I do not want to document my starting points, turning points, high points, low points, good points, bad points, stopping points, lucky breaks, bad breaks, breaking points, dead ends, breakthroughs or breakdowns.
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| Robert Morris • Untitled (Scatter Piece) • 1968 - 9 • felt, steel, lead, plated zinc • plated copper • aluminum & brass
Installation view at the Art Institute of Chicago • photo: Art or Idiocy? |
It will be interesting to see what Robert Morris has to say tonight at the University of Chicago when he delivers his public presentation entitled IS A POUND OF PASSIVITY WORTH A PINCH OF PIQUE?
The following is from "Robert Morris on Silence" posted on the Critical Inquiry blog in 2011. You may notice the curious detail that the CI website runs counter to The Chicago Manual of Style and puts the traditional double-space at the end of sentences. Thanks to Philip von Zweck for sharing.
One of the more inexcusable forms of talking comes in the form of those cultural events called art symposiums. Now that the role of curator in museums has metastasized to truly horrifying dimensions, it is necessary to keep these culture mavens busy by having them dream up completely irrelevant culture fests. As an aging artist I am still on occasion invited to these stupid shindigs. For years I made up excuses for not showing up. But now I have fashioned an all-purpose document of reply, which goes like this:
I do not want to travel to distant places to give talks about art I made half a century ago. Minimalism does not need to hear from me. I do not want to travel to distant places to give talks about art I made yesterday. Contemporary art is making enough noise without me. I do not want to be filmed in my studio pretending to be working. I do not want to participate in staged conversations about art—either mine or others past or present–which are labored and disguised performances. I do not want to be interviewed by curators, critics, art directors, theorists, aestheticians, aesthetes, professors, collectors, gallerists, culture mavens, journalists or art historians about my influences, favorite artists, despised artists, past artists, current artists, future artists. A long time ago I got in the habit, never since broken, of writing down things instead of speaking. It is possible that I was led into art making because talking and being in the presence of another person were not requirements. I do not want to be asked my reasons for not having worked in just one style, or reasons for any of the art that got made (the reason being that there are no reasons in art). I do not want to answer questions about why I used plywood, felt, steam, dirt, grease, lead, wax, money, trees, photographs, electroencephalograms, hot and cold, lawyers, explosions, nudity, sound, language, or drew with my eyes closed. I do not want to tell anecdotes about my past, or stories about the people I have been close to. The people to whom I owe so much either knew it or never will because it is too late now. I do not want to document my starting points, turning points, high points, low points, good points, bad points, stopping points, lucky breaks, bad breaks, breaking points, dead ends, breakthroughs or breakdowns. I do not want to talk about my methods, processes, near misses, flukes, mistakes, disappointments, setbacks, disasters, obsessions, lucky accidents, unlucky accidents, scars, insecurities, disabilities, phobias, fixations, or insomnias over posters I should never have made. I do not want my portrait taken. Everybody uses everybody else for their own purposes, and I am happy to be just material for somebody else so long as I can exercise my right to remain silent, immobile, possibly armed, and at a distance of several miles.
Read the full essay here.
Von Zweck explains that Morris sent this "all-purpose document of reply" to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in response to an invitation.
2013 Presidential Arts Fellow Robert Morris
IS A POUND OF PASSIVITY WORTH A PINCH OF PIQUE?
Friday, November 15, 2013 • 7:00pm
Reva & David Logan Center for the Arts, Performance Hall
915 E 60TH ST Chicago, IL 60637
FREE
2013 Presidential Arts Fellow Robert Morris
IS A POUND OF PASSIVITY WORTH A PINCH OF PIQUE?
Friday, November 15, 2013 • 7:00pm
Reva & David Logan Center for the Arts, Performance Hall
915 E 60TH ST Chicago, IL 60637
FREE
1 comment:
Sounds like an uncooperative self rightous person unwilling to share himself with people who are excited about talking about art and meeting artists in person. A community of people can be inspiring and/or interesting to all and to simply decline all invitations is very unusual and anti-social and seems like an attempt to deny the worth of the community. Each to his own, however. Are you happy acting like that?
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