In the industry, artists of of color struggle the most. Caucasian artists have really solidified themselves in the industry, and with African Americans now we see directors and producers who vow to only produce work that shines a light on African American artists. But everybody in the middle gets lost.
I'm interested in art for all. I don't want it to be only the sons and daughters of Tory MPs who get to see my plays.
I believe that we have a responsibility to make culture available for all people, not only those who can afford to go to the movies.
When I came up, there was room for the new and the old. For every new artist, an old one didn't have to be pushed out.
I was really inspired by these larger-than-life female artists like Lee Bontecou and Eva Hesse and Yvonne Rainier and the incredible Lynda Benglis. There were many women who were really driven and became successful, who were part of essential paradigm shifts, despite the fact that the art world was still dominated by men.
The public needs art - and it is the responsibility of a 'self-proclaimed artist' to realize that the public needs art, and not to make bourgeois art for a few and ignore the masses.
Certainly in the arts, in all genres, I think that men should step away. I think men should stop writing books. I think men should stop making movies or television. Say, for 50 to 100 years.
Performance has to be mainstream art. This is what I'm fighting for.
Instead of speaking of men versus women, we should speak about artists rising at a worldwide level.
I think that the Kehinde Wiley brand is something that I'm working towards expanding and to inclusion.
It's nice to have a great female composer in the program and add her color.
Poitier opened the doors to so many artists, not just black artists. There is a line that goes from black to Latin to Asian with regards to roles.
Music is contagious and everywhere and democratic, and that's what drew me in. I was interested in acting and being a director, but one of the things that bored me about theatre was that it was not accessible to everyone.
The state of female artists is very good. But the very definition of art has been biased in that 'art' was what men did in a European tradition and 'crafts' were what women and natives did. But it's actually all the same.
I would like to see more African-American singers as part of our opera companies. If you take music and the arts out of the public schools, then you're going to lose a lot of people that you might have discovered were talented, very early.
Music of all arts should be expansive and inclusive.
The only thing I fear is when people say, 'I should go to the theatre more.' I say, 'We should create work that makes you not have a choice.'
My grandfather was a great advocate of Scottish art at a time when Scottish artists struggled to be taken seriously. They were not highly regarded, but he fought for them, befriended them, and championed them.
