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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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.

  Robert Barry

  Thinking, Hands, Parent

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• Agnes Martin is a big influence in my work actually, when I first saw her, these fine grids.

  Robert Barry

  Saws, Firsts, Influence

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Father, Kids, Cameras

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Art, Space, Ideas

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I like working late at night and then going into the house and sitting down and watching a movie and then going to sleep.

  Robert Barry

  Sleep, Night, House

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  6 Copy quote

• I don't really use still photography very much anymore except to document my work.

  Robert Barry

  Photography, Use, Stills

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I like contrasting between black and white and color.

  Robert Barry

  Black And White, Color, White

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  10 Copy quote

• I have to say, I'm not someone who's really big into my family history - never really was very curious about it. The only thing I know about it is what I picked up from my aunts and parents.

  Robert Barry

  Aunt, Parent, My Family

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I didn't make videos for a long time because I hated the look of TV sets.

  Robert Barry

  Long, Video, Looks

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

• I shoot in black and white, sometimes color, sometimes if it looks good I shoot out the window of the airplanes or whatever, anything that - sometimes I secretly take secret photos, shoot video of people on the plane if it's not too crowded. I don't know, whatever comes up.

  Robert Barry

  Airplane, Black And White, Color

  Source: www.aaa.si.edu

  4 Copy quote

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