Brett Murray has long been one of South Africa’s sharpest, most subversive visual artists. Known for his biting wit, iconic sculptures and fearless commentary, he’s also a man of music, mischief and meticulous pool maintenance (and one of Currency’s favourite creatives too). Here, he lets us in on everything from bodyboarding to the emotional power of Nick Cave.

What’s the best book you’ve read in the past year – and why?

Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan’s Faith, Hope, and Carnage. I’m not a huge fan of Cave’s music, but I am learning. My wife Sanell is a huge fan. I booked tickets for us to see him in Madrid for Sanell’s birthday a few years ago – but then came Covid and lockdown. Fok.

I found his Red Hand Files website a few years ago. On the site he answers questions from his fans. His writing is funny, insightful and scarily honest. Often about what inspires or moves him: religion, death, spirituality. Both his sons have tragically died. He speaks so eloquently about this loss and his grief and what he calls “communal vulnerability”.

The book is in a way an extension of the Red Hand Files. It documents 40 years of his life in conversations with the critic and writer Seán O’Hagan. In his words, the book offers “ladders of hope”. Brave stuff.

One of my favourite quotes, for obvious reasons, is: “Humour is the merciful oxygen that can envelop seriousness and prevent it from becoming a grim contagion that infects ourselves and those around us. True humour is the antidote to dogmatism and fanaticism, and we must be cautious of the humourless who cannot take a joke.” Hell yeah …

How do you keep fit?

I bodyboard with my sons from time to time. It might be a midlife crisis. I play tennis every Wednesday evening in Pinelands. This transgressive stone-throwing pretend-pretend iconoclast has obviously thrown in the towel. I’m told Pinelands is the suburb where the middle classes go to die. I’m 63 so I am eyeing out the bowling club next door to the tennis courts … next to that is a church … and that is a fart away from the cemetery. It’s a slippery slope. Done then dusted …

Weeknight, low-key restaurant go-to?

Willoughby & Co – the sushi place at the V&A Waterfront. Bond the house first … but you can do some last-minute shopping for the kids’ lunch boxes and go to Exclusive Books for a quick perusal as well.

What is the one artwork you’ll always love – and why? (You needn’t own it!)

That would definitely be Claudette Schreuders’ Mother and Child. I saw this work again with my family over the weekend. It’s currently in the show titled Motherhood: Paradox and Duality at the South African National Gallery.

I met Claudette when she was in her first year at Stellenbosch. I was her lecturer. I was establishing the sculpture department at the university at the same time she was studying. It was so exciting to see her blossom. I like to pretend that I nudged her on her way … but her obvious skills and talent would have shone through inevitably … of that, I am sure.

This work was one of an incredible series of carved wooden sculptures she produced in her fourth year. Sublime. She was 21 years old! I wanted it badly … but a friend got in first.

Do you have a hobby? What is it?

Hobby? Not sure. My work is my pleasure, my trade and my hobby. Music is another pleasure, I suppose … a hobby of sorts. I sometimes crank up the sounds in my studio and accompany this on my bass guitar.

The one unusual item you can’t live without?

I had to beg Sanell for 20 years to get a pool built in our back garden. It took me seven years to convince her to have kids. I don’t know if she is stubborn or if I am persistent. So now we have both pool and kids. A good mix, I think.

The pool filtration system runs a UV light to nuke the algae and other shit out of the water. It pulses copper and silver into the system when needed as well … it is attached to an automatic hydrochloric acid drip feed … and is monitored online.

All I have to do is take a copper test and register it online once a week. No hunky pool cleaner for Sanell needed, I’m afraid. I have become one of those dull people who gets a kick out of pool banter. #sad. So, my copper testing kit has to be the unusual item that I can’t live without.

Who was your high school celeb crush?

Too many to mention, but Bianca Jagger. Shelley Duvall. Sophia Loren. Patti Smith. Jane Birkin. Chrissie Hynde. And all three of the original Charlie’s Angels. I might be a slut.

Three songs that you’d take to a desert island?

Have you come across the radio podcast Desert Island Discs? It’s a BBC radio production and has been going since the late 40s. They interview people of interest – musicians, writers, scientists and the like – who talk about their lives and choose eight significant tracks to take to a desert island.

To choose my favourite three songs is a cruel and unkind punishment.

My parents were hooligans and social reprobates. Brandy and Tab. Box wine. Braais and music. Complaining neighbours. And plenty of jazz. Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Oscar Peterson, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Dave Brubeck, Herbie Mann et al. These were cranked up while they burnt the meat and danced to Les McCann and Eddie Harris’s Compared to What, which is my first choice.

We take the education of our kids seriously. As a result, their DJing skills are impeccable. On our drop-offs and travels, Cat Power, Alt-J, Suzanne Vega, The Police, The Clash, The Beach Boys, Astrud Gilberto, Elvis, Bowie, The Cure, Earth, Wind & Fire, José González, The Gorillaz, The Beatles, Kool & the Gang, Sade, Feist, The Kinks, Kraftwerk, Daft Punk and Michael Jackson, among others, blast us on our way.

One morning Kai, aged four, piped up from the back seat on the way to nursery school and requested: “What about a little bit of Moby?” Their education is complete …

This morning Kai put on Elvis, The Gorillaz and Daft Punk. Lo put on Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto’s Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars), which is my second choice.

My final choice is impossible. Anything by Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix or Prince. Anything produced by Lee “Scratch” Perry. Ali Farka Touré. Talking Heads. Fela Kuti. James Brown. Chet Baker. George Clinton. Leonard Cohen. The xx. Portishead. Massive Attack. I have various Amapiano sounds on rotation when I work. Bongeziwe Mabandla. 340ml. And on and on …

Two artists who I discovered fairly recently are Jacob Banks, the Nigerian-born English singer whose song Slow Up is a contender, and Beth Hart who belts out blues and rock-tinged songs … and has got some heavy-duty pipes. She has thankfully survived serious addictions. I saw her live a few years ago – her version of Billie Holiday’s Strange Fruit is haunting as shit – but my final choice will have to be Hart’s song, I’d Rather Go Blind.