The concept of commercialism in the fashion and art world is looked down upon. You know, just to think, 'What amount of creativity does it take to make something that masses of people like?' And, 'How does creativity apply across the board?'
I can't satisfy myself with just trying to tie all of my imagination into music, especially when music is not appreciated as an art form as much as it used to be.
Yes, every venture is always filled with apprehensions. But if we were to conduct ourselves continuously on that aspect, then we would lose the most important reason to be in this profession: to challenge the art of and be part of what is commonly known as our creative instincts.
Playing in my early bands, working as a studio musician, producing and going to art school was, in retrospect, my apprenticeship. I was learning and creating a solid foundation of ideas, but I wasn't really playing music.
When I'm at my best, I'm trying to destabilize myself and figure out new ways of approaching art as a provocation. I think I am at my best when I push myself into a place where I don't have all the answers.
Appropriation is the idea that ate the art world. Go to any Chelsea gallery or international biennial and you'll find it. It's there in paintings of photographs, photographs of advertising, sculpture with ready-made objects, videos using already-existing film.
After its hothouse incubation in the seventies, appropriation breathed important new life into art. This life flowered spectacularly over the decades - even if it's now close to aesthetic kudzu.
As there is in Germany - as well as in Russia and Italy - no art which is not approved of by the government, any criticizing remark about the present policy made by me would easily be taken as a hostile act. I cannot have my name put up against an official report from Germany without risking very unpleasant consequences.
Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
For a lot of people, well-meaning teaching has made poetry seem arcane, difficult, a kind of brown-knotting medicine that might be good for you but doesn't taste so good. So I tried to make a collection of poetry that would be fun. And that would bring out poetry as an art, rather than the challenge to say smart things.
All art is dependent on technology because it's a human endeavour, so even when you're using charcoal on a wall or designed the proscenium arch, that's technology.
That is why we profess a spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art.
Surrealism: An archaic term. Formerly an art movement. No longer distinguishable from everyday life.
I was a very interested arts student, I was always into that part of school and when I got into high school I went into architectural drafting. It gave me an understanding of how to build things and it's really helped me put things in perspective. With my music and my movies, to me it's all art.
I used to love to draw. I didn't want to go to art class because I felt that would be too corny when I was young, but architectural drafting was the cool thing to do because there was more precision. It taught me a lot about building and structures and doorways and frames and windowsills.
The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization.
All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
Whenever we witness art in a building, we are aware of an energy contained by it.
And the fifteenth century was an impassioned age, so ardent and serious in its pursuit of art that it consecrated everything with which art had to ad as a religious object.
This new art made a deep impression on me, and I began to study it ardently.
