Quotes About Art

All my films are statements, especially when I write them.

Fashion, historically, is how people make statements about themselves or communicate.

The impulse for me to want to make sculpture is because I want to make statements, really, on a purely emotional level. And it's also somewhat of a challenge to see how that can be done with materials and objects that really are not emotional, in and of themselves.

Queer art is as much about starting conversations as it is about making dramatic statements.

There are no statements in my paintings at all. Quite the opposite - I don't like people to go looking for them. If something makes me laugh, that's it.

I make my music to express everything I feel is necessary to communicate at a given time. Through music, I can express myself with statements that are more nuanced and more contradictory than factual details.

Dancing has a continuity of its own that need not be dependent upon either the rise or fall of sound or the pitch and cry of words. Its force of feeling lies in the physical image, fleeting or static.

I make static art, not dynamic art. That's what I do.

For me, grief is a static thing, and my movies have an extremely dynamic sort of movement.

One of the core reasons for creating 'Station to Station' was to provide a space for exploration and cultural friction between different mediums. It should be natural for mediums like music, film and art to cross over, and we wanted to empower that process.

The 'Station to Station' film is made entirely out of one-minute films, and each of the 62 minutes is a completely different person, place or encounter.

The 'Station to Station' film has been fascinating to create. It feels as though it made itself in a way, and after awhile, the film told us what it needed and began to sculpt itself.

'Station to Station' is a series of happenings that go across the landscape. What is a happening? A happening is a moment in time. A moment in time that is not choreographed, where you don't know precisely what's going on. Where there are aspects of different layers of culture.

I shot 'Fruitvale Station' on super-16, and then I shot a movie called 'The Harvest' on 35mm, and then I shot 'Little Accidents' on 2-perf 35.

It's often the case that great artists - people like Bruce Springsteen - tend to pick up the subterranean rumblings of profound social change long before the economic statisticians notice them. Changes start long before they become statistics.

Your work is carved out of agony as a statue is carved out of marble.

One day, I saw a statue of Benjamin Franklin, and I said to myself, 'I can do that kind of work, too.'

Kids can't build a marble statue at home. But I've had parents tell me that, after an exhibit, their kids immediately dug out their Lego kits and disappeared for three days.

There is none of that feeling about art that you meet everywhere in Europe. There you will hear people say, 'Oh, you must see such-and-such a statue at 4 o'clock in the afternoon; then the light is beautiful,' or, 'See this monument in the early morning; the light is best for it then.' Do you ever hear anything like that from an American?

A drawing is essentially a private work, related only to the artist's own needs; a 'finished' statue or canvas is essentially a public, presented work - related far more directly to the demands of communication.

A lot of women don't like when they're sort of fat, but a fat foot is as beautiful as a skinny foot. Think of Greek statues. Look how many people love the foot of the baby! There is something super-charming about the baby foot.

When I drew Captain America in 'The Ultimates,' I hated my Cap, even though some people are like, 'Man, your Cap's cool!' and they made statues out of it.

The painter leaves his mark. And I just put in two statues in Rhode Island that I'm working on. And I think that's going to make me last longer than me.

People who look at Greek statues never say it's a shame because they're not complete.