15 Questions with... James Capper

This series aims to showcase the varying approaches creatives take to making art and how their relationships to the so-called art world differ, but also reveal what unifies those responsible for the art we love.

James Capper, born in 1987 in London, uses his background in agricultural mechanics to fabricate large-scale mobile sculptures. Trained as a welder and a graduate of the Royal College of Art, Capper's work combines drawing with speculative engineering and biology, producing mobile sculpture. 

Solo exhibitions of the artist’s work have taken place at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, MONA, Tasmania, Forth Arts Residency, Sydney and Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Bathurst, among other locations. In 2011, James Capper received the Royal Society of British Sculptors Bursary Award. In 2009, he was the youngest artist ever to be awarded the Jack Goldhill Prize for Sculpture by the Royal Academy of Arts and was nominated for the Jerwood Sculpture Prize. This summer, a dual exhibition of work by Anthony Caro and James Capper is on view at Albion Barn and Fields in Oxfordshire.

1. What is your earliest memory of a work of art?

When on holiday in Italy as a child, I remember seeing with my family an unfinished Michelangelo statue called something like 'Prisoners' or ‘Slaves’. The arms, legs and body of the figure seem to be submerged in a huge block of marble, it has always stayed in my mind.

‍2. Where do you turn to when you're in need of inspiration?

I listen to music and make drawings, and also like to find time to read books or listen to audiobooks. I'm currently reading a book called Stalking the Wild Pendulum by Itzhak Bentov, it’s about metaphysics. I also like to read technical research papers and books like Building Habitats on the Moon by Haym Benaroya. This all keeps me away from the doom scroll!

‍3. What do you like to do when you need to take a break from your practice?

I don't take a break ha, but I enjoy travelling. The mind never stops, there will always be interesting conversations to be had with people and ideas come when the mind is rested.

‍4. Who is your favourite artist?
That's a basic but hard question to answer. I should start by saying that I have an exhibition with Anthony Caro, who, in the early days of forging my iconography as a sculptor, was a huge influence and a pillar in my foundations, much like Constantin Brancusi, David Smith, Alexander Calder, Louise Bourgeois, Rebecca Horn, Nancy Holt, Phyllida Barlow and Panamarenko. But in terms of living artists, it has to be Michael Heizer, the pioneer of land art.

‍5. What's the biggest crime an artist can commit?

Not being true to their integrity.

‍6. Which gallery or museum should everyone try to visit at least once in their life?

MONA in Hobart, Tasmania.

‍7. What is the worst thing about the art world?
The scale of it, it's grown to be this colossal Chimaera, it feels it has to do everything relevant at once, and I fear it all just becomes fast fashion for quick sales in the decline of neoliberalism. Institutions need more support, it shouldn’t all just be about footfall. Artists should be supported by their commercial collaborators, like dealers and galleries, to make experimental work, to push into new worlds of understanding. Art critics should get proper wages and feel they can educate the viewer with a knowledge of art history, and not be scrutinised or bullied by the layman of social media. 

‍8. Whose opinions on art do you actually care about?
It depends on the conversation. Engineers are important in the workings of specific things, and I enjoy engineering problem solving, there is much learning to be done. But really, if I'm to extract myself from the coalface, it would be artists and those with the instinct of the integrity of the artist's way of thinking. 

‍9. What trend in art makes you roll your eyes?
Art scenes follow on the surface a collective intellectual interest that is heavily influenced by the cultural conversation in the media and politics. I find it irritating to see some people caught up making easy consumption art and exhibitions to attract click bait for online clout and footfall. I guess it's conceptually entrepreneurial, but makes me roll my eyes! The true artist travels to the abyss and back to bring only the most exceptional works to the surface. 

‍10. Who are the last three musical artists you listened to?
Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works 85-92. Brian Jonestown Massacre, Aufhausen. Thelonious Monk, Thelonious Monk in Italy, 1963.

‍11. What's your favourite colour and why?
It's difficult to say when you make machines that mix paint to produce paintings… anything but brown for the time being. I'm very interested in how colour fuses together some expected results and other utterly unexpected results.

‍12. Is there an artistic skill you wish you were better at?
I have recently discovered computer-modelled animation. I guess anything to do with computer-based drawing and animation. It takes an experienced craftsman some time to get good at this process, time I have often preferred to spend in my studio making sculptures.

‍13. What can you tell us about your showavy Metal that's currently on view at Albion Barn?
It is a great honour to be exhibiting my sculpture alongside Anthony Caro's sculpture at Albion Barn. The exhibition explores a cross-generational dialogue, tracing the evolution of British sculpture from the abstract revolution of the 1960s to the mechanical age we live in today. Albion Barn’s large-scale presentation of indoor and outdoor sculpture succeeds a dual exhibition at Albion Jeune in London. Drawings, preparatory maquettes and indoor sculpture are displayed across two galleries at Albion Barn, while large-scale outdoor works are exhibited in the lawn and fields. The presentation is accompanied by the publication of a new book exploring the legacy of Anthony Caro within British sculpture and his continued influence on my work and artistic practice. Heavy Metal includes an essay written by Deyan Sudjic, former director of the Design Museum. 

‍14. Which piece in the show took the longest to perfect and why?
‘IRIS’, because it is the first autonomous sculpture (a robot) that opens a new research field in my practice, called the 'Environmental Surveillance Division’. ‘IRIS’ is still essentially a prototype that can be adapted to reflect the environments it is installed in.

‍15. What impression do you hope people get after seeing your show?
That language-based practices are extremely important in the history of art. Anthony Caro dedicated his life to advancing and pioneering a new way of seeing sculpture outside and in the gallery. It was a practice of progress that looked to long-term goals in its evolution. I would like to convey that the evolution of language-based sculpture exists and lives on.