“I rarely obsess about things in my private life. I fail to care about the right shade of green for the couch, the sexual secrets of an ex-lover or the correct temperature of the meeting room AC. I don’t think I miss much.
However, I do obsess over our work and think that a number of our better projects came out of such an obsession. Doodling obsessively onto a poster depicting a headless chicken and an obsession with white angry monkeys that ultimately led to the giant inflatable animals all over Scotland are just two such examples.
From Bernd and Hilda Becher’s obsessive need to record every water tower to On Kawara’s date paintings and James Turrell’s Roden Crater, obsessions seem to be an important ingredient in the work of many of our favorite contemporary artists.
Obsessions make my Life worse and my Work better.*
*”Think dangerously, act safely” is a close relative – possibly its uncle -from my mentor Tibor Kalman.
- Stefan Sagmeister
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