Verb List Compilation:
Actions to Relate to Oneself
by Richard Serra 1967-68
Here's a list of verbs titled "Verb List Compilation: Actions to Relate to Oneself".
It was written around 1967-68 by an American conceptual artist Richard Serra.
It is an instruction manual disguised as an art piece.
The list is comprised of verbs in infinitive form.
It is a neat compilation of various verbs you can apply to yourself or anything else and turn it into empiric performance piece.
Despite its ambiguousness - all verbs more or less relate to the actions generally applied during an artistic process - such as cutting, mixing, stretching, arranging, covering, expanding, continuing, etcetera.
Here, they are taken out of the context and gathered together seemingly at random.
All the verbs in the list describe the processes of giving or changing a form of something.
The list mainly deals with such questions as "What are you doing?" and "What you can do?"
The whole thing comes from an observations Richard Serra had made while working in his studio.
He simply documented what he was doing step by step.
He verbalized the way he was dealing with materials and the way he comprehended the very nature of artistic process.
Essays:
