text and interview by Scout MacEachron
James Capper looks a bit like a mad scientist. He is standing in the middle of a park holding a comically large box with buttons and joysticks on it. Itโs raining and everything, including Capper, appears to be sinking in to the grass. His hair and clothing are soaked; his expression part exasperation, part intense focus. The box is attached to a Mini-Cooper-sized, spider-like machine that Capper is controlling. The machine raises and lowers itโs legs, taking chunks of grass with it. A small crowd gathers to watch. โI didnโt expect all the rain,โ Capper says to no one in particular.
Capper is a 28 year-old British artist redefining what we think of as sculpture (i.e. a chiseled Greek naked person made of marble). Capperโs sculptures move. The one heโs currently controlling is a walking machine or earth marker. It looks something like a moon walker meets spider meets robot. The idea was born from a show at the Paul Kasmin gallery in New York in February called โMOUNTAINEER TEETH.โ Capperโs goal with the Mountaineer design is to create a sculpture he can sit inside of and climb up a mountain. The exhibition was his first solo show in the US and included various sculptures and drawings. The gallery represents Capper. They are the ones that arranged for him to participate in this yearโs Art Basel Miami where he showed one of his sculptures in the afore mentioned Collins Public Sculpture Park.
Capper is shockingly young for an artist of his prowess. He graduated from the Chelsea College of Art and Design with a B.A. and immediately began working. His work has been shown at the Saatchi Gallery in London and the Moving Museum in Dubai among others. Capper began drawing at an early age but it wasnโt until he learned how to weld that he turned his attention to sculpture. His interest in machinery, engineering and the industrial quickly led him towards the moving sculpture.
I met Capper at Collins Park to observe his moving sculpture. At over 6 ft tall he held an umbrella over my and his publicistโs heads as we ran to the nearby W hotel. Tucked on stools at the hotel cafรฉ we chatted over hot coffee. I sat on his right side, Capper canโt hear out of his left ear.
In reality Capper is far from a mad scientist type in appearance and personality. He is thoughtful, genuine and soft spoken in the way that someone whose ego has yet to be inflated by greatness is. Capper is handsome, in a British way. As he talks it becomes clear that he is deeply passionate about his work. He has a vision and that vision is and will revolutionize the medium of sculpture. Expect great things from Capper in the years to come. And if one day you see a spider-like machine walking up a mountain with a man inside it is most likely him.
AUTRE: How did you end up at Basel this year?
JAMES CAPPER: Paul Kasmin started representing me in March of this year. I had a show at his gallery in New York called โMountaineer.โ It was a survey show of drawings and sculptures. There were eight sculptures that sat around the walls, which were the component parts of a much larger concept. They were called โMountaineer Teeth.โ And then there were something like 25 drawings. Initially, thatโs where my work begins from, where ideas manifest.
AUTRE: Drawing?
CAPPER: Yes, drawing.
AUTRE: Tell me about your beginning as an artist. Were you the kid who grew up knowing what he wanted to do? You have a pretty interesting niche.
CAPPER: Iโve always drawn. Iโve always felt a lot more comfortable drawing than actually writing. In some ways, the best way I can translate ideas is through drawing. Thatโs where I started. I always had pencils and pens. Now, thatโs still a fundamental part of my mannerisms as an artist. That is the one key element that drove me to art school. I knew that there was one thing I could always fall back onโthat I could draw. My interest in sculpture really opened up in art school. I went to the Chelsea College of Art in London, and then I went to the Royal College of Art in London.
AUTRE: Do you remember what you drew as a kid? Was it abstract or normal kid stuff? Maybe some of both?
CAPPER: I would say it was just the normal stuff that kids my age would draw, but it really came out on my foundation. The drawing teacher told me, โYou have a really straight line. Itโs not like these scribbly, scattered lines.โ That really opened up, for me, the possibility of making the drawings I make today. Iโve always enjoyed it. Iโve always had my quiet moment where I sit down and make drawings. When I make drawings today, I have to have some sort of solidarity or quietness to be able to convey ideas. I canโt do it when Iโm under stress or pressure from the studio. That, fundamentally, is where the ideas come from. I draw from an open mind. They are a way of articulating thoughts.
AUTRE: Tell me a bit more about when you were in school. How did your interest in sculpture develop?
CAPPER: Before getting into Chelsea, I didnโt know if I would ever get into art school. I enrolled in a job where I ended up helping out some fabricators. They were doing heavy fabricationโwelding stilts together. I understood, having drawn from a young age, that itโs not that far between a pen and a welding torch. You have to have a fairly steady hand, an idea, and a certain confidence in what youโre doing. The transition between being able to draw and being able to weld was like the transition between a saxophonist and a trombonist. Itโs a very smooth transition. What I found before getting into Chelsea was that my fabricating skill in metals was getting quite good. I wanted to open that up in these workshops I took in art school, particularly in woodworking. I ended up doing a lot of abstract sculptures. I was very inspired by David Smith and Tony Caro. Thatโs what helped me get through my first year of art school. Then, I realized that I was really interested in making what I had made while weldingโthese big, still, moving structures. So, I started investigating that. Those are the primal beginnings of this language, this DNA of what I do now. It all came from fusing all these different thingsโprimary drawing, a little bit of knowledge in fabrication, and art school.
AUTRE: Give me a brief sketch of your path from art school to now.
CAPPER: In my second year at Chelsea, I met this amazing young woman called Hannah Barry. She ended up inviting me to exhibit my work in a group showโwhat we called a โsquat scene.โ You guys probably have the same thing in the Statesโartists have exhibitions derelict buildings. Thatโs what started this relationship with Hannah and the other artists involved in this squat. A year later, pre-graduation, she opened a gallery in the Southeast part of London called Peckham. I had my first show there, which was a drawing show. From there on, this relationship unfolded. Iโve been working with her for eight years now, and sheโs done her utmost best to help me produce ideas. For instance, this year, we produced โAtlas,โ which was an idea for a work that I had in 2007. For both of us, we know how much of an achievement that is. It was an idea from, essentially, the beginning. We were commissioned by Henry Moore Foundation a couple of months back, and the show is still running in London.
AUTRE: From the drawing, when did you start building the type of work I saw outside?
CAPPER: There were a number of drawings that I made in 2009, when I was at the Royal College of Art, the sculpture school based in South London. I sat down one morning, having just enrolled in the place, seeing this phenomenal facility. But I didnโt have a penny to my name. So I thought, I can always fall back on my drawing. I put together a whole bunch of drawings on this translucent paper of my dream ideas. These ideas, predominantly, started the foundations of what I now call โEarth Marking.โ They were a whole bunch of mobile sculptures. Hannah and I try not to use the word โkinetic,โ because it gets confusing. Weโre talking about heavy engineering, rather than something more whimsical. And weโre talking about innovation as well, which is something I donโt believe we see a huge amount of in the latter. Predominantly, I put down these ideas thinking, โIf I had all the time and money and everything in the world, this is what I would do.โ I just went out into the abyss. That was the first time I found this error in my thinking. Itโs like a reconnaissance area, where I can go completely off the track of art, engineering, technology, etc., and come back with ideas and predictions. Things I wanted to aim my target to. These were the first target drawings, one of them being โMountaineer.โ
AUTRE: Tell me more about Mountaineer.
CAPPER: Mountaineer was a mobile sculpture that I would be able to sit insideโlike an operating craneโand climb up a mountain. It has these four telescopic legs. Itโs very much like a crane or an excavator, but very influenced by insects, on a large scale. It was making those drawings, and seeing films like Fitzcarraldo, where he pulls the ship over the mountain, that influenced me in this radical way. That was the beginning of this investigation, what I do and who I am today.
AUTRE: Have you ever had an interest in engineering? Did you teach yourself?
CAPPER: The biggest thing I had to teach myself in the latter years to make these dream drawings come true was building the relationships I have with my industrial supply chain. I needed to be able to delegate as well as manufacture things that are true to the drawings and the ideas. Being a good drawer and being a good welder means that the principles and the skeleton of the sculpture are together. Then, moving from the studio to the power coaters allows it to be painted very well. Their work is fantastic. Being able to work with the hydraulic engineers who make the hoses is also fantastic.
AUTRE: What is your London studio like?
CAPPER: They say this area of Southeast LondonโKent Roadโis quite a rough area. In the British Monopoly, itโs one of the cheapest ones on the board. But itโs getting good. Peckhamโwhere we originally had the squatโhas turned into a huge art district in Southeast London. Itโs maybe partly to do with the amount of artists who have moved into the area. My area, when I moved into it, was predominantly industry. I moved into it to move next to the powder coating place so that I could paint. Now, there are warehouses full of artists.
AUTRE: Itโs kind of like Brooklyn.
CAPPER: They are inspiring places to be. When the artists come in, theyโre even more interesting. This area being full of warehousesโwhether it could gentrify, I donโt really know. Unless they start knocking the warehouses down. Thatโs happened in London. Itโs a good piece of London for artists, and it could be like that for another ten years, I imagine.
AUTRE: Whatโs your process like when youโre in the studio? What sparks your creativity?
CAPPER: Itโs really quite mundane. Itโs like a normal day. I start around 8, I stop for lunch around 1, and I finish at 6. Itโs probably a bit of a longer day for most of the industry guys who start at half-8 and clock off at half-4. If you were to walk into the studio, you would think it was a manufacturing shop. I occasionally people dropping in and saying, โHey, do you reckon you could weld this up for me, mate?โ I have to try to explain to them. Sometimes we give in.
AUTRE: Tell me more about this piece specifically. How did it come about?
CAPPER: Itโs been about two years work. I made drawings of a family of prototypes, Mountaineer being one of them as well. The drawing started off as this program where I wanted to investigate radical engineering to make things walk. I wanted some kind of propulsion that could transverse across many different kinds of terrain. Itโs kind of like one of those things which already proves itself. A while back, I made this piece called โMidi Marker.โ It moves like a caterpillarโexpanding and contracting. Itโs super simple. That went on to influence Greenhorn, which is a much larger work. I ended up making these four articulating armsโI call them flippers. It can steer around the forest. Itโs amphibious.
AUTRE: When I think of a traditional sculpture, I think of something that does not move. What does it mean to have your sculptures move? You could have just created your drawings in an immobile way. Why did you add the movement element?
CAPPER: I saw this one work in Chelsea, in a very rare catalogue. It was Michael Heizerโs โDragged Mass.โ I loved it so much I photocopied it and made my own. The work was commissioned to be outside the newly built Detroit School of Art. He delivered something like a 60-ton piece of sandstone, and he had two bulldozers drag the stone until the machine stopped. What it did was it left this huge mark behind it. It sunk into the ground. He got into a lot of trouble, because it didnโt look like a sculpture. But that opened my eyes to what sculpture could be. That lead me on to an investigation in Land Art. Heizer was swapping his canvas and paintbrush for sticks of dynamite and a bulldozer. It reminded me of the relationship between drawing and welding. I was wanting to make something really pioneering. I didnโt want to be a copycat.
AUTRE: It sounds like a lot of your pieces interact with land in some way. Thereโs a contrast between the electrical, the mechanical, and the earth. Is that intentional?
CAPPER: I say with โEarth Markingโ that itโs not so much that Iโve made a glorified pencil making the ground. The mark making they make is a forensic analysis. It informs how I can make the work better. I want to make this highly methodical walking machine, which is radical engineering. The only way you can really investigate and move forward in it is to take into account all the marks left to perfect these things. For instance, I see a number of engineers copying animals when there are similar ways to get these movements. There are simpler methods, and more graceful movements. It makes the marks and the machine pieces of work in their own right. For instance, โAtlasโ and some other works all sit on these concrete blocks that they made. They stand on the work that they made.
AUTRE: Collins Park, were they worried about the sculpture messing up their grass?
CAPPER: They were super amazing about it. In order to initially install these works, we were going to lay down all these sod to get the forklifts and the equipment in. And they were like, โItโs fine, just drive on the grass.โ Itโs the land of understanding.
AUTRE: On a day-to-day basis when youโre home, how would you describe yourself? You seem pretty put together and responsibleโnot like a crazy artist. What do you like to do when youโre not making art?
CAPPER: Itโs difficult. Being a young sculptorโor any young artistโthereโs a challenge of finding the initial production costs and budgets for these works. Iโm pretty much working every day of the week. Itโs totally a life thing. Itโs part of my lifestyle now. If Iโm not working, Iโm thinking about it. If Iโm not thinking about it, Iโm working on something. This year, I made 45 drawings and 21 sculptures. Iโm used to making about 4 sculptures a year. This year has been a really crazy year for me. Aside from that, I like to take trips out of London into the outside countryside, into Kent. I enjoy time out on the local scene in Peckham with my friendsโthe Peckham Badboy Club. I find time outside of what I do, but Iโm mostly working. Itโs what I love. I havenโt found anything so far to put me off of it.
AUTRE: Do you feel like, in the past year, youโre at that point in your career where everything is exciting? Or has it been steady?
CAPPER: Iโve been taking a lot more risks. Iโm trying to get these dream works made. Iโm sending them out of the studio with no compromises. Thatโs one of my biggest ethoses. It makes me less of a commercial entity. The main priority of this yearโhaving the representationโis still making sure the work has the maximum output and impact. Itโs not like resting back and watching things take over. Itโs been a really challenging year, and I hope there are many more to come.
AUTRE: Whatโs your dream at the moment? The Mountaineer climbing?
CAPPER: Yeah. You have to always have a 25-year dream. Otherwise, you donโt know what youโre aiming for. For an artist, youโre limitless. So yeah, there are ideas for Mountaineer. The machine comes in three sizes: a four ton machine, an eight ton, and then a thirty ton. Thatโs what I call the โMountaineer Super Climb.โ There are drawings for these. Thereโs a work that I call the โWalking Ship.โ If you looked at it, it would look like a fishing boat of some sort. But I would modify it, I would put legs on it, so I could walk out into the sea. I would turn the cargo part into a studio. Ideally, Iโd love to take it to Venice Biennale and have parties on it. Before Venice sinks!
AUTRE: Whatโs next for you?
CAPPER: Next year, Iโve been invited by the Sol LeWitt Foundation to participate in a residency, in Spoleto, outside of Rome. I also just found out that theyโre interested in commissioning Number 10 in the long list. To get all of these ideas made may still take a few years, but that will be a great body of work. Weโll be testing those works in the mountains in Spoleto this summer. Iโm really looking forward to that. Itโs an expedition.
You can visit James Capper's website here. Text and photographs by Scout MacEachron. Follow Autre on Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE