Robert Barry Quotations

We believe that GM's market share will continue to face persistent long term downward pressure, and that market pricing pressure will intensify over time, eroding GM fundamentals further.

We remain confident GM will offer some assistance to Delphi, but bankruptcy risk cannot be ignored. We think GM would find it hard to justify not offering its struggling, former captive supplier, Delphi, some form of assistance.

We reiterate our concern about the profit drag from selling fewer SUVs.

Severe operating challenges still confront GM, including mix, pricing and market-share pressures plus a tough macro outlook as consumers face rising interest rates and energy costs.

Pluralism has won today. I believe these elections represent a significant step forward in the process of democratization and pluralization of Bosnia.

Caution is warranted given uncertainty about the consumer, rising interest rates, raw-material costs and pricing pressure.

Growing fleet sales, increasing competitive pressure in large pickups and escalating risk of weaker consumer spending is likely to hurt pricing and revenue.

We think better cost performance was a key driver of the improvement in North American and possibly higher profitability on cars than we had anticipated.

Plans to sell a controlling GMAC stake would likely boost credit ratings and cut funding costs, ... divert earnings from GM.

We doubt a buyer gets in front of risk that a strike cripples GM North America. UAW negotiations tend to go down to the wire -- now March 31 -- so a GMAC sale is harder to envision before sometime in the second quarter.

We are not confident the restructuring addresses the core issue that GM brings too much supply to the North American market.

What investor wants to buy a company that sells plastics to GM when plastics are going through the roof while the prices GM pays go down?

We concur with the Joint Election Management Board that the candidates' demand to nullify the election is unjustified,

We'd caution about becoming too optimistic given a number of challenges, such as very weak (free cash flow).

But simply realizing tax-related benefits seems less likely to us.

We see sizable North American share loss continuing, weighing on earnings and offsetting many restructuring benefits.

What it takes for the currency to recover, however, is that the markets have some confidence that things are going to be mended. The problem is that Indonesia did all the right things early on and announced a number of steps that would have led to more confidence in what's going to happen there and then they didn't carry through on it.

We think such a move would not occur if prospects for traction on the turnaround plan were tighter. The management change comes at an inopportune time given the challenges ... and severe stresses on the North American business, some of which will likely require longer term attention.

We think one of the primary factors weighing on the company's equity has been concern about the Chapter 11 filing. We think the new bank line makes an imminent filing very unlikely.

Comments today at the Geneva auto show that General Motors is in no rush to sell GMAC, and that a sale is not necessary before next year, suggest the sale process has stalled.

Another deal with Delphi is likely forthcoming, but probably not before Mar. 30, posing risk of Delphi motions (to nullify contracts) and starting the union contract cancellation process.

These savings are a clear positive, but retiree liability cuts are likely to see some almost immediate offsets, from ongoing health care inflation, possible Delphi liability assumption and falling long-term rates.

So we see significant 'payback' in the stock price.

The bottom line is we see little to no earnings growth in '06. Indeed, flat earnings may end up being a notable accomplishment, given the stresses the auto sector is facing.

that they are tired of all this nationalist posturing.

Ford's restructuring plan was widely anticipated, but was more vague and protracted than we expected, which is disappointing. We also see sizable North American share loss continuing, weighing on earnings and offsetting many restructuring benefits.

Ford's presentation at the auto show clearly evidenced its strategy to focus on cars and crossovers.

The ballot this year is highly complex. We are trying to make sure that people understand the ballot. For the first time this year, it is electronically readable.

These trends keep us confident in our assumptions of sizable Ford and GM share loss in 2006.

This is consistent with growing press speculation that potential buyers are scarce.

The Joint Election Management Board has offered such a process and we urge that it be used,

The consumer spending environment since midsummer has softened. Our initial estimate is for 2006 sales of 16.8 million units, but we expect aggressive pricing will be needed to achieve that given a weakening consumer.

Investors are anxious to measure demand for GM's new SUVs, but we think too few will have infiltrated the market to draw any meaningful conclusions before April.

By and large, I would have to say that the process was extraordinarily orderly, the level of violence was unexpectedly low and the polling station committees, considering the fact that they had never done anything like this before, did, I think, a commendable job,

The employee discounts created a spike and now it's a case of the higher they climb, the harder they fall.

I am very generous with my dealers in terms of the art that they have of mine. They all have a very good selection of work that they can work with. And it is up to them to find the dealers. I don't interfere with their selling.

I am good in the fact that most of my reviews have been very positive really. I get pretty good reviews. There have been some that aren't - critical. I think they are extremely - the people that wrote them really don't understand what they are looking at quite frankly or have a very preconceived notion of what conceptual art should be or where I am at or the fact that I may change what I have done from what I did 20 years ago. But there is always some reason that they just sort of get it wrong. And so it certainly doesn't affect my work.

The only problems I sometimes have is if I ask for a piece for a group show, if I ask for a piece - I would like to put it into a show, sometimes the collectors get possessive about it and don't want to let something happen. Say you get full credit, you know. You give them your name, the catalog and it always enhances the value of the piece, you know, the more shows it is in, blah, blah, blah.

I prefer music but sometimes if there's on talk radio - someone might be on that I like. I listen to the old - to "Air America," down at the - liberal talk shows and things like that I find kind of nice, their criticizing the conservatives. I find that quite relaxing, entertaining, but music, a lot of music.

I liked the idea of the words floating in space and the space behind it moving all the time, ever changing.

Words have very potent meanings and people read them and they react to them personally. They are very suggestive in terms of your life and things like that.

A word refers to something in the real world and so, in a way, does a photo. It's not the thing itself, but it's a kind of suggestion of where you might look for that thing.

I certainly don't believe that people can read other people's minds.

The idea of words and photos was something that appealed to me.

I was a guest at CalArts. John Baldessari invited me out a few times. I've been there. I've been in Pasadena, taught out at Boulder, University of Colorado. And I've taught in Europe. I've lectured and taught. I've taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nigne [sp]. I was there for a couple of weeks, I was there. I've taught all over - in Switzerland, Germany.

I always took photographs. I photographed a lot of trees, by the way, which is another image I used often in my work, the tree image.

If I'm reading something and a word pops up, or I just catch it, I try to mark it off and then, later, write it down on a piece of paper and add it to my list.

And after a while, you just pare things down more and more and more, until you get to certain basic things which just - basic ideas which just seem to work for you over and over again.

I'm used to being the background. I'm used to having work that only lasts for a little while. I'm used to being - working in the real world, where real things are.

Words are objects of a color and a size and a form and a shape.

I wanted my style to be very recognizable.

I think you say the word in your mind anyway, you know. When you look at a word, you say it.

The big thing is I try not to repeat.

After I did the drawings of trees combining them with words, I started doing - I did that for a very short time. Then it kind of - that sort of evolved into just showing the branches of a tree coming down into the trunk and then going into the root system. So I showed both the branches and the roots of a tree, which were about equal. There is as much going on under the ground as is going on above the ground, which you can see.

I have been in competitions for commissions. I've won most and lost some. Mostly, I've won.

And yes, there are things I want to keep, that I like around me - especially when there's very little left. I just want to keep those little bits of reminders of my past. There are certain drawings from the '60s; certain little paintings from the '60s that I keep.

I'm fortunate in one respect; that I don't have a lot of work in my studio. Most of it's out, gone; either sold or in galleries. I work with a lot of galleries.

I do make some drawings for wall pieces. I do work out some ideas for large-scale wall pieces where I have to organize words or get proportions right. I do keep them in my files. Not an exhibit or a show; just as part of my records, my archives.

I consider drawings finished works of art, first of all. However, the ideas can be something that can be developed into something larger. I don't make so many drawings anymore since I'm working with language. I used to make more when I worked with sculptural things, especially the wire pieces.

You know, there are some people who just don't - that cannot get comfortable behind the wheel of a car and always sort of think they're going to kill somebody.

People ask me why I use words and the reason, of course, is that words talk to you. I mean, they're something that are generated inside of you and that you can relate to you.

I had always worked. I always had part-time jobs.

I was never that big a rock-and-roll, rock guy. I really preferred jazz, you know, that kind of thing.

I loved music. Music was a big thing and so I started collecting records. I had a large collection of jazz records and that was something else I used to listen to. At night, there was a - what the heck was his name? There was a famous - Jazzbo Collins, I used to listen to at night, and some other guys.

I was also very interested in music. I used to hang out in jazz joints, you know, the Five Spot and so forth when I was, you know, a senior, really, when I was a little bit older. And I thought, well, maybe I could, you know, work with music. I can't play at all.

I was also a good writer, by the way. My, you know, my English teacher and writing teacher loved my writing. You know, I wrote short stories and things like that. And they liked them very much.

I took art courses, only in the sense that I was able to - I took art classes, which were fun, which I liked, but it was a - just a kind of a general education that I got, a regular academic - academic diploma, but I kind of had the feeling that art was something that I really liked the most but I wasn't really sure that that was it.

I think my parents - my parents were very hands-off, quite liberal in terms of their - they really - they did encourage me, but they never really pushed me into anything, really.

I was good at art - always good at art.

I went to Our Lady of Mercy, parochial school and I started Fordham Prep, but that only lasted about a year and then I - to me, it was like going to some kind of concentration camp. I was not very happy. And I only went there because that's where my brother went, really.

So I never had trouble getting work or working or doing - I always worked. I worked when I went to college. I worked after school.

Art was something that I was really interested in, probably more so than writing or anything else.

By being critical, you also develop your own style of what you like, what direction you want to move.

I had always taken photos - always, always taken photos, made movies.

You can't have silence on the radio; people will turn away from the station.

The Vogels were quite strict in what they acquired. They never acquired a projection. They never acquired a sound piece. They were never big on photos that much, unless it was photos documenting something. They had some limitations into what they bought.

There's a kind of poetic aspect to inert gas. And remember, first of all, they were completely unknown a hundred years earlier. We just didn't know about them. And then when they were discovered in the atmosphere, the idea that this is a material that would breathe in and exhale and becomes part of us for a while made it even more intriguing. The names, the Greek names, are interesting, too - if you translate neon, xenon and so forth are kind of interesting.

Heidegger wrote a book called Was Ist Das Ding - What Is a Thing? which was kind of interesting and influential to me, as a matter of fact. It's a small paperback, which I read. It's about the nature of thingness; what is it? It's a very penetrating analysis of that, and I think a rather influential book. I know other artists who have read it and come up with it.

And the mind actually does generate electrical currents - very weak ones and not necessarily ones that can be picked up by anyone else.

But artistically, my art I kept very separate from my political beliefs, deliberately and very, very rarely would I allow that kind of thing into it.

Most of the criticism of my work was pretty good, but occasionally it would not be. And I just sort of felt that they absolutely didn't get what I was doing. It was their limitations on what they thought art should be or what they thought my work should be in relation to earlier work or whatever.

The idea of the culture that you live in determining meaning in your art, though, is a very important aspect of what art would be about. But that had more to do with the kind of general understanding of what the hell you're doing, you know.

I have to say, I'm not someone who's really big into my family history - never really was very curious about it. The only thing I know about it is what I picked up from my aunts and parents.

And when you are operating within your style, which is your world, which you operate in, then it also would make sense to you. Now, whether it makes sense to anybody outside is besides the point really. You just do it and then you find that other people kind of begin to relate to it and allow themselves to get into your way of thinking about things.

I am very easy. I like to have my work out. I am not restrictive about any of that. It is the collectors that are possessive, not me, not me.

I am always producing work, but there is always a sort of deadline where you have to finish work. I don't do it for a show. In other words, I am not like a fashion designer where I have a, you know - I have to put out the full line or I have to put out the summer line like that.

I have a lot of ideas for art. And it is really - I don't really have time to do them all.

I have never had a shortage of ideas for shows. I always just do them and the gallerists don't - they stopped long ago trying to tell me what I should show in their gallery. They just don't even do it. I show whatever I want to show. They are very happy and as far as I know, they have always been very pleased with whatever I have shown, even if it is nothing to sell.

I work sometimes with dealers and sometimes people just come to me. A lot of the commissions, they just know me. They have seen something and they just approach me.

Whatever came out came out. That was it. That's what you live with. If you don't like it, that's your problem.

My videos rarely run longer than 20 minutes. They're made for private viewing in your home or specifically either that or for a gallery situation where you sit and look.

I make videos which are works of art in themselves which have nothing to do with Hollywood movies or anything along those lines and I like videos because they deal with light and dark and time and change and they're just another kind of medium that I can get into and work with when I choose to other than, say, doing something on the wall or a window.

I don't really use still photography very much anymore except to document my work.

I shoot in black and white, sometimes color, sometimes if it looks good I shoot out the window of the airplanes or whatever, anything that - sometimes I secretly take secret photos, shoot video of people on the plane if it's not too crowded. I don't know, whatever comes up.

I like contrasting between black and white and color.

I didn't make videos for a long time because I hated the look of TV sets.

I work with deadlines. It is terrible to be an artist where you are just producing work and nobody gives a damn. Nobody wants to show it.

I am an artist who works very well under pressure, in fact. I like to have deadlines.

The words represent ideas first of all. That is something you have to understand. I mean, it is not just an object, but it is an object with a history and it is loaded with all kinds of implications and ideas. They exist in the world in a very special way. So they kind of represent some aspect of the world that we perceive, as do photographs, as do drawings of trees or whatever. And they are not a one to one. They are not the world, but they kind of refer to the world and they also exist in the world.

Agnes Martin is a big influence in my work actually, when I first saw her, these fine grids.