Quotes About Artists

I was worried that I, the artist Morimura, would have conflicts with the participating artists and develop a strenuous relationship with them. But the actual experience was completely the opposite. The artists accepted my requests rather positively, because it came from a fellow artist. I strongly feel that the fact that my being an artist avoided the usual curator vs artist tension, and led to creating a positive atmosphere as well as developing a solidarity amongst artists and building a community for artists.

I think the entrepreneurial activities that make art visible and attractive are what lure people into the amusement park that SoHo has become or that Bushwick or Williamsburg has become. It's not that outsiders come to an area because they hear artists are living there. A lot of people came who were not that interested in living with artists, but they were interested in living like artists and socializing the way that they thought artists socialized.

I love knowing and learning about people around the world displaying my art online. Also, it's how I learn about new artists that are in various parts of the world. The positive thing about Tumblr and Instagram is that they're a fantastic platform for art lovers. I also like, when I search for my art and it says, "see also or related artists," and I see those other artists that relate to me, at least according to the internet. I think it's fascinating - it's interesting to see hashtags people are using in relation to my work. It's another tool of communication.

I came at a time where male artists where dominating, so I had to do something quick to get people's attention. I wanted to let people know that women artists can hold their own compare to the men. Sex got their attention, while I open the road for the other female artists.

Because U.K. artists aren't compensated when their music is played on U.S. radio ­stations, U.S. artists aren't ­compensated when their records are played on U.K. stations based on the fact that there's no reciprocity. If that income came in, our ­artists would be paying income taxes on it. So if we can get a lot of policy on the radar, that may have some positive influence.

I think I'm inspired mostly by other artists that aren't actors, like writers or singers or artists, for being so brave.

The breakdown of the modern movement led to what later became known as postmodern-whatever the hell that means-referring to the mixture of people and backgrounds that became a common thing among artists in America. Many of the great artists in America, for example, came from Jewish families and backgrounds that fled all the way from Russia. It's remarkable, the great masters of American art and cinema who were coming from old roots in little villages there. And then Hollywood, and the haunting, hypnotic impact that American Cinema had throughout the world . . .

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.

I think I've been able to witness Canadian hip-hop get a lot more respect from our own people. I think some of the artists that came before me were doing their thing but lacked a strong next generation of artists to help them capitalize.

Artists have their existential questions as human beings, and they address these questions in their works. But they are also thinking in a broader sense when they participate in a social and political debate through their works. Often the most important voices of artists in the political and the social debate are focused on originality in their works. We can see this in historical pieces, like "Guernica" by Picasso. "Guernica" was an extremely important manifestation and critique against war, but it was important and powerful because it was also an incredibly original and powerful work of art.

I feel like that I'm learning all the time. I'm learning from new artists, from established artists... every time I listen to '70s rock 'n' roll records, I'm learning. And I think that I'm just now starting to get a hold on what I do.

I think that what most artists are trying to do is trying to understand. I think what distinguishes creative people and/or artists from another type of person is perhaps a willingness to go headlong into that uncertainty.

A lot of artists still will not get that far. And get that far and be as successful. So, it's a great thing for me, and hopefully I can make it to number 10. And then I would want to start managing other artists, 'cause I think the best manager is an artist, his, or herself, that has been in the business and been successful and knows the ins and outs of the business.

Great artistic talent in any direction... is hardly inherent to the man. It comes and goes; it is often possessed only for a short phase in his life; it hardly ever colors his character as a whole and has nothing to do with the moral and intellectual stuff of the mind and soul. Many great artists, perhaps most great artists, have been poor fellows indeed, whom to know was to despise.

An artists job is to see. And to go out in the world and see it firsthand, just as it is; to report with line and words what is seen. To be in the world, not just study about the world, that is the artists task

I helped found Artists for New South Africa, but it used to be called Artists for Free South Africa. Alfre Woodard and a bunch of us started this.

I don't see many artists who are not trying to bring their work to the public - -to the contrary I see artists nearly desperate to get attention for their art and, failing that, often for themselves.

I think that these are different times, and different things are available to artists, and certain things have become passé. You've already seen the outcome of a lot of things that seemed to have a lot of potential. We've already heard that, and I can't tell you if it made a difference or not. But we already know that artists can do that, and they shouldn't feel threatened by doing it. They're probably not going to change the world. They're going to change a few people's perspectives and maybe make somebody's day at times, if they can.

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 traditional difficulty of balancing the mechanical with the imaginative schools of photography still operates. In schools of photography meaningful art education is often lacking and on the strength of their technical ability alone students, deprived of a richer artistic training, are sent forth inculcated with the belief that they are creative photographers and artists. It is yet a fact that today, as in the past, the most inspiring and provocative works in photography come as much (and probably more) from those who are in the first place artists.

My mother really didn't come from artists. Her famous quote to me was, "The only artists I've ever heard of are dead." The pottery classes were meant to be a part of my overall uplift. I knew what it meant to be sent to art classes, but I still didn't know anything about being an artist.

Artists teach critics what to think. Critics repeat what the artists teach them.

Artists don't make objects. Artists make mythologies.

What makes someone an artist? I don't think is has anything to do with a paintbrush. There are painters who follow the numbers, or paint billboards, or work in a small village in China, painting reproductions. These folks, while swell people, aren't artists. On the other hand, Charlie Chaplin was an artist, beyond a doubt. So is Jonathan Ive, who designed the iPod. You can be an artist who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.

Coming from Britain, I was terrified of meeting all these other artists, because artists over there tend to fight with each other a lot, the premise being that there's not enough room for everybody.

Art in its execution and direction is dependent on the time in which it lives, and artists are creatures of their epoch. The highest art will be that which in its conscious content presents the thousandfold problems of the day, the art which has been visibly shattered by the explosions of last week The best and most extraordinary artists will be those who every hour snatch the tatters of their bodies out of the frenzied cataract of life, who, with bleeding hands and hearts, hold fast to the intelligence of their time.

I didn't have to be a pop singer with a certain look. When I started, there was really a revolution in natural artists with blues and folk artists crossing over; otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to get started.

Artists react to tragedy by doing something both as a way for us as artists to process our pain and our grief and our loss and as a way to give something back and memorialize people that are lost. That always makes it far harder to compartmentalize things. As a species, should never get used to tragedy and we should do everything we can to prevent it from happening and to celebrate people loving people. We should all be lucky enough to be loved and to love someone in return. That's what this is about.

I often envy my friends who are visual artists. Visual artists have other things to work with. Other media. I envy my sculptor friends: they have hunks of matter. Marble. Wood. It's physical, which I find very appealing. What we have is nothing, is just glaringly blank.

I believe your success is based off what your goals are. Are you trying to feed your family or have plaques on the wall and be broke? In that case, I think the game is in a better place. We have all heard of famous artists who are broke. Then we know of artists who may have had only a song or two on radio, but have a million or two dollars off that quick come up.

The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.

The word mystical is an even worse word than spirituality - that artists take drugs, and then they add some crazy extra thing to what we all know is real. But our job as artists or as human beings is to investigate what we really think is real.

I think the role of artists in the past was very different. Artists had less responsibility in many ways.

We have banished our artists to the fringe of society and tell them to eat cake. It is our artists who choose freedom over safety and use their talents to question and confront the culture.

It's interesting to see the world's fascination with a troubled artist. The artists sure wouldn't share their enthusiasm.

You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.

There are so many great artists, I think, who kind of suffer from being icons, legends, acknowledged masters.

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.

The impresario's job is to pick the right people who can pick the right people. He picks the people who can pick artists and relate to them. People who know what the market craves.

Creativity does not belong exclusively to professional artists and geniuses; it is the birthright of every single human being. Creativity is our common heritage. You don’t need to quit your job and move to Paris in order to lay claim to this heritage - all you have to do is clear some space in your life for whimsy, invention, sensory pleasure, and play. Most of all, you have to learn how to follow your curiosity more than your fear.

I tried to just do things like make some money, be responsible, help out other artists who I see have had a similar path.

Artists shouldn't be made famous. They have this huge aura of almost god-like quality about them, just because their craft makes a lot of money. And at the same time it is a forced importance... It is man-made so the press can feed off it.

The greatest scientists are artists as well.

The time has come for writers, especially those who are artists, to admit that in this world one cannot make anything out, just as Socrates once admitted it, just as Voltaire admitted it.

Now I'm a symbol of what to be and how hard to work. I have heads of major labels say, "I wish you could teach our artists how to do it." At one point I was the punching bag of what not to be, and now I'm the model of what to be.

I'm one of the artists that even though I love my soulful stuff, I love to turn up and have a good time and that's another side of me. As long as it doesn't veer away from who I am, I'm down with it.

Artists tend to be beyond embarrassment the way little children tend to be beyond embarrassment.

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.