Richard Foreman Quotes

I don't believe that artists really are interested in money. That's not the motivation for art.

When you're an artist, you can't write with the intent of affecting anyone.

One of the things you do when you make a piece of art is you try to make the world you'd rather be in.

I'm not looking to be an artist to make money. I'm looking to be an artist.

In art, at a certain level, there is no 'better than.' It's just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it.

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

Art is something to be proud of. Art is no compromise.

I consider myself first of all an artist. My work is about my creativity - why I create and not for whom.

Art should be able to be innovative without compromising itself. That's why I believe artists should have bigger preoccupations than checking the price tags on their work or becoming curators' darlings.

As an artist, you have to do what you feel passionate about. It has to be something you can connect with.

As an artist, when you make something, you want the world to see it in its totality, especially when the intention is not to titillate.

For the serious artist does not satisfy needs

To be an artist is a blessing and a privilege. Artists must never betray their true hearts. Artists must look beneath the surface and show that there is more to this world than what meets the eye.

Personally, I never believe an artist saying "I do it for myself" is saying the truth, because why would you go through the trouble of making something that goes out into the world if you didn't care about somebody else seeing it? It's like the difference between those who choose "more comfortably termed entertainment" versus what people think of as the "art life," which is supposedly more monastic or spiritual. I don't believe in those distinctions.

When an artist explains what he is doing, he usually has to do one of two things: either scrap what he has explained, or make his work fit in with the explanation.

I would rather die than be a serious artist, or a fake artist.

There is an incredible love in creating art unless somebody is saying, 'Hey, let's just make money,' because it doesn't work when you do it that way. If you are aiming for that, forget it.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind.

In a lot of the art world, you have to present yourself as you know what you're doing at a young age. Music gave me another outlet. The 'no wave' bands were such an inspiration; it felt so free - once you start doing it, it's hard to stop. But I can't get away from art. It comes back around. I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't pursue it.

I think every artist should follow their vision; their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for. That said though, I think also artists have, continuously good artists, have been good for their times.

If it is the mark of the artist to love art before everything, to renounce everything for its sake, to think all the sweet human things of life well lost if only he may attain something, do some good, great work - then I was never an artist.

The worst sin that can be committed against the artist is to take him at his word, to see in his work a fulfillment instead of an horizon.

I don't like to be entertaining. I don't like the feeling of being entertaining. If there was a musical or a comedy that was not just for entertainment but was rooted in something I could relate to on a real level, then I think I would do it.

A painter's tastes must grow out of what so obsesses him in life that he never has to ask himself what it is suitable for him to do in art.