Quotes About Society

Since obscenity is the truth of our passion today, it is the only stuff of art -- or almost the only stuff.

This is the golden age of grotesque.

No shame, no solution, no remorse, no retribution, just people selling t-shirts.

I think that street art is illegal and it has to stay illegal.

I think much sociopolitical art delivers truisms that are quite flat.

I know your breed; all your fine officials debauch the younger girls who are afraid to lose their jobs: that's as old as Washington.

I'm very aware of how much movies, literature and art affect culture. They are a reflection of the world around us and they are also a means by which we engage with the world around us.

I'll ruin everything you are, I'll give you television.

I believe that photography can create great works of art, but hitherto it has been extraordinarily bourgeois and babbling. (1908)

Art is the questioning of culture

Art is no longer anything more than a kind of meta-language for banality.

Many of the left thinkers that really matter to me - that formed a big part of my thinking about politics and art - emphasize how capitalism is a totality, how there's no escape from it, no outside.

Entertainment and art have power. Our culture is molded more so by entertainment than any other influence.

Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

Undeniably the American art form, too. And yet more and more, we see films made that diminish the American experience and example. And sometimes trash it completely.

When art is defined by Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, you've got a society that's impoverished.

Thai society rarely attempts to control literature in the same way that it vigilantly polices visual art. It's ironic because people in this society are more aware of literature than they are of art.

Art is a tool by which society extends its perception.

Like many members of the uncultured, Cheez-It consuming public, I am not good at grasping modern art.

In the modern world, all literary art is necessarily political -- especially that which pretends not to be.

Music is more objective, I think, than a lot of art is, but a surprising amount of it is cultural.

Art is collective. Always, it has a tradition behind it.

Art used to be painting, sculpture, music, etc, but now, all technology has become art. Of course, this form of art is still very primitive, but it is slowly replacing reality.

To understand Occupy Wall Street, you have to understand artists. Art is freedom - freedom of expression - and its message has resonated through society for centuries.