Designers

"one print gets born from the other one, and that is exactly the right thing of it - it keeps the mind ready."

"I have composed here so many prints from the immediate surroundings around me - starting with the chimneys and the pigeons and the passing ships, the staircase, the labyrinth of corridors and doors, the crazy combinations of beams and wooden walls.."

"I will keep for you the small drawings that I usually make beforehand. They don't have any artistic value. I just make them to have some grip for the composition of the print.."

"As paint I use lightfast printing ink, usually pure, but also mixed. Mixing is not difficult at all, it but can happen in very different ways. Secret means are not applied, but I can not work on them, except in solitude (at sunshine). No one works in this way. I believe that no one else can obtain the same color effects, except after a lot of practice and experience. Sometimes one print goes up to 50 times under the printing-press. [I make] Never more than one piece per day."

"The subject reports itself, it is never looked for. Afterwards a small drawing will follow for the color-planes which are determined immediately. These colors will be printed by large logs and updated and enlivened with the hand-roller. For pressing I use an old hand-press with lever (from c. 1800).. .Sometimes it is necessary to press heavily, other times only very light. Sometimes one half of the block is rolled in [with ink] bold, the other half only skimpy. By first printing sometimes the first layer of paint on a piece of paper, a gentle tint appears which is then printed on the original. Another time I print the first print of the paper back on the original.. .As soon as the color-planes have been applied, the first state is reached, so to say.. ..Of course all kinds of side-steps can be made, while working. In case of enlivening the picture - both in terms of color or decoration - the main goal I always keep in mind."

"Moreover the book 'The Legend of Baal Shem', by Martin Buber gives beautiful images. I have read some chapters from it and the 'Werewolf' among others, has been written very beautifully."

"This afternoon I just finished a print which I started Monday. We got a revolving door here in the post office [in the city Groningen] and that's such a nice thing to use."

"I have applied for a pass and I am going to travel through Western Europe for 5 days. [I] start in Cologne and will probably end in Paris. Who cares. In Cologne there is a large exhibition of German painters [especially Die Brücke-artists]. Jan W. [= Jan Wiegers, who knew Kirchner very well since 1920] has been there and animated so much that I'm going there for a while.. ..it seems that Jan wants to come with me. He was so enthusiastic that I suspect to be able to note him as my traveling companion."

"GRONINGEN, BERLIN, MOSCOW, PARIS 1923 Start of the violet season Reader As we are convinced that it is not too LATE, we will speak. Time is running, honestly.. ..it has become necessary now to do something, before it is too late There must be witnessing and speaking.. ..Art is everywhere. She is thrown us people on our jackets by the birds. In every infant with weak intestines, the latent seed is laid for an artist.. Our first publication will soon be published. We urgently invite you to become a fellow reader [of the upcoming art-magazine 'The Next Call'].. .. We count on your DEEDS in the white season with the black shadows.."

"the art-critic has provided the products of my lab with a (new) label: 'abracadabra'.. ..[but] one can not speak about abracadabra-ism, and that is its advantage on all –isms: it doesn't know time and limits and especially not the 'periods of time' [but] only seasons.. ..all -isms are dead, blown away, sprayed in the air, gone (here imagery does not fit, imagery is always wrong) - only for the 'abracadabra' is the future wall, the coming wall in the next house - how much the 'peinture' of other fabrics is curving and folding itself, polished or blown-up, it's all for nothing.. .We are not addressing those offspring but only the artists in this world.."

"hobade he - hobade há, habone de - habone da, tomate pe - tomate pa, coquille ki - coquille ku, trankielje ti - trankielje tu, bombade bè - bombade ba, salate te - salate ta, horbide de - horbide da, sperate ke - sperate ká, hosade de - hosade da, ad fundum hà – ad fundum ho, ho ho ho ho – ha ha ha ha, (dacapo po)"

"There the telephone is ringing again - the engine, the machines [of the printing company] that call you with their sounds - those people who honor and tease [you] with their orders and admonitions - the chiefs who ask - the bills that have to be paid - the interest that force you to work."

"For me, life would be worthless if there was not modern art and if I did not had the opportunity to express myself in it anyhow, now that I have gradually found the way I can express myself."

"..not the familiar paradise, but the unknown - somewhere in a continent that hasn’t been discovered yet by anyone from the civilized countries - I have escaped [in his prints!] because it is almost unbearable to be in our world."

"His jewels are Martian Things"

"After three years spent in a small goldsmith factory, I had nothing left to learn. A colleague who was looking for a new job as goldsmith, tells me: look I went to a small shop, figured that they do not even use the electric drill, but they make holes with bows, like the primitives. I understood that this was the place for me."

"I liked drawing and I had a passion for sculpture, after all goldsmithing is nothing but a miniature sculpture."

"I started with an idea that I had in mind and then I looked for the right technique to make it happen."

"In her diary, Popova recorded Tatlin's story about how, right before his departure from Paris for Moscow [in 1913], he visited 'Pavel' Picasso himself.. ..(see A. Strigalev, O poezdke Tatlina v Berlin i Parizh, in 'Iskusstvo 2' (1989), pp. 39-43).. .After seeing Picasso's Cubist constructions, Tatlin said, he began to work according to other principles [than Cubism ]."

"['Letatlin' is] not so much.. ..an invention as.. ..a sui-generis work of art"

"The Constructivists recklessly spoke of replacing art with life and wanted to make the object of production the object of art. Tatlin built a stove in his room to keep from freezing, sewed a specially tailored coat to keep from shivering in the wind, and cut himself a comfortable work suit. Playing with the industrial production of an object was not the last motivation of the design solutions of the Moscow Constructivists."

"'Letatlin' (1929-32) is a flying bird, Tatlin's bicycle, on which one can 'sail' through the air. In artistic circles reactions varied yet all struck basically the same chord: he's flown out of art, - a move into technology.."

"Tatlin does not transcend the confines of Cubism."

"[Tatlin and his 'Letatlin'] an amazing character, but absolutely no artist."

"If the idea of the monument [ Tatlin's Tower ] is truly new and valuable, then it will never die. Prophets have not always been stoned and imposters have not always succeeded."

"An absurd and naive, monstrous beast [ Tatlin's Tower ] with a radio-telegraph horn on its head and the legislative assembly of the Third International in its belly?"

"The Council of People's Commissars would flee from such a building on the first sunny day and, camped out nearby on the grass, would immediately issue a decree that Tatlin's tower is for rent, at public auction, to horticulturists wishing to grow pineapples."

"[the task of material culture is] to shed light on the tasks of production in our country, and also to discover the place of the artist-constructor in production, in relation to improving the quality both of the manufactured product and of the organization of the new way of life in general."

"It [ [his Tower ] was to be dynamic, both in its outward form and inward activity.."

"The influence of my art is expressed in the movement of the Constructivists, of which I am the founder – Tatlin."

"[iron and glass, the] 'materials of the new Classicism'."

"Let's split open our figures and place the environment inside them."

"[to create] A union of purely artistic forms for a utilitarian purpose.. [referring to his Tower / Monument, with a height of 400 meters, but never constructued]"

"The dream [of flying] is as old as Icarus.. .I too want to give back to man the feeling of flight [with his 'Letatlin'-air-bike, 1929-1932]. This we have been robbed of by the mechanical flight of the aeroplane. We cannot feel the movement of our body in the air."

"Great art isn't about decoration - it's a different language that can both touch our hearts, and open our minds."

"Art and design are not luxuries, nor somehow incompatible with science and engineering."

"When the first alien spacecraft lands in Washington, I want the little green people to walk first into the National Gallery of Art. I want our art to explain who and what we are before our leaders do."

"[Visionaries] not only believed that the impossible can be done, but that it must be done."

"It's disgraceful and embarrassing that the highest technology in a typical inner city high school in this country is the metal detector the students pass through at the front door."

"We need to love [children] and help them discover their passions. We need to encourage them to work hard and help them understand that failure is a necessary ingredient for success, as is perseverance."

"In reinforced concrete we have not only a new material but, of far greater consequence, new constructions and a new method for designing buildings. Therefore, in using [reinforced concrete], we have to renounce the old traditions and concern ourselves with meeting new tasks."

"The engineers made hard forms. Evil. With angles. They are easily broken. The world is round and soft.."

"A ‘good 10 percent’ of American products comes out of big-idea organizations that don’t believe in talking to the customer. They’re run by passionate maniacs who make everybody's life miserable until they get what they want."

"The technology needed for an early Internet-connection implant is no more than 25 years off. Imagine that you could understand any language, remember every joke, solve any equation, get the latest news, balance your checkbook, communicate with others, and have near-instant access to any book ever published, without ever having to leave the privacy of yourself."

"Being a successful inventor, starts with being curious, and asking the right questions."

"The Internet represents the greatest story telling technology since the development of language. It will be far more important than reading and writing as a purposeful tool. Everything that is enabled by story telling will be enabled by the Internet."

"[On the need for ultra high definition television] The problem with television isn't the number of horizontal scanning lines. It's the lines of dialogue spoken by the actors."

"Vibrant companies must put together five-year plans. But they must be willing to change these five-year plans every single year."

"Trying to assess the true importance and function of the Internet now, is like asking the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk if they were aware of the potential of American Airlines AAdvantage miles."

"In 250 years, reading and writing will have turned out to be a fad."