“What I am out to do is make sure that the Met continues to be the most exciting encyclopedic museum in the world. I want to sustain the vibrancy that makes it exciting to work here, that makes it exciting for visitors. The art remains central.” WorldWantArtMetsExcitingRemainsMuseumsVisitorsVibrancy Author:Thomas P. Campbell
“Museums just seem to have this borrowed cachet—if I want to seem cultural, I will design something cultural. I resist the idea that culture is only opera houses or theatres. Culture is your entire life around you: toilets, the bus, the kerb or the dump where you drag your waste. Culture has come to mean the arts, but it’s swimming pools as well.” IfsWantWellsMeanArtIdeasSeemsCultureHouseDesignWasteTheatreMuseumsBusSwimmingPoolOperaDragToiletsBorrowedDumpSwimming PoolOpera House Author:Thomas Heatherwick
“I like to be aware of a book as a piece of writing, and aware of its structure as a product of mind, and yet I want to be able to see the represented world through it. I admire artists who succeed in dividing my attention more or less evenly between the world of their books and the art of their books . . . so that a reader may study the work with pleasure as well as the world that it describes.” WorldWantWritingMindWellsMayArtBookAbleArtistPleasureAttentionStudyPiecesProductsReaderSucceedStructureAdmireDividing Author:Annie Dillard
“If you're a fan of American roots music, you won't want to miss 'Awake My Soul--The Story of the Sacred Harp.' Filmmakers Matt and Erica Hinton have done a fine job capturing the history, sound and spirit of this unusual but compelling art form that, trust me, you don't have to be religious to appreciate.” IfsWantArtSoulDoneStoriesJobsFormSpiritSoundReligiousFansMissingFineAppreciateRootsSacredMy SoulAwakeFilmmakerUnusualCompellingTrust MeHarps Author:Eric Zorn
“The universal nature has no external space; but the wondrous part of her art is that though she has circumscribed herself, everything which is within her which appears to decay and to grow old and to be useless she changes into herself, and again makes other new things from these very same, so that she requires neither substance from without nor wants a place into which she may cast that which decays. She is content then with her own space, and her own matter, and her own art.” WantMayArtMatterGrowsSpaceArt IsUniversalCastsUselessSubstanceNew ThingsDecayWondrous Author:Marcus Aurelius
“Poets like painters, thus unskilled to trace The naked nature and the living grace, With gold and jewels cover ev'ry part, And hide with ornaments their want of art. True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed.” WantWellsArtGracePoetAdvantageGoldWitNakedPainterJewelsOrnaments Author:Alexander Pope
“Art too is just a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without knowing, prepare for it; in everything real one is closer to it, more its neighbor, than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they pretend to be close to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art - as, for example, all of journalism does and almost all criticism and three quarters of what is called (and wants to be called) literature.” WayWantDoeArtRealThreeLiteratureExistenceHalfPracticeKnowingExampleCriticismDenyProfessionNeighborJournalismArtisticQuartersUnrealReal Ones Book:Letters to a Young Poet Source: Letters to a Young Poet
“I do want to have that feeling that people are actively involved in something, rather than just consuming something. I suppose that's what it comes down to, because it's such a dominant capitalist society, everything becomes a consumer product. And I don't think that's really appropriate to the creative arts, really.” PeopleThinkingWantArtFeelingsCreativeProductsInvolvedConsumersAppropriateCapitalistDominantConsumingCreative Art Author:Jarvis Cocker
“I think there's a kind of built-in arrogance to anyone who considers themself an artist. They want to feel as though like they can run the whole spectrum. "I can do it all. I can do minimalism, and I can do classical art." Well, that's not true.” ThinkingWantFeelsWellsKindArtI CanWholeRunningArtistCan DoBuiltArroganceSpectrumMinimalismI Can Do ItClassical Art Author:Sylvester Stallone
“There were decades I didn't play sober. I thought, Who would want to? But at some point, I decided that if it was important enough to me to keep doing it as art, I should do it with all my tools.” IfsWantShouldArtImportantEnoughPlayToolsDecidedDecadesSober Author:Kris Kristofferson
“I've never felt that I was doing something for my people, except what I could to bring the accomplishments of the old ones to the attention of the world. I think the Northwest Coast style of art is an absolutely unique product, one of the crowning achievements of the whole human experience. I just don't want the whole thing swept under the carpet without someone paying attention to it.” PeopleThinkingWorldWantHumansArtWholeFeltAttentionStyleProductsAchievementUniqueArt IsRecognitionPay AttentionAccomplishmentCoastHuman ExperienceCarpet Author:Bill Reid
“Art is something about the spirit... if you want to make something that has a spirit, and speaks to the spirit of other people in the world, you have to touch it, you have to physically address it... if you don't, if you just farm it out, it becomes a product.” PeopleIfsWorldWantArtSpiritSpiritualitySpeakProductsArt IsAddressesFarms Author:Shary Boyle
“When I make my work, I am making what I hope to be something functional - a space for individual contemplation and reflection. I want my art to be useful.” WantArtPurposeIndividualSpaceReflectionContemplation Author:Bill Viola
“I think a scientist's job is to explore the Universe, to explore the cosmos around us. People always want to know - why is that useful? Well, on just pure fundamental grounds, on some level it's like art, it's like umm, music, it's aesthetics, it's like philosophy. You want to know where you are in the Universe.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWantWellsArtPhilosophyJobsUniverseLevelsPureScientistFundamentalsCosmosWhere You AreAesthetics Author:Brian Schmidt
“Fear is a problem with film music and films; people want to be conventional, and there's more commercialism today. If you are not daring in your art, you're bankrupt.” PeopleIfsWantArtProblemTodayFilmDaringConventionalCommercialismFilm Music Author:Alex North
“People in the arts often want to aim for the biggest, most obvious target, and hit it smack in the bull’s eye. Of course with everybody else aiming there as well that makes it very hard and expensive to hit. I prefer to shoot the arrow, then paint the target around it. You make the niches in which you finally reside.” PeopleWantWellsArtHardEyeCoursesAimPaintObviousExpensiveTargetArrowsBullsNicheSmack Author:Brian Eno
“Look: I download music illegally, if I really want it. But I always then buy the record - I support art.” IfsWantLooksArtSupportRecordsDownloads Author:Pete Wentz
“Photography is unlike any other art form. In the other arts there is always a continuous interplay between the artist and his art. He has the painting or sculpture before him. What we have tried to do is to provide a medium for "artistic expression" to anyone with only a reasonable amount of time. By giving him a camera system with which he need only control his selection of focus, composition and lighting, we free him to select the moment and to criticize immediately what he has done. We enable him to see what else he wants to do on the basis of what he has just learned.” WantNeedsGivingArtDoneMomentsFormArtistFocusPaintingExpressionAmountPhotographyBasesCamerasMediumsArtisticReasonableCriticizeCompositionSelectionSculptureSelectLightingArtistic Expression Author:Edwin Land
“One of my mission statements with all of my art has been to stop the world for people. I want to stop the worrying and stop the world.” PeopleWorldWantHas BeensArtWorryMissionsStatementsMission Statement Author:Jim Carrey
“Marvin Gaye said there's a song inside of me and I can't get it out. And I know it's in there, and I can feel that it's in there, and I can't get it out. There's so much that I want to say, and I haven't been able to figure out how to say it in my art. I can only say it in ham-fisted, clumsy, nonpoetic ways, and I'm trying to figure out how to talk about life and talk about love and talk about pain and trials and tribulation in an artistic form.” KnowsWayWantFeelsTryingArtSaidI CanAblePainFormSongHavensFiguresTrialsArtisticTribulationClumsyHamTrials And TribulationsMarvin Author:Will Smith
“Anything that's really good, everybody wants to put their hands on. The multimedia puts their hands on it and everything happens that makes it global. Then people forget the roots of it and people forget why they care about it, and then it gets torn apart and turns so commercial that you don't even know what the essence of this art form is even about.” PeopleKnowsWantArtHandsHappensCareFormTurnsForgetRootsEssenceThings HappenTornTorn ApartMultimedia Author:Nas
“Every artist wants his work to be permanent. But what is? The Aswan Dam covered some of the greatest art in the world. Venice is sinking. Great books and pictures were lost in the Florence floods. In the meantime we still enjoy butterflies.” MenWorldWantArtStillsBookHappinessJoyLyingArtistTimeLostEnjoySinExcellencePermanentImmortalityCoveredButterflyFloodMonarchyVeniceSinkingGreat BookDamsFlorence Author:Romare Bearden