I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and uncertain ending - an art (and a politics) in which optimism is kept in check, and nihilism at bay.
William KentridgeRead
The drawings don't start with 'a beautiful mark'. It has to be a mark of something out there in the world. It doesn't have to be an accurate drawing, but it has to stand for an observation, not something that is abstract, like an emotion.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Art should represent something real in the world rather than abstract emotions.
William Kentridge emphasizes that the essence of drawing lies in capturing observations from the world around us rather than focusing solely on abstract emotional expressions. He suggests that true artistic expression comes from interpreting reality, even if the representation is not perfect, underscoring the importance of grounding art in tangible experiences and observations.
Themes
ArtObservationCreativityRealityRepresentation
In practice
Example use cases
This quote is perfect for an art workshop discussing the foundations of drawing and creativity.
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The Last Airbender is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that.
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I have to be composed; I have to be poised. I have to remember what my first piano teacher told me: 'You do not touch that piano until you are ready and until they are ready to listen to you.
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Two questions I can't really answer about fiction are 1) where it comes from, and 2) why we need it. But that we do create it and also crave it is beyond dispute.
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I think the only thing filmmakers can do is try to make good movies and make them as long as they allow us to keep making them. But at the end of the day, it is a business, and if audiences don't care, there's nothing we can do. It'll just go away, I guess.
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When you have committed enough words to paper, you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind. But when you stop writing, you find that's all you are - a spine, a row of rattling vertebrae, dried out like an old quill pen.
Hilary MantelRead
We writers, as we work our way deeper into our craft, learn to drop more and more personal clues. Like burglars who secretly wish to be caught, we leave our fingerprints on broken locks, our voiceprints in bugged rooms, our footprints in the wet concrete.
Ross MacdonaldRead