‘A room of paintings by Glenn Brown is not the same as a room of paintings by Ilya Kabakov – because the environment in which Kabakov’s are installed (a fictional Soviet museum) is also part of the work. In a piece of installation art – such as Kabakov’s – the whole situation in its totality claims to be the work of art. Glenn Brown’s paintings, by contrast, exist as separate entities. This totalising approach has often led viewers and critics to think about installation art as an immersive experience. By making a work large enough for us to enter, installation artists are inescapably concerned with the viewer’s presence, or as Kabakov puts it: “The main actor in the total installation, the main centre toward which everything is addressed, for which everything is intended, is the viewer.” He reiterates one of the dominant themes of installation art since it emerged in the 1960s: the desire to provide an intense experience for the viewer. Over the following decade, this activation of the spectator became seen as an alternative to the pacifying effects of mass-media television, mainstream film and magazines.’
Claire Bishop, Tate Etc, Issue 3 - Spring 2005. Full text at Tate Etc online.
‘Creativity isn't the monopoly of artists. This is the crucial fact I've come to realise, and this broader concept of creativity is my concept of art. When I say everybody is an artist, I mean everybody can determine the content of life in his particular sphere, whether in painting, music, engineering, caring for the sick, the economy or whatever. All around us the fundamentals of life are crying out to be shaped or created. But our idea of culture is severely restricted because we've always applied it to art. The dilemma of museums and other cultural institutions stems from the fact that culture is such an isolated field, and that art is even more isolated: an ivory tower in the field of culture surrounded first by the whole complex of culture and education, and then by the media which are also part of culture. We have a restricted idea of culture which debases everything; and it is the debased concept of art that has forced museums into their present weak and isolated position. Our concept of art must be universal and have the interdisciplinary nature of a university, and there must be a university department with a new concept of art and science.’
Joseph Beuys, from a 1979 interview with Frans Hak, Lecturer in Modern Art at the University of Utrecht
‘It is among the paradoxes of Freud's writing that he inspires us by deflating us; that his blithe scepticism can make our lives, in their very disillusionments, more amusing, more sexually awakened, more charged with interested and interesting meaning. Understatement reminds us that there is something under our statements. Something at work, and at play. In Freud's description of what we are like, it is our passion for ignorance that animates us; and it is our passion for ignorance about ourselves that is so time-consuming, so life-consuming.’
Adam Phillips, Saturday Guardian Review, 28 January 2006. Full extract at the Guardian Unlimited website.
‘When naive artists show signs of wanting to improve themselves, you tend to agree with Harold Ross, who, finding James Thurber practising his drawing technique, told him to stop, because if he was any good he’d be terrible.’
Peter Campbell, London Review of Books, 5 January 2006. Full text at The London Review of Books website.
‘The Victorians have a lot to answer for. They invented the parish and village hall. Prior to that, everything happened in church - all local events. If there was a wedding, the reception carried on afterwards in the church. Then the Victorians came along, and churches were left just for religious matters.
I think all chancels should remain sacrosanct, but naves should be cleared of pews - another Victorian invention.’
Donald Sinden, The Church Times, 27 January 2006. Full text at The Church Times website.