Cornelia Parker Quotes

I'm very hard on the art world just being a big business.

When the business starts shaping the art, or the delivery of the art, then it's not right.

As soon as any art is pursued with a view of money, then farewell, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, all hope of genuine good work.

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

One of the worst things that can happen to an artist is to perceive himself as the owner of his art, and art as his tool. A product of the marketplace sensibility, this attitude barely differs on a psychological plane from the patron's view of the artist as a paid employee.

I think it's harder to make a classic now, not because of what people say, but because artists now are so concerned with what people say.

The ugliest spectacle is that of artists selling themselves. Art as a commodity is an ugly idea... The artist as businessman is uglier than the businessman as artist.

I think the biggest thing that people fear when it comes to art becoming a business is those authentic, pure aspirations of art being compromised.

All you can do as an artist is do what you think is an extension of you. You put down on paper ... who you are. That's what being an artist is all about. And when it gets done, you don't look back at it and say, Oh, I could have done that better.

The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.

The movies today are too rich to have any room for genuine artists. They produce a few passable craftsmen, but no artists. Can you imagine a Beethoven making $100, 000 a year?

When I paint, I never think of selling. People simply fail to understand that we paint in order to experiment and to develop ourselves as we strive for greater heights.

At first you're doing it for yourself, it's about what sounds good to you. It's about expressing yourself. Then you get comfortable as an artist and you find yourself and people get familiar.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

My primary thing is to make a painting, not necessarily to make a painting to sell for gazillions of dollars, but just to make a painting.

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.

The individual - man as a man, man as a brain, if you like - interests me more than what he makes because I've noticed that most artists only repeat themselves.

I have to live authentically at all times. And that's part of what makes me an artist. I'm not scared to do that.

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.

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

Books are not brands. Some people are very willing to see themselves as a brand, but you can't be a certain type of writer to a certain type of person all the time. It will kill you.

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

There's always been an ongoing struggle between commerce and art.

If audiences are sort of interested in movies that are made like McDonald's hamburgers, which do have a value in the world, then we have to re-evaluate our entire career.

There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any human being, sometimes I can't help but wonder - 'What are the people I know going to think about this?' So I have to remind myself that all is permissible. Art has to be a free space. Language has to be a free space.