Richard Artschwager Interview, 1990

FOUR APPROXIMATE OBJECTS, 1970-91

BA: This is the new one.

RA: It's been a long time in the making. The four objects we're looking at are also approximately, they're sort of.

BA: They look perfect to me. They look like something out of the Bureau of Standards in Washington.

RA: And perfect they are. Look at them. But they are not perfect with respect to anything. There is no standard for them to meet, no formula out of analytic geometry or differential equation for them to demonstrate or be a concrete example of. And that's the other bummer, because with all that polish, once in the physical world the equation or whatever loses its precision. As soon as you bring out the ruler you are fucked. Anyway, be that as it may, they weren't generated be means of equations. More likely they were chipped out-shaped- by hand. The hand can read them better than the eye. At least the eye anticipates that order, asking and answering: "What does it feel like?" The feel is not just smooth versus rough but also tells shape by the way fingertips and even the palm of the hand get around it. The attempt here is make things as seen by the hand, something like (approximately??!) braille for the sighted.

BA: I wouldn't say they look chipped out, or even feel chipped out.

RA: I know. They are other-worldly flawless. As if they had been generated by numbers, but the origin is like a glacial pebble, rolled, fondled, tumbled for hundreds of years until there is not a ripple. And they were born in darkness and it would be better to keep the lid down most of the time. Pandora's box. Don't open.

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