In both texts, the artists aspire to change the way art is seen but also the way it is created. They discuss ideas that shocked the society of that time, but also revolutionized the art world.

The text ‘Leo Steinberg (b.1920) from Other Criteria’ describes the ‘Flatbed Picture Plane’ in art. He discusses how art has evolved from corresponding to the standing human posture and from being a flat and horizontal image, to being more about the process of the art itself. He gives examples of artists, such as Rothko, Still, Newman, de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, all of which would follow the flatbed picture plane rule. Pollock, an abstract expressionist, would start out with his work on the floor but then he would hang it on the wall, allowing the paint to drip down. A change happened in the in the 1950’s, which was seen through Robert Rauschenberg’s and Dubuffet’s work. Their work didn’t correspond to the human posture, even though it could still be hung on the wall and it focused more on the process of making the art than the result.

In comparison, the text ‘Richard Serra (b.1939) from The Yale Lecture’ explains the art of sculpture and three dimensional work.  Serra focuses on the process of making art, much like Steinberg. However, unlike Steinberg, Serra emphasises the importance of site-specific work, and escapes the traditional studio. He states that one cannot produce work within a context and then place it in another. The scale, size and location of site-specific works are very important and are determined by the topography of the site, the surrounding architecture, and generally the environmental components of the given context. One must also take into consideration the social and political characteristics of the site, allowing the artist to focus on the relationship between the sculpture and the context.