One very important aspect of art is that it makes people aware of what they know and don’t know they know... Once the breakthrough is made, there is a permanent expansion of awareness. But there is always a reaction of rage, of outrage, at the first breakthrough... So the artist, then, expands awareness. And once the breakthrough is made, this becomes part of the general awareness.
Interpretation
Art expands our awareness by revealing both our knowledge and ignorance, often provoking strong reactions to new ideas.
This quote by William S. Burroughs highlights the transformative power of art in expanding human consciousness. It suggests that art can illuminate previously unrecognized truths, prompting both enlightenment and resistance, as audiences grapple with new concepts. The initial outrage encountered in the face of new artistic expression underscores the profound impact art can have, ultimately leading to permanent shifts in societal awareness and understanding.
In practice
Use this quote in an art exhibit to discuss the audience's response to new works.
God save the Queen and a fascist regime … a flabby toothless fascism, to be sure. Never go too far in any direction, is the basic law on which Limey-Land is built. The Queen stabilizes the whole sinking shithouse and keeps a small elite of wealth and privilege on top. The English have gone soft in the outhouse. England is like some stricken beast too stupid to know it is dead. Ingloriously foundering in its own waste products, the backlash and bad karma of empire
Like most qualities, cuteness is delineated by what it isn't. Most people aren't cute at all, or if so they quickly outgrow their cuteness ... Elegance, grace, delicacy, beauty, and a lack of self-consciousness: a creature who knows he is cute soon isn't.
There is nothing more provocative than minding your own business.
Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered.
Language is a virus from outer space.
when I become death. Death is the seed from which I grow.
It is a great art to saunter !
A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.
Like a mermaid in sea-weed, she dreams awake, trembling in her soft and chilly nest.
I realized all of the possibilities that could exist for me with my camera: all of the images that I could capture, all of the lives I could enter, all of the people I could meet and how much I could learn from them.
When I design buildings, I think of the overall composition, much as the parts of a body would fit together. On top of that, I think about how people will approach the building and experience that space.
I've always felt that complement of opposites: body and soul, solitude and companionship, and in the dance studio, contraction and release, rise and fall.
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