money quote
or at least a favorite of mine from the Brooklyn Rail interview with Richard Serra, it is all really good. I think one forgets what we are going to lose when these old cats are gone:I was aware of the Viennese Actionists in the early 1960s, but their ritualistic, cultural psychoanalytic approach and the ecstasy that was involved with the making of the work, which I’m sure were undeniably real for them, didn’t quite sustain my interest. Whereas with Giotto, Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Pollock, Newman, Johns, Warhol or Nauman, I can go back to their work time after time to either reconfirm something that I already know or to be startled by something that I thought I knew but didn’t. Their work becomes a reliable resource for me and the source of a continual dialogue.
One of the best things about this interview is hearing an artist who actually knows history a little bit longer than that since the 1980s and no mention of the market.
Saw the Serra show just a few days ago. Thanks for the link to that great interview. Provocative, Concise. Yeah, I think his understanding of art's history and context is what gives the work so much clarity/power. He's really done his homework in terms of thinking about his concept in terms of his materials and how that fits into the greater dialogue of art (and his own personal narrative), which is all about seeing through the fashion-fickle market machine of any given timeframe and beelining to the steadfast, eternal conditions/principles. Something about Compassion, really. (breaking down the word: cum (with) passion or compass-ion, the action of following a direction....as in moral, political, spiritual compass and staying on course/on message.) I'll have to think about it some more. interesting.
ReplyDelete