What would please me most is to make photographs as incomprehensible as life.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the desire to create art that captures the complexity and mystery of life.
In this quote, William Klein expresses his aspiration to make photographs that embody the same level of uncertainty and ambiguity that exists in real life. He suggests that art, particularly photography, should not simply present reality in a straightforward manner but instead invite viewers to explore its deeper meanings and complexities, mirroring the often incomprehensible nature of life itself.
In practice
Using this quote in a discussion about the role of ambiguity in modern art.
When you use film, you use accidents, but there aren't any accidents with digital photography. I don't mind that it's easy. But I do mind that there is a sort of consensus with the camera and the subject and the light, and you look at something, and you photograph it, and you get what you see.
Memories. That's the thing about photography. I look at the contact sheet, and it brings back everything: whether I was tired, whether I was full of beans.
To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth.
At some point, all comics have to go out and be retail salesmen doing door-to-door. And this idea of somebody who totally knows their craft having to get up for free in front of a crowd to work out some stuff they're thinking in their head, still, after as much success as you can get, is really interesting.
When you're in a play, 50 percent is the genius of the actor, 50 percent is the genius of the author. When a mime is not perfect, you see nothing.
I like so many different kinds of music that I've never allowed myself the limitations of one particular range.
It's going to take a while before we see a real shift in the students and the dancers that are going into professional companies because it takes so many years of training, but I do think that there's a new crop of dancers, of minority dancers that are entering into the ballet world.
There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described. I photograph to see what something will look like photographed.
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