A LITTLE BIT OF YOU, A LITTLE BIT OF ME, 2026
pencil on two sheets of paper and sound
with composition by Gabriel Francisco Lemos
33 ×49 cm (overall)
27.94 ×21.59 cm (each)
10’00” loop

This work is a play with the iconic “Verb List” that Richard Serra did in 1967, where he compiled a series of what he called “actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process.” Serra has talked at length about the central place this language-based drawing occupies in the development of his early sculptural practice. Here, Sartuzi erases all the verbs only to replace with “to steal” using the same handwriting from Richard Serra. The new verb points to two distinct directions, one of them of course refers to the outrageous possibility that Serra would have stolen his own piece, but mainly it opens to the reading of ‘stealing’ as an artistic practice, often appropriating other artworks, as it has been so common throughout art history. Another direct reference is Robert Rauschenberg’s “Erased de Kooning Drawing” (1953). This leads not only to ideas around legacy and authorship but could expand to questions of originality that the whole “Equal-Parallel” case is dealing with.

The sound composition comes directly from the ‘to steal’ work. Sampling several interviews where Richard Serra says ‘to’ and ‘steel’, this composition, by sound similarity, the homophones ‘steel’ and ‘steal’, create the impression, by the context provided, that the artist would be saying “to steal”. The composition is made together with musician and composer Gabriel Francisco Lemos, in the spirit of the collaborations of the 1960s and 1970s, when Serra was sharing spaces and ideas with Steve Reich (or his assistant, Phillip Glass), Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Yvonne Rainer among others.

The title plays with something that would be proper from Richard Serra, the steel (and his voice), and the context that Sartuzi gives to the word/sound, bringing closer to his ‘stealing’ practice.

this work is part of the exhibition to vanish