Marina Abramovic Quotes

I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

Now that we do not have priests and philosophers any more, artists are the most important people in the world.

I'm not a driven businessman, but a driven artist. I never think about money. Beautiful things make money.

Because of this high status of the object in our culture, something has to be a thing. Live efforts are almost marginal. I think dance, for example, is just as much a thing, and I want for it to have the same status. I don't want it to be the thing that comes in the evening and is, like, the happy music.

I don't think there's any formula for what makes great art.

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

I really appreciate anyone trying to inject art into mainstream film.

I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.

The role of art in society differs for every artist.

We made records to document ourselves, not to sell a lot of records. I still feel that way. I put out a record because I think it's beautiful, not necessarily commercial.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

Painting was a problem - you produce a thing, and then you sell it and get money, and that was quickly considered totally uncool.

I personally don't distinguish between artistic and commercial films.

Art for art's sake is dead, if it ever lived.

There's a stigma attached to being an actor. People from 'Big Brother' call themselves actors. There's so much crap. It's not about appreciating that we're here to service the public, that we're storytellers. It doesn't sit comfortably with me.

I think people should just make art and let the art speak for itself.

Art is a gift and if nobody hears it, that doesn't make it any less of a gift.

If you want to be an entertainer and just keep your audience happy, that's one thing. But to be an artist, I think, means ultimately primarily pleasing yourself, and in that respect, you constantly have this sense of confronting the expectations of your audience.

I love doing concert choreography because everything is about your vision, come heck or high water. Of course, you also take the blame for everything, but it's wonderful to be able to make up dance for dance's sake.

I'm a director's actor, and I surrender myself to the vision and the process. I think nothing else matters then.

It's not always about huge giant commercial success. It's about art.

I think that there's a difference between being an entertainer and being an artist.

Main thing, really, is I write songs the way I wanna hear them and the way I think the people that come to our shows wanna hear them.

I don't get why radio shows allow artists to do shows without creative control, without any art direction at all. Instead of that, I get their press guys, their camera guys to be my backdrop of my show.

Do cave paintings mean anything? Not really, but I, for one, am happy to have them.