Sentences on Conceptual Art (1969) - Tetragrammaton
Sometimes the artist may not be the crafter of the work. Marcel Duchamp would find everyday objects—a snow shovel, a bicycle wheel, a urinal—and simply decide they were art. He called them readymades. A painting is just a painting until you put a frame on it and hang it on the wall, then it’s called art. What’s considered art is simply an agreement
... See moreRick Rubin • The Creative Act: A Way of Being
Likeness is especially important in distinguishing images from symbols. The two can be confused because both are often visual, but symbols do not bear likeness qua their status as symbols. A red octagon symbolizes stopping and smoke axiomatically signifies fire, even though there is no likeness between these symbols and what they symbolize. To the
... See moreNatalie Carnes • Image and Presence: A Christological Reflection on Iconoclasm and Iconophilia (Encountering Traditions)
More than the picture itself, what counts is what it throws into the air, what it exhales. It doesn’t matter if the image is destroyed. Art can die; what matters is that it scatters seeds on the ground. An artwork must be fertile. It must give birth to a world. But we mustn’t stop there; the picture must make everything clear; it must fertilize the... See more
Joan Miro • I Work Like a Gardener
Art requires access to the imagination, a notoriously difficult place to visit. The imagination fuels an idea. The artist acts urgently, often impulsively, on that idea but brings conscious rigor to the evaluation of what the imagination has spewed. Ultimately, experience, intellect, insight, and drive enable them to shape the work and then to edit
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