Artistic Concept Quotes

At first I had some idea that the absence of color made the work more physical. Early on I was very involved with the notion of the painting as an object and tended to attack that idea from different directions.

I'm a contemporary artist and I show in art galleries and museums. I show a number of photographs and films, but I also make television programs, books and some appetizing, all with the same concept.

Think of an abstract painting as very, very low relief - a thing, not a picture.

A work of art rests its merits in traditional qualities. It may constitute a remarkable feat in craftsmanship; it may be a searching study of psychological states; it may be a nostalgic glance backward; it may be any one of an infinite number of concepts, none of which may have any possible bearing upon its degree of newness.

Is negative space the space you don't like, or the space that is not there? And if it's not there how can you tell?

Abstract art is only painting. And what's so dramatic about that? There is no abstract art. One must always begin with something. Afterwards one can remove all semblance of reality; there is no longer any danger as the idea of the object has left an indelible imprint.

The record [American Idiot ] felt special to us, when we recorded it, with all of the artwork and the concept behind it and it being a rock opera, but we didn't really know where it was going to go. It's like I always say, you just follow the music. Not only was American Idiot a special moment for us, but it also led to Ordinary World, too.

A good idea for lyrics and a melody to expand on.

Shadow is a colour as light is, but less brilliant; light and shadow are only the relation of two tones.

If we notice a few errors in the work of a proven master, we may and even will often be correct; if we believe, however, that he is completely and utterly mistaken, we are in danger of missing his entire concept.

The basic unit for contemporary art is not the idea, but the analysis of and extension of sensations.

We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donn´e: our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.

Abstraction means getting away from a visual interpretation but nearer to an emotional one.

A race is a work of art.

This new plastic idea will ignore the particulars of appearance, that is to say, natural form and colour. On the contrary it should find its expression in the abstraction of form and colour, that is to say, in the straight line and the clearly defined primary colour.

The form of my painting is the content. My work is made of single or multiple panels: rectangle, curved, or square. I am less interested in marks on the panels than the 'presence' of the panels themselves. In Red Yellow Blue III the square panels present color. It was made to exist forever in the present; it is an idea and can be repeated anytime in the future.

The best of artists has no conception that the marble alone does not contain within itself.

It was by design that we mostly used pictures that you could not necessarily see what was going on, and that didn't really focus in on the band, but instead focused in on a theme.

With me it's the whole thing, it's the conceit, the idea, what the poem is saying. And it goes on just as long as is necessary to say what needs to be said.

Also, since art is a vehicle for the transmission of ideas through form, the reproduction of the form only reinforces the concept. It is the idea that is being reproduced. Anyone who understands the work of art owns it. We all own the Mona Lisa.

I refer to what I do as 'conceptual portraits,' meaning that I come up with an idea or concept that I would like to explore, and then I find people that fit that idea.

Conceptual art is only good if the idea is good.

We are probably the only artists in the world who have a 2,000-page book on a work of art that doesn't exist. But in this way, these projects reveal their identity through this whole process. When I'm starting, I only have the slightest idea of how the work of art will exist.

One thing that's really important for me to be creatively motivated is to find an angle. Some people refer to that as a concept, which it is, in a sense, but not overtly. It's just something I need to focus and hone in on, and the trajectory of what might be seen as a 'concept' gives me creative momentum.

It's not just a revue where one song is done, then another. There are concepts and ideas at work.