In March 2022, to celebrate our second birthday, we had a conversation with one of our first interviewees, the acclaimed South African artist Brett Murray.
Our creative and editorial director, Catarina Pereira, joined the call from Berlin; editor Alexander Matthews was in Northern California, and Brett was in his studio in Cape Town. Among the many things we talked about was making-as-therapy, materiality and his latest body of work, ‘Limbo‘, which was shown at Everard Read London in late 2021.
A few highlights from the conversation:
Brett told us that during South Africa’s first COVID-19 lockdown, he set up a studio at home:
“I had to keep busy, because I’ve only worked out recently that I’m a crotchety old fuck if I’m not making anything. It’s a therapeutic process, no matter what the subject matter. My wife says it makes me a nicer person.”
On depicting his family as a series of different animals in ‘Limbo’:
“I am my worst critic, so the devil on my shoulder was saying, ‘Oh fuck, that’s so sentimental, so kitsch.’ But I thought fuck it, I’m doing it in any case. I’m 60-years-old: I can fucking be sentimental if I want to. I love my family and I’m telling the world that, and that’s fine because that’s what you have to do, especially in the context of a fucking global pandemic [where] you don’t know what’s coming… you inevitably imbue in this innate material who you are … it’s playful, but it’s filled with pathos and it’s deep and it’s very light and it’s poppy, but it’s also serious…. All those contradictions hopefully add up to an idea, I suppose, of my vision of the world or my idiosyncratic understanding of the world. [In] this last body of work there was definitely pathos, sadness, anxiety.”
Brett Murray — LIMBO. Exhibition at Everard Read London, 2021. Photography by John Adrian
On making works in marble:
“I started working in marble because I intuitively wanted to make something which was softer and kinder and more empathetic. The tone of empathy rather than anger, I suppose… what the material did to my forms was made it much more generous and lighter.”
On the nature of marble versus bronze:
“[Marble’s] an organic material that’s got an internal life to it somehow. It’s irregular; it sparkles. It’s got a density and an intrigue and everyone wants to touch it… with the bronzes, there’s usually a dark patina, so it almost negates the form; it becomes silhouettes until you come up to it and there’s a hardness, even though the characters are playful at first glance, until you work out the context of the exhibition, and what they called. But there’s a hardness, almost a military hardness to the shapes and the forms. And [bronze] is cold physically, [whereas with marble] there’s a warmth, an aliveness.”
On the importance of free speech:
“You don’t get anything from silence. I’m wanting to hear people’s opinions, whether I agree with them or not, because I want to argue with them and I want to be informed by them.”
On social media:
“The two extremes [are] shouting at each other and [in] the middle ground there’s no dialogue – whether it’s about transgender issues, race issues, cancel culture, whatever it is. That discussion which should – could – happen out of poetry, music, movies, whatever – that nuanced discussion has almost been eviscerated and evaporated. And that’s a tragedy.”
On why monkeys are his favourite animal to depict:
“I’ve made monkeys to describe the white fascist army in the eighties. I’ve used monkeys to describe one party states in the current climate. And I’ve used monkeys to describe myself and my children. They seem to be quite versatile as a metaphor.”
Brett Murray studio, Cape Town. Photography by Mike Hall
On making books:
“It’s a great record of an exhibition, which is fleeting. I say [to book designer Ben Johnson]: ‘Do you do your best; do your worst.’ And it’s just an absolute delight. Having trust and letting go. He’s just got an incredibly fresh approach. And it’s just great seeing what he brings to my work which sometimes I think is quite stodgy and quite old school. And so he gives it a nice young flavour.”
Listen to the recording in its entirety here.