THOMAS HOVING

The only enemy of art is taste.

With each change of definition in art, something considered non-art or bad art by a previous generation is suddenly acceptable.

When I became director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was stodgy, gray, run by elitists. I said, 'Hey, let's kick the thing around.' I wanted to attract young people to the museum. I said, 'Make it hospitable. I want them to come. I want them to make dates, pick up girls, pick up boys - either way; I don't care.'

There have been countless changes in the long history of art. The most significant have been brought about by the genius of a single artist.

My address book of dealers and private collectors, smugglers and fixers, agents, runners and the peculiar assortment of art hangers-on was longer than anyone else's in the field.

Great art should be shown with great excitement.

Parks are works of art just as a painting or sculpture is.

If you don't work yourself up into a fever of greed and covetousness in an art museum, you're just not doing the job.

The definition of art has to shift whenever an innovator appears.

The definition of art has changed almost every day since the first artist created the first work at least fifty thousand years ago.

Utopia would mean a park - some large, some small - every four or five blocks.

Great art should be shown with great excitement.

No matter how hard I tried to popularize, I never cheapened a great work of art.

When I became director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was stodgy, gray, run by elitists. I said, 'Hey, let's kick the thing around.' I wanted to attract young people to the museum. I said, 'Make it hospitable. I want them to come. I want them to make dates, pick up girls, pick up boys - either way; I don't care.'

My address book of dealers and private collectors, smugglers and fixers, agents, runners and the peculiar assortment of art hangers-on was longer than anyone else's in the field.

My heavily-cleverly disguised low self-regard manifested itself in my constant showing off, my addiction for publicity, and my intolerable 'me-me-me' attitudes and actions. But it's done, isn't it? And no one can really change, can they? And, hey, it has been a lot of fun being the life-long irresponsible, snarky, nasty art scamp.

The 'Artful Tommy' will never change - and perhaps shouldn't.

Parks are works of art just as a painting or sculpture is.

If you don't work yourself up into a fever of greed and covetousness in an art museum, you're just not doing the job.

The definition of art has to shift whenever an innovator appears.

Art is sexy! Art is money-sexy! Art is money-sexy-social-climbing-fantastic!

Even if virtually anything can be art, there are levels of quality.

There have been countless changes in the long history of art. The most significant have been brought about by the genius of a single artist.

Art happens when anyone in the world takes any kind of material and fashions it into a deliberate statement.

To appreciate a work of art, is it okay to like what you like, and the heck with the art critics and experts? Absolutely.

The definition of art has changed almost every day since the first artist created the first work at least fifty thousand years ago.

With each change of definition in art, something considered non-art or bad art by a previous generation is suddenly acceptable.

The only enemy of art is taste.