15 Comments

I loved this.

“The experience of the piece is happening in us”. You were there. I wasn’t. Yet, your writing and the photographs made the piece happen in me too. So, I was there as well. And, yet, I’m on the other side of the Atlantic.

Such great writing.

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Thank you, Nicolas! And thank you for sharing the piece. It makes the magic happen.

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This is so beautiful. Thank you. "And yet, the story forms inside me and becomes part of my own experience of the work," you're helping put words to what I'm up to. I'm so moved. I wrote a pained piece about Fred Sandback because I knew him in childhood and when I saw these DIA rooms my heart caught in my throat. And then as a lesbian, you got me twice here. I'm so moved.

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Thank you, Eliza. I was curious about your Fred Sandback story and found it in your archives. What a childhood you had!

Here it is, for any other curious readers: https://twohouses.substack.com/p/minimalism

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Loved this…my partner and I were up at Dia a few months ago, too soon to see the blue curtains, but still enchanted by the art and (for me) just as much by the space itself, which seemed almost like an enormous sculpture you could walk thru.

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It’s one of my favorite art spaces.

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This is marvelous! Reading your description of the experience felt like a koan. I LOL’d when I read that the curator ordered the curtains online. That shifted the piece from a precious museum object to a poetic recipe of an idea of a memory. It’s not easy to find language for this, and you’ve done it beautifully.

We went to DIA:Beacon a couple years ago and loved it. I’m trying to remember the name of the artist (a woman) who does very large paper lengths entirely covered with different colors of soil. Very moving and poetic. Is that still hanging? The Serra and the Heizer both blew me away.

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So happy you enjoyed this!

I’m guessing Michelle Stuart is the artist you are remembering. I’ve always been moved by that work. It’s not up now, but you might enjoy Meg Webster who works with materials like beeswax and dirt on a large scale.

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Oooooo!! Sounds perfect. And yes, that’s her. Wow.

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Oooooo!! Sounds perfect. And yes, that’s her. Wow.

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The length of the room in your first photo looks captivating, like a person could sit on that floor and daydream for a nice long time in the presence of the blue curtains. Lovely!

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I had the same thought! Sarah, who I was hanging out with, told me that she had seen a couple waltzing down the length of the room, which seems perfect.

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Oh yes, I can see that!

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founding

The photographs and your writing evoked a lot in me.

My gratitude for both.

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Thank you Mark!

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