A Quote by Chris Abani

The problem is we're looking for something that doesn't exist. We're looking for authenticity. There is no such thing as authenticity. There is either good art or bad art. Art is never about its content. It's about its scaffolding.

Chris Abani

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About Art Art Is Authenticity Bad Content Either Exist Good Good Art Looking Never Problem Scaffolding Something Thing

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Chris Abani
Nigerian - Author
Born: December 27, 1966

We believed that there's no such thing as good art or bad art. Art is art. If it's bad, it's something else. It was a much, much harder line in the '50s and '60s than it is now, because the idea of art education didn't exist - they didn't have a fine arts program when I was a kid.

Billy Al Bengston

There are so many people who have a training in art history; and if you've spent time looking at old art, you become attuned to what art does through materiality and so you begin to look to that in contemporary art as well. And anyway, I do think that matching one's experience with what you're looking at and questioning what you're looking inevitably involves materiality, just like it involves the sense of place.

Laura Belem

I think art is good at looking back and looking forward. I don't think art is good at looking head-on. At the end of the day, people are more important than paintings.

Damien Hirst

I can't believe that 100% of the people who stand in art galleries looking at art are thinking, 'Well, here I am, looking at art.' They must be having some sort of other, unselfconscious experience.

Victoria Coren Mitchell

I have a fondness for making paintings that go beyond just having a conversation about art for art's sake or having a conversation about art history. I actually really enjoy looking at broader popular culture.

Kehinde Wiley

I don't think immediate tragedy is a very good source of art. It can be, but too often it's raw and painful and un-dealt-with. Sometimes art can be a really good escape from the intolerable, and a good place to go when things are bad, but that doesn't mean you have to write directly about the bad thing; sometimes you need to let time pass, and allow the thing that hurts to get covered with layers, and then you take it out, like a pearl, and you make art out of it.

Neil Gaiman

Art is difficult. It's not entertainment. There are only a few people who can say something about art - it's very restricted. When I see a new artist I give myself a lot of time to reflect and decide whether it's art or not. Buying art is not understanding art.

Anselm Kiefer

To the question, ‘Is the cinema an art?’ my answer is, ‘what does it matter?’... You can make films or you can cultivate a garden. Both have as much claim to being called an art as a poem by Verlaine or a painting by Delacroix… Art is ‘making.’ The art of poetry is the art of making poetry. The art of love is the art of making love... My father never talked to me about art. He could not bear the word.

Jean Renoir

Because I'm an art historian, I have some experience of writing that comes out of close attention. That's what really art history is. You're looking at something very closely, and you try to write in a meticulous way about it.

Teju Cole

Fairfield Porter who has been my model for art writing all along, said that if the most interesting thing about a work of art is its content, it's probably a failure. I think it's true that if you find yourself thinking about the meaning in an author's message, it's probably not very interesting as art. Obviously, this is a tough concept, because if you withdraw intention.

David Salle

The contest between form and content is what, is what art is about - it's art history. That's what basically everybody has ever contended with. The problem is uniquely complex in still photography.

Garry Winogrand

We...believe that art is religious, because it is one of man's highest aspirations. There is no such thing as pagan art, only good and bad art.

Irving Stone

When you're so drawn to art, to making pictures and looking at art, it's really all you want to think about.

Don Ed Hardy

It's really hard to write about art in general. But it's exceptionally hard to fictionalize art and make work that isn't a parody, or is something that could withstand critique and exist in the art world as a valuable object, or a true piece.

Christopher Bollen

Authenticity is more than speaking; Authenticity is also about doing. Every decision we make says something about who we are.

Simon Sinek

Writing about something specific, in my mind, was overwhelming, so I wrote about art because I love art and I know I can say a couple of funny things about art.

Walter Martin

A Quote by Chris Abani

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