Robert Barry
Robert Barry
Robert Barryis an American artist. Since 1967, Barry has produced non-material works of art, installations, and performance art using a variety of otherwise invisible media. In 1968, Robert Barry is quoted as saying "Nothing seems to me the most potent thing in the world."...
ProfessionPerformance Artist
Date of Birth9 March 1936
teacher writing stories
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.
senior play littles
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.
night names guy
I loved music. Music was a big thing and so I started collecting records. I had a large collection of jazz records and that was something else I used to listen to. At night, there was a - what the heck was his name? There was a famous - Jazzbo Collins, I used to listen to at night, and some other guys.
pieces lasts influence
I've always said my biggest influence is my, just, the last work I did, the last piece I made.
saws firsts influence
Agnes Martin is a big influence in my work actually, when I first saw her, these fine grids.
thinking artist curator
I relied mainly on other artists, who I think are smarter than critics, any critics or curators or anybody like that. They really know.
mind doe weak
And the mind actually does generate electrical currents - very weak ones and not necessarily ones that can be picked up by anyone else.
artist
ne thing you have to develop as an artist is a confidence in what you're doing and that you're right about it.
wall ideas space
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.
important artwork situation
Any artwork is part of something larger, grander and, you know, the situation that it's in is very important.
light facts different
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.
years space light
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.
summer fashion lines
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.
long-ago ideas trying
I have never had a shortage of ideas for shows. I always just do them and the gallerists don't - they stopped long ago trying to tell me what I should show in their gallery. They just don't even do it. I show whatever I want to show. They are very happy and as far as I know, they have always been very pleased with whatever I have shown, even if it is nothing to sell.