Art Curator Quotes

I hate when dealers talk to me. I love dealers - they're some of our favorite people in the art world. But I hate if they do a sales pitch on me. I can't stand it.

We are similar to a museum. My function is to present old masterpieces in modern frames.

The day I decided I didn't want to be a 19th-Century European curator, I knew I would never have the experience of people coming and going 'ooh' and 'aah,' the way they do around the Monets. It just doesn't happen.

I don't see myself as a great discoverer of artists, like Charles Saatchi.

I had an agent. When [Edward] Steichen was doing "The Family of Man", I went up to the office one day. I think Wayne Miller, who assisted Steichen with "The Family of Man," was up there and pulled out a bunch of pictures. So I got a message: "Take these pictures, call Steichen, make an appointment and take these pictures up there." And that's how I met him.

An art book is a museum without walls.

Since 2000, I've been based in Paris at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville, curating the programme there. Internationally, it's a very open situation that goes beyond national boundaries; directors and curators move from one country to another, which has opened up the museum landscape.

The Atlas belongs to the Lenbachhaus in Munich - it's long since ceased to belong to me. Occasionally I run across it somewhere, and I think it's interesting because it looks different each time.

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

I wanted to go into art history. Acting fell into my lap when a neighbor took pictures of me and showed them to an agent.

It wasn't that I amassed it with aims of selling it and becoming a rich man. My personality demanded that I be surrounded by the best examples of the world's art.

I love Francis Bacon. I just saw a great Jackson Pollock exhibit at the Dallas Museum when I was home for Thanksgiving.

Constable himself knew the value of such studies, for he rarely parted with them. He used to say of his studies and pictures that he had no objection to part with the corn, but not with the field that grew it.

Small paintings can be fantastic. But you can't often get a narrative out of a small painting. In any case, museums are huge places, and you want to take up some space.

I got my first show at Blum & Poe because Paul McCarthy postponed his show, and they came to my studio and asked me if I could put together a show in two weeks.