artists: Tom Sachs

Interview with Tom Sachs in flavorpill. "Creativity is the enemy" means that artists should eliminate caprice from their work; it means doing the minimum and making elegant gestures. In other words, when you put together a complicated sculpture, try to have as few unnecessary elements as possible — try to keep it streamlined. In this world, you either have a new idea, or a new way of saying it; rarely do you have both. I think the audience can only absorb one thing at a time. When I'm working with my team, I always say, "Do not introduce creative things. Do not try and innovate. Just try and plug on through, and keep making it." If you try to do too much, the work becomes overly complicated, and anyway, when you die, it will probably just get thrown away.