Joseph Beuys Quotes

In the studio, I don't do a lot of work that requires repetitive activity. I spend a lot of time looking and thinking and then try to find the most efficient way to get what I want, whether it's making a drawing or a sculpture, or casting plaster or whatever.

We wanted to take as much time and effort making the video as we did the song.

It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable.

No emancipation without that of society.

Since the tubes of paint used by the artist are manufactured and ready-made products, we must conclude that all the paintings in the world are 'ready-mades aided' and also works of assemblage.

You can be a catalyst for change but change never really entirely happens just because of one guy.

When I put something into motion, the creativity starts to make other people want to jump in, and then a lot of people get employed. I'm just like a shark, in that way. If I stop swimming, I'll die. But, it really is about that shared experience with people. I'm from theater, and that's really what theater feels like.

Going from the written, flat word to the three-dimensional object, that was one of the more enriching things that I've done.

I think a lot of times our culture has an attitude toward art and the production of art that separates artists from the rest of us, like making art or music or painting or whatever is some magical thing that you have to be inspired to do, and special people do it.

If one truly wishes to found a more just and rational social order, it is not enough to count on the caprices of technology.

I want a real revolution, a real change in society: society, a great organic mass of well-regulated forces used for the bringing-about a happy life for all.

If you believe in making change from the bottom up, if you believe the measure of change is how many people's lives are better, you know it's hard, and some people think it's boring.

When you get to really involve yourself with a piece and the other people, and you get to feel like it's a community and you're all building something together, it helps me to produce better work, I think.

If I get anything out, producing anything, no matter whether it's good or not, I allow myself a little pat on the back.

I could make records at home in a vacuum, but that is not the situation. I'm just taking it one phase at a time.

Everyone's job is invaluable. Film and TV production is collaboration.

My talent is my talent. I ain't really tripping off no ego; I just like to make good music with good people.

All I do all day is think of ideas and implement them. That's an industry, you know. I'm trying to make art on a commercial scale.

My philosophy on choreography is that the making of a ballet is a team effort, and we're in this together. It's not me hammering on them. It's more about how we can elevate this piece collectively to something great.

I think a truly fantastic video is worth it. We spend so much time on the music, it only makes sense to have a really well-done visual translation of that music.

Paintings don't just happen. I am not a proponent of the idea of an artist as someone who kind of magically makes things and has no real control or isn't willfully producing a certain kind of thing. It is labor-intensive, and it is research-intensive. You are making one decision after another, trying to get at something you think is important.

I'm a big believer in building a crew. Movies are the most collaborative art form at the tend of the world, and it takes hundreds of people to make one. At the end of the day, I get the lion's share of praise or blame but everybody on the ground knows that it was all of us.

I know that in Bollywood, there is this constant talk on which actor's film is minting how much money, but we are living in a time where the focus is shifting from 'actor's responsibility' to the result of a great team work. I believe filmmaking is about that.

Man may be considered as a superior species of animal that produces philosophies and poems in about the same way a silkworm produces their cocoons and bees their hives.

If the picture is not an artistic picture, it's show, like television. Television series are very funny, but it's a collective production. An industrial art. A car is not made by a person, it's made by a group of creators, only to go to the market to buy your cigarettes. That is a car - they are not a big art, they are a little art.