Nancy Spero famous quotes

An artist's job is to articulate what might otherwise be incoherent.
-- Nancy Spero

#Jobs #Artist #Might

I've always sought to express a tension in form and meaning in order to achieve a veracity. I have come to the conclusion that the art world has to join us, women artists, not we join it. When women are in leadership roles and gain rewards and recognition, then perhaps 'we' (women and men) can all work together in art world actions.
-- Nancy Spero

#Art #Men #Order

When I showed ‘Black and the Red III’ in Malmö, Sweden, it was a continuum- a band- all around the galleryseeing this huge space in the gallery in Malmö, I just took a deep breath and I put the paper around in a single band. Then I continued along, printing on the wall like a trompe l’oeil to reiterate the images in the work printed on paper that I had push-pinned to the wall. I literally took the rhythm and the images from ‘Black and the Red III’ and continued that on the wall.
-- Nancy Spero

#Wall #Space #Black

I never thought of my work in terms of being radical, although I tried to make it radical- that is, to shift the premise of what goes for pictures on a wall. I wanted my work to say something other than the usual- the usual format for an artwork being a rectangle, a square, or anything flat, framed, and attached or hooked on the wall. That was accepted practice, mainline thinking.
-- Nancy Spero

#Wall #Thinking #Squares

I suppose I felt doomed to be an artist early on because of the way I drew all over the books that I needed for school, from ancient history to math. I was more interested in drawing in the margins than actually doing the work.
-- Nancy Spero

#Book #School #Math

I guess maybe my art can be said to be a protest. I see things a certain way, and as an artist I’m privileged in that arena to protest or say publicly what I’m thinking about. Maybe the strongest work I’ve done is because it was done with indignation. Considering myself as a feminist, I don’t want my work to be a reaction to what male art might be or what art with a capital A would be. I just want it to be art. In a convoluted way, I am protesting- protesting the usual way art is looked at, being shoved into a period or category.
-- Nancy Spero

#Art #Thinking #Feminist

When I showed ‘Black and the Red III’ in Malmö, Sweden, it was a continuum - a band - all around the galleryseeing this huge space in the gallery in Malmö, I just took a deep breath and I put the paper around in a single band. Then I continued along, printing on the wall like a trompe l’oeil to reiterate the images in the work printed on paper that I had push-pinned to the wall. I literally took the rhythm and the images from ‘Black and the Red III’ and continued that on the wall.
-- Nancy Spero

#Wall #Space #Black

A 2002 Oxford study showed counting sheep actually delays the onset of sleep. It's just too dull to stop us from worrying about jobs and spouses.

I often feel that my days in New York City, that I was here for five years, didn't get one job, went on a thousands of auditions and literally did not get a job on a soap, not a movie, not TV, not nothing, although I did do some commercials thank God.

An artist’s job is to captivate… if we stumble into truth, we got lucky.

I'm an actor in between jobs right now, so I kind of live the life of a 7-year old.

After a point of time, when you get success and fame, money and everything, the purpose of life has to be redefined. For me, I think that purpose is to build bridges. Artists can do that very easily, more than politicians.

I think with anything where you delve into the back story of an artist, it kind of explains their work more intimately.

Only a bad artist thinks he has a good idea. A good artist does not need anything.

Of beer, an enthusiast has said that it could never be bad, but that some brands might be better than others.

But this Christ or Redeemer took not upon him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham, that is, human nature, that in the nature which sinned he might make the expiation required.

The past is so often unknowable not because it is befogged now but because it was befogged then, too, back when it was still the present. If we had been there listening, we still might not have been able to determine exactly what Stanton said. All we know for sure is that everyone was weeping, and the room was full.