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.
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.
Any artwork is part of something larger, grander and, you know, the situation that it's in is very important.
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.
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.
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.
The idea of the culture that you live in determining meaning in your art, though, is a very important aspect of what art would be about. But that had more to do with the kind of general understanding of what the hell you're doing, you know.
I didn't know my grandparents. They were - my grandfather - my maternal grandfather died when I was five. I have very little memory of him. All my other grandparents were dead by the time I was of any age to remember anything.
ne thing you have to develop as an artist is a confidence in what you're doing and that you're right about it.
I relied mainly on other artists, who I think are smarter than critics, any critics or curators or anybody like that. They really know.
I've always said my biggest influence is my, just, the last work I did, the last piece I made.
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.
I was a filmmaker. I made movies. I made films. And I always took photos and made films, always from the beginning.
I was good at art - always good at art.
I think my parents - my parents were very hands-off, quite liberal in terms of their - they really - they did encourage me, but they never really pushed me into anything, really.
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.
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.
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.
I was never that big a rock-and-roll, rock guy. I really preferred jazz, you know, that kind of thing.
I had always worked. I always had part-time jobs.
So I never had trouble getting work or working or doing - I always worked. I worked when I went to college. I worked after school.
By being critical, you also develop your own style of what you like, what direction you want to move.
I was always - I was a movie nut. I lived in the movies, really.
I think I feel much more at home in studio.
I really wasn't about to get a Ph.D. in art history, you know, which you'd absolutely needed. And that was not something I wanted. And I loved art history, but not that way.
