Martin Puryear Quotes

What I am really concerned about is what art is supposed to be - and can become.

The whole Modernist lie is that art is about the artist.

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

That's important for artists to remember: some people would like to be spokespeople, but others would like their art to speak.

My art in my head just needs to come out for me - for my legacy and who I am.

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 doesn't transform. It just plain forms.

I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I didn't really know what it was I wanted to say.

I think there is an element of nihilism about, but I don't think most artists feel their work is meaningless.

Knowing how to paint and to use one's colors rightly has not any connection with originality. This originality consists in properly expressing your own impressions.

There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago.

Men talk about art, and artists make art, but should artists talk?

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

Unlike fashion, art isn't applied. It doesn't have to serve anybody. It doesn't have to be there for any other reason than to give an impression of what the world is about.

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

I think there is a debate in the arts about, you know, whether we must strive for art for art's sake, and you know, kind of try to keep political debate out of our work. And to that I say, I'd like you to show me an example of, you know, this so-called apolitical art. I don't think there's any such thing.

The point of painting is not really deception or imitation.

Sometimes I make things that people have very strong responses to. Whether that's art, I don't know. That's one of those words that doesn't mean anything. It's why I don't just use words.

The role of art in society differs for every artist.

Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art.

Much of left-wing artistic activity … has been restricted, narrowed … sometimes made sterile … [This flows] from a central source … That source is the vulgarization of the theory of art which lies behind left-wing thinking: namely, “art is a weapon.” I have come to believe that the accepted understanding of art as a weapon is not a useful guide, but a straightjacket.

In art it is always as though the question is what the work of art is really about.

In Art, man reveals himself and not his objects.

My artistic manifesto exists in the world as poetry. So even though most of the things that I've done have been on other people's projects or could be pigeonholed in certain ways, that's not how I perceive myself.

In any piece of art, the artist pours themselves into it. It becomes a reflection of who they are and what they believe. That's what it has to be. Otherwise it's just a product.