Robert Barry Quotes

Quotes about:

• I think words speak to us even though they may be written on a wall. So we hear them in our mind. We say it to ourselves. But they are also visual things. You draw them. They are designed. They are colored. They have a certain size. I put them in a certain place. So they are objects that have to be - artistic decisions have to be made in terms of the color and the size and the line and whatever.

  Robert Barry

  Wall, Thinking, Color

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I liked the idea of the words floating in space and the space behind it moving all the time, ever changing.

  Robert Barry

  Moving, Ideas, Space

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• A text makes the word more specific. It really kind of defines it within the context in which it is being used. If it is just taken out of a context and presented as a sort of object, which is what - you know, which is a contemporary art idea, you know. It is like an old surrealist idea or an old cubist idea to take something out of context and put it in a completely different context. And it sort of gives it a different meaning and creates another world, another kind of world in which we enter.

  Robert Barry

  Art, Taken, Ideas

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  5 Copy quote

• And we live in a kind of realm of language and words and so forth. So we can sort of relate to them. They don't exist without us. We create words.

  Robert Barry

  Language, Kind, Realms

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I know where the mistakes are. Nothing is perfect and I understand that.

  Robert Barry

  Mistake, Perfect, Nothing Is Perfect

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  9 Copy quote

• I try not to manipulate reality... What will happen, will happen. Let things be themselves.

  Robert Barry

  Reality, Trying, Manipulate

  6 Copy quote

• The words represent ideas first of all. That is something you have to understand. I mean, it is not just an object, but it is an object with a history and it is loaded with all kinds of implications and ideas. They exist in the world in a very special way. So they kind of represent some aspect of the world that we perceive, as do photographs, as do drawings of trees or whatever. And they are not a one to one. They are not the world, but they kind of refer to the world and they also exist in the world.

  Robert Barry

  Mean, Ideas, Drawing

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  6 Copy quote

• If you want to know about what's good in art, you should talk to an artist.

  Robert Barry

  Art, Want, Should

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I like the work hanging free in the frame. I don't like too much frame around it but I like a little breathing space around the piece.

  Robert Barry

  Breathing Space, Pieces, Littles

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  6 Copy quote

• Everybody is always satisfied with what I do.

  Robert Barry

  Satisfied

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I am always producing work, but there is always a sort of deadline where you have to finish work. I don't do it for a show. In other words, I am not like a fashion designer where I have a, you know - I have to put out the full line or I have to put out the summer line like that.

  Robert Barry

  Summer, Fashion, Lines

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• There's a kind of poetic aspect to inert gas. And remember, first of all, they were completely unknown a hundred years earlier. We just didn't know about them. And then when they were discovered in the atmosphere, the idea that this is a material that would breathe in and exhale and becomes part of us for a while made it even more intriguing. The names, the Greek names, are interesting, too - if you translate neon, xenon and so forth are kind of interesting.

  Robert Barry

  Xenon, Years, Names

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  8 Copy quote

• Art was something that I was really interested in, probably more so than writing or anything else.

  Robert Barry

  Art, Writing

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Fun, Class

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• Most of the criticism of my work was pretty good, but occasionally it would not be. And I just sort of felt that they absolutely didn't get what I was doing. It was their limitations on what they thought art should be or what they thought my work should be in relation to earlier work or whatever.

  Robert Barry

  Art, Criticism, Should

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• Developing your own style became something very interesting, very important to me.

  Robert Barry

  Interesting, Style, Important

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I went to Our Lady of Mercy, parochial school and I started Fordham Prep, but that only lasted about a year and then I - to me, it was like going to some kind of concentration camp. I was not very happy. And I only went there because that's where my brother went, really.

  Robert Barry

  Brother, School, Years

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• Words are objects of a color and a size and a form and a shape.

  Robert Barry

  Color, Shapes, Size

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I'm used to being the background. I'm used to having work that only lasts for a little while. I'm used to being - working in the real world, where real things are.

  Robert Barry

  Real, World, Littles

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I consider drawings finished works of art, first of all. However, the ideas can be something that can be developed into something larger. I don't make so many drawings anymore since I'm working with language. I used to make more when I worked with sculptural things, especially the wire pieces.

  Robert Barry

  Art, Ideas, Drawing

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I like challenge. I like to be put into a situation which I haven't done before. Something new presents itself and I see if I can somehow finagle it into making a work of art out of it.

  Robert Barry

  Art, Challenges, Done

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I usually, if I give a talk, I don't usually prepare anything. I just say - you know, I may stop talking by showing some video or slides of what I do but mainly I try to respond to what problems people have with my work.

  Robert Barry

  Talking, People, Giving

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• And after a while, you just pare things down more and more and more, until you get to certain basic things which just - basic ideas which just seem to work for you over and over again.

  Robert Barry

  Ideas, Certain, Basic Things

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I make videos which are works of art in themselves which have nothing to do with Hollywood movies or anything along those lines and I like videos because they deal with light and dark and time and change and they're just another kind of medium that I can get into and work with when I choose to other than, say, doing something on the wall or a window.

  Robert Barry

  Art, Wall, Dark

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• The idea of words and photos was something that appealed to me.

  Robert Barry

  Ideas

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

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