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Quote by Dave Hickey

“I have no evangelical feelings about art at all. I despise art education. Art doesn't lend itself to education. There is no knowledge there. It's a set of propositions about how things should look.”

Quote by Dave Hickey

Author

Dave Hickey is an esteemed American art critic born on December 5, 1940. Known for his profound insights and unique critiques of contemporary art, his work spans a wide range of fields from modern to postmodern art, having a significant impact on the art world. more

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“Art has political consequences, which is to say, it reorganizes society and creates constituencies of people around it.”

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“Human relations tend to be more difficult when you're dealing with someone who weighs 30 kilograms more than you do. That's when you worry about whether a well-meaning gesture could produce complications. We have no problems with countries like Madagascar or Bolivia, for example. But Germany is our neighbor and we have a shared past. Besides, Germany is powerful and ambitious and more than four times as large as we are. It makes complete sense that we would act cautiously. It's simply Realpolitik.”

“The idea of political content is irrelevant. Content is irrelevant. I always tell my students, "Never forget you're writing words! You know, word one, word two, word three, word four. The words have to be organized. Nothing else does."”

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“Most famous artists are created by their work and the idea of them as a character, and if they're smart and ambitious, they reinforce that character because they want to win. They want their views to prevail.”

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“Gossip is the currency of the discourse, so you should shut up about yourself. Never confess, never explain, never apologize, and never complain.”

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“When you really respect somebody who does something different from you, your respect is for the quality of the job.”

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“I don't think the government should touch art. Governments are risk averse. They encourage risk-averse personalities to be artists.”

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“With the artists, I don't teach, I coach. I can't tell them how to make art. I tell them to make more art. I tell them to get up early and stay up late. I tell them not to quit. I tell them if somebody else is already making their work. My job is to be current with the discourse and not be an asshole. That's all I wanted in a professor.”

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“My greatest influence has been the blues. And that's a literary influence, because I think the blues is the best literature that we as black Americans have.”

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“Blues is the bedrock of everything I do. All the characters in my plays, their ideas and their attitudes, the stance that they adopt in the world, are all ideas and attitudes that are expressed in the blues.”

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