Quotes on Alchemy

Thanks to his complex convictions, made strong with the forces of animus and anima, the alchemist believes he is seizing the soul of the world, participating in the soul of the world. Thus, from the world to the man, alchemy is a problem of souls.

The alchemy of good curating amounts to this: Sometimes, placing one work of art near another makes one plus one equal three. Two artworks arranged alchemically leave each intact, transform both, and create a third thing.

This process is alchemy: its founder is the smith Vulcan.

What's the world's greatest lie?... It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.

Only by discovering alchemy have I clearly understood that the Unconscious is a process and that ego's rapport with the Unconscious and its contents initiate an evolution, more precisely, a real metamorphosis of the psyche.

I like to use the term alchemy, which is the soul of the world, or those of Jung's collective unconscious. You connect with a space where everything is.

Without respect, the subtle alchemy that binds an organization or that serves as the impetus for a business transaction would dissolve into mutual suspicion and hostility.

Photography is essentially an act of recognition by street photographers, not an act of invention. Photographers might respond to an old man’s face, or an Arbus freak, or the way light hits a building—and then they move on. Whereas in all the other art forms, take William Blake, everything that came to that paper never existed before. It’s the idea of alchemy, of making something from nothing.