‘We need to stop talking about things, and actually go and do them’
As his new show opens, sculptor Lorenzo Quinn talks to Anny Shaw about tackling climate change
When Lorenzo Quinn was at university in New York, he was in a band with the actor Adam Sandler. “I sang, and Adam was on guitar,” Quinn recalls. Fast forward some 30 years and both have had a change of direction. Sandler has made more than 40 movies, while Quinn (who briefly followed in the footsteps of his Oscar-winning father Anthony Quinn as an actor) is now a celebrated sculptor, and creator of 2017’s mostphotographed piece of art. Earlier this year, he became the first artist to install a work of art – a giant pair of white resin hands – directly into the waters of the Grand Canal in Venice. The 30ft Support emerges from the Grand Canal and appears to prop up the walls of the historic Ca’ Sagredo Hotel. Installed to coincide with the Venice Biennale, it has been such a hit that it will now remain in situ until spring next year.
“My wife is Venetian, my mother-inlaw is Venetian. They are very protective of their city,” Quinn says. “There’s a saying in Italian: ‘Non metter le mani sulla città’ (don’t put your hands on the city), and I went and did it. But they love it!”
The piece, says Quinn, is a plea for policymakers around the world to address climate change. After Venice, he plans to install the hands on a glacier in the Arctic, and shoot a time-lapse video as the ice melts. “In a few months they’ll be gripping thin air and people will see this is real, this is happening,” he says.
The theme of climate change has long preoccupied the artist, and is the subject of a new exhibition that’s just opened at the Halcyon Gallery. Actions Not Words is inspired by a new work, Actions Speak Louder Than Words, which consists of four bronze hands signing the letters l-o-v-e. The piece riffs on the American pop artist Robert Indiana’s famous cherry-red LOVE sculpture, but “it’s about more than just words”.
“It’s easy to say ‘I love you’, right? But I want you to show me the love. We need to stop talking about things and actually go out there and do them,” he enthuses.
For Quinn, the doing has meant a series of monumental sculptures, cast in bronze, stainless steel, aluminium and resin, installed around the world – primarily in coastal cities under threat of being submerged by rising sea levels. Force of Nature, a series depicting a windblown woman hurling a globe, was made in response to the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, which claimed more than 230,000 lives, and has been placed in various international locations, including the Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai (a smaller version is on show at the Halcyon Gallery). Meanwhile in December Quinn will unveil a new work, titled It’s a Dangerous Game, which “involves a nuclear warhead… and falling in love” – and he is also working on a large-scale piece for the American hedge-fund magnate Steve Cohen, due to be installed in Connecticut before Christmas.
“It’s all about getting the message across,” says Quinn. “I love placing sculptures in people’s homes because they become part of their daily routine. But when they are installed in public, the art belongs to the people.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Paul Green, the president of Halcyon. “Our doors are always open,” he says of his gallery. “Seeing people who are not paying for anything, just viewing, it’s what we are.”
In the spirit of reciprocity, Quinn has co-written a song called Give and Receive, which was performed at the gallery last week by opera singer Lindsay Solonycze. His music-making roots, it seems, are still firmly there. As Quinn himself puts it: “It’s funny how things come full circle.”
Lorenzo Quinn, Actions Not Words is at Halcyon Gallery, London W1 (020 7100 7144; halcyongallery.com), until Dec 22