I've always said my biggest influence is my, just, the last work I did, the last piece I made. Robert Barry More Quotes by Robert Barry More Quotes From Robert Barry I always thought there was a - even in the most, quote, "conceptual art," there is always a physical aspect to it. I never knew what the term meant. Robert Barry aspecttermart And when you see artists like Donald Judd and so forth being referred to as conceptual, what the hell does that mean? It's a totally meaningless term. Robert Barry artistdoemean You can't just suddenly change gears and reverse yourself or go to the left or the right because there is no left or right. There's always a certain direction that you're moving in. Robert Barry gearscertainmoving I didn't like anti-Vietnam War art. I didn't like feminist art. I thought it was heavy-handed and stupid - as art. Robert Barry stupidwarart But artistically, my art I kept very separate from my political beliefs, deliberately and very, very rarely would I allow that kind of thing into it. Robert Barry politicalbeliefart I certainly don't believe that people can read other people's minds. Robert Barry mindbelievepeople And the mind actually does generate electrical currents - very weak ones and not necessarily ones that can be picked up by anyone else. Robert Barry weakminddoe But if I did read, say, [Maurice] Merleau-Ponty, for instance, it always seemed to me that the parts that I understood in what he was talking about - and I read him because - well, he wrote a book, well, the Phenomenology of Perception [New York: Humanities Press, 1962]. And it seemed to me that perception had a lot do with how we take in art. Robert Barry new-yorkbookart reaking up the space and using the space, using the length of the space, the height of it, whatever, the light, all of those things. It's something that you have to kind of slowly recognize in your work and develop over years of making work. Robert Barry spacelightyears I took art courses, only in the sense that I was able to - I took art classes, which were fun, which I liked, but it was a - just a kind of a general education that I got, a regular academic - academic diploma, but I kind of had the feeling that art was something that I really liked the most but I wasn't really sure that that was it. Robert Barry classfunart I was also a good writer, by the way. My, you know, my English teacher and writing teacher loved my writing. You know, I wrote short stories and things like that. And they liked them very much. Robert Barry storieswritingteacher I was also very interested in music. I used to hang out in jazz joints, you know, the Five Spot and so forth when I was, you know, a senior, really, when I was a little bit older. And I thought, well, maybe I could, you know, work with music. I can't play at all. Robert Barry jointsseniorplay I was a filmmaker. I made movies. I made films. And I always took photos and made films, always from the beginning. Robert Barry filmmakerfilmmade I made films from the - when I was a little kid, my father bought me a movie camera. I just wanted to. I don't know how. You just learn, you just do it. You just do it. Robert Barry camerasfatherkids Agnes Martin is a big influence in my work actually, when I first saw her, these fine grids. Robert Barry sawsinfluencefirsts How does any idea come to your mind? I don't know. Robert Barry minddoeideas I had always spoken about the space between the art object and the person looking at it as this dynamic space, which I referred to over and over. So the idea of the space between two things was sort of interesting to me. Robert Barry spaceideasart The idea of, say, the compressed space between the floor and the object hanging over it and then the long space between the object and the ceiling was a kind of interesting idea for me - the idea of compressing and expanding. That was an idea that I worked with, which you could only do sculpturally. You can't really do with a painting on the wall. Robert Barry wallspaceideas Any artwork is part of something larger, grander and, you know, the situation that it's in is very important. Robert Barry artworksituationimportant So it sort of dawned on me that you have to build into your work the fact that it's going to be shown in different kinds of places and different kinds of light. And the fact that the surroundings and where you're going to be shown is always changing, so that should really not affect the meaning of the work. It should be part of what the work is about. Robert Barry differentlightfacts
