Art quotes
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“I made something that I wanted to make and then people wanted it. That was always important to me because, when I was doing the Warhol stuff, I wondered, ‘Am I making something that I want to make, or because people want to buy?’ Now, I’m in the phase where I can make what I want to make.” — Ryan Wilson
Ryan Wilson, a.k.a. ThankYouX
Meet Me in the Mystery
2019
Spray Paint, Oil, Acrylic on Canvas
36 × 60 in
Price realized: $20,500
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“The angel, a transcendent being, has become powerless, unable to carry out God’s will, or to help those who believe in its existence.” — Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Angel
2008
Silica Gel, Fiberglass, Stainless Steel, Woven Mesh
180 × 220 cm
732467167294046208
“Abstract means literally to draw from or separate. In this sense every artist is abstract for he must create his own work from his visual impressions. A realistic or non-objective approach makes no difference. The result is what counts.” — Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993)
Ocean Park No.121
1980
oil on canvas
78¼ x 78 3/8 in.
Price realised
USD 7,698,500
732404028203483136
John Baldessari (1931-2020)
I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art
1971
lithograph, on ivory Arches
22 ½ x 30 1⁄8 in.
Estimate
USD 30,000 – USD 50,000
732290499393863680
“An original is a creation motivated by desire. Any reproduction of an original is motivated by necessity. The original is the result of an automatic process, the reproduction, of a mechanical process. In other words: Inspiration then information; each validates the other. All other considerations are beyond the scope of these statements. It is marvelous that we are the only species that creates gratuitous forms. To create is divine, to reproduce is human.” — Man Ray
Man Ray (1890-1976)
Portrait of Kiki
1923
Oil on canvas
24 1/8 x 18 in.
Price realised
USD 1,623,000
691148132879319040
Creativity vs. inspiration: inspiration makes a copy, creativity makes something completely new.
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Letterpress Poster by Anthony Burrill
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145513359207
“Museums are managers of consciousness. They give us an
interpretation of history, of how to view the world and locate ourselves
in it. They are, if you want to put it in positive terms, great
educational institutions. If you want to put it in negative terms, they
are propaganda machines.”
by Hans Haacke
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A Picture of Dorian Gray
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.
Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor’s craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.
When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless.
— Oscar Wilde, from ‘A Picture of Dorian Gray’