A Quote by M.I.A.

I come from a generation where you put the art out and had the luxury to sit back and watch the world deconstruct it, and that was valued. Unfortunately now the work lives in a weird context.
I had an idea for a technologically advanced luxury watch. I got involved in digital art and neon painting and put on shows of my work.
It's just weird that for some people, art is a luxury. My parents had no artistic outlet. Some people pass down music to their kids, but I couldn't tell you what my mom's or dad's favorite song is. So when I started going out into the world, I was drawn to people who knew about movies, art, even fashion.
A text makes the word more specific. It really kind of defines it within the context in which it is being used. If it is just taken out of a context and presented as a sort of object, which is what - you know, which is a contemporary art idea, you know. It is like an old surrealist idea or an old cubist idea to take something out of context and put it in a completely different context. And it sort of gives it a different meaning and creates another world, another kind of world in which we enter.
I like the boundaryless potential you get when you make work for a context that is open to interpretation. Thinking about an art context is too claustrophobic, though. I always hope that at least half my audience is not directly related to the art world. I use art as a balancing act. It's a good way of avoiding everyday chores and social obligations.
I had something called the back of the chair test. Where I sit, we don't sit like you and I do. I can see a sliver right behind them and they come out and they sit like this like god students and they don't touch the back of the chair.
I mean that's really depressing man. Of course, the kids are freaking out. They watch cartoons and sit in front of the television and their parents are just probably yuppies who focus their entire lives around the child. The child has no sense of context, no sense of what world they are inhabiting-just like this Disnified bag of Cheerios reality. Don't give them a @#$%& pill! God! Take them out on a canoe already! You know what I mean?
Taking time to sit back and watch and think about what you've seen is important. Traveling did a great deal to me. I found that when I travel and just sit in the corner and watch, a million ideas come to me.
I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my fathers, until the world is renewed. Since I leave now all gold and silver, and go where it is of little worth, I wish to part in friendship from you, and I would take back my words and deeds at the Gate. . . If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
Watch your attitude. I don't mean to sound like so much of an old head, but there is another generation behind me, out there, doing it now. I find that, with the whole hip-hop generation, there's a lot of attitude. Whether it's confidence or arrogance or whichever, I will always say to a young guy, “Nobody wants to work with an asshole.” You know, you can still be a great player. You can still play all of the baddest licks in the world. But if you don't have a good attitude, nobody's going to work with you.
My theory about L.A. is that it's almost like you have an allergy that's dormant and just need to be put in the right context for that allergy to come out. And L.A.'s like that in my mind. People who have any of that dormant blind ambition, it can easily come out in that context.
That whole generation that's gone now, that lived through the two world wars, is a great example to all of us. They knew how to live. If something bad happened, they didn't sit at home, eat Haagen-Dazs, and watch a movie.
I am a Facebook voyeur. I feel bad about it because I never put anything on there, but I find it fun to sit there and watch peoples' lives go by. Or whatever lives they're presenting.
One of my lungs is half gone, and the other half, because I smoked for years, has a lesion. So I can't swim anymore and had the swimming pool covered over. Now it's what I call the dance pavilion, and so I and my friends sit out and put music on and watch people dance.
I never expected to sell my art. It wasn't like today where you come out of art school and they promise you a future. Now it's almost regulated in a way. When we came out of school, we just wanted to make art that'd blow your hair back and do it for sport. There was no commercial possibility that we saw.
Mercy Watson is a pig. She lives with Mr. and Mrs. Watson, who are not pigs. I had that basic premise, but I couldn't make it work. I would come back to it, try it, see that I was failing, and put it aside.
I had to put the word out to people that I didn't cost a fortune, and I was prepared to work at home. Because that's the assumption: "Well, he lives in America now, we can't afford him, we won't bother."
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