Preservation of Art Quotes

The Parthenon without the marbles is like a smile with a tooth missing.

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.

You don't restore 'The Last Supper' by filling in the missing bits - you preserve. You accept the material that has somehow survived.

There's a need to keep the history of an artform going, parallel with the new work that's being done.

What I am out to do is make sure that the Met continues to be the most exciting encyclopedic museum in the world. I want to sustain the vibrancy that makes it exciting to work here, that makes it exciting for visitors. The art remains central.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I think it's really important to remake things. If you never remake the classics, no one would know Shakespeare.

Many works of the ancients have become fragments. Many works of the moderns are fragments at the time of their origin.

When Sondheim was visiting the Library of Congress, where the manuscript of 'Porgy and Bess' is housed, he was so overcome with emotion while holding the score in his hands that he shed a tear. He shed several tears, but one of the tears actually fell onto the original manuscript. And he was horrified.

While the creative works from the 16th century can still be accessed and used by others, the data in some software programs from the 1990s is already inaccessible.

Any creator owes a debt to past creation.

Artists don't think archivally.

And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next.

The Boston run of 'Lolita, My Love' ended after a mere nine performances - though one of them was recorded at decent enough quality to be preserved by the New York Public Library.

Argumentative exhibitions bring issues to life in a way that very much irritates traditional curators who want to see their pictures valued for themselves.

People who look at Greek statues never say it's a shame because they're not complete.

No matter how hard I tried to popularize, I never cheapened a great work of art.

Art exists for the human species. I think that all of the people who love art, those who teach art, and all of you should burn with the obligation to save the world.

Technology allows us to do many things, but it is always important to combine it with traditional handcrafts and, in fact, use technology to replicate dying arts so that they are not lost.

A museum has to renew its collection to be alive, but that does not mean we give on important old works.

The audience too should be respected by being presented with a film as they remember it, and for those who have not seen it, as it was intended to be seen. Anything less is a degradation of the film and its audience.

The photographs that are art have to be separated from the rest - then preserved.

What I'm trying to do is bring young people into doing tap so that the art form will keep going.

Driving a steamroller over an old trumpet or a teaspoon is no more destructive than taking a chisel to a lump of marble already torn from the landscape. But people don't see it that way because marble is considered noble.

I'm more inclined towards old churches and dusty museums.