Robert Barry Quotes

I like contrasting between black and white and color.

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

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

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.

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

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 had always worked. I always had part-time jobs.

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.

ne thing you have to develop as an artist is a confidence in what you're doing and that you're right about it.

You can't have silence on the radio; people will turn away from the station.

I had always taken photos - always, always taken photos, made movies.

I really kind of liked the fluidity and not really being tied down. I saw the kind of people that were tenured and what happened to them there and I thought it was kind of death, really.

You can't make somebody care about what you're doing. Either they get it, either there's that connection - or they don't.

You can never really predict how people are going to react, what they're going to think about, whether they care.

Even though you're reading something, it's as though that person who wrote it is speaking to you. It's a form of conversation, really.

People ask me why I use words and the reason, of course, is that words talk to you. I mean, they're something that are generated inside of you and that you can relate to you.

Words have very potent meanings and people read them and they react to them personally. They are very suggestive in terms of your life and things like that.

I may have a lot of political opinions but it doesn't necessarily come into my work. I keep the two worlds separate.

And when you see artists like Donald Judd and so forth being referred to as conceptual, what the hell does that mean? It's a totally meaningless term.

My videos rarely run longer than 20 minutes. They're made for private viewing in your home or specifically either that or for a gallery situation where you sit and look.

Whatever came out came out. That was it. That's what you live with. If you don't like it, that's your problem.

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

The space between things is important to me. The projections, that darkness between the words or the images is very important.

I'm always looking for relations between my work and the old masters.

I'm my own worst critic. I mean, I know what's wrong with everything that I've done.

The big thing is I try not to repeat.

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.

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

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.

If I'm reading something and a word pops up, or I just catch it, I try to mark it off and then, later, write it down on a piece of paper and add it to my list.

I always took photographs. I photographed a lot of trees, by the way, which is another image I used often in my work, the tree image.

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

A word refers to something in the real world and so, in a way, does a photo. It's not the thing itself, but it's a kind of suggestion of where you might look for that thing.

I wanted my style to be very recognizable.

I think you say the word in your mind anyway, you know. When you look at a word, you say it.

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

I have been in competitions for commissions. I've won most and lost some. Mostly, I've won.

I'm fortunate in one respect; that I don't have a lot of work in my studio. Most of it's out, gone; either sold or in galleries. I work with a lot of galleries.

I do like certain kinds of frames for work. That's important.

I always had a fairly decent income, coming in just from the art.

You know, there are some people who just don't - that cannot get comfortable behind the wheel of a car and always sort of think they're going to kill somebody.

I didn't like anti-Vietnam War art. I didn't like feminist art. I thought it was heavy-handed and stupid - as art.

You can't just suddenly change gears and reverse yourself or go to the left or the right because there is no left or right. There's always a certain direction that you're moving in.

I'm not a person - and my wife also - we don't really go to the beach or anything like that. We go to cities.

I always thought there was a - even in the most, quote, "conceptual art," there is always a physical aspect to it. I never knew what the term meant.

How does any idea come to your mind? I don't know.

I've always said my biggest influence is my, just, the last work I did, the last piece I made.

By being critical, you also develop your own style of what you like, what direction you want to move.

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.

I was good at art - always good at art.