The thinking of John Cage derived from Duchamp and Dada. I was not interested in that.
Most ideas that are successful are ludicrously simple.
Ideas alone can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.
Also, since art is a vehicle for the transmission of ideas through form, the reproduction of the form only reinforces the concept. It is the idea that is being reproduced. Anyone who understands the work of art owns it. We all own the Mona Lisa.
When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations.
One should be intelligent enough to know when not to be too intellectual.
What the work of art looks like isn’t too important.
Formal art is essentially rational.
Irrational judgements lead to new experience.
A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist’s mind to the viewer’s. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist’s mind.
One usually understands the art of the past by applying the conventions of the present thus misunderstanding the art of the past.
The narrative of serial art works more like music than like literature.
I believe that the artist’s involvement in the capitalist structure is disadvantageous to the artist and forces him to produce objects in order to live.
In my case, I used the elements of these simple forms – square, cube, line and color – to produce logical systems. Most of these systems were finite; that is, they were complete using all possible variations. This kept them simple.
What the work of art looks like isn’t too important. It has to look like something if it has a physical form. No matter what form it may finally have it must begin with an idea. It is the process of conception and realization with which the artist is concerned.
All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art. This includes the art of installation, political, feminist and socially directed art.
The artist’s aim is not to instruct the viewer, but to give information, whether the viewer understands the information is incidental to the artist.
I was not interested in irony; I wanted to emphasize the primacy of the idea in making art.
I didn’t want to save art – I respected the older artists too much to think art needed saving. But I knew it was finished, even though, at that time, I didn’t know what I would do.
Conceptual art is only good if the idea is good.