“Kitschis one of the major categories of the modern object. Knick-knacks, rustic odds-and-ends, souvenirs, lampshades, and African masks: the kitsch-object is collectively this whole plethora of "trashy," sham or faked objects, this whole museum of junk which proliferates everywhere.... Kitsch is the equivalent to the "cliché" in discourse.” EndsWholeModernObjectsMajorsMaskMuseumsCategoriesOddsDiscourseJunkKnackKitschSouvenirsRusticKnicksOdds And Ends Author:Jean Baudrillard
“The religion of art, like the religion of politics, was born from the ruins of Christianity. Art inherited from the old religion the power of consecrating things and endowing them with a sort of eternity; museums are our temples, and the objects displayed in them are beyond history. Politics--or more precisely, Revolution--co-opted the other function of religion: changing human beings and society. Art was an asceticism, a spiritual heroism; Revolution was the construction of a universal church.” HumansArtSpiritualPoliticsBornChurchHuman BeingsChristianityObjectsRevolutionUniversalEternityFunctionRuinsTemplesMuseumsConstructionHeroismAsceticism Book:1904-1912 Source: 1904-1912
“At 16, I decided to do something brave: I went on a prehistoric dig. In fact, I've had my name in a museum since I was 18 years old, not for my painting but for the prehistoric objects I found. That's how I started thinking about art.” ThinkingYearsArtFactsFoundNamesObjectsPaintingDecidedBraveMuseumsPrehistoric Author:Pierre Soulages
“Alberto Alessi had asked a dozen architects to design a sterling silver tea service - with a teapot, a coffee pot, sugar, creamer, a spoon, and a tray. Our brief was that it didn't matter if it didn't work and cost wasn't the issue. It was a promotional project, not a commercial enterprise, and was going to be showcased in museums. And the coffee and tea piazza, as mine was called, received a great response. It was wonderful to walk into the Whitney museum and see all these objects on the first floor.” IfsFirstsMatterWalksIssuesWonderfulDesignObjectsMinesCostProjectsResponseCoffeeTeaEnterpriseSilverMuseumsPotArchitectSugarDozenSpoonsWhitneySterlingTraysTeapotsCoffee And Tea Author:Michael Graves
“It is as much the conversations between objects as between us and objects that make museums so valuable.” ObjectsConversationValuableMuseums Author:Antony Gormley
“[Cameras] tend to turn people into things and the photograph extends and multiplies the human image to the proportions of mass-produced merchandise and, [in the age of photography] the world itself becomes a sort of museum of objects that have been encountered before in some other museum and to say that the camera cannot lie is merely to underline the multiple deceits that are now practiced in its name.” PeopleWorldHumansHas BeensAgeLyingTurnsNamesObjectsPhotographyMassCamerasPhotographProportionDeceitMuseumsMultipleMerchandise Author:Marshall McLuhan
“There was this interesting quote: try and live your life without fear and desire. It's this concept that's like when you look at a painting in a museum and you are held in aesthetic arrest. So the I, the ego, is stripped, is gone. The observer and thing become one. That's where fear and desire come in because you don't want to own it, possess it, desire it, and it's not moving you to fear. It's like you're in this harmonious state with the object.” WantTryingLooksStatesMovingDesireInterestingGoneObjectsPaintingLike YouEgoConceptsMuseumsAestheticLive Your LifeObserversHarmonious Author:Zack Snyder
“I love museums, but I always thought there was something funny about a group of strangers silently staring at works of inanimate objects together. Each person is having a very personal and maybe even emotional experience, but it's in the confines of an extremely quiet and sterile room.” PersonsTogetherRoomsGroupsObjectsEmotionalQuietStrangerStaringMuseumsInanimate Objects Author:Hiro Murai
“The debut show, “Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary,” is supposed to be about how artists reuse humble or unusual materials. There’s good work here, but much of what’s on view is actually more about obsession and repetition: a couch made out of 3,500 quarters, a necklace composed of 100 handgun triggers. The building, too, seems caught between wanting to be an object of decorative delectation and making an architectural statement.” ArtMadeShowsSeemsArtistViewsDesignObjectsBuildingMaterialsOrdinaryCaughtHumbleStatementsObsessionSupposed To BeMuseumsUnusualQuartersGood WorkRepetitionTriggersCouchesDebutNecklacesHandgunsReuse Author:Jerry Saltz
“Before people outside of the Western European tradition started asking to be in there, the people who were accumulating objects for the museum were perfectly satisfied with the narrative they were constructing.” PeopleObjectsTraditionAskingWesternSatisfiedNarrativeMuseums Author:Kerry James Marshall
“Various random experiments, cut-ups, fold-ins, juxtapositions, timed writings of other kinds, the "objects assignment" which involves dream, adventure, ancestry. Writing outside, writing on moving vehicles. Looking at paintings in the grand museums of the world in a proscribed way.Little strategies to keep the lalita - play or dance - going. Sometimes it's lonely you know, just you and your own imagination.” KnowsWorldWayWritingKindLittlesSometimesPlayDreamMovingImaginationCuttingObjectsPaintingAdventureLonelyStrategyVariousExperimentsMuseumsVehicleFoldsAncestryAssignmentsJuxtaposition Author:Anne Waldman