No time like the future says British artist Marc Quinn
Art should be rooted in the present so it can address the generations to come, British artist Marc Quinn tells Clara Chow
Midway through the interview with Marc Quinn, this writer commits a faux pas. "Are you wearing a Damien Hirst T-shirt?" I ask, pointing at his lime-green top with a circular print of swirling colours, reminiscent of Hirst's splatter paintings.
"No, I am wearing a Marc Quinn T-shirt," he replies, his placid and friendly manner frosting over. This British artist, after all, had launched a fashion range with Selfridges in 2011 that was favourably reviewed in British . Thankfully, our chat continues amiably as we trundle along in a golf cart.
It's a rainy afternoon, and we are on a whirlwind jaunt through Gardens by the Bay, the green oasis on reclaimed land in Singapore, in which Quinn's has recently been installed. The seven-tonne bronze-and-steel sculpture of a baby seems to float serenely, despite its heft, over the undulating green hills with skyscrapers in the distance. Its creator wants to check on it, snap some photographs and then catch a flight to Hong Kong to discuss an upcoming exhibition, so he is answering my questions on the fly.
What does he think of 's new home? "I think it's great, I like it a lot," he says. "It fits in with the whole theme of the garden, and our relationship with nature and our place in nature. The planet is a thing that's much bigger than you, and it's also an image of vulnerability that needs nurturing - we have to take care of it."
Donated for permanent display in the Gardens by Indonesian tycoon Putra Masagung and his wife, (2008) was previously installed at the South Lawn of Chatsworth House in England and the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco. Quinn used his older son, Lucas, then seven months, as a model for the piece. Now 11, Lucas, according to his dad, is not bothered where the monument to his infanthood ends up.
An artwork is like a time machine. It's the only thing that can carry emotions through time
For a man whose work has shocked the public (a Japanese tourist, by Quinn's own account, once fainted in front of - the seminal self-portrait made out of the artist's own frozen blood) and brought out the vitriol in critics ( 's art columnist Jonathan Jones has accused Quinn's giant baby of infantilising art, calling it a "bland cocktail of awe and empathy"), the artist is surprisingly polite and low-key. He listens with a faint smile playing on his lips and surprisingly innocent eyes; as his departure time looms, he obligingly signals to keep the questions coming as he tries to stuff his belongings into his luggage, to make the most of the little time left.
