Andrei Codrescu Quotes

There is only one Art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth. ... Thus, from the standpoint of the work and its worth it is irrelevant to which political ideas the artist as a citizen claims allegiance, which ideas he would like to serve with his work or whether he holds any such ideas at all.

Miley Cyrus is about making money. Amanda Palmer is about making art.

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.

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

For the serious artist does not satisfy needs

The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work.

Art for art's sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden. It is the best evidence we can have of our dignity.

A work of art, so far as it is a work of art, cannot - whatever the artist's personal intention - advocate anything at all.

Art can be very political but that can't be the purpose of art, it can't be the driving force. It isn't with any of the books that I love, anyway.

Artists are free to push boundaries to make art. But when pushing boundaries is their only aim, the result is usually bad art.

But who said art has to cost money? And therefore, who says artists have to make money?

The entire world of art has reached such a low level, it has been commercialized to such a degree that art and everything related to it has become one of the most trivial activities of our epoch.

If art is singular expression, then by nature, the best art is controversial. But when art stirs debate for reasons besides its artistic integrity, that's when things get bent.

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.

Not to say people shouldn't get rich from art. I adore the alchemy wherein artists who cast a complex spell make rich people give them their money. (Just writing it makes me cackle.) But too many artists have been making money without magic.

Fairs are beneath the dignity of art. To stand there in a booth and hawk your wares - it is just not how you sell art.

There's obviously nothing wrong with selling your art - only an idiot with a trust fund would tell you otherwise. But it's confusing to know how far you should take it.

The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art.

What I'm doing is art - it's low-brow art but there's a magic in that.

People think it's suspect and self-indulgent to make art, and I don't think that's true. Some people think you should be busy making something that you can sell in the marketplace, and if nobody wants to buy it, it must be crap. And that's not true.

I coined this term 'freedom thru limitation' back in the '90s because I was sick of art being treated like pop, because of this boring 'anything can be art' theory.

Performers have the right to say what they want to, and anyone paying money has the right to accept or reject the art and entertainment that's available.

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

It's not in the interest of the artist to think of his market.

Creative writers are always greater than the causes that they represent.