The Brooklyn Rail

After meeting Richard, one of the first of his pieces that I saw was Sawing (1970) at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. It was twelve logs, each cut at varying intervals, and was one of his first “cut pieces.” I remember being very moved by this piece and how it made me feel about trees being cut down.

Richard worked directly with materials. Wood, lead, and steel affected the way in which Richard developed his work and determined its shape and feel. A very powerful example of this would be Splash (1968), in which Richard threw molten lead with a ladle into the corners of Leo Castelli gallery.

I remember working on Shift (1972) with Richard in Roger Davidson’s field in Canada. Richard and I worked together to develop this piece, one of the many pieces with concrete plates set in a landscape against which the slope could be read. The process involved Richard walking around tracing various possible paths, feeling out where to place each rectangular plate. We used string measuring the length of the plates to determine how they would be placed. Standing at one end of the string, I used my video camera to frame its different trajectories as it extended out from the camera lens.

Before working on Shift, Richard was invited to be in a group show in Tokyo, where he showed a large ring piece, set in the ground called To Encircle Base Plate Hexagram, Right Angles Inverted (1970). Traveling together, Japan was fascinating for both of us. Richard was particularly inspired by the Japanese stone gardens. For me, the Noh drama represented a possibility of performance/theater that didn’t exist in the west. It was a musical form represented through narrative and dance. Richard and I shared our interest in theater and we spent many hours watching Noh and Kabuki. This theater experience was one in which one saw several plays in a row, lasting an afternoon or a whole day. It was a very different kind of duration.

Back in New York we ran into Michael Snow who told us about Jack Smith’s performances in his studio on Greene St. It was a loft that had a burned out ceiling, leaving a two story space that he used to show performances. The performances would begin at midnight and lasted for four hours, reminding us of the duration of the theater we saw in Japan. The audience of less than twelve would sit on bleachers made of 2 by 4s, loosely made by Jack, that would sway back and forth as we watched.

During that time, Richard and I went to many dance performances by Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Deborah Hay, and others that deeply inspired us. I would give small performances in our loft for Richard, who really encouraged that aspect of my work. He was a dedicated and committed audience, saying once, “if you ever stop working I’ll leave you.” He was intense, but was one of the first people that I could really talk to about my work and he never stopped encouraging me to continue my search.

Richard designed an 8 by 12 foot wall with a 4 by 8 foot mirror attached to one side of it for my piece, Choreomania (1971). It hung on chains from the ceiling of my loft. I remember feeling a combination of fear and excitement while sitting on top of it as it swung back and forth, side to side, creaking like a ship.