Antony Gormley Quotes

I have not wanted to intimidate audiences. I have not wanted my dancing to be an elitist form. That doesn't mean I haven't wanted it to be excellent.

You never know when what you do in the arts means something to people, and you never really know if you've been received well.

I don't aim to make art in a vacuum - you want people to like it.

My take on it, like a filmmaker or actor, is if you have much more colors within your creation, eventually people will appreciate what you're doing, and the other stuff is secondary, like critiques or even awards or anything else, as long as people enjoy it.

You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance.

Artistic qualities that once seemed undeniable don't seem so now. Sometimes these fluctuations are only fickleness of taste, momentary glitches in an artist's work, or an artist getting ahead of his audience (it took me ten years to catch up to Albert Oehlen). Other times, however, these problems mean there's something wrong with the art.

Critics? Don't talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don't.

To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible to the majority of men, is the same as saying of some kind of food that it is very good but that most people can't eat it.

It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.

I definitely feel sorry more people don't get to see my films. They aren't inaccessible, and if people got the chance to see them, I know they'd like them.

Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you'll be left without bread and without views.

But as long as you're creating the art you want to create, if people start liking you, you shouldn't have to apologize. You want your stuff to be heard by as many people as possible.

We had a huge audience, we sold truckloads of albums. If we do something that's cool, people will listen to it. If we don't, we would be selling people short.

The No. 1 quote critics give me is, 'Thom, your work is irrelevant.' Now, that's a fascinating, fascinating comment. Yes, irrelevant to the little subculture, this microculture, of modern art. But here's the point: My art is relevant because it's relevant to 10 million people. That makes me the most relevant artist in this culture.

There is absolutely no point in not being a populist. What I feel emboldened to do is to take something which is a minority interest and make it accessible without dumbing it down. I'm such an enthusiast for peculiar things, things that are perhaps a bit avant-garde, and try and involve everyone.

There's something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it's taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I've been in silly popcorn movies - the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about - but those movies reach many more people.

Real art is one of the most powerful forces in the rise of mankind, and he who renders it accessible to as many people as possible is a benefactor of humanity.

You have to be dope; you have to find an audience and reach that audience with your identity and your message.

If you do a brilliant work and if the audience don't like it, what's the point.

All I wanted to do was create theater for us, for our generation, for the people of this planet. And it's so rare that the art that you are making is reaching a huge mass of people.

For us, we are interested in doing what's cool for us and what's cool for the audience. That's it.

It's extremely important that plays reflect contemporary times and should not just be about asking for social change without having any connect with the audience.

The art world has become so insular. The rules have become so autodidactic that, in a sense, they lose track of what people have any interest in thinking about, talking about, or even looking at.

I think any artist wants their artist to be seen and appreciated and enjoyed by as many people as possible.

People who leave their own time out of their work cannot be surprised if their time fails to find them interesting.