Art wasn't for selling. Actually, we once did have an offer on Double Negative. Things could be sold actually - everything could be for sale. But we had very few buyers. I think it was Michael Heizer who said that the point was to have a bigger canvas, and I've used that expression quite a bit. But I was thinking today that a canvas has boundaries; it has limit to it. And for earthwork, it was the very openness and feeling that there were no boundaries that made it so exciting.
Virginia DwanI remember when I went to a gallery in Paris at one point, they had drawings of earthworks set in different places. I asked the person sitting at the gallery desk where these works were - where in France they could be found. She looked at me in horror as if I'd asked something completely insane. She said, "Well, of course, these works don't actually exist. They're concepts."
Virginia DwanArt wasn't for selling. Actually, we once did have an offer on Double Negative. Things could be sold actually - everything could be for sale. But we had very few buyers. I think it was Michael Heizer who said that the point was to have a bigger canvas, and I've used that expression quite a bit. But I was thinking today that a canvas has boundaries; it has limit to it. And for earthwork, it was the very openness and feeling that there were no boundaries that made it so exciting.
Virginia DwanThe gallery closed its doors in 1971. I could no longer psychologically handle the needs of 12 artists. I cared about all of them, and what was happening with their careers. I'm just not a person who can do that indefinitely. And tax-wise I was concerned because they gallery wasn't making money; it was losing money.
Virginia DwanI think Michael Heizer and Walter De Maria had a love-hate relationship because they both had a lot in common. But inevitably one would get more publicity than another. Of course, Robert Smithson's gotten so much attention through the years. One of the reasons is not only that his work is quite wonderful, but the fact that he was a writer himself.
Virginia Dwan