Quotes About Artists

Now, [hip-hop/grime artists] Stormzy, Skepta, or the Section Boyz have to be validated by Drake, Rihanna or Beyoncé. They're rolled into this one urban culture bubble; it's not really to do with, "I'm specifically f - ked off about my country and what's going on in my town." We're very much only showing success to artists who impress American artists, and I'm one of them.

The best artists are people who don't consider themselves artists, and the people who do are usually the most pretentious and annoying. They've got their priorities wrong. They're just doing it to be artists rather than because they want to do it.

All my favorite artists are downtempo - Portishead, Burial, a lot of 1990s trip-hop. Some people are saying that I'm trying to help with the trip-hop revival that's possibly going on, but I'm not aware of other artists that are necessarily doing that. But if they are, that's fantastic. It's a great medium of electronic music. There's a lot of emotion - it's good for soundtracking a late-night drive.

I feel like artists that are always quite sad in real life always make really happy music, and artists who are really bouncy and bubbly always make really sad music.

There is a good deal of art that in some traditions of conceptual work are anti-affect, in fact a very large chunk of mainstream art after 1950 took against affect art altogether because they said, "No, we hate affect art because this is how we get manipulated by totalitarianism and therefore artists shouldn't play that game." And a lot of artists agreed to play that game, which I personally believe is to the loss of art.

Art is a path on which we honour our world. Art may not be the only path, but it is a good path, even though at times a difficult one. As bearers of this honour, we artists do not need to simply render our world as we see it but as we might ourselves redesign it. As artists, one of our privileges is to invent.

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.

A lot of bands are still just bands that artists ask to get involved, but a lot of artists are using sound they create. This is different from referencing music.

I have noted that, barring accidents, artists whose powers wear best and last longest are those who have trained themselves to work under adversity. Great artists treasure their time with a bitter and snarling miserliness.

The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craftsmen, but no artists. Can you imagine a Beethoven making $100, 000 a year?

Artists are just entrepreneurs. It's up to them to figure out how or if they can make a monetary profit from their passion − from their calling, as I discussed above. Sometimes they can. Musicians can sell music, even in the face of piracy. Or they can sell their services − concerts, etc. Painters and other artists can profit in similar ways. A novelist could use kickstarter for a sequel or get paid to consult on a movie version.

Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.

You witness the artists acting as witnesses, but they provide a point of view that's less monolithic. It's less official in a certain way. Many artists are speaking in the first person singular, as a reaction to dubbed-over media commentary. The thought is: "Enough with how we're represented by the media. Let me tell the story."

What do great artists do when you see a world around you that's in turmoil? Some of the best artists make you feel good (hah), they look to the future.

Men talk about art, and artists make art, but should artists talk?

There are female artists I can look at that I find more in common with than the male artists, because they're blending the pop, dance and theatricality... but currently there aren't a lot of guys who go there.

I feel like I've been training my entire career for this moment in a lot of ways. So many artists just want to draw Batman, and I'm getting the opportunity to do the backups in a brand-new Scott Snyder project that has so many artists.

The best musicians or sound-artists are people who never considered themselves to be artists or musicians.

I remember I went to an exhibition somewhere and one of the artists, an Iranian lady, said, "I wish we had somewhere that our paintings would stay forever." So this idea came to me. I said, "She's right, we should have a place to keep them, and not only Iranian art works, but also of foreign artists."

There are some very powerful contributions to knowledge in the scientific world or the legal world, but art is singular. That's why every dictator gets rid of the artists first. They burn the books and execute the artists first. Then they get on with whatever else they're interested in. Art might do something. It's dangerous.

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.

Many artists stick to making and hire a manager to focus on their business. Artists that build websites and mobile apps can do that, too.

Scott has to be one of the most talented artists I've ever seen. He really captures his subjects in a unique way. He is extremely generous as well. How many artists are willing to donate some of their best works to charity? The Texas Sports Hall of Fame has benefited greatly from Medlock's donated paintings, which are the cornerstones of our auction!

Artists must be sacrificed to their art.

Malcolm X is a person who has inspired - he has been the muse of several generations of black cultural workers, artists, poets, playwrights.

Religion is a group of scam artists that sell the calming idea that your body is a temple of God, while your mind belongs to them.

Individuality and originality is was separates good and great artists! How much they can move people with what they do! If they can shake the heart with what they do, is the key!

I'm not sure I'm going to be that type of artist but I do love cultural icons. Like Solange has been really great at that. Releasing her album end of last year and being really strong in their sound, bands like Little Dragon, artists like James Blake. You know their music when you hear them. They have a really particular sound and it's really cultural and people copy that sound. You hear it in other songs and you're like 'That's a James Blake tune'.

We think it hugely important to support young artists, there is a war against that kind of artistry, that kind of creation...When somebody is 19 years old, they're gonna do what they're gonna do just like we did... For me the most important thing was for him to know anytime he can call and I'll come whatever happens.

If the affairs of the world were put in the hands of the screwball artists, it couldn’t be in a worse state than it is now !

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

Im interested in the liberating aspect of being totally untethered, let loose in the worst possible environments. My favorite artists are always women that do things that are so wrong... I like things to be seven kinds of wrong. If they are seven kinds of wrong, sometimes the wrongs neutralize themselves, and the whole thing becomes.

Most artists are making as much money now as they could have made... in the heyday of Def Jam [when the] Beastie Boys would sell 10 million records or DMX would sell 6 or 7 million records. Those records are one thing, but then all the other ways to exploit the emotional relationship between artist and community is so much greater that I would guess that they're making as much or more money than they could have ever made.

As Colin Wilson has written, "modern civilisation, with its mechanised rigidity is producing more outsiders than ever before-people who are too intelligent to do some repetitive job, but not intelligent enough to make their own terms with society." Those "intelligent enough" to make their own terms with society are what we will later refer to as artists of life. The outsider views himself as a product of a culture he rejects-the artist views himself as a culture-builder.

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.

My favorite artists have always been Elvis and The Beatles and they still are!

Learning to fly an airplane taught me a way of thinking, an approach to problem-solving that was applicable and effective. Pilots are very methodical and meticulous, and artists tend not to be.

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.

Now there are no priests or philosophers left, artists are the most important people in the world.

This idea of the body as a feast, it stems from Giuseppe Arcimboldo, moves to Viennese artists like Günter Brus, and then you have Salvador Dalí of course, then much later, Marina Abramović and Ulay, with their nude series in Italy. It's an ongoing conversation. There was nothing cruel about Méret's Oppenheim piece.

Artists are always good for conversation, so long as you want to talk about their art.

I've always said I'm more influenced in what I do by artists, and how they work, how they think, and the freedom they're given to work and think, than I really am by other writers.

Idol has pretty much taken me out of my recording and out of my choreography. I have managed to slip in some choreography jobs. And I've been writing songs for other artists.

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.

The big, big record labels have so much control. I think too much control that it actually made their artists scared to not do what they were told and then the music suffers because of that dynamic and now there's the power of the download.

Teachers have been heroes to me, as well as artists and writers, and I'm honored to be among their ranks. There is always a lot of grousing about the academy. I suppose it comes from our all-American anti-authoritarianism.

I've heard many times that with all good artists it's ultimately a self-portrait even if it's an abstraction. I feel my work is very much who I am. I didn't try to make it that way; it just is. It reflects who I am and also my interests.

I didn't die young. So I am very lucky. There are other artists and people that didn't survive certain things... people can imagine that I did the most dangerous, and I did the worst... for many reasons, I shouldn't be here.