Within the two texts “The Yale Lecture by Richard Serra” written in 1990 and “Other Criteria by Leo Steinburg” published in 1972. They both speak about art in a passionate and educated manner. Serra is more interested in the process of Sculptor whereas Steinburg is more interested with the process of Painting. I feel both texts share a similarity with certain similar themed topics discussed, an example of this would be that they both speak about how the spoken practice has changed with time. Steinburg stated “The pictures of the last fifteen to twenty years insist on a radically new orientation, in which the painted surface is no longer the analogue of a visual experience of nature but of operational processes.”  He was saying in this quote how painting has evolved away from focusing on natural landscapes to a more abstract appearance of processes. However Steinburg doesn’t seem negatively affected by this transition compared to Serra who says “Sculptors for the most part have ignored the results of the industrial revolution failing to investigate these fundamental processes and methods of steel making, engineering and construction.” He is expressing his disappointment of how more recent sculptors have steered away from the traditional roots of sculpt making due to the introduction of technology, he states “the technological process is revealed depersonalizes and demythologizes the idealization of the sculptor’s craft.” Serra means that the process of making the sculpture is just as important as creating the final product, which I agree to a point. I believe an artist can learn and develop new ways of working with a more hands on approach to sculpture perhaps. However the introduction of technology allows sculpture to be far more exciting due the variety we can now create compared to when the technology we have currently wasn’t around.

When Steinburg speaks about the differences in the painting process over time, (more specifically through the Cubism Movement, in the 1900’s, through to the Abstract Expressionistic movement , in the 1940’s.) he has a less rigid approach in his opinions, he is simply discussing the transition of the artwork throughout the years. He praised artists such as Duchamp and Rauschenberg  as being huge influences within the art scene. Steinburg stated how Rauschenberg laid the “foundation of an artistic language that would deal with a different order of experience” within the 1950’s during the abstract expressionist movement. Whereas Serra only mentions artists who either back up his opinion such as Le Corbusier (who wrote a letter to Victor Nekrasov stating how he felt that paintings of sculptor don’t undermine sculpture but don’t add anything to it either (backing up Serra’s dislike for non-traditional methods of making sculpture)). Or he mentions artists to simply criticise their artwork for using sculpture in a non-traditional way.

Overall I preferred the more open minded approach of Leo Steinburg’s Other Criteria, compared to that of the more narrow minded outlook of Richard Serra’s The Yale Lecture.