Creative Conformity Quotes

Kitsch is art that follows established rules in a time when all rules in art are put into question by each artist.

Art schools are partly the villain here. (Never mind that I teach in them.) This generation of artists is the first to have been so widely credentialed, and its young members so fetishize the work beloved by their teachers that their work ceases to talk about anything else. Instead of enlarging our view of being human, it contains safe rehashing of received ideas about received ideas. This is a melancholy romance with artistic ruins, homesickness for a bygone era. This yearning may be earnest, but it stunts their work, and by turn the broader culture.

Man hardly comes in more than two varieties, wherever he is, whatever he does: workers and pimps ... they're either one or the other! ... and inventors, the worst kind of jobholder! ... they stand condemned! ... the writer who doesn't pimp along, peacefully plagiarizing, who doesn't pump out the pop stuff, he's had it! ... everybody hates him!

Do not strive to be a modern artist: it's the one thing, unfortunately, you can't help being.

If one artist sells five million albums, the tendency is for other artists to say, 'Maybe I should do a little of that, too.' That can be tough to resist.

Hollywood's not a progressive place. Everyone likes to think that Hollywood is hip, but it's not hip at all.

The Creative Revolution is over. Everybody is justholding onto their jobs and no one is ever going to say toa client... ‘Buy this or I’ll resign your account.’ You don’tdo it anymore. It’s now, the majority of the time... ‘How do you like it? When can I change it for you?’

If contemporary artists sincerely seek to be original, unique, and new, they should begin by disregarding the notions of originality, individuality, and innovation: they are the cliches of our time.

When fashion sweeps in, artists follow suit. I think this is the malady of contemporary art.

When I go to the movies, and I have to sit through ten previews of films that look [alike] and tell the whole story, you know that we've reached an age of consensus. And consensus is the worst thing for us. We all agree to agree. That's where we lose it as a culture. We have to move away from that.

Too often, you see film makers from other countries who have made interesting, original films, and then they come here and get homogenized into being hack Hollywood directors. I don't want to fall into that.

A lot of artists are aspiring to fill an archetype as opposed to being themselves. Even if they can't quite put their finger on it, fans can tell.

This is one of those instances in which the individual genius is found to consent, as indeed it always does, at last, with the universal.