Art Ownership Quotes

Once you put songs out, they're not yours anymore. They're everyone else's.

I buy a lot of art. I buy Andy Warhols.

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.

Almost all institutions own a lot more art than they can ever show, much of it revealing for its timeliness, genius, or sheer weirdness.

I think it's probably the Dutch who are to blame for starting the whole 'art business', because before they came along, art was attached to relatively stable structures, and it was everybody's. It was like going to the movies.

When you go to an art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires.

When people asked to buy my work I always said no. I'd had this rather rarefied idea that I didn't want money going through my head while I was making work. But after the car crash I realized that none of my work was owned by anyone. After that, I grew up a bit.

I always feel a bit trapped when a painting goes for millions of pounds and only one person can have it. If you can have that as well as a poster on every student's wall, then you're in a very enviable position. I'd like to do a Damien Hirst for £500 at some point.

The art and architecture of the past that we know is that which remains. The best is that which remains where it was painted, placed or built. Most of the art of the past that could be moved was taken by conquerors. Almost all recent art is conquered as soon as it's made, since it's first shown for sale and once sold is exhibited as foreign in the alien museums. The public has no idea of art other than that it is something portable that can be bought. There is no constructive effort; there is no cooperative effort. This situation is primitive in relation to a few earlier and better times.

I don't like to sell my finest pieces.

When I was 12, I wrote a list of things to do before I died. 'Own a Picasso' was one of those things.

I feel funny about owning art. I don't really want to say: 'Wow, come and see my Monet - it's in a dark room at the bottom of my cellar.'

I think that the first part of the art is making the art, but when art really becomes art is when it belongs to somebody else.

I have a fairly good collection of paintings, both classical and contemporary.

My earliest drawing is a supposed Carracci. It wasn't very expensive, I guess, because they don't know if it's a real Carracci. But it has all these seals on it of people who've owned it, and one of the great portrait painters of England, Reynolds, had owned it, so that's the earliest.

I came to Paris with four écus in my pocket, and I’d have fought with anybody who told me I was in no condition to buy the Louvre.

I primarily buy art to show it off.

I have a lot of art in the house, but it's mine, friends'. Not necessarily - like, I didn't spend thousands of dollars to attain it. It's authentic, at least.

Buying art is not understanding art.

Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way that I feel in the mornings.

It is a question in that case of breaking up one piece of art, and whether that piece of art can be as best as possible put back together. So it's an argument to say, maybe that's one of those instances, like the bust of Nefertiti, I think that should be given back [Egyptian piece currently in Neues Museum in Berlin]. It's one of those pieces you look at and think that would probably be the right thing to do.

It may be a point of great pride to have a Van Gogh on the living room wall, but the prospects of having Van Gogh himself in the living room would put a great many devoted art lovers to rout.

I don't buy art. I'd rather buy a beautiful location or a beautiful site than buy art. A beautiful home is like owning a beautiful painting, except you can live in it.

Art collecting has traditionally been the domain of wealthy individuals in search of rewards beyond the purely financial.

I don't see what else you can spend your money on... If you want to own things, art is a pretty good bet.