art / writing / architecture

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DG: The reason I was interested in being an artist, was because the people I knew who were artists all wanted to be writers. Dan Flavin wanted to be like James Joyce, Smithson wanted to be like Jorge Luis Borges, and also Sol LeWitt, although he wasn’t a writer, was fascinated by literature. It was a period of artists being interested in literature. Even Andy Warhol, who was dyslectic, became a writer. It was a generation of artist writers. Back to writing about architecture, I actually found art criticism very boring. Then I discovered Oppositions, this magazine that was edited by Peter Eisenman, founder of the New Yorkbased Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies. Some of the best writings were done by architects like Aldo Rossi’s writings about the city, or by Robert Venturi, and by architectural historians like Anthony Vidler or Kurt W. Forster.

UMB: I once asked some US-American architects why they are so profound in writing and the answer was, because USAmerican architects hardly have the opportunity to build.

DG: I also think those architects did a kind of self-education and part of it was visiting classical sites like in Italy...

Dan Graham with Ute Meta Bauer [ LINK ]