Christina’s Reviews > The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing > Status Update

'Listening to what the poem or song was telling them was another way of describing how they listened to themselves... And this attending was really, I realized, at the heart of the project of this book. That's what the exhibits they shared are about. The studies, notes, doodles—they are all ways the artists have of talking to themselves.'

Suzan-Lori Parks: 'In rewrite, I'm envisioning the audience. But where's the leap? When do you move from complete absorption into the recognition of an audience? ... That's when it's art. That feeling—that there are actually people who I might want to share this with, when that happens, then you might look at it in an architectural way. ... But when did that happen here? I really don't know.'

David Simon on The Wire:
"I thought, Well, that's kind of how I read books. The first three chapters of Moby-Dick, you know he goes to town, there's a maritime sermon, he shares a bed with this guy with a lot of tattoos, you don't get to see the white whale. But that's not American television. So, like, I don't give a shit. This is how I know how to tell a story."

'Adam Moss: I know you say you're never going to do the full twenty-four hours again, but are there things in the show you would want to keep futzing with?
Taylor Mac: No.
Machine Dazzle: Always.'

'Why does the "art world," whatever it means to those who fear its judgment, have such a hold on artists, no matter how experienced they are? It feels medieval. Every field has its gatekeepers—its guild—but for art especially, its perceived power is mythic and heavily influences how artists work and what they make. Art-world approval has huge financial stakes; it also builds and (mostly) breaks spirits.'

"The idea that readers are thick and you know, they need help," he [Max Porter] said, "I think it's bullshit. The last thing you want when you open a book is someone explaining." But at the same time, he continued, "I don't want experimentalism for experimentalism's sake. Because that excludes the reader. Being on soggy ground is only worthwhile if you land on firm ground."

'A tolerance for tedium has to be one of the least celebrated and most important traits of a successful artist.'

Amy Sillman, painter: "The great challenge and reason and beauty of trying to be a painter is the impossibility of it, which is similar to the impossibility of a novelist or a poet, which is to manifest something or shape it from God-knows-what scraps and build a thing into a thing that has not been there before. You have no idea what it is. The journey is blind."

'Simple: such a strange word. Marie [Howe] uses it here to belittle her work, and yet all the subjects in this book labor so hard to simplify their work, reduce it to its essence, elevate it. Simple is both the insult and the aspiration.'

'A reoccurring sentiment: the work improves with distance as the artist forgets his intention and sees what's there instead.'