What to Do with Pictures

Abstract

OCTOBER 138, Fall 2011, pp. 81–94. © 2011 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1967–68 Richard Serra prepared a famous list of verbs.2 This compendium of actions—“to roll, to create, to fold, to store, to bend, to shorten, to twist, to dapple, to crumple, to shave,” and so on and so on—implies matter as its proper “direct object.” You can roll, fold, store, bend, shorten, twist, dapple, and shave lead, for instance, or crumple paper.3 This litany of verbs also includes two sustained “lapses” into nouns, including many gerunds (whose grammatical function is to transform verbs into nouns): “of tension, of gravity, of entropy, of nature, of grouping, of layering, of felting . . . ” If the infinitive verb marks a time outside of action (“to rotate” suggests a possibility that need not be acted upon), Serra’s nouns imply the dilated moment of an unfolding event—to be “of tension,” for instance, means that force is being or has been applied. Indeed, Serra’s early sculptures might be defined as matter marked by the exercise of force.4 Serra’s verb list furnishes a terse blueprint for post-Minimalist sculpture. But it also implies a general theory of transitive art—of art produced through the exertion of force on something, or someone. Since what counts in transitive procedures is not the nature of the material acted upon (such as lead or rubber) but the generation of form through action, Serra’s list can easily be repurposed