Steve Erickson Quotes

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.

The one thing about program television that's absolutely incompatible with any concept of art is that all decisions have to be made by program directors, whereas art is autonomous. It may be dependent, but it knows no superiors.

I am convinced that in the arts, committees are useless.

For a long time, censors have been cutting my works. This makes me so sad, because many times they will tell me, 'Television won't like, so we have to cut, cut, cut!'

Art has nothing to do with politics. It is the freest thing in the world.

Governments have always been wary of the arts because they're wayward and ambiguous and because they deal with feelings rather than facts.

I allowed artists to play for as long as they felt they could justifiably continue to create.

There's a good many pictures I'd like to make; we'll see how many I'll be allowed to make.

When you give an artist a canvas, you shouldn't tell him exactly how much paint to put on it, or exactly how sharp the images should be. You should let the artist get going.

I just get the feeling that if Jesse Helms was in charge of art in America, you'd go into a museum and see nothing but prints of dogs playing cards.

I do not want to see censorship, yet I don't believe a dime of taxpayer money should go into art that is clearly and visibly filth.

If an artist is going to take money from the taxpayers I guess he's got to be prepared to have the taxpayers dissatisfied with the product.

When the arts become a political football, they lose.

It seems to me that the surest way to remove from the stage really undesirable plays, is for the public to refuse to go to see them. Censorship by law has always seemed to me too difficult and complicated where art of any kind is concerned.

I must say here in France I had more serenity or security as I was working because I knew I was making the film the way I wished and that the film would be seen, ultimately, which is not always the case in Iran. In Iran, you always work having in mind this worry of will I be able to carry on my project as I wish and will the audience see the film.

On Broadway, there is no censoring, just self-censorship and doing what makes sense.

I like artists to have some freedom.

I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe that an artist has to take some moral responsibility for what he or she is putting out there.

There is no known device for artistic contraception.

There can be no freedom in art and literature where the government determines who shall create them.

Art is about freedom of expression, and should not be molded to fit any propaganda or lofty ideal.

What I'm very upset about is the attempt to dictate to museums what they show, and the statements made by politicians in Washington that have curtailed the freedom of the National Endowment for the Arts. The attention to those issues is deflected by the spin of my supposedly having trivialized the Holocaust.

The relationship between the public and the artist is complex and difficult to explain. There is a fine line between using this critical energy creatively and pandering to it.

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.

The dean of the American Film Institute has written that I'm one of the very few auteurs in America. I've had freedom for 40 years to create art that is totally personal and is what I believe in.