Cornelia Parker Quotes

I want to promote the introduction of art history in primary schools and to convince the general public that, even in a period of economic crisis, arts funding is an absolute necessity at the federal, state, and local levels.

I grew up going to museums. I was privileged to discover art and artists in a very personal way.

If we investigate the vague feelings of the average man towards the arts, we find that he is timid and that he has developed a humble belief that art is something which has been invented centuries ago in countries like Greece or Italy and that all we can do about it is study it carefully and apply it.

Fine arts education in public schools is really abysmal. The same emphasis should be put on music, theater, dance - anything creative - that's put on math and science.

I think it would be criminal if there was no art in school.

But if I had to choose a single destination where I'd be held captive for the rest of my time in New York, I'd choose the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I'm not really well educated - other than an art survey course at the High School of Art and Design in New York when I was, like, 15. I don't know the history of art, but I got over intimidation from the art world when I realized that I was allowed to feel whatever I want and like whatever I want.

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.

I have always said to young artists that scholastic training and the studying of art history are crucial to fully developing as an artist.

There is, however, a change going on in the world. There's far more interest in drawing now than there has been in a long, long time. Schools are beginning to teach drawing again in a serious and meaningful way.

Were I to be appointed Secretary of Education, I'd issue a prospectus for a compulsory nationwide high school course called 'The American Experience in Art.'

The history of art is the history of revivals.

When I teach classes at the School of Visual Arts,, I'll ask the students, 'How many of you have been to a museum this year?' Nobody raises their hand and I go into a tirade. If you want to do something sharp and innovative, you have to know what went on before.

I'd like to work on putting art programs back in schools.

Until I was eighteen, I did not know that you could study fashion design or art. I really didn't know. I already had my nose in the art world; I was already looking at things, but I didn't really get it that you could study that because my school was a very different environment.

Growing up, I lived in a house without art: no picture books on the shelves, no visits to museums, no posters on the bedroom wall.

I think art education, especially in this country, which government pretty much ignores, is so important for young people.

I myself saw the great works of Western civilization for the first time in my high school in Lithuania in bad black-and-white reproductions on miserable paper. That was, for many years, what art was for me. But from those miserable black-and-white reproductions, I got something, something unmistakable.

An art book is a museum without walls.

If art means as much to you as it does to me, or even if you're just exploring the art world for the first time, I invite you to turn off the boob tube, pry the Wii controllers from your kids' hands, and drag them to a museum.

I always enjoyed art history because, growing up in California, my exposure was limited, and it was a new experience. To learn the history of art opened up certain things to me, made me see. It intrigued me.

I favor school integration. I do not favor mandatory busing. The only kids who were bused are the poor children. The rich parents either move or put the kid in private schools.

Seattle has a long tradition of celebrating local and non-local art - from the Burke and Seattle Art Museums to the Asian Art Museum.

You can't punish the middle classes for going to drama school - you need to punish the education system and the associative governments for devaluing the arts.

I don't worry about whether anyone knows anything about art.