A Quote by Thomas Hoving

Art happens when anyone in the world takes any kind of material and fashions it into a deliberate statement. — © Thomas Hoving
Art happens when anyone in the world takes any kind of material and fashions it into a deliberate statement.
The world will see many fashions of art and most of the world will follow the fashions and make none. These cults - these 'movements' - are absolutely necessary, or at any rate their causes are, for somewhere in their centres are the ones who bear the Idea, the ones who have questioned, 'But what do I think?' and 'How shall I say it best?
There are fashions in building. Behind the fashions lie economic and technological reasons, and these fashions exclude all but a few genuinely different possibilities in city dwelling construction at any one time.
I think that one wants from a painting a sense of life. The final suggestion, the final statement, has to be not a deliberate statement but a helpless statement. It has to be what you can't avoid saying.
'Hatfields & McCoys' is a very profound statement in what happens when you're unable to let go of hatred and hurt and unable to have any kind of goodness in your life.
Every art critic and every writer doesn't have a frame to start off from. If I made a statement saying, "This is Abstract Expressionism," they could go, "Well, he failed miserably," or, "Fantastic, this is a new genius!" But in art history, I don't see any of the artists I like spewing bullshit. I don't see anyone recording it or pronouncing what they were doing.
Here's what I just realized: A world in which sport at its best is not seen as some kind of art is a world that doesn't deserve any art.
Whatever they are, can Comics be "Art"? Of course they can. The "Art" in a piece is something independent of genre, form, or material. My feeling is that most paintings, most films, most music, most literature and, indeed, most comics fail as "Art." A masterpiece in any genre, form or material is equally "good." It's ridiculous to impose a hierarchy of value on art. The division between high and low art is one that cannot be defended because it has no correlation to aesthetic response.
A writer, or any man, must believe that whatever happens to him is an instrument; everything has been given for an end. This is even stronger in the case of the artist. Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one's art. One must accept it.
If I actually ran the world, I'd do it from the kitchen. It's not anything deliberate or a statement or anything, that's just how I understand things. It's arranged along informal lines.
As Buddhists, statues are more than simply pieces of stone to us. We believe the statue of the Buddha has a kind of soul and is the Buddha in some sense. This is why we can pray to it. Clay is a very interesting and fundamental material - it's earth, it's water and - with fire - it takes on form and life. In fact, what is art? Art is giving to what you create a soul. That's why it is said God is like an artist.
Art arises from loss. I wish this weren't the case. I wish that every time I met a new woman and she rocked my world, I was inspired to write my ass off. But that is not what happens. What happens is we lie around in bed eating chocolate and screwing. Art is what happens when things don't work out, when you're licking your wounds. Art is, to a larger extent than people would like to think, a productive licking of the wounds.
There is no prosperity, trade, art, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it home, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man.
The one thing the media abhors almost without exception is anyone who takes a firm stand on any issue out of religious principle, unless their stand happens to coincide with their expressed views.
Art leads to a more profound concept of life, because art itself is a profound expression of feeling. The artist is born, and art is the expression of his overflowing soul. Because his soul is rich, he cares comparatively little about the superficial necessities of the material world; he sublimates the pressure of material affairs in an artistic experience.
Anybody can become a widow. There aren't any special qualifications. It happens in less time than it takes to draw a breath. It doesn't require the planning, for example, that it takes to become a wife or a mother or any of the other ritual roles of womanhood.
When I talk to anyone or read the writings of anyone who has any axe to grind, I feel that intellectual honesty and balanced judgement have simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Everyone's thought is forensic, everyone is simply putting a "case" with deliberate suppression of his opponent's point of view, and, what is more, with complete insensitiveness to any sufferings except those of himself and his friends.
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