Chris Abani Quotes

Artists are free to push boundaries to make art. But when pushing boundaries is their only aim, the result is usually bad art.

People understand what art is supposed to look like, and so it's easy to make something that looks like art but isn't - especially in an abstract form.

You can't just take an image and randomly distort it and call it art - although many people in La Jolla where I come from do precisely that.

It's not always about huge giant commercial success. It's about art.

I always talk about if you want to be an artist, you have to be authentic because people can tell bullshit a mile away. There is nothing wrong with creating a character, standing behind that character, and that being an authentic performance piece, because that's a piece of art as well. But if you want to be an artist in any form, you have to know to come with it.

I tend to get very suspicious of anything that thinks it's art while it's being created.

If you work at rap and look at it as an art, the money will come. But if you try to get the money, it'll just always be shallow.

There are two indices of genuine art: it is inimitable and it is ineffable.

A work of art works because it is true, not because it is real.

It is precisely those artists and writers who are most inclined to think of their art as the manifestation of their personality who are in fact the most in bondage to public taste.

All good art is abstract in its structure.

Public opinion which, to be sure, can at times be helpful, must never for an instant swerve us from what we know in our heart we are trying to convey. For honesty is the great requisite of art. If we remain honest with ourselves, art, which is always there, never lets us down.

I do not know what evil is when it comes to art. I only know what is good art and what is bad art.

The fact that cartoons are reproduced doesn't mean anything to me as far as whether they are "real art" or not.

A work of art rests its merits in traditional qualities. It may constitute a remarkable feat in craftsmanship; it may be a searching study of psychological states; it may be a nostalgic glance backward; it may be any one of an infinite number of concepts, none of which may have any possible bearing upon its degree of newness.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

There is no intellectual or emotional substitute for the authentic, the original, the unique masterpiece.

I want that every piece of art be honest, never mind what it is about.

What is called a sincere work is one that is endowed with enough strength to give reality to an illusion.

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.

Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.

Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth.

Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.

Art is about expressing the true nature of the human spirit in whatever way one wishes to express it. If it is honest, it is beautiful. If it is not honest, it is obvious.

The writer interweaves a story with his own doubts, questions, and values. That is art.