An artist is born like a priest is born. If they are born an artist, I would tell them art is not a game: it is something very serious which completely requires everything you have to give.
I really think that people who want to think more serious have to go and watch theater. Theater is a very sterilized art form. Not as much as music, but very close to music.
I went to Princeton High School when I was very serious about being an artist.
All serious art, music, literature is a critical act. It is so, firstly, in the sense of Matthew Arnold's phrase: "a criticism of life." Be it realistic, fantastic, Utopian or satiric, the construct of the artist is a counter-statement to the world.
All serious art is being destroyed by commerce. Most people don't want art to be disturbing. They want it to be escapist. I don't think art should be escapist. That's a waste of time.
I don't see art as entertainment.
Of all the biennials, triennials, quadrennials, internationals, and massive group shows, Documenta, established in 1955 and held once every five years in Kassel, Germany, is seen as the most serious. A statement show.
Be serious. Folk songs are serious. That's what Pete Seeger told me. 'Arlo, I only wanna tell you one thing. Folk songs are serious.' And I said, 'Right.'
I wanted to do dance with the same seriousness as art was done and acknowledged, not with the entertainment factor that is always connected to theater and film.
For the serious artist does not satisfy needs
I believe that an art exhibition can be engaging, fun and deeply intellectually satisfying and serious. These are not contradictory concepts in art.
In America, we know to ignore artists if they're serious in any way.
To me, music is no joke and it's not for sale.
Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
When I was a kid, toe dancing and toe shoes had a meaning in our culture as a serious kind of art.
It's about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby.
Art should be serious, not a joke. I don't like to laugh about art.
Dance music is my love, is my passion, is my life. I live for my fans and take my art very seriously.
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
I don't mean this, but I'm going to say it anyway. I don't really think of pop art and serious art as being that far apart.
Too many of these writers in the music papers, they are misunderstanding everything. The disco sound is not art or anything so serious.
I believe Picasso's success is just one small part of the broader modern phenomenon of artists themselves rejecting serious art- perhaps partly because serious art takes so much time and energy and talent to produce-in favor of what I call 'impulse art': art work that is quick and easy, at least by comparison.
Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is great matter.
There is a slight problem with being a conceptual artist these days: You won't get paid. But this levels the field and takes the art of money out of the field of serious art. The only conceptual artists who would conceive of making money on the Internet are a lowbrow species known as hustlers.
I would rather die than be a serious artist, or a fake artist.
