Ryan McCartan Quotes

Art shows and the institutions end up being the couriers for culture for the next generation and are an important component as well. It may seem ironic from one perspective, but I think if you look at my overall strategy, it's actually not out of step.

All these actors who died before I was born, all the theaters and the artistic movements - all that stuff fills you up and makes you feel like you're the inheritor of all this information and of all its passion.

To the humblest among them, who may be listening to me now, I want to say that the masterpiece to which you are paying historic homage this evening is a painting which he has saved.

The Smithsonian museums are among this country's most endearing treasures and I look forward to helping maintain and enhance their coveted works of art.

Art is exalted above religion and race. Not a single solitary soul these days believes in the religions of the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Greeks... Only their art, whenever it was beautiful, stands proud and exalted, rising above all time.

We say arts education is good for general education, but that's not the point. The arts are what great nations are remembered for. They are a mirror.

I don’t care how many laws you have to break. I want the Guggenheim [Museum] built.

Poems, novels - these things belong to the nation, to the culture, and the people.

I think that you can treat a classic like a museum piece -stuffed and mounted- or you can make it a living, breathing narrative that is unfolding right then and there.

If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.

It may not be art, but it is history.

Our ancient historical monuments are national property and ought no longer to be left to the mercy of the many and variable ideas of ecclesiastical propriety that may at any time be prevalent among us

A people without a history is like the wind over buffalo grass.

Art is the permanence of a civilization.

You re being handed a national treasure. Your main responsibility is that whenever you may leave it, it still remains a national treasure.

A monument should be singular. Fate and happenstance have endowed this democracy with a constellation of remarkably varied and aesthetically impressive representations of our national adventure, and this endowment should be enlarged with care.

Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor laid the groundwork for us as Indian-Americans. How can we add our story to their groundwork is the question.

Shakespeare is practically our only link with the classic and the past. The future of education has much to do with whether we will be able to cling to him or not.

I like places that have history in the sense of - you feel responsible to it.

People looked up to us for our values and leadership. But today, they laugh as we are busy debating whether one of the seven wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal, was actually built by Indians.

I think that a society lives or dies according to its respect for - for its art.

A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine.

As artists, our primary function is not to be educators - but we are at a time in history, where for us, our history needs to give context for stories that we hope to tell down the road.

I think ceramics are so amazing because they're incredibly educational - you can buy something made in the 14th century, and it looks like it was made yesterday. There's something to be learned there, and ceramics can tell you the history of the time because they're functional vessels, ultimately.

So I feel now very much like a guardian. I'm standing in front of art. I'm standing in front of cinema. I'm standing in front of Black culture. I'm standing in front of the history of America, and I'm protecting it by making art, by protecting our art, and by promoting our art.