Jeffrey Deitch Quotes

The cubism of Braque or Picasso, the dissonant compositions of Schoenberg or Stravinsky, the free-flowing and often erotic choreography of Isadora Duncan and Nijinsky - these were acts of rebellion against the certainties and traditions of the old world.

That's what New York is like - you can't have real art happen in an institution because rich people can make the world stop. The stuff on the street is a lot more interesting.

I did exhibitions with the Surrealists (in Paris, in 1929) because their attitude revolted against 'art' and their attitude toward life itself was wise, as was Dada's.

All artists are anarchists in some way - some more extreme than others, but it's something that I think artists are supposed to do. We're supposed to present a different angle on everything, and I certainly think it is [art] as much as poetry, in my opinion.

Avant-garde art jousts with propriety, but takes care never to unseat it.

In the grand collage that is Dada, past and future are equally usable.

Abstract art is uniquely modern. It is a fundamentally romantic response to modern life - rebellious, individualistic, unconventional, sensitive, irritable.

And then there is that one-man movement, Marcel Duchamp for me a truly modern movement because it implies that each artist can do what he thinks he ought to a movement for each person and open for everybody.

All art is based on non-conformity.

I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There's no gallery show or book or film. It's pointless. Which hopefully means something.

As far as I can see, the history of experimental art in the twentieth century is intimately bound up with the experience of intoxification.

For me, graffiti writers were always the fascinating eccentrics of hip-hop culture. What they do is secretive by definition, and not remunerative in any way.

Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.

When the vision of the 'Nude' flashed upon me, I knew that it would break forever the enslaving chains of Naturalism.

As soon as street art got popular, I was just like, 'I'm out of here.'

I like art. It's another way to rebel.

As I see it, all of them - Tachists, Action Painters, Informel artists, and the rest - are only part of an Informel movement that covers a lot of other things as well. I think there's an Informel element in Beuys, as well; but it all began with Duchamp and chance, or with Mondrian, or with the Impressionists. The Informel is the opposite of the constructional quality of classicism - the age of kings, or clearly formed hierarchies.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

Art is nowhere near as dangerous as it should be.

People make art on the sides of buildings, and they'll make art on the sides of trains. They'll make art wherever they decide to make art. The technology that people are working with now will be replaced in 10 years, so that's not where your future is, if you're a musician.

If surrealism ever comes to adopt a particular line of moral conduct, it has only to accept the discipline that Picasso has accepted and will continue to accept.

In general, modern art... has been inspired by a natural desire to chart the uncharted.

I wonder if real art comes when you build the thing that they don't have a prize for yet.

In art, rebellion is consummated and perpetuated in the act of real creation, not in criticism or commentary.

To rebel or revolt against the status quo is in the very nature of an artist.