A Quote by Viv Albertine

Most female artists - to do what you have to do and to be as honest as you have to be, to be as selfish as you have to be, as tunnel-visioned as you have to be to make art, not entertainment - you can't compromise, really.
The song "This Is Not Surreal," was inspired by a painter I love, Frida Kahlo. She really did suffer for her art. She speaks to me. She was brutally honest in her work. At that time in fine art, you really didn't see many female artists expressing that. She was such a strong female presence, and I really look up to her. She had a lot of physical pain.
I've watched so many women, from Kathleen Hanna all the way up to Taylor Swift, whether they're pop artists or rock stars or fine artists or writers, it is the subhistory of female artists that if you're going to make art, you're also going to have a full-time job of defending your right to make art.
Artists make art for themselves. Art is an honest expression. Artists who pander to their fans by trying to make music "for" their fans make empty, transparent art. The true fan does not want you to make music for them, they want you to make music for you, because that's the whole reason they fell in love with you in the first place.
Well, I'm very stubborn. I think I have common sense; I'm probably at times a bit tunnel-visioned, but I'm strong.
A lot of coaches and players get so tunnel-visioned that when they do have some time off, they spend it concentrating on the game.
I've been very encouraged by the nature of the conversations that I've had and by the lack of questions that are tunnel-visioned in their understanding of sexuality and life and love.
I really believe that art has to play a role in changing the moral direction. Mean, selfish people are in charge of the government and we're letting them make us into a much meaner culture. It reminds me of McCarthyism, to be honest, and to the early stages of fascism. There are people out there cheering for war, treating those deaths like some kind of athletic event. How sick do we have to be that this is not only acceptable, but virtually unchallenged by other politicians or clergy or anyone? And it's artists who have to stand up and be counted. Right now.
We throw at female artists this expectation that their work has to speak to the female experience. And if it doesn't, you're letting the side down. Throwing this stumbling block in the way of female artists is counterintuitive.
Many of the contradictions in Postmodern art come from the fact that we're trying to be artists in a democratic society. This is because in a democracy, the ideal is compromise. In art, it isn't.
A lot of artists make art for five years, some artists make art for ten years, a few make art for fifteen: very few do it until they die.
We all operate in two contrasting modes, which might be called open and closed. The open mode is more relaxed, more receptive, more exploratory, more democratic, more playful and more humorous. The closed mode is the tighter, more rigid, more hierarchical, more tunnel-visioned. Most people, unfortunately spend most of their time in the closed mode.
Most people say that Asian or female artists should be sexy in America, but I don't think that I have to be like that. I have a tomboy style. My choreography is not that way. So, I want to focus on my music style to match the choreography, which is really cool. No girls can dance those moves. I try to make them really fresh.
I definitely learned that when I want something done, I'm very tunnel-visioned out. I don't come out of the house. I beat myself up. I don't eat. I don't sleep until it's done, especially if I have a deadline in mind.
I would love to see more dialogue around the "responsibilities" of art consumers - how can audiences better financially support artists we love, artists who are doing the work, so that artists have a more solid foundation upon which to make art?
I think it's really important for real artists to make sure they're honest.
I think that a lot of artists have succeeded in making what I might call "curator's art." Everybody's being accepted, and I always want to say, "Really? That's what you've come for? To make art that looks a lot like somebody else's art?" If I am thinking of somebody else's art in front of your art, that's a problem.
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