Michael Wolff Quotes

Great art speaks a language which every intelligent person can understand. The people who call themselves modernists today speak a different language.

We all shared an admiration of Debussy both as a musician and as sort of an icon for the 20th century. It seemed like an interesting idea to go right back 100 years to find the source of some new ideas now.

Motion pictures are the art form of the 20th century, and one of the reasons is the fact that films are a slightly corrupted artform. They fit this century - they combine Art and business!

But when I was twelve years old I caught my first strong glimpse of one of the fundamental forces of existence, whose votary I was destined to be for life - namely, Beauty.

What distinguishes modern art from the art of other ages is criticism.

When you see or hear something beautiful, it's like that thing is transmitting a kind of energy, and if that energy helped create the work, the only thing I can do is play it when I finally show the work.

Even when I was a little girl, I remember going to the Museum of Modern Art. I think my parents took me there once or twice. And what I really remember is the design collection.

What interests me, and has always interested me, has been modernism.

Cubism is still the most important art movement for the same reason that John D. is still the most important Rockefeller.

I really appreciate artists of the 20th century, and I can see a lot of their influence on my work, but to suggest that my design only fits within an 'ism' kind of bothers me.

I couldn't recommend more that people put themselves in a situation where they can see a lot of work that they admire, and for free.

The first half of the 20th century belongs to Picasso, and the second half is about photography. They said digital would kill photography because everyone can do it, but they said that about the box brownie in 1885 when it came out. It makes photography interesting because everyone thinks they can take a picture.

From 1940 to the present, the art world - and particularly Los Angeles - has undergone a transformation not unlike the Italian Renaissance.

I went through a pretty big David Bowie period when I was younger, and that has affected me profoundly in my life and my work.

What is the use of good painting? We want a spell cast upon the optical part of our existence! We seldom really see the world, but when we do, we become as still as a picture.

If you don't work yourself up into a fever of greed and covetousness in an art museum, you're just not doing the job.

People tend to see modernism as the opposite of a celebration. They see it as a fracturing and an art built round an absence, but it's really a celebration of our existence.

Seeing Cubism paintings at the Beaubourg makes me very happy and, also, old films.

I don't think there is any question that Picasso is the greatest figure of the 20th century.

The cubism of Braque or Picasso, the dissonant compositions of Schoenberg or Stravinsky, the free-flowing and often erotic choreography of Isadora Duncan and Nijinsky - these were acts of rebellion against the certainties and traditions of the old world.

I feel that the arts have an impact in a way that just makes the world more beautiful.

I'm inspired by nonmusical things a lot, whether it's a film or a book or whatever.

Apple, of all the global tech companies, was the one that understood why artists make things.

Many architects say that they will never do a bridge. But I think they will discover that just as Fallingwater is a piece of art, so Golden Gate is a piece of art of the 20th century.

The Barbara Hepworth museum in St. Ives is fascinating. Her achievements were astonishing.