Esa-Pekka Salonen Quotes

Going to a concert can sometimes be very difficult. It can be a long journey. There's the ticket prices. But when the music goes to the community - not the community coming to the concert - they say, 'Wow! I didn't know that this music was so amazing!'

Ultimately it's the public nature of those projects that I most enjoy. Museums are more than just places to view art, they're also civic and social centers.

I have to say that I reject somewhat the distinction between something called art and something called public art. I think all art demands and desires to be seen.

We need to take music out of the ivory tower - both for musicians and for the public. Otherwise, classical music will not survive the 21st century.

The art that I do is for the people. It is about engaging a new audience who wouldn't necessarily go to art galleries and museums and painting on the street is the best way to do that.

If folks really want music in their community they can do it very cheaply. It doesn't have to be a $50 million program. All we need is just a little real estate.

If Richard Wagner lived today, he would probably work with film instead of music. He already knew back then that the 'Great Art Form' would include a sort of fourth dimension; it was really film he was talking about.

Art made by the people for the people, as a joy to the maker and the user.

My main goal, and it's a big one, is that every child has a chance to get close to music - as a right - that as they have access to food, health, and education, they get the chance to have art and culture - especially music.

Museums just seem to have this borrowed cachet—if I want to seem cultural, I will design something cultural. I resist the idea that culture is only opera houses or theatres. Culture is your entire life around you: toilets, the bus, the kerb or the dump where you drag your waste. Culture has come to mean the arts, but it’s swimming pools as well.

Great works of art are only great because they are accessible and comprehensible to everyone.

If you view computer designers as artists, they're really into more of an art form that can be mass-produced, like records, or like prints, than they are into fine arts. They want something where they can express themselves to a large number of people through their medium, and their medium is technology and manufacturing.

Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums.

I think that's really important, that kids get exposed to music as soon as they can - not necessarily to become musicians, but at least have an outlet. It's an art form that's easily accessible to young ears.

Art should be as inclusive as possible. That's why I like bringing the low form of puppetry and elevating it into a sculpture form, but it's still a puppet also.

I suggest that the great art belongs to all people, all the time--that indeed it is made for the people, by the people, to the people.

I believe we have to put art back at the center of everyday life rather than allowing it to become a specialist activity at the margins of society.

Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums. Graffiti has more chance of meaning something or changing stuff than anything indoors. Graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop wars, and generally is the voice of people who aren't listened to. Graffiti is one of those few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make somebody smile while they're having a piss.

We think about project's public nature and how that can be enhanced, how the spaces we create can enliven the experience of being there.

We have found a way to bring to millions of people an art that they can understand.

The form of a work of art, which gives speech to their thoughts and is, therefore, their mode of talking, is always somewhat uncertain, like all kinds of speech.

I could be just a writer very easily. I am not a writer. I am a screenwriter, which is half a filmmaker... But it is not an art form, because screenplays are not works of art. They are invitations to others to collaborate on a work of art.

The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city.

... the novel is called upon like no other art form to incorporate the intellectual content of an age.

I'm in favor of an art that does something other than just sit on its ass in a museum.