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Nothing they design ever gets in the way of a work of art.

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Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre

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The basic project of art is always to make the world whole and comprehensible, to restore it to us in all its glory and its occasional nastiness, not ...more

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It seems obvious, looking back, that the artists of Weimar Germany and Leninist Russia lived in a much more attenuated landscape of media than ours, a...more

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What has our culture lost in 1980 that the avant-garde had in 1890? Ebullience, idealism, confidence, the belief that there was plenty of territory to...more

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Indeed, the idea that doubt can be heroic, if it is locked into a structure as grand as that of the paintings of Cezanne's old age, is one of the keys...more

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What does one prefer? An art that struggles to change the social contract, but fails? Or one that seeks to please and amuse, and succeeds?

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Nevertheless, what was made in the hope of transforming the world need not be rejected because it failed to do so – otherwise, one would also have to ...more

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In the Somme valley, the back of language broke. It could no longer carry its former meanings. World War I changed the life of words and images in art...more

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It is hard to think of any work of art of which one can say 'this saved the life of one Jew, one Vietnamese, one Cambodian'. Specific books, perhaps; ...more