From the Archive: Dimitri Hadzi: The Interview (The Boston Globe Magazine, Oct 4, 1998)
Photo: Lane Turner / The Boston Globe
The Interview: Dimitri Hadzi
By John Koch
The Boston Globe Magazine, October 4, 1998
With monumental sculptures in Harvard Square and Copley Place, Cambridge’s Dimitri Hadzi, 77, also has work in the Museum of Modern Art and elsewhere here and abroad.
You've said, "You have to think you're damn good if you want to survive."
You just can't survive as an artist without having a strong ego. All the elements are working against you - financial, critical. Fortunately, I have my wife, who believes in me, and colleagues. It takes a lot of courage to be a serious artist. Basically, I'm a very successful sculptor, but there are moments when I'm just wondering how I'm going to make it through the next week. You have to balance it with humility: You know you'll never be as great as Donatello, Picasso - you have to settle where you are. I know I'm not blue chip, and the museums show the same damn blue-chip people. If I were that successful, I'd be buying a place on the Cape instead of renting.
Was Picasso as great a sculptor as a painter?
He is fabulous - the top sculptor of the 20th century. This man has played such a big role in my life, whether it's painting, print-making, sculpture. When he's good, he's just staggering. I think his sculpture was better than his painting, more consistent. I regret I never met him.
Your huge studio is crammed with work, some unfinished. How do you decide what to do? What forces are at play?
I wish I knew. Sometimes, I do walk in wondering what I'm going to work on. Sometimes, there are forms you never noticed be-fore. And don't forget, you work enormously subconsciously, intuitively, and the light might just hit something right. Or something falls down and breaks and looks a hell of a lot more interesting with a broken part off. Usually, something catches my eye, and that's what it is. Or - and it's something I can't explain – I'm in the mood for making prints, goddamn it.
In the studio, you deal with heavy stones, flying debris. Is it dangerous?
Yeah [laughing merrily], with the forklift, heavy weights. Five years ago, I was trying a new carving saw [on a mahogany Raytheon missile mold, bought as military surplus], and it jumped out of my hands. When I took my gloves off, it looked awfully messy, but I was feeling I would go home that night after a few stitches. It was a six-hour operation.
“It take a lot of courage to be a serious artist. I’m a very successful sculptor, but there are moments when I’m just wondering how I’m going to make it through the next week.”
Why do you need a forklift?
Even relatively small blocks are heavy - a cubic foot of granite is162-odd pounds - and some sculpture I do involves building up and taking down blocks. So you need one, but mine has been broken down for a year.
How do you feel with so many public pieces of yours nearby?
I'm always excited. I find a few problems with Thermopylae [Hadzi's 1969 commission in Government Center], which I think is very strong. But I'm not Mozart or Beethoven: I can't change the movements around; it's fixed. To this day, I walk into Copley Place, and I just can't believe I made that [60-foot vertical stone fountain]. It's just so relaxing. I'm very fond of it.
Ever say to anyone there, enjoying it, "I made that"?
[Sheepishly] Once. It was a very tough commission, by the way. It had to be very light: The highway's underneath it. And it could only come three feet off the wall.
If the art god limited you to one material, what would it be?
As much as I love wood and stone, it would be bronze. I love the whole mystery and history of bronze; it can be such a primitive material, yet so sophisticated. And I love to finish and patina the bronzes. Also, the scale is limitless. The biggest piece I made was 25 feet high.
What's the role of your Greek heritage in your art?
Greek was my first language in Brooklyn, so I had a Greek accent as a boy. All the Greek Americans at that time went to Greek school, as well as public school, five days a week, at a church. It was a love-hate thing: You could hear the kids playing stickball outside, but that's where I got hooked on history and mythology. Approaching Greece for the first time, I felt I was coming home. [At 30, Hadzi studied in Greece on a Fulbright fellowship; a year later, he moved to Rome, where he lived and worked for 25 years.]
How do you feel about the art press? There hasn't been much written about you in this area.
I think it's absolutely shocking. They just don't take me seriously in this town. What can I say? In New York, I'm somebody, but here, it's just weird. There's a certain amount of provinciality, I guess, but Cambridge/Boston is a great place to work.
You taught sculpture at Harvard.
It was one of the real important things in my life. Here I was, 55, and I start doing something I've never done before. It was a little scary at first, but exciting There was a price, living in Italy for a quarter of a century: I lost out on the New York [art] scene. Get hooked up with Harvard - not bad. The kids stimulated and challenged me, and I did some of my most creative work. What more can you ask?
What are the most urgent things you still want to do as an artist?
More painting. I was trained as a painter. I love color.
