I was born in Seoul, South Korea; then I moved to New York City at the age of seventeen. In New York, I studied art and photography. I thought I would be a painter; then I saw Walker Evans when I was in college, and that had a great impact on me. Being in the darkroom making B&W prints was such a magical experience.
People think our work is monumental because it's art, but human beings do much bigger things: they build giant airports, highways for thousands of miles, much, much bigger than what we create.
In my world, history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought, who won them and who lost them - unless there is a painting, a play, a song or a poem that speaks of the event.
I hope that through my work, artists will take some chances, break some rules, and make art that comes from inside of them. I would like to be remembered as a kind person, a great Mom, and a bit unruly - in a good way!
I'm in this whole flow of doing certain art pieces without commerce.
Just because people can express themselves through their art doesn't mean they are great communicators in person.
Art, film, fashion, music are all going on and interacting simultaneously. And L.A. is very receptive to that fusion.
Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern.
It goes without saying that a good Catholic novel should be good craftsmanship, good writing skills. The creative person must always be engaged in the long labor of perfecting the tools of his art. Yet the work itself need not be explicitly evangelical in its themes and plots.
One does not set out with the idea that I've just had a great idea and now I'm going to go and carry it out. Almost all art that's made like that doesn't go anywhere.
Art's development should be dialectical and not metaphysical.
To me, the art of music is magnificent, and I cannot bear to see it treated in a shabby way.
I'd like to explode a few myths about what we call classical music. It's not high art for the titillation of a chosen few.
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.
I think of art as the highest level of creativity. To me, it is one of the greatest sources of enjoyment.
There is no more difficult art to acquire than the art of observation, and for some men it is quite as difficult to record an observation in brief and plain language.
It's not enough for me to cover theater, I have to throw myself around every other art form, and do so thoroughly and relentlessly.
Custom, that is before all law; Nature, that is above all art.
Cezanne had an enormous influence on everyone in that period; there was a change in attitudes to art. People found him disturbing because they didn't like their existing ideas being challenged and overturned. Cezanne was probably the key figure in my lifetime.
Discipline in art is a fundamental struggle to understand oneself, as much as to understand what one is drawing.
Too often, complaint is not about principled objection on moral grounds, but opportunistic objection on grounds of self-interest. To rectify this, we need to work on mastering the art of complaint.
Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.
Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.
I was at art school that had quite a celebrated film course as well. I tried for that film course when I was 18, but they said I was too young. I tried this audio and visual design course instead. Two years later, I reapplied for that higher course, but they said I was still too young and to try in five years.
Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.
That's something I learned in art school. I studied graphic design in Germany, and my professor emphasized the responsibility that designers and illustrators have towards the people they create things for.
They're not poodles, they're art.
Most people are not good people. In business, in art, in almost every 'world' I've been in, most people I've meet are pretty gray to black. It takes practice to be the person who is a source of compassion and honesty.
If I were a carpenter, I'd find a way to empower using that skill. I'm using as much as God has given - my mind, my voice, my heart, my art forms. This is the highest form of expression on the planet from God, to me, to you.
So I am totally aware that when I defend the autonomy of art I'm going counter to my own development. It's more an instinctive reaction, meant to protect the private aspect of the work, the part I am most interested in and which nowadays is at risk in our culture.
Art is that which comes to a man, and stands between himself and an implacable witness: the work.
A brief visit to Nepal started my insatiable love for Asian art.
I take photographs with love, so I try to make them art objects. But I make them for myself first and foremost - that is important.
I'm looking to evolve the concept of the new renaissance artist, taking the world by storm through the art of public display and demonstration, with technical savvy, using cell phones and computers.
The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing.
