M.S.
I noticed in your work an element of entering into certain objects.

As we speak, I realize that the principle involved is identical to what I am doing presently. The enormous stone that looks like a giant hat contains a kind of anthropocentrically circumscribed basic silhouette of figure. A person can enter the stone from below, naturally if he wishes to do so. Entering into it is part of the individual´s experience, the act of inserting oneself into it. It seems that the head is always concealed.

M.S.
That si in contrast to an ordinary birth where the head always emerges first.

A.V.
This is an immersion.

M.S.
Right. A return to the womb, of sorts. Psychoanalyst would certainly enjoy that one.

A.V.
The working principle is: ´´I cannot see, therefore I think I am invisible´´.

M.S.
The phenomenology of an ostrich, not based exactly on Edmund Husserl.´´I canot see, therefore nothing is happening around me.´´

A.V.
My sculptures are meant to be touched by people. People should walk throught them, perceive them in some manner spatially as well as in motion, not just from outside, but also internally. They should not relate to them only passively by standing in front of them, looking at them, and walking away.

M.S.
Many of your works make me think of labyrinths, many of which don´t appear to have exits.

A.V.
I think there always is some kind of an exit. That doesn´t mean that I always managed to find my way out of the labyrinth. But just as anything can be, just as anything is conceivable, it is also possible to find a solution. there must be an exit from the labyrinth somewhere. Things are not always given. It is never a predetermined given fact that something is correct. Everything potentially containts within itself something worthwhile, from which it is possible to make something.
This arises from the basic principle that every grain of sand potentially contains within itself the Universe, which therefore includes also the important things a person is concerned about. Thus it is possible to find the clue, through which it is possible to make some kind of more universal declaration. I am now talking about projects, which I conceive, on my own.

M.S.
You often speak about interventions into materials. I wanted to ask you what motivates your decisions about the principle and extent of these interventions? I am thinking for instance of The Wheel and the Tree.

A.V.
In that case it is absolutely important that the tree remains intact. It should stay the way it lived. The trunk, having been killed by some natural catastrophe, or possibly by human interference, is no longer alive, but must remain in the same state that it was in at the moment of extinction. It doesn´t matter if someone limbed it before I saw it. But I don´t arrive with instructions or intentions to have this branch longer or trim that one shorter, in order to introduce aesthetic elements rather than those pertaining to meaning. It is absolutely essential to preserve the testimony of that moment, of that point in time, as well as that instance of eternity. The same is true of stones or boulders. I try to interfere with them as little as possible, although sometimes I have to drill holes through them to join or secure them. But even that regards as highly problematic and I always weigh very carefully how necessary it really is, and how far it is possible to go, in order not to damage the whole systems Insofar as the stones are concerned, it involves a whole history, which is encoded in them. It is a testimony and any interference somehow disturbs it. ... The thing that I was really interested in had to do with the fact that the mass of the stone comes from somewhere deep down - from within the Earth´s interior. Maybe the act is more important than the fact itself. Something that was terribly inaccessible in the depths suddenly appears on the surface. It was close to the primal core and thus contains fundamental information. It is the enigma of something basic. Those are the stones that use. They concern fact, not the state of things. They are solidified magma.

...Initially the Negev Project was a pure idea tied to the symbol of the Star of David. More appropriately it was one of life´s puzzles, which I tried to solve. It owes its existence to the fact that in 1994 I made the Star-Sculpture at the site of the Terezín Concentration Camp. When I finished it, I also felt strongly unfulfilled because there wasn´t enough space for a creative resolution. I needed to figure out how to transform such a common symbol into a three-dimensional expressive object. I thought that by going all the way to the roots of the symbol, I should be able to come up with a solution. That is I thought of converting two interpenetrated triangles, whose basic meaning is the Heavenly Sphere and the Earthly Sphere, into equilateral three-sided pyramids, one of which would be submerged in the ground and the other, transparent, erected above it - just as it says in the Talmud - ´´That which is below is above´´. In Europe we know it from Hermes Trismegistus. But the definition of the two spheres encompasses simultaneously negative and positive, male and female. The term ´´simultaneously´´ also applies to the equilibrium of the World and the Universe. As soon as I was able to express it in this way, it wasn´t difficult to figure out that the simplest would be if I made two equilateral triangular pyramids. I would make one of them negative, which is into the mountain, and the second one positive, transparent, thrust upwards into open space. When placed that way on top of each other, their plan at the point of contact will represent a six-pointed star. In actual fact you can only perceive them if you are either up in the sky or at their center. That was also one of the reasons why I began to think of a place somewhere in the desert. Somewhere in the wilderness where really the only evident intervention into the surroundings would be the single hole drilled into the rock. Between the two pyramids I would place a floor - or ceiling - made of an enormous thickness of plate glass. The glass platform at the point of contact between the two pyramids would be the place where a person could enter into the center of the enourmous spatial object. He would stand above the depth with the endless sky arched above him, limited only by the outline of the pyramids above, reflecting what lies below in the mirrored space of the abyss.
This gave me the idea of the Mountain of Mountains being so high that no one could climb up to the top of it. The mountain would have absolutely sheer sides and only God and the birds would look down at it.