A Quote by John Currin

I wonder whether there is such a thing as critical art. I suppose there are portraits of people who could destroy you. — © John Currin
I wonder whether there is such a thing as critical art. I suppose there are portraits of people who could destroy you.
I suppose being the kind of creatures we [people] are, we like to censor the past, and are selective, or want to be selective about the things that we remember. If you want to destroy people, destroy their memory, destroy their history.
Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? But I always wonder about that. If people could see me the way I see myself—if they could live in my memories—would anyone, anyone, love me?
If you're asking whether I intentionally mess up my hair, no, I don't. And certain things, like my freckles, they're just there. I don't do anything consciously. I suppose I could get contact lenses. I suppose I could comb my hair more often.
It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it . . . so I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent.
A fairly young, intelligent-looking man with long hair asked me whether filming or being filmed could do harm, whether it could destroy a person. In my heart the answer was yes, but I said no.
I'm quite a precious painter; my style is a messy fine art - sort of impressionist. I do portraits, I love painting other artists, but recently, I've been playing around with self portraits, putting on different characters.
I used to always make art for girls. That was the thing I did for girls to like me. I did portraits, drawings, letters that formed outlines of significant things in our relationship. Art. I just used art in general. It usually worked.
I wonder whether art has a higher function than to make me feel, appreciate, and enjoy natural objects for their art value?
Wonder if there is life on another planet? Let's suppose there is. Suppose further, that only one star in a trillion has a planet that could support life. If that were the case, then there would be at least 100 million planets that harbored life.
The people have to know what my portraits are like in order to behave in such a way that the result is one of my portraits.
People call me Wayne Wonder and it also goes back to football because I could do mad skills with the ball and people would marvel and wonder how I could do it.
I thought I'm going to die. So why can't I do everything? And what is this idea that I worked all day yesterday, so I'm tired today? I've never believed that.I thought, "Just suppose I could choreograph a ballet." And I did it. Suppose I could teach dance at the theater in Cleveland. And I did it. Suppose I could sing for a living - that I could stop these two jobs as a waitress and a salesperson.
Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you?
If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices.
Wonder was the grace of the country. Any action could be justified by that: the wonder it was rooted in. Period followed period, and finally the wonder was that things could be built so big. Bridges, skyscrapers, fortunes, all having a life first in the marketplace, still drew on the force of wonder.
I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they're good or there because they're lucky.
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