Quotes About Museums

We live in a world where art exists in galleries and museums, and musicians have to play the same venues over and over.

home arts and folk arts revealed more about a culture than the isolated, esoteric pieces preserved in museums for the benefit of the elite. She was sick and tired of having her work dismissed as frivolous because it centered on a largely female occupation. If most quilts had been made by men, no one would question her interest in exploring the role of quiltmaking in American history.

A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in museums, just as instruments of torture are now, and the people will be astonished that such a thing could have been.

I'm not sure what [my latest works are] about but I'm convinced they're the best things I've done and I'm going to the world's best museums with them.

Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It's a good thing we have museums to document that.

Of course art world ethics are important. But museums are no purer than any other institution or business. Academics aren't necessarily more high-minded than gallerists.

I cannot write chronologically of Egypt. Ancient Egypt. So-called ancient Egypt. In my history of the world – this realistic kaleidoscopic history – Egypt will have its proper place as the complacent indestructible force that has perpetuated itself in the form of enough carved stone, painted plaster, papyri, granite, gold leaf, lapis lazulis, bits of pot and fragments of wood to fill the museums of thew world. Egypt is not then but now, conditioning the way we look at things.

Whenever, in after times, I have gone through museums of old furniture in Paris, London, Munich, or Vienna, with the gray-headed custodian who shows you the splendors of time past, I have peopled the rooms with figures from the Collection of Antiquities.

We build museums to house history, but it slips out through the cracks of sash and jamb

There is a very vibrant cultural scene in Stockholm. There are lots of places where there are concerts, and there are loads of museums and theaters.

All of our lives are enriched by our culture, from blockbuster films, best-selling video games, independent music, and internationally-renowned museums and art collections, to theatre, opera, ballet, literary festivals and performance poetry.

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.

Im so bored I'm this close to spraining my own ankle if it means NO MORE MUSEUMS. Besides, Ive got a tan to work on!

I'm extremely profane, unconsciously so, when I see something great for the first time; I don't know why, but beauty and profanity are related to me in the same way. It may be that I want to think of art in the vernacular, but I have no control over what comes out of my mouth when my eyes take in great beauty...it might just be the reason I avoid going to museums with elderly ladies.

I'm no pessimist. I don't loathe art because I couldn't live without devoting all my time to it. I love it as the only end of my life. Everything I do connected with it gives me intense pleasure. But still, I don't see why the whole world should be taken up with art, demand its credentials, and on that subject give free rein to its own stupidity. Museums are just a lot of lies, and the people who make art their business are mostly imposters.' -Picasso

In museums I always enjoy stopping at the Saint Jeromes.

Nei musei mi fermo sempre volentieri davanti ai sangirolami. I pittori rappresentano l'eremita come uno studioso che consulta trattati all'aria aperta, seduto all'imboccatura d'una grotta. Poco più in là è accucciato un leone, domestico, tranquillo. Perché un leone? La parola scritta ammansisce le passioni? O sottomette le forze della natura? O trova un'armonia con la disumanità dell'universo? O cova una violenza trattenuta ma sempre pronta ad avventarsi, a sbranare?

Good docents often begin by asking the viewer, "What do you see in this work?" The idea that the expert should be allowed to constrain the interpretation of others rightly offends our sensibilities about museums and art. It ought to offend us just as much when applied to Scripture.

But we cannot rely on memorials and museums alone. We can tell ourselves we will never forget and we likely won't. But we need to make sure that we teach history to those who never had the opportunity to remember in the first place.

Your kids might feel more apt to try some art of their own after viewing contemporary works that are far less intimidating than those of the Old Masters.

I hitchhiked to Miami in 1953, and there were oranges laying on the road, black shantytowns, and marinas with nice boats. The museums were virtually empty.

I didn't expect to find much visible trace of the American war in Vietnam. The Vietnamese are too hard-bitten to dwell on it, and they've sanded away all but the outcroppings of history - the museums, the memorials.

Designers shouldn't design for museums any more than mummies should die for them.

Individually, museums are fine institutions, dedicated to the high values of preservation, education and truth; collectively, their growth in numbers points to the imaginative death of this country.