Paul Rand Quotes

I'm not an artist who has an agenda that's set by the work.

The only way for me to be an artist is to be honest in my craft. If I veer from that, I'm not giving the investors what they want. Sometimes it's my job as an artist to know what I want to do, even when the fans tell me different.

I'm worried a lot of our work day as artists is a producer's creation - not an artist's creation.

The definition of an artist, for me, is someone who is quite selfish about their creativity.

The whole Modernist lie is that art is about the artist.

I guess I created LeRoy Neiman. Nobody else told me how to do it. Well, I'm a believer in the theory that the artist is as important as his work.

There is no such thing as an artist - only the world, lit or unlit, as the world allows.

I don't think I'm making any great statements, and I certainly don't think I'm making art.

I think there is a debate in the arts about, you know, whether we must strive for art for art's sake, and you know, kind of try to keep political debate out of our work. And to that I say, I'd like you to show me an example of, you know, this so-called apolitical art. I don't think there's any such thing.

To be a good artist, you have to serve the work of art and allow it to be what it is supposed to be.

I allowed artists to play for as long as they felt they could justifiably continue to create.

The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art.

The 'Station to Station' film has been fascinating to create. It feels as though it made itself in a way, and after awhile, the film told us what it needed and began to sculpt itself.

When you give an artist a canvas, you shouldn't tell him exactly how much paint to put on it, or exactly how sharp the images should be. You should let the artist get going.

It has nothing to do with commercial success. You cannot calculate in your head how to put the mosaic together to make a commercial film: that's out of the question.

We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops being art.

I grew up at the time of Social Realism in Poland, when everyone was supposed to be 'writing for the workers.' But I soon became allergic to this. I have never written for audiences. I like it if they appreciate my music. But I would never change my style for them.

It's really tough to make a name for yourself without compromising and without fitting yourself into a real specific mold. When I made the choice that I would be involved in every aspect of music and not necessarily make music for radio or MTV, I was saying, 'OK, this is me. You decide who it is.'

I have a feeling that art is something you do for yourself, and that any time you turn your decisions over to someone else you're postponing at best, your own development. The atmosphere of the workshop should be that of trying out one's own work and accepting the signals from others but not accepting the dictation of others because that is a violation of the spirit of art. Art can't be done by somebody else, it has got to be done by the artist.

Robert Gober, for example. He doesn't seem like somebody who is just going to show in a gallery that asks him to show. He's just making his work, and when he's ready, he's going to show it.

When I did TV shows and my other movies, I never try to do it for anybody. I just do what I think is good no matter what the genre is.

Art is a severe business; most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.

The concern about what's too violent or what's too scary is something that I just completely don't let enter into my creative process. I feel like, if I spend a lot of time trying to worry about whether it will appeal to everyone and who will like it and who won't, and I try to please everyone, I'll just spread myself too thin and lose my mind.

I'm not going to compromise my artistic integrity.