Quotes About Artists

When we talk about contemporary art and contemporary artists, we usually imagine artists who are alive. But I feel very uncomfortable about placing a border between living artists and dead artists.

I know artists whose medium is life itself, and who express the inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel or guitar. They neither paint nor dance. Their medium is Being. Whatever their hand touches has increased life.... They are the artists of being alive.

In general, you have great artists who have died far too early and who have left great cultural impact. If you look at people like Vincent van Gogh or Jean-Michel Basquiat-there's a long, long list of artists who have died in tragic circumstances, and far, far too early.

I've noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things, whether it's various types of music, or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.

Western artists stand as humans looking at nature; Asian artists try to be in nature. You become one with nature rather than painting a portrait of it. That's a big shift.

What I've learnt about artists over the years is, artists are usually the opposite to their music.

A lot of young artists in particular think you can just do one great thing and then sit back and collect checks. Most artists, even people like Dan Clowes, who's one of my heroes, don't just do comics. He does paid illustration. He writes screenplays, and so forth, working and selling lots of different things.

We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.

Artists talk about art in sort of straightforward terms, more like the way you talk about plumbing fixtures. Does it function well? Does it bring the hot water up from the cellar efficiently, or does it lose too much thermodynamic energy in the process? Artists are also very ruthless with each other and can be very brutal in evaluating each other's work because their criteria is almost more mechanistic. Does it do what it's supposed to be doing in an efficient way? That doesn't mean that intention is not part of the conversation, but it's not the foreground.

I paved the way for a lot of white artists now that don’t have to deal with the stigma of being a white artist. I don’t think that people would be as open for non-African American artists like that if it I didn’t take a lot of the slack for them.

I'm against government giving money to artists, but I'm not against artists taking money. Just like I don't have a moral problem with people taking healthcare from the government, but I don't think government should give it.

Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master. That is to say, most artists are converted to art by art itself. Finding one's voice isn't just an emptying and purifying oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. Any artist knows these truths, no matter how deeply he or she submerges that knowing.

All artists, they say, are a little mad. This madness is, to a certain extent, a self-created myth designed to keep the generality away from the phenomenally close-knit creative community. Yet, in the world of the artists, the consciously eccentric are always respectful and admiring if those who have the courage to be genuinely a little mad.

The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't.

When I first came to New York, in the '70s, artists were certainly divided about the Andy Warhol persona, and about the work. I thought it was utterly cool - I thought the Factory was utterly glamorous - but there were a lot of artists I really admired and respected who were older that kind of dismissed it, couldn't get it, and felt that there was a lack of seriousness about it.

The film [Boy and the World]gave me the possibility to create a new language. Animation is a very rich medium but hasn't fully been exploited by artists. Often artists are trapped by words.

The kind of people who become graphic artists may not be mathematically inclined. They're artists, artistically inclined.

I like to work with artists from around the world. There are so many new inspiring filmmakers. I had the privilege recently to work with Ethiopian filmmaker Zeresenay Mehari and his wife on the film Difret. They are that unique balance of very thoughtful conscious filmmakers who are also brilliant, original artists.

For spiritual companions I have had the many artists who have relied on nature to help shape their imagination. And their most elaborate equipment was a deep reverence for the world through which they passed. Photographers share something with these artists. We seek only to see and to describe with our own voices, and, though we are seldom heard as soloists, we cannot photograph the world in any other way.

The problem of making artists talk about their work is that when they're making their work the left-brain is shut off. So if you talk to an artist about it, you're talking to someone who wasn't there. It's hopeless. And also it's insulting. It's implying that the work is not an adequate account of itself. To me, the greatest artists are almost entirely non-verbal.

The artists always reflect the times, so there's a lot to think about, a lot of unknowns, a lot of things that are describable. This is the closest I've seen to the kind of ambience that made the '60s happen. It's not about the artist having a responsibility to do anything. They have to be artists and express themselves and everything will work out fine.

Obviously, the duty of artists is there, but it's more an indictment of the political system that someone like Zinn views artists as the seers, idealizing them as the people responsible for inspiring change.

I do support artists standing by their beliefs, and walking with integrity. We have to find a better way to commercially exploit music, while giving artists their proper respect. This cannot be done while taking their contributions for granted, or trying to control the scope of their growth and power through threats and fear tactics.

I've never thought it was a good idea to act back-to-back. If you are going to have any chance of replicating life, you need to live it. I also never forgot something Johnny Depp said to me, which Marlon Brando said to him, 'You only have so many faces in your pocket.' I really admire artists who take the time to recharge their batteries and not continually call on it. I think you can spot tired and jaded artists quite quickly.

I don't believe artists should be subjected to experiences that harden the sensibilities; without sensibility no fine work can ever be done.

Even though Hubbard is dead, his business still repeats his lies, ... and in my opinion the proposed Act should also punish businesses and organizations that repeat such falsehoods. It is a gross insult to American men and women who have actually been wounded and who have actually earned the medals and awards that frauds and con-artists falsely claim.

We need that expression. Whether we want to call it protest or not, we need to express and echo the echoes of the people. Artists need to do that.

The artist is a collector. Not a hoarder, mind you, there's a difference: Hoarders collect indiscriminately, artists collect selectively. They only collect things that they really love.

what a writer does is to try to make sense of life. I think that's what writing is, I think that's what painting is. It's seeking that thread of order and logic in the disorder, and the incredible waste and marvelous profligate character of life. What all artists are trying to do is to make sense of life.

I assumed from the outset that photography was already art, and that I and other people working in photography were artists. I understand now that this was a minority point of view.

I'm not saying that I don't experience people in life as evil, but writing is not a place of alienation; writing is the place where we can try to be human. I think there are some artists whose works are misanthropic. When I see this kind of stuff, I think, they're smart, but I don't need art to tell me people are assholes. I can just go into the streets.

Artists are taught to be humble about their impact, especially in folk music. It's so ingrained that I have a hard time even thinking I had any impact other than what a normal hit song would have.

I like getting my own thoughts out right now, I have fans to solidify, so that's why I don't do tracks with too many younger rappers or newer artists. People may consider me to be a music snob or whatever, but I like to preserve what's mine and I also don't just do tracks to do tracks, I make every song with a purpose.

I started off just trying to make a wish list for myself. I wanted to work with people I really admire myself. I wanted to work with other artists from other scenes so they could make my songs improve in a different way - people who have artistically different things to say.

I've known the glory of the stage and the glory of the spotlight. I still crave it. I want to be on 'American Bandstand' and 'Soul Train' as a solo artist. As a producer, songwriter and arranger, I help other artists say what they want to say. But on my records, I say what I want to say.

Art schools are partly the villain here. (Never mind that I teach in them.) This generation of artists is the first to have been so widely credentialed, and its young members so fetishize the work beloved by their teachers that their work ceases to talk about anything else. Instead of enlarging our view of being human, it contains safe rehashing of received ideas about received ideas. This is a melancholy romance with artistic ruins, homesickness for a bygone era. This yearning may be earnest, but it stunts their work, and by turn the broader culture.

Vienna is relatively small. And it had wonderful salons, opportunities for people to get together. There was a lot of interaction between scientists and non-scientists, between Jews and non-Jews, between artists, writers and scientists, including medical scientists.

I think that some of the writing, directing, and the content is better than a lot of movies sometimes. Actors, well artists in general - actors, writers, directors - what we all care about the most is good work and being able to create something that is really resonant and meaningful.

I'm absolute attacking my own instinct for politeness, but I think I admire artists who just speak out or who are strong, so it's very hard.

I had thirty weeks of prep on 'Captain America.' I have a small team of qualified, supportive, creative producers who are actually helping me achieve my vision of the film. I had a dream cast headed by Chris Evans. I had the best designers, artists, sculptors, craftspeople.

Country artists have advantages all over the place. The radio support is incredible. The fanbase is rabid, all over.

I want to keep acting and I want to keep working with high quality artists. I might be a bit spoiled because they're so good at what they do. I think the only way you learn is to surround yourself with people that are better than you.

Photographers, you will never become artists. All you are is mere copiers.

This is the birth of the modern human soul. The artists are like us, not like the Neanderthals, who had no culture - and who incidentally were still roaming the landscape at the time the paintings were made. It is striking that there is a distant cultural echo that seems to reach all the way down to us, over dozens of millennia.

So many artists who came out during that time, including myself, were able to get on radio. New forms of singer-songwriters developed out of that.

There was a time when people would go search out underground records. Now, underground means free, and people don't really care for it. So now artists tend to go more pop and look for the radio. You know, the radio never wanted you to speak about anything, so the music is kinda influenced by the hands of the radio which wants to homogenize it and dilute it and sanitize it. And for the most part, nobody's takin' the time to seek out the cats that are still tryin' to talk, so they have a difficult time being heard, like Chuck D said.

Artists should never look at pictures, but should stutter in a language of their own.

I attended the High School of Industrial Arts and studied with many great artists as painting is something that you never stop learning about. Actually, in high school there was a time that I was thinking about just concentrating on painting and I asked my music teacher, Mr. Sondberg, for advice and he encouraged me to stick with the music as well. So all my life I have been singing and painting.