34 quotes found
"In a certain sense the phrase "I am still alive" can never be sent as it cannot be received by the addressee instantaneously...It is only valid at the very instant that it is being written, and in the very next second it no longer is a certainty. If the addressee receives the telegram a few hours or days later and reads it, he merely knows that the sender was alive at the very instant the telegram was sent. But when he is reading the telegram, he is totally uncertain if the content of the text is still relevant or if it is still valid The difference, the small displacement between sending and receiving, is that particular unseizable glimpse of the presence of the artist. Likewise, it is a sentence of self-reassurance..."I am still alive." The activity of telling oneself and the world "I am still alive.""
"His most famous work, the Today Series (1966–2014), is an accumulation of thousands of "Date Paintings". In these works the date on which the painting was made is meticulously painted in white sans serif text, at the centre of a canvas coated with flat colour, with the month spelled out in the language of the place where it was made (unless the Roman alphabet was not used for the first language, in which case Kawara resorted to Esperanto). The paintings were produced in more than 112 cities worldwide. If a Date Painting was not finished by the end of the day, by midnight, he would destroy it."
"..a single uninterrupted and continuous surface from which anything superfluous and all interpretative possibilities are excluded. [referring to his 'Achromes', Manzoni started to make in 1957]"
"When I blow up a balloon, I am breathing my soul into an object that becomes eternal. [Manzoni's quote of 1960, referring to his art-work 'Artist's Breath']"
"I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. The fingerprint is the only sign of the personality that can be accepted: if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own shit, that is really his."
"I sell an idea, an idea in a can."
"The work of art has its origin in an unconscious impulse that springs from collective substrata of universal values common to all men, from which all men draw their gestures, and from which the artist derives the 'archaic' of organic existence. Every man of his own accord extracts the human element from this base, without realizing it, and in an elementary and immediate way."
"Where the artist is concerned it is a question of the conscious immersion in himself, through which, once he has got beyond the individual and contingent level, he can probe deep down to reach the living germs of total humanity. Everything that is humanly communicable is derived from this, and it is through the discovery of the psychic substrata that all men have in common that the relationship of author-work-spectator is made possible. In this way the work of art has the totemic value of living myth, without symbolic or descriptive dispersion: it is a primary and direct expression."
"The foundations of the universal value of art are given to us now by psychology. This is the common base that enables us to sink its roots to the origins before man and to discover the primary myths of humanity. The artist must confront these myths and reduce them, by means of amorphous and confused materials, to clear images. Since these are atavistic forces that have their origins in the subconscious, the work of art takes on a magical significance."
"The key point today is to establish the universal validity of individual mythology.. .The artistic moment is therefore that in which the discovery of pre-conscious universal myths comes about, and in the reduction of these into the form of images. It is clear that if the artist is to be able to bring to light zones of myth that are authentic and virginal he must have both an extreme degree of self-awareness and the gifts of iron precision and logic."
"To arrive at such a discovery, fruit of a log and precious education, involves a whole field of precise technique. The artist must immerse himself in his own anxiety, dredging up everything that is alien, imposed or personal in the derogatory sense, in order to arrive at the authentic zone of values."
"So it is obvious that at first glance there would seem to be a paradox: the more we immerse ourselves in ourselves, the more open we become, since the closer we get to the germ of our totality the closer we are to the germ of totality of all men. We can therefore say that subjective invention is the only means of discovering objective reality, the only means that gives us the possibility of communication between men"
"There comes a point where individual mythology and universal mythology are identical. In this context it is clear that there can be no concern with symbolism and description, memories, misty impressions, of childhood, pictoricism, sentimentalism: all this must be absolutely excluded. So must every hedonistic repetition of arguments that have already been exhausted, since the man who continues to trifle with myths that have already been discovered is an aesthete, and worse."
"Why not to set free these forms? Why not trying to uncover the infinite meaning of absolute space, the meaning of pure and absolute light? [Manzoni is referring to the colourless, but still matter-made art paintings, made by Zero artists, around 1950-60]"
"I would like to draw a white line covering the complete Greenwich meridian."
"You [=Yves Klein ] are the 'monochrome bleu' and I am the 'monochrome blanc'; we should start to cooperate together, we two. [Manzoni's remark, during their first meeting]"
"You [Dutch Zero-artist, Henk Peeters] take the North of Europe, I'll take the South. Switzerland will be our neutral zone where we shall have our common exhibition. (Manzoni's reaction when Henk Peeters accused him of plagiary]"
"Manzoni's critical and metaphorical reification of the artist's body, its processes and products, pointed the way towards an understanding of the persona of the artist and the product of the artist's body as a consumable object. The 'Merda d'artista' (the artist's shit, dried naturally and canned 'with no added preservatives'), was the perfect metaphor for the bodied and disembodied nature of artistic labour: the work of art as fully incorporated raw material, and its violent expulsion as commodity."
"Manzoni understood the creative act as part of the cycle of consumption: as a constant reprocessing, packaging, marketing, consuming, reprocessing, packaging, ad infinitum."
"Manzoni's first 'Lines' made in April 1959 marked the beginning of his experiments with highly cerebral works which led away from painting and which entitle him to be regarded as a precursor of Conceptual art.. .At least 50 'Lines' were made between April and December 1959, varying in length from 0.78 meters to 33.63 meters. Then his longest 'Line' measuring 7,200 meters was made on a newspaper printing press at Herning in Denmark on 4 July 1960 and was enclosed in a large cylindrical container made of lead-iron. It was buried in the ground so that it might eventually be discovered one day by chance, but in fact has since been dug up. Finally he made two 'Lines' 1,140 and 1,000 meters on 24 July 1961 which have been put into polished steel containers, with engraved inscriptions. Though several of these lines have been exhibited unrolled, the general intention was that the containers should remain unopened."
"In May 1961, while he was living in Milan, Piero Manzoni produced ninety cans of Artist's Shit. Each was numbered on the lid 001 to 090. Tate's work is number 004. A label on each can, printed in Italian, English, French and German, identified the contents as '"Artist's Shit", contents 30gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.' In December 1961 Manzoni wrote in a letter to the artist Ben Vautier: 'I should like all artists to sell their fingerprints, or else stage competitions to see who can draw the longest line or sell their shit in tins. The fingerprint is the only sign of the personality that can be accepted: if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there's the artist's own shit, that is really his.' (Letter reprinted in 'Battino and Palazzoli', p. 144)"
"Our new aim is the organisation of the material environment, i.e. of contemporary industrial production, and all active artistic creativity must be directed towards this."
"The role of the 'representational arts' - painting, sculpture, and even architecture.. ..has ended, as it is no longer necessary for the consciousness of our age, and everything art has to offer can simply be classified as a throwback."
"The era that humanity has entered is an era of industrial development and therefore the organisation of artistic elements must be applied to the design of the material elements of everyday life, i.e. to industry or to so-called production. The new industrial production, in which artistic creativity must participate, will differ radically from the traditional aesthetic approach to the object, in that primarily attention will be focused not on the artistic decoration of the object (applied art), but on the artistic organisation of the object in accordance with the principles of creating the most utilitarian object.. ..If any of the different types of fine art (i.e., easel painting, drawing, engraving, sculpture, etc.) can still retain some purpose, they will do so only * 1. while they remain as the laboratory phase in our search for essential new forms * 2. insofar as they serve as supportive projects and schemes for constructions and utilitarian and industrially manufactured objects that have yet to be realised"
"A cotton print is as much a product of artistic culture as a painting, and there is no basis for drawing a dividing line between them. Moreover.. ..the conviction is growing that painting is dying, that it is inseparably linked with the forms of the capitalist system and its cultural ideology, and that textile design has become the focus of creative concern – that the textile print and work on the textile print is the height of artistic work."
"Although she had not joined the Working Group of Constructivists, she had exhibited with Rodchenko and Stepanova in September 1921 at the 5 x 5 = 25 exhibition. In this show she exhibited paintings that she called 'spatial force constructions' and wrote in the catalogue that the paintings exhibited 'are to be regarded only as series of preparatory experiments towards concrete material constructions.'"
"Christina Lodder, in 'Liubov Popova: From Painting to Textile Design', Tate Papers, no.14, Autumn 2010"
"Being better doesn't always mean winning a competition or breaking a record. In the case of a speaker, it means accumulating unique knowledge and experience, reconsidering them, and passing them on to others. To do this in such a way that your information remains in the memory of everyone who listens to you."
"In the art of public speaking, the person who is very observant of other speakers and public figures develops. Many innovators and outstanding people did not go through special schools, but simply learned to observe."
"I am concerned about information and technical processes that affect the change in human behavior, the changing forms of interaction between people. Mankind is in a hectic state, and the concentration of people’s attention exclusively on their internal thinking processes is transformed into a permanent meditative state in which people remain even when they go out and appear in public. I’ve watched it many times. These changes will ultimately change humans, and such people as me or you, most probably, will cease to exist. There will be others, and we will most likely be the last of Homo sapiens."
"Freedom is impossible. Freedom is dead. Freedom is an absolute, a divine measure, just like goodness, evil, and happiness. It is impossible to achieve it, but striving for it is the only way to come closer to peace. The task of a human is to defend the maximum possible level of freedom in the enslavement of nature."
"When we use proven facts in arguing our position, then we will speak less, will remain silent more, think and doubt more, this will contribute to our development."
"Oratorical techniques, manipulations, and appeals don't prove anything, but only address our complexes, fears, instincts, common authorities, or values. This doesn't convince or prove a position, but only unites one's own around one's own."
"[About Yayoi Kusama:] Classifying her work as 'art brut' is simplistic and unfair. For me she represents the history of womankind. A sexually violated, politically annihilated, socially ignored and emotionally deprived feminine life. One of her works is entitled Self Obliteration, which seems to sum up a woman's utter despair, in life, in art, in anything real in the human world."