All art is propaganda, and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.
Jazz is known all over the world as an American musical art form and that's it. No America, no jazz. I've seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn't have a damn thing to do with Africa.
I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his 'divine service.'
I think body-image issues are not just a dancer thing. I think we're much more in tune and aware because the body is our instrument and art, and we stare at ourselves in a mirror all day, but I feel like it's something that every woman experiences and every girl experiences.
At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.
The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further.
No difficulty can discourage, no obstacle dismay, no trouble dishearten the man who has acquired the art of being alive. Difficulties are but dares of fate, obstacles but hurdles to try his skill, troubles but bitter tonics to give him strength; and he rises higher and looms greater after each encounter with adversity.
I see myself and many artists like me as the torchbearers through these dark ages.
I was born in Seoul, South Korea; then I moved to New York City at the age of seventeen. In New York, I studied art and photography. I thought I would be a painter; then I saw Walker Evans when I was in college, and that had a great impact on me. Being in the darkroom making B&W prints was such a magical experience.
Art is the child of Nature; yes, her darling child, in whom we trace the features of the mother's face, her aspect and her attitude.
I think people are 'just creative,' and this can be expressed in a number of ways. Bob Dylan and David Bowie create both music and art.
David Lynch is my friend, and I love his movies and his art and his music. Few things make me happier than working with him.
All of the art that I love is about peeling back layers and delving into something that's in a subconscious or dream realm. People like Jan Svankmajer, or the artist Yoshimoto Nara, or David Lynch.
I wanted to study at the Art Students League in New York when I was young, but I didn't have the money. Then I was fortunate enough to become Johnny Cougar Mellencamp. At the time, I thought I'd make a couple of records and get back to painting. It never dawned on me that I'd be 64 years old and still making music.
My personal challenge as an artist has been having a day job which is intellectually satisfying and fun - and thus can easily supplant the desire to make art.
The thing we often forget to talk about, or perhaps we take for granted, is our country's dazzling beauty. Our natural environment is so much a part of Australia's art, writing, music and culture, both indigenous and non indigenous.
Blue thou art, intensely blue; Flower, whence came thy dazzling hue?
The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you.
'Art or anti-art?' was the question I asked when I returned from Munich in 1912 and decided to abandon pure painting or painting for its own sake. I thought of introducing elements alien to painting as the only way out of a pictorial and chromatic dead end.
