Robert Storr; edited by Francesca Pietropaolo

Interviews on Art was inspired by the desire to bring together, for the first time, the most important interviews conducted by the acclaimed American critic and curator Robert Storr. This definitive collection brings together conversations with many of the most celebrated names in the art world including Gerhard Richter, Louise Bourgeois, Jeff Koons, Robert Ryman, Alex Katz, Chuck Close, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Gabriel Orozco, Sophie Calle, Elizabeth Murray, Harald Szeemann and Mike Kelley. Each interview is accompanied by images of relevant works and previously unpublished photographs of the artists themselves. 

Chosen carefully from an extraordinary life archive of writing and curating, the sixty-one illustrated interviews span the years from 1981 to 2016 and comprise thought-provoking dialogues on art with a wide range of artists of different generations and  of different formal and poetic inclinations. This ultimate selection includes discussions around a variety of media, ranging from painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation to graphic work, photography, video, film, and performance.

Robert Storr’s interviews are disarmingly intimate in their general tone: his engaging conversations afford fresh insights into the methods, thinking, and achievements of some of the most influential practitioners of our time, and, simultaneously, they shed light on significant shifts in aesthetic and cultural discourse over the last four decades. The themes of the conversations encompass the intrinsic problems of art as well as social and political issues of the day. Together, these interviews offer an unusual cross section of the landscape of contemporary art, opening up a multitude of points of view.

A conversation between curator and art historian Francesca Pietropaolo and Robert Storr introduces the texts, in which they dissect the interview as a medium: discussing the ethics involved, the notion of technique and approach, alongside the limitations and difficulties of the process.

The book features nineteen previously unpublished interviews with subjects including Buckminster Fuller, Mary Reid Kelley, Robert Ryman and Kara Walker.

Robert Storr is a curator, critic, and painter. From 1990-2002 he worked at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, as curator and then as senior curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture. In 2002 he became the first Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. From 2006 to 2016 he served as the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Dean of the Yale University School of Art, where he continues to be a professor of painting. In 2007 he served as Artistic Director of the Venice Biennale.
Since 1982, Robert Storr’s  essays, reviews, and columns have appeared in Art in America, Art Press, Frieze, Artforum, Parkett, Corriere della Sera, and other magazines and journals. He is the author of numerous catalogues and books. A frequent lecturer both in the United States and abroad, he has taught painting, drawing, art history, and criticism at numerous colleges, universities, and art schools. He is the recipient of many prestigious awards for his criticism and curatorial work from organizations such as the International Association of Art  Critics and the Archives of American Art. Robert Storr lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and New Haven, Connecticut.

Artists interviews:
Louise Bourgeois 35, 41, 55, 57
Buckminster Fuller 71
Rudy Burckhardt 91
Chris Burden 103
Sophie Calle 107
Vija Celmins 111
Olga Chernysheva 125
Francesco Clemente 137
Chuck Close 147
Stan Douglas 171
Tom Friedman 185
Robert Gober 195
Felix Gonzalez-Torres 207, 215
Pierre Huyghe 227
Jörg Immendorff 237
Neil Jenney 253
Kim Jones 269
Ilya Kabakov 291
Alex Katz 311
Mike Kelley 335
Ellsworth Kelly 353, 355
Jeff Koons 373
Guillermo Kuitca 395
Jac Leirner 407
Robert Mangold 433
Brice Marden 449
Paul McCarthy 463
Annette Messager 473
Andrei Monastyrski 489
Malcolm Morley 507
Elizabeth Murray 521
Wangechi Mutu 557
Bruce Nauman 569, 577
Gabriel Orozco 591
Gary Panter 605
Philip Pearlstein 619
Raymond Pettibon 637
Adrian Piper 651
Yvonne Rainer 655
Charles Ray 671
Mary Reid Kelley 691
Gerhard Richter 699, 713, 743
Robert Ryman 761, 769, 773
Peter Saul 785
Richard Serra 805
Harald Szeemann 817
Tatiana Trouvé 829
Kirk Varnedoe 841
Kara Walker 857
Lawrence Weiner 867
Jack Whitten 877