Inspiration Ron Arad

My exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. It opens on 19 November. They wanted to do a retrospective, but I’m more interested in showing current work.

I am doing a lot of architecture at the moment, but it’s hard to show in an exhibition. You can’t give a real impression of a building using models, photographs and drawings. I want to show the real thing, so we are taking a real piece of architecture and reproducing it one to one in the gallery.

• In London I am working with a new gallerist, Timothy Taylor. We are planning an exhibition for spring 2009.
• I am not co-operating with this monster that is ‘design art’. People have jumped on this niche and there is nothing constructive about it. I advise my students not to bow to the pressure to be part of it either, but you can’t tell them – they have to find out for themselves.
• I often say that at the Royal College of Art we take in employable people and, in two years, we render them unemployable. I probably shouldn’t be teaching…
• I am working today on the latest series of Bodyguards – it is an evolution of a concept that I’ve been developing for years.
• The way I work hasn’t changed, but the tools have. The more sophisticated the machine gets, the less machine-like the product.
• The funny thing about success is that it can make you stale or it can encourage you to do more. I am in the second bracket. If I have an idea I don’t hesitate, I just do it.
• Everyone is talking about the environment. What is my stance? I try to be a good citizen and avoid toxic stuff as much as I can. I do things that will be kept. Ultimately, I am more interested in what people do to each other politically. I work in the decadent world of fashion – people do not need more chairs – but do we want to live in a society that cuts down on choice and luxury?
• My biggest problem is time. I am working on a lot of projects – I’m very lucky that I get to do architectural work and industrial design at the same time. I recently designed a perfume bottle, a light (Pizza Kobra for iGuzzini) and the new Design Museum in Holon, Israel, is on-site. I want to go on doing this.
• Teaching is one of the best rewards. I love it when the students come up with something brilliant. It’s not me – I’m not doing anything – I have no religion or doctrine when teaching.
• I am alarmed when my students just want to be in the place that I am now – and also when you see that everyone wants to be the next Martino Gamper, Tord Boontje and so on. It’s alarming.
• There is no quality that unites all these great talents – it doesn’t work like that. Some people are just very good.
• Finding inspiration is never a problem for me. My problem is editing it – deciding what ideas to go with and what to leave. Ideas are cheap, but you have to try them out before you know if they will work.
• Talking is a very important tool when trying out ideas – talking is as much a part of the process as the crafting and modelling and so on.
• As a creator, I am grateful to the people who are interested enough in what I do to support my playground.
• I am solving problems that don’t exist. There is no solution because there is no problem

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