I almost ran over a Serra sculpture

I came two inches from crashing a car into a Richard Serra sculpture last week. Probably would have hurt the car more than the sculpture if we'd made contact, but I am still completely rattled by the experience. For one thing, Serra's art can kill! But more importantly, the thought of damaging this beautiful piece of art (not the one pictured above, which is at MOMA in NY) nauseated me. Though I was not at the wheel, I could barely speak of the incident for days without shuddering and wishing I could banish the memory, or at least, hoping the day would come sooner that I could look back and laugh.

My perspective changed a little, though, after I moderated a panel discussion the day after the incident that centered around Workbook, an installation at Flashpoint by Kate McGraw and Ann Tarantino, and after the artists spent two days erasing any trace of the installation by painting over it with five gallons of Killz and two gallons of white gallery paint.

I'd assembled the artists and Allison Marvin and Profesor Luis Silva to talk about drawing and collecting it. But the discussion took a turn and I was reminded that what is important to me about art is not the objects, but the artists and their ideas and the creation. The object they produce is only a representation or reminder of what is great about art and you can't really destroy that.

Some things that Luis and Allison said that particularly struck me:

• Drawing is a primal and immediate act of mark making that begins with the literal representation of an object. At that level, the drawing replicates the reality. The artist sees something that looks good so she recreates it in a representative drawing.
  
• When an artist begins to draw in a less literal manner, she seeks to understand the raw essence of an object and investigates its cultural impact.
  
• When the artist investigates the experience of making drawings, the drawing becomes less about the mark itself and more about how it was made, the process of creation, the gestures, the performance. Much like theater, the process and the experience of the process is never the same when done again.
  
• The video became an integral part of the Workbook installation. Maybe even the most important element because it documents the process and not the thing itself so that we can relive the experience once the drawings themselves are gone.
  
• As Duchamp said, art is about the idea and not about its creation.
• Having tangible drawings though reminds us, for example, of how graphite looks on pulpy paper.

I'm so glad I was able to be part of the making of this video and this art project. For more information about Workbook, go here.