“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up,
this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
–Rosa Park
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invicible summer
–Albert Camus
You think you drain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world,
but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most
were the very things connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever
been alive.
–James Baldwin
“As the artist picks his way along, rejecting and accepting as
he goes, certain patterns of enquiry emerge.”
he goes, certain patterns of enquiry emerge.”
–Bridget Riley
The attempt is to avoid metaphysic. That is not entirely possible, though,
because the only way to avoid metaphysic completely would be not to do anything.
-Mel Bochner
on minimal art
on minimal art
There is no happiness if the things we believe in are different than the things we do.
–Albert Camus
Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock,
no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind
no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind
–Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929)
“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.
If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow on the head,
what are we reading it for?… we need the books that affect us like a disaster,
that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves,
like being banished into a forest far from everyone, like a suicide.
If the book we are reading does not wake us up with a blow on the head,
what are we reading it for?… we need the books that affect us like a disaster,
that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves,
like being banished into a forest far from everyone, like a suicide.
A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.“
–Franz Kafka
from a letter to Oskar Pollack, 27 Jan. 1904
Power is given only to those who dare
lower themselves to pick it up.
–F.M. Dostoyevsky
J’ai lu souvent que les paroles trahissent la pensée, mais il me semble que
les paroles écrites la trahissentencore davantage. Écrire est un choix perpétuel
entre mille expressions, donc aucune ne me satisfait, dont aucune surtout ne me
satisfait sans les autres. Une lettre, même la plus longue, force à simplifier
ce qui n’aurait pas dû l’être : on est toujours si peu clair dès qu’on essaie
d’être complet !
les paroles écrites la trahissentencore davantage. Écrire est un choix perpétuel
entre mille expressions, donc aucune ne me satisfait, dont aucune surtout ne me
satisfait sans les autres. Une lettre, même la plus longue, force à simplifier
ce qui n’aurait pas dû l’être : on est toujours si peu clair dès qu’on essaie
d’être complet !
–Marguerite Yourcenar
Alexis ou Le traité du vain combat (1929)
I try to be essential in my work, control is a fundamental tool for me, in reality
I am interested in only saying whatis “strictly necessary”, because my work
emits my point of view but is is also an unambiguous vision, a process of
some-what extreme cleansing, allowing for grater concentration… (…).
Many define my work as electic, I prefer to think that my research revolves
around the contexts that define who we are, art keeps pace with history and this
leaves a great freedom of observation, in this sense it’s really contemporary.
leaves a great freedom of observation, in this sense it’s really contemporary.
–Liliana Moro
In an interview with Agata Polizzi, 2019
Self-respect is a question of recognizing that anything worth having has a price.
–Joan Didion
“On Self-Respect”, in Sloching Towards
“On Self-Respect”, in Sloching Towards
A few hundred years hence, in this same place, another traveller, as despairing as myself,
will mourne the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see…
will mourne the disappearance of what I might have seen, but failed to see…
–Claude Lévi-Strauss
Tristes Tropiques (1955)
Chapter 4: The quest for Power
Space is the condition of the possibility of juxtaposition.
–Arthur Schopenhauer
The true way is along a rope that is not spanned high in the air, but only just above
the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling than be walked upon.
the ground. It seems intended more to cause stumbling than be walked upon.
–Franz Kafka
The Blue Octavo Notebooks
One thing you will note about shopping-center theory is that you could have thought
of it yourself, and a course in it will go a long way toward dispelling the notion that business
proceeds from mysteries too recondite for you and me.
–Joan Didion
“On the Mall”, in The White Album
“On the Mall”, in The White Album
Till now I have never shot a scene without taking account of what stands
behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings
behind the actors because the relationship between people and their surroundings
is of prime importance.
–Michelangelo Antonioni
The poverty of my childhood differed from poverty today in that the TV set was not
sitting in front of our faces, forcing us to make unbearable comparisons between
the room we were sitting in and the rooms we were watching; neither were we endlessly
being told what to wear and drink and buy. We knew that we were poor, but then,
everybody around us was poor.
–James Baldwin
“Dark Days”, 1980
“Dark Days”, 1980