of it, and then that’s when you start getting a feeling of unhinged, whatever that word is. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
30:57 Something I wanted your opinion on, Brian. What’s your thoughts on those, like, super wealthy older people who just start living in hotels? They’ll just rent out, like, the penthouse suite or the top floor or whatever, for like 10, the last 10 years of your life. Dope. You mean like a h?
31:13 Yeah, then they stopped touching people too. I actually lived in a hotel for 5 months when I was in New York City, and it was a really weird experience, really trippy. I mean, I can kind of see why people do it. Maybe they do it cuz they don’t want to be completely antisocial. I thought you were going to say, say, what about wealthy people that get these?
31:29 You must have experience with this, that build these huge 15-bedroom homes only to go and completely detach from the rest of the world? I don’t know, maybe it’s their way of trying to get some attachment by being in a hotel. I don’t know. Do you, do you have experience with people like that? Or I don’t.
31:45 I certainly had, you know, we’ve designed buildings for, you know, for people who have quite big homes, but I haven’t had a particularly, you know, somebody who is reclusive, for you know, but I, I mean I’ve lived in hotels obviously when I was little, but also, you know, whilst we’ve been waiting to build buildings, and so and I kind of like them, but because they’re part of my, you know, early landscape. And there’s a very interesting guy called Peter Zumthor, who’s a Swiss writer and architect, and he talks about atmospheres in a way that I would really relate to, and he says that it’s all there, you know, in your childhood. If your grandmother’s, you know, kitchen was the place you felt safe and wonderful, which, you know, he would, was one of his examples for himself, and he, you know, he to this day loves big diamond black and white tiles, because that was the kitchen and big outdoors, you know, so for him.
32:33 But I think, I think hotels can feel very secure, and, and, and you know where you are. There’s a routine, the meals come, so if you’re kind of elderly, actually, that’s a really good idea for me when I got really old. I’m, I’m going to. Al Capone lived in a hotel. I’m trying to think of all the other, of which I started to watch Trum is a hotel.
32:53 Yeah, your, your recommendation, Boardwalk Empire. Oh, Boardwalk Empire. He lives in a hotel Thompson from Boardwalk Empire. Um, I, you want to ask you, um, is everyone an artist? Yeah, they potentially are.
33:06 Okay, and I think it’s, you know, it’s quite interesting too how, um, again another really, really big question, but you know, I always immediately my mind flips to the fact that whenever there is a tsunami in the world or a disaster in the world, what happens, of course, is that you need to get the infrastructure right and the medics out there, but also what happens is that people try and get out there and work with children, and they draw and they paint, and so it’s, you know, there is a, you know, there’s a fabulous cathartic side of these things, but that isn’t the thing that interests me. The thing that interests me is the ideas and people’s stories, and so if I think yeah, if you want to draw, you want to write, you want to paint, that’s fantastic, and that is actually just paying attention to your inner landscape, you know.
33:59 Something that I’ve always, I’ve had an issue with when it comes to artists is, there’s those specific pieces or creations where you can see, or at least I believe that it’s, it’s the, it’s almost infantile, you know. It’s like someone’s just taken a few straight lines and put them at a certain angle, and then he’s put like a 10,000 lb price tag on it, and it’s there, doesn’t seem to be any skill involved in certain kind of art forms, you know, like someone will take some mud and splatter on a page, and then what are your what are your thoughts on that? I’ve always had an issue with that.
34:31 I think, I think you are not alone. I think most people feel that, and if, and they won’t pay money for art unless they feel there’s a real skill there, but for me, I don’t feel the same way. I think that, you could say, that it’s somebody getting right at the very heart of the matter, and if those marks on that paper have a resonance, if you allow yourself to feel very open to maybe that mark or that splatter, then you might feel that same resonance, and you know there are, you know, fabulous Aboriginal, you know, drawings, paintings, all of these things that come from an absolute base, an absolute gut thing that do have resonance for people, and so it’s just feeling very sort of open-minded, and I think too that if a serious artist says this is art to me, then that’s what it is.
35:28 That doesn’t mean that you can, you have to like it or have to respond to it. I understand it’s really subjective, but I the example it brings to mind is, um, several years ago there was some four-year-old kid in the States, if I’m not mistaken, who was doing the crudest smearing of paint on some canvas, and I think her parents or someone said, oh, this could pass for modern art, and they patched it up, and it sold for vast sums in galleries, and then when people found out that it wasn’t being created by a regular artist, apparently they didn’t sell that well anymore, or they might have even sold more, I can’t remember, and they probably felt duped and all the rest of it. Yeah, and then it reminds me, I don’t know why I’m drawing parallel between this, but we had a wine guy on, you know, and I related the story of how they took a bunch of wine connoisseurs and they did a blindfold test taste test, and these guys got everything wrong, you know, and it’s kind of, there’s so much like speak to you, go ahead.
36:26 Sorry, we say f*** it. It is a, yeah, you know, it’s a load of old b******s you know, and that’s, I mean, that’s what I think we were touching on earlier on when I was talking to you about the film club, go to that thing without knowing whether, you know, the critic said it’s the best thing since sliced bread or not. In fact, the same friend who I visit in La La, the writer. We set up something that we do every January and we call it the Turner Prize, but it’s the Anthea Turner Prize actually.
36:57 And it’s, you know, bit tongue and cheek, but the idea was, and there’s an article about it actually on Dazed & Confused, which I could always tell you about, so you, your viewers or listeners, could go and read that thing. But his big thrust was that if I didn’t know that was by a famous artist, would I be buying it? That’s a very good question. You, and therefore we said to everybody we knew, we sent out a letter to everyone we know, send in a piece of art, you know, whether you be a writer, an accountant, an artist, a filmmaker, a student, whatever, and we, and in the, then we got 50 exhibits, and I had at that time a lovely big studio down in Islington, and we just, they had a deadline, so they had to come by a particular time on Friday night, and we unwrapped them, and we put them up, we, you know, we curated them as beautifully as we could, and then we invited a bunch of people to come and look at them, and then vote for the thing that they liked best, and it was so interesting, and everybody was just given five gold stars, so you could only use your five go, you know, whoever came in through the door, you had to put your five gold stars, and it’s a fascinating thing.
38:10 So if we’re not told that this is, you know, a Picasso, I think though in the end, those people who have big ideas and big things to say, whether they’re saying them, you know, by a mark on the paper or an extraordinary painting, will rise to the top, because what they’re doing is that they’re hopefully in the same way that we’re trying to do down at Hotel California. Say this is a bunch of ideas, see what you think, does it have resonance? Does it make you think beyond your everyday, you know?
38:38 And I, it speaks to you though it has value, you know, whether it’s a four-year-old or not. I mean, if it speaks to you, then it has value, and I think over time it will tell you, you know, whether it’s art or not. I mean, just speaking of bulls***. I mean, you live in the art world, how much of what you see is bulls***? I mean, like, well, it’s so subjective.
38:59 I, you know, no, no, no. It’s a, again, very, very interesting question. I don’t feel. I don’t, percentages, I don’t, I don’t actually, I don’t have to say hand and highight. I don’t think it’s bulls***.
39:13 I think those people who really are trying to say something. Usually there is a sort of there is a conscious, you know, thrust and concept, thought that actually they are good, and that they are good of course. You know, it is not always fair. There will be plenty of artists out there who won’t have a voice who are very, very good indeed, and it’s just luck that, you know, Mr Saatchi came into the gallery and said I’ll buy all of those paintings. You, you know, you like all things.
39:45 You have to get lucky, like as an example, I see Damien Hurst put a bunch of diamonds on a human skull and call it For the Love of God and try to sell it for 100 million pounds or whatever it was, and I just think, okay, pure marketing genius, art zero, and Damien, we would love to have you on the show, but I just think art zero, marketing genius, andred, what, when you see something like that? What do you think? I think that particular piece is quite interesting because I think that, you know, particularly given, you know, the world we live in right now, in terms of, you know, the financial situation, we are so you know, so he could say he’s trying to say, look here world, you know, this has all gone mad, you know we can just throw diamonds at these things.
40:26 There’s a lot of things that the sale itself is, is the art a comment on ourselves that he can actually sell it. Yeah, but I think the important thing for him is that he goes on making good work, and I think that the problem can be that if, you know, the commercial side, if you like, of your practice becomes so monumental, is the time in that space, is the time in that studio, to be really wrestling with the big questions and putting out really, really good art. So actually mass produces art, he’s known for doing that yeah.
41:00 Yeah, so did Andy Warhol? Yeah, I mean he mass produced it. It was like it was called the factory, wasn’t it, it was Co the Factory, but he, I mean, he was a great manipulator of things and he understood exactly what he’s doing, as does Damien Hurst, and he’s kind of making a joke that he’s doing it exactly. Yeah, he’s working the system, and ding in America is doing the same, you know, and I think that, I think we just have to be aware of that, you know.
41:24 But I think, I think Damien Hurst made the most extraordinary pieces of work. I think that his latter projects haven’t had that power, and maybe that always happens to artists as they continue through age, maybe not, or maybe just the sheer commerciality of his, you know, his boat, his empire is, it’s just a difficult place to do. I saw one of his exhibits in 1997. It was the Royal Academy, and it was a cow’s head that was in a plexiglass container, and it was being decomposed and eaten by, like maggots and flies, and it was this, two like plexiglass pieces, and you could watch it over the course of a few weeks getting eaten alive.
42:06 See, I don’t think of that as odd. I just think that’s just disgusting, but you, you weren’t there, but don’t you think that might say something about, about life and death, you know? Yeah, it might say something about you, but it might say something about life and death, and the fact that, you know, in the end we will maybe all return to the earth, and the flies and the worms, and so I think that’s quite, that I, I find lacking in virtue. It’s the fact that doesn’t require any skill.
42:32 I, I don’t know. I’m not a handy man. I’m not a particularly artistic person, but I could also mount a cow’s head between two pieces of Plex, but you didn’t. But I didn’t. But it’s, it doesn’t, like, you know, what I mean.
42:44 Two guys could also start talking on microphone, Somewhere In Another Country, they didn’t, they’re not as cool as to. Is it that simple or what? I do know. I has a point. I think no, he does have a point, but he, I think it is that simple.
42:55 You didn’t have that idea, and that was, and that’s what artists do, that they do have those ideas, and they are particular people in that world, you know. And you have just been witnessed to Heidi’s world. That is Heidi’s world, but you see that your, sorry, exhibition that required some skill, you can see that a lot of labor and effort and planning and aesthetic. Is that the definition of art? I like, oh, that’s my definition.
43:24 I mean, it’s something that reflects the beauty of the Divine or beyond it. Some, oh, that’s actually Osho’s definition. He says art is something that makes you reflect on the Divine, something that makes you think f***, there’s more to life than this, you know? But does that require skill to do that? I like to think so, dude.
43:40 Actually no, you know, I’m just no. Maybe seeing a cow’s head decomposing makes you think, I, I can still remember it. So it had some effect on me. Yeah, I think that’s, I do think that’s a genius piece of work, and I think, you know, he should be applauded for it, and yeah, end off. I think it is a big idea, you know, but I, I do I get, and I have this conversation all the time with people that they want to see some skill and something you know.
44:04 I mean, what was I, I heard the other day, there was some guy in France a couple years ago, he cut off his penis in front of a studio audience as performance art. I mean, yeah, where do you draw the line do you know what I mean? It’s there, that might just have been the line, that might just have been it. I don’t know. That was it.
44:20 It’s like, I guess art is just for art, but you could say, you know, in Damien’s you know, defense or defense of all artists, that actually it takes a highly tuned mind, you know, a lot of space has to come around, and you know things have to be thought of to actually come up with an idea of how do I show mortality and death in an extraordinary way that everybody will go, woo, that’s extraordinary, you know, so maybe, you know, that’s his skill. He’s not an athlete, you know. He’s not a, you know, he’s not drawing things, but he’s coming up with those big ideas, and I’m really seduced by that.
44:56 I really like that, and I like when I meet people who, you know, whether they be philosophers or writers or filmmakers, who are giving us big ideas as we talked about The Shining, Lost in Translation, those are big ideas. You know, what do you say to people that they’re like Heidi, I work 50 hours a week, I come home, I watch Boardwalk Empire on the TV, I would play with my kids, I don’t have art, I have time for my art, art in my life. I just don’t have the time.
45:18 I don’t even know what you three are talking about with the cow heads and stuff. I mean, what do you, what do you say to people like that? I mean, that, that don’t know how to get art in their life? Oh, well, well first of all, it sounds like quite, you know, quite a lovely life if you go home to your family and you play with your kids and all those things. I suppose for me it’s always just been so part of my background but I would say, if you’re living in London, my God, that’s fantastic.
45:42 You can walk out anywhere, you know. and actually, I think I survived having two, you know, very small children by being able to walk out in London with my fabulous late husband, you know, walk down to the South Bank, go into the Royal Festival Hall, grab a bite go to a, you know, bookstore, maybe buy secondhand book, go into a gallery. Most galleries are free in London, you know. So this is an art lover city for sure. Oh, there’s just so many possibilities.
46:06 Yeah, you’re talking about the review earlier, and I agree. I like to see a film. I don’t want to know anything about it. I hate previews on films. I just don’t even look at them.
46:14 Do you? I, I want to go in cold, completely C, which is it’s hard these days with a movie, cuz you’re at least going to see a poster, you’re going to see something, but the one thing. I, I go to the National Gallery a lot. First of all, I found that as the older I get I appreciate art more, which is weird, but I go to the National Gallery and you see a painting and then you’re allowed to appreciate it. I go to the Tate Modern.
46:33 I see a piece of modern art and there’s a description about what that art means, and I always find that frustrating about the Tate Modern, because it doesn’t leave it to your own opinion. It almost tells you what the artist was thinking, and this is why they do it because society is this yeah, is it just me? No, well, I think probably you’re talking about two different kinds, you know, different times in art and so maybe one was much more descriptive, much, you know, was almost photographic, and then of course, you know, photographs came along and took over from that representational kind of art, but I do know what you mean, and I think it is fantastic to be able to wander around and not know.
47:11 And I do the show twice, always. I I, you know, the exhibition. I go and I want to have that immediate reaction, and then I go around and I, I want to read, and I can agree or disagree. Okay, interesting. I actually prefer to descriptions because then at least I know.
47:29 I mean, sometimes, yeah, I mean, at the Tate Modern, sometimes you really don’t. I mean, sometimes you could be like, was, you know, should this have been cleaned up? My maintenance kind of thing, so sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s really out there. I mean, it’s, it could be argued that it’s your analytical mind wanting to fill in the blanks that, the right brain isn’t giving it. I mean, when I was in your exhibition, a little description would have helped me immeasurably, but that’s just because I don’t have a sophisticated artist’s eye, so I understand what you’re saying, Brian.
48:01 What do you think? I mean, do you prefer? You said you don’t like see, but I mean I kind of understand it now. I think I’ll do what Heidi does. Next time I’ll go around first, and then, you know, read the bits.
48:11 It was great actually. In the show we had some, what they sort of rather grandly called the artist tours, but one particular session, a lot of students turned up, they must have heard about it, and they would just had such fascinating, you know, questions about the show, which made me think about the show in very different ways, and they were seeing things I hadn’t seen. So this is a really two-way street, you know. This is, and of course, your art is also about just connecting with people and being really connected, and so, you know, bit like these conversations you know.
48:46 And one person said to me, well, I think your film is all about loss, and I hadn’t thought about it like that at all. We, I think I’d thought about it as a cycle of life, you know. What did that mean. But they were saying, well, it’s all about loss, and life is about loss, you know, a loss of innocence initially, and then, you know, so on and so forth. So it’s F, you know, that can be fascinating too.
49:09 It’s really interesting. The more I hear Heidi talk about this, the more I think about London Real, and in some weird way this is our form of art, and as we get feedback, sometimes that’s almost more important than the podcast. It’s like the feedback in the interaction, and some people get some things from it and other people get other things from it. It’s kind of trippy in that way. That’s interesting.
49:27 Heidi, is it true that you used to be a fashion model for Christian Dior Come on, I think, I think that would be, that would be overemphasizing it. Very definitely, when I, when I I left school a year early and I got a place at Chelsea School of Art, and so, but I wanted to be in London, so my mom said, well, you got to go and work somewhere that I, I know, because I was only 17, and the great thing was that my sister had a flat here, so I could, I had somewhere to live that was okay. So I just went around the sort of shops, the names she knew, Elizabeth Arden and Christian Dior, and they just happened to need what they call a house model, which is a bit different from being a model model, and the idea is that, and it’s, do you know, Sketch on Conduit Street, which is a very cool gallery and restaurant now.
50:17 That was the building, so that was my first job, and there were three ladies rather grand ladies, and they were called vanders, and they had their client list, and my job was to put on whatever the cter garments, and of course I was 17 and skinny and little at that stage, you know, and so you put on the garments for the client to be able to see, for like a private viewing. Yeah, exactly. so for instance, Princess Margaret would come in and say, well, I loved, you know, the blue or whatever, she would say good, and so I’d go and put on the blue goret and stand there, and they of course A’s had her particular measurements, and so she would say, I’d like that, but I would like it to be a little bit shorter or have slightly longer arms, or, you know, what, you know, in length or whatever.
51:04 So really, you know, saying that I was the house model, and it was great fun of course, because I got to wear all these beautiful things and learned to curtsy whilst carrying bales of fabric, which was good because, you know, a lot of Royal people would come in but in a way the most fun was, they still at that time down in the basement had the people who made these beautiful couture garments and talk about works of art and Endeavor and labor, you know, there was a a beautiful French lady there who probably was maybe 60, you know, in my mind she was, you know, it’s when you’re younger everybody seems older, and she sewed on sequins onto je, you know, that’s all her job was, and these beautiful, beautiful gowns, you know, and I learned actually to patent cut.
51:56 They cut everything from scratch and all the beautiful, you know, bells of fabric, so there was great beauty there. It was fantastic. By the end of my year there I was very fed up of sort of, you know, being absolutely thoroughly made up, and you, I had long blonde hair and they pile that up in a great bun and make you up absolutely immaculately, so I think I’ve reacted a bit against, so when I first went to art school and I chopped off all my hair, and you know I have a hard time seeing art and fashion.
52:27 I mean, you see all the runway shows like the latest couture, and it seems so far out there, and I have a hard time relating that to art, back to people who we are it always seems something like, I ignore when I see fashion models, exactly the same. Can you, can you make, educate me as o well. Yeah, I mean I think, I think when it’s when it’s very, very high-end, again you know, same thing coming back to big ideas, they’re dealing with very, very big ideas, and then what happen, so you’re big ideas, just a big thought, you know.
52:58 It might be even that it might be, I’m, I’m going to design something all in black because that makes me feel, about, you know, about grief, and or it’s, it’s about the silhouette, about the cut of something, a structure, a sculpture. I mean, I’m not here to kind of argue for fashion, but I do think there are some extraordinary designers who are dealing with very interesting things, and then of course it gets sort of filtered through, trickled down where you buy something on the high street. Exactly, but equally, fashion, fashion is very clever at picking up, you know, themes from fine artists too, you know.
53:35 So there are some, I would say, there are some amazing fashion designers out there who really are sort of fine artists in lots of ways. Steve McQueen was one, I think you could argue. Yeah, you could argue that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, and Issey Miyake, fantastic.
53:53 You know, Japanese fashion designer who, I think, trained initially as an architect, you know. So he brought all those kind of very sculptural ideas and I think there, you know, clothes are our outer wrapper. It’s what we wrap ourselves in, and we like to, you know, we show the world who we are. It’s part of our identity at a very basic level, and architecture, same architecture is the thing that we wrap ourselves in, or, you know, fine art where, you know, in you know, particular show that we’ve been talking about, you know, my show in jich was about making an atmosphere, a world that you get completely embedded in and you start thinking about those thoughts, those ideas, whether they be playful or light or a little bit, you know, deeper, doesn’t matter.
54:41 It’s just you really want to challenge someone’s brain ultimately. Yeah, I think that’s, isn’t that the only thing that’s interesting? Also I don’t think we want to get to sort of a grand old age and not have some wisdom, you know, having been a little bit analytical about our liv, or, you know, our political landscape or the things that have happened to us or our family. So I think all of these things allow us that way in, and if we take them a little bit seriously and give ourselves a bit of time, and we were talking earlier, before we started a chat, about yoga, and it’s the only sort of form of sort of physical exercise.
55:18 I’m not even sure you can call it that. The way iidea, it’s very gentle, but I think that gives you space to breathe and think, and maybe we need bit more of that, and particularly if we live in big cities. And part of the thrust of our architectural practice, because I trained at the Royal College of Art which was all about making buildings in London, in a big metropolis, is how do we find peace and quiet in our cities? How do we, you know, give ourselves, you know, space to think about things, you know, whether it be fashion or books or art or yoga, you know.
55:53 You’re an architect, Heidi. What do you think of the London skyline? I think it’s great, and I think it should be taller and higher and much more like New York, and I think we should never cop out, and I think every single time, you know, we make a tall building, you know, like The Shard, like the Gherkin, we make it too small. Go for it, I say. Go for it.
56:13 Yeah, of course we have the technology now and I don’t think we ever regret something that we do, which is fantastic and big and interesting. Why is it conservative why is London conservative, or the UK, in that sense? I think it’s just historical that we, we like, you know, we used to, very much so, and I think this has changed value. What is historic, you know? So when I started architecture what was valued, as it were, even for, you know, the financial world was a paneled lined room you would be in safe hands if you’re in a panel line room.
56:50 Talk about that, you know, whereas we didn’t value something that was modern and interesting. New York, wow, you oppos. Yeah, well, you got fantastic opposite. And I remember going as an architectural student to New York and just being blown away, you know, by the fact that you could live in that way, you know, in these big loft spaces and just be brave about what you were doing. So if you ask me about the skyline, I say go taller, go higher, and that doesn’t mean, you know, compromising beautiful views of St Paul’s or any of those things.
57:22 We don’t need to do that. We’ve got plenty of, we still have plenty of space to go up into the sky and delight ourselves, you know. I like The Shard, but I, when I get up close to it. I don’t like it as much as far away. I feel like they could have, and then the top I’m still trying to figure out the top.
57:36 For anyone who hasn’t listen, it doesn’t been to London, it’s the tallest building in Western Europe now. Is that right? And I think that’s right. It’s like a big shard of glass, and then the top isn’t actually closed at the top, so it really bothers me, but maybe that’s what it’s there to do, to bother me. Maybe it’s going to, decomposing cow’s head on the top that we haven’t seen, you know.
57:53 The three pieces can land for the chief ex. This is a good question for you, Heidi. Like the three pieces at the top don’t connect into a point, and I’m wondering if that’s there just to make you think. Why aren’t they connecting into a point? I, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say so.
58:11 I think that the architect would have, you know, been drawing that beautifully. I mean, in our parlance, in our language, we talk about things which are tense or not tense, and so it, when you’re making sculptural spaces, you talk about not, you know, trying to not make things feel tense, and I think by allowing, if you like, the light and the sunshine in that particular way, and I’m sure he will have drawn it a million times to just make it pleasing to himself, you know, and I think, you know, that links us directly back to those marks on the paper, that some marks are just incredibly pleasing. I don’t know whether you know an architect called Alvar Aalto, Swedish architect, and he designed the most beautiful buildings, which had beautiful curves, and I think you’d all know, probably, he may, he also designed beautiful objects as well, like, and there is what’s called an Alvar Aalto vase, which has this beautiful curve in it, which echoes a lot of the forms that he made in buildings, and if you look at that, you know, what, how did he dissect that curve, what was that decision?
59:19 But that was just for him, making beauty, and I’m sure, you know, the top of The Shard is all about making the most beautiful thing. It’s not pretty to me, not pretty to you. What do you think is the most beautiful building in the world in your opinion? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, going make, she’s going to make some enemies.
59:36 Come on, give us the real deal. Gosh, I don’t know. God, that’s a really tough one, cuz there’s so many. What’s the first thing that pops into your mind? The first thing that pops into mind is California, some of those fantastic, which ones, the Frank Lloyd Wright, fabulous, kind of, California cabins, and I think that’s to do with my fantasy of light, of letting light beautifully into buildings in that way.
1:00:03 So I think they, like, the cantilevered residences he did, and all that. Exactly. so you, you know, you were thinking skyscraper, weren’t you? You were think, maybe that inside outside, it’s that inside outside, and maybe there’s probably still something in me that I would like, that’s still a challenge, because I’ve always lived and worked in London and made buildings in London, so I think I have to probably turn my head to California in the sunshine and take on that idiom.
1:00:30 So I think that’s probably what’s rolling around. I thought of the World Trade Center, that’s what I thought right away. Did you? Gosh, which is interesting, cuz Nick was saying how it doesn’t look like it would require any skill. It’s basically two sticks next to each other, but I remember being under there and just marveling in it in the beauty, the symmetry and the simpleness of the simple straight things in the air, but they were so impressive and imposing down there on the tip of Manhattan.
1:00:53 I just always like contrast that with, like, it sounds so hippie, but if you contrast man’s designs in our cities with nature’s, they’re always fall short in my opinion. What, comparing it to, like a tree, like a plant or a tree, like they’re beautiful as well. It just seems so crude and angular and harsh in comparison, you know. That’s, it’s just me being a hippie, but, cont, I think it’s a good argument. I mean, ever just before I came here, I, I, I was very sad, cuz I read an obituary for Oscar Niemeyer, who is fabulous Brazilian architect.
1:01:26 I think he was Brazilian. I hope I’ve got that right. And he made beautiful soft fabulous, undulating, you know, buildings, is within the, you know, the modern idiom, but also I think I’m just thinking of ronon, which is a chapel that Kier made in Switzerland, and that is extraordinary, and I think you’d really like that that’s curving walls and beautiful sort of shafts of light, absolutely sensational, beautiful, beautiful spiritual building. He, we’ve only got a few minutes left, but I need to ask you two more questions.
1:02:02 The first one is, what advice do you have for that, you know, 22-year-old girl or boy out there that wants to one day grow up and be like Heidi, and to be an artist, you know, or an architect, or a fashion designer. What do you tell them? I, I tell them not to get the wrong Heidi and not the one, you know, which is the story where, you know, she has to hang out with her grandfather in the mountains, but to be the Heidi that ju, just be, grasp everything, follow your dream, you know, and you, and try and be confident, try and believe in yourself that you can do those things, but they happen step by step.
1:02:40 So you know, when you, it feels so enormous sometimes, but just go to the thing that you really love doing with all your heart, and somehow I think the world, you know, pays you back, and I think the world does give you what you need, sometimes are not what you want but if you’re very authentically, you know, going to the thing that means something to you, or else, for me, the world has no meaning, so go to the thing that means something to you. Work as hard as you possibly can and try and do that thing. If it doesn’t mean something to you, then don’t do it, you know.
1:03:16 You I’m not judgmental about that, but for me that’s the most exciting thing to be able to be creative in the world and have projects, and that’s what I’m hoping I’m going to be, you know, 110-year-old bidy somewhere we still doing my projects, you know. You going be, you be designing art until, until you die, hopefully, hopefully. But I think also it is crucial, that a lot of people will argue, you know, go and go and be that banker, because you can write your book anytime.
1:03:42 You can’t, you know, you can’t, you have to go to the main thrust of the thing that you care about first with all your energies. Then go and find a way of making a living you know, you can be that waitress, you can be that bal, you can, you can do those things, you know, because you might not have that enthusiasm later. Yeah, and it’s very easy once you’ve got a lifestyle, you know, how, you know you got an apartment and a family, and how you’re going to be the writer when you’ve done all of those things or the artist or the architect, and they are tough, these things, and they’re tough decisions, and I’m, and it’s a you know, much, you know, people are emerging into a much tougher world economically than I emerged into.
1:04:18 I had many more choices, I’m sure you know. I think the dice was very much on my side, and dice isn’t necessarily on young people’s side at the moment, but go for it. Very considered answer. It’s very good advice, and the last question I have is, if you can make a phone call now to the 22-year-old Heidi Locher, what advice would you give her? I would, I would probably.
1:04:42 It would be very similar advice, probably, but I don’t think I needed to give myself that advice because I felt quite brave. I think I would say, don’t be too internal don’t let the voices overtake the confidence and the creativity that is in there. Heidi, believe that you can do it and that you will have a joyful and marvelous life if you do that thing. And of course we all have doubts and we doubt ourselves, but if we can just turn the volume down slightly on those voices, on those doubts, so I would say to me, just turn the volume down, but maybe that’s just a general, well, maybe I should just turn the volume down.
1:05:25 That’s actually one of the questions, actually, I wanted to ask earlier, do you ever, when you’re creating, like Hotel California or any piece of art, do you ever think to yourself they’re going to see right through this? There’s nothing here, this is not good enough for our exhibition, or is that, are you past that, those kind of, it isn’t that. I’m past that, but that isn’t necessarily my problem. I mean, I have other problems, but my problem is I have too many ideas, and so when I start thinking about things, I throw absolutely everything at it, all the ideas and then it’s the distilling, it’s the editing process that I have to really watch, so that I feel that it is really layered and really considered and really deep, proper piece of work, and if I don’t feel that then it’s not going out of the studio, end of.
1:06:12 But also I feel I’m letting myself down, and letting everybody around me down. I would be embarrassed, you know, if you went there and said, oh, this will very nice, Heidi, but I can’t see anything interesting in it. That’s not who I am. So there’s a big geek bit of me that wants to make sure that there are powerful big ideas in there. I think I’ve said that a few times today, and you know, so that isn’t necessarily my problem.
1:06:35 I have other things that I would feel worried about, but not necessarily that. Wow. I mean, I think we were both attracted by your art, but I think we, we both fell in love with your enthusiasm, you know. You’re just very engaging to talk to, and, I, I was really surprised, you know, when we first met you, because a lot of artists, they put their art out there, and then they go inward, and it’s just really nice to talk to. Oh, it’s been great pleasure cheing to you.
1:06:59 If people want to get a whole view, if they want to have a house designed by your architecture firm or anything, what’s the best way just to go on the website as far as www. Studio Locher. Yeah, okay. And you’re on Twitter as well, is it Studio Locher? It is Studio Locher.
1:07:15 It’s just easier that way, and then you know that’s everything there. Yeah, okay. and what’s next for you? What’s coming up next year for you? Oh, really exciting things actually.
1:07:24 I’m glad you asked me. There’s, we, I’m starting to design what we’ve been calling a sort of a couture furniture, which is a series of furniture. So when we’ve been designing our buildings, we’ve always been making all the furniture as well, so that series of furniture, which, you know, defines spaces and makes sculptural places, will be starting to happen next year. Wow. quite a different art form, isn’t it?
1:07:51 Yeah, it is, but it’s always been part of our landscape, as you know as designers within Studio Locher and part of making the architecture, and then Frederick and I have a new project called Strange Hinterland, which is a short film that we have to get funded and think about and draw and exchange ideas. So we want to make that next year. I think I’m guest editing a fabulous new magazine, men’s culture and fashion magazine called Article, and I’m think I’m their guest art director and artist for their first issue which I’m really excited about, and they came to the show and loved all the circular things, and so there’s an idea about the circle within the first edition, which, wow, is exciting, and hopefully some other, you know, and hopefully another show at the end of the year.
1:08:44 So I think we got our work cut out, actually. No FES on Heidi. I mean, if you ever think you have a busy life, Jesus. Oh, I feel I feel I’m very lucky that, you know, I can have a project-based life. It’s great.
1:08:57 Wow, that’s fantastic. Well, I just want to say to our listeners on iTunes, if you’d enjoy this, if you could just give us a five-star rating and leave us a review, let us know what you think. Nick is going off to Peru next week to check out the Ayahuasca experience there. If you want to hear about our first Ayahuasca experience I think it’s episode number 23 and 24. It’s called the Ayahuasca, ready to die, in Ayahuasca, back from the dead.
1:09:21 Have you done Ayahuasca? No, but I want to go now. I’m jealous. You go with NI. Are we doing another show?
1:09:27 Oh yeah, we might have another show next week, but yeah, yeah, so, so yeah, there you go. Thank you so much. It was a real pleasure, Heidi. Thanks. It’s being a joy.
1:09:36 Love you to chat, nice to meet you lot of fun, thanks a lot, and until then it’s about the journey, indeed. Right, bye-bye, bye. This day I can’t remember, some of my fights, like from, I don’t know, one from about round seven onwards to round 10, so I had pain killers injected 10 minutes before the fight in my wrist and in my neck. Is that legal? Yeah, yeah, I’ve come to realize that I was adopted, when I was, when I was a child
