Contemporary art Quotes

“The contemporary art world is what Tom Wolfe would call a "statusphere." It's structured around nebulous and often contradictory hierarchies of fame, credibility, imagined historical importance, institutional affliction, perceived intelligence, wealth, and attribution such as the size of one's art collection.”

“If art is any good, it has so much of a longer trajectory than one night. Contemporary art is separate from art openings. In the end, it depends on the strength of ideas in each piece.”

“In contemporary art culture, where good looks and clever strategic planning of art careers have become a feature, professional practice may be taught in art schools like a branch of public relations or political science.”

“I do not think it possible to convey the moral energy that went into this division between abstraction and realism, from both sides, in those years. It had an almost theological intensity, and in another stage of civilization there would certainly have been burnings at stake.”

“Contemporary art will help me to modernise our society.”

“I started as a black and white photographer, but the colors I was seeing were just so lurid and compelling and awful at the same time. They got me looking at other contemporary art. I was gravitating more and more toward work that had visceral power, that wasn't necessarily about being beautiful but had some kind of horror in the palette.”

“By the late Nineties, we had become a more visual nation. Big-money taste moved to global standards - new architecture, design and show-off contemporary art. The Sloane domestic aesthetic - symmetry, class symbolism and brown furniture - became as unfashionable as it had been hot in the early Eighties.”

“I've become convinced that Los Angeles is going to become the next contemporary art capital - no other city has more contemporary gallery space than Los Angeles. We've come into our own, finally.”

“An Eskimo custom offers an angry person release by walking the emotion out of his or her system in a straight line across the landscape; the point at which the anger is conquered is marked with a stick, bearing witness to the strength or length of the rage.”

“There's traditionally been a large disconnection in contemporary art between the audience and the artist. Generally, audiences are looking towards what they like, and I can tell you, that's the last thing on an artist's mind.”