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I don't like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life.
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Frank Stella
#Art
#Culture
#Given
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As far as I was concerned, with the early paintings, I liked them, I thought they were pretty good, but I didn't think it was the end of the world. I also thought of it as a kind of structure, a base to build on. So this proves I can do this and that, and they don't collapse, so then what can I do from here? How can I build on it?
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Frank Stella
#Thinking
#World
#Kind
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I always get into arguments with people who want to retain the old values in painting - the humanistic values that they... find on the canvas. If you pin them down, they always end up asserting that there is something there besides the paint on the canvas. My painting is based on the fact that only what can be seen there is there... What you see is what you get.
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Frank Stella
#People
#Want
#Facts
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Abstraction didn't have to be limited to a kind of rectilinear geometry or even a simple curve geometry. It could have a geometry that had a narrative impact. In other words, you could tell a story with the shapes. It wouldn't be a literal story, but the shapes and the interaction of the shapes and colors would give you a narrative sense. You could have a sense of an abstract piece flowing along and being part of an action or activity. That sort of turned me on.
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Frank Stella
#Simple
#Impact
#Curves
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You see what you know!
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Frank Stella
#Art
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It's hard to say that my twenties were the most miserable time in my life or that my first wife drove me crazy or that I hated the job that I had. You can say all of those things. But for the most part, people manage to have a good time when they're that age.
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Frank Stella
#Jobs
#Crazy
#Wife
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No art is any good unless you can feel how it's put together. By and large it's the eye, the hand and if it's any good, you feel the body. Most of the best stuff seems to be a complete gesture, the totality of the artist's body; you can really lean on it.
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Frank Stella
#Art
#Eye
#Hands
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The one thing I learned is not to say anything about my own paintings. Keep my mouth shut. You'll never stop hearing what you said. It will come back to you again and again, people will always tell you about it. Even if you were the source of what's wrong with it.
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Frank Stella
#People
#Say Anything
#Mouths
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A sculpture is just a painting cut out and stood up somewhere.
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Frank Stella
#Cutting
#Sculpture
#Painting
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I never noticed competing with other generations. There's competition within your own generation, but that competition is good. Maybe you're annoyed that somebody's getting more money than you are, but what's really annoying is if someone's painting a better painting than you're making. So it's something to think about and work toward and stay focused on.
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Frank Stella
#Thinking
#Annoyed
#Competition
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Architecture can't fully represent the chaos and turmoil that are part of the human personality, but you need to put some of that turmoil into the architecture, or it isn't real.
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Frank Stella
#Real
#Bad Ass
#Personality
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I think for a lot of artists, if you're lucky enough to have a kind of career, especially toward the end, you start to think about what the whole ensemble looks like. It's the whole that counts. The parts are given, but you don't know how the whole thing's going to look when it's all put together.
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Frank Stella
#Thinking
#Artist
#Careers
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Up until 35 I had a slightly skewed world view. I honestly believed everybody in the world wanted to make abstract paintings, and people only became lawyers and doctors and brokers and things because they couldn't make abstract paintings
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Frank Stella
#Doctors
#Views
#People
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Any artist can't get away from the way the world works, which is that it wants to know what you did, and you're only interested in what you're doing right now.
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Frank Stella
#Artist
#World
#Want
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I want to make exalted art. A successful image has pictorial lift. I am looking for whatever is up there
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Frank Stella
#Art
#Successful
#Want
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I was worried in the '80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall
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Frank Stella
#Wall
#Gestures
#Painting
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Making art is complicated because the categories are always changing. You just have to make your own art, and whatever categories it falls into will come later.
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Frank Stella
#Art
#Fall
#Complicated
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What you see is what you see.
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Frank Stella
#Vision
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All I want anyone to get out of my paintings, and all I ever get out of them, is the fact that you can see the whole idea without any confusion…What you see is what you see.
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Frank Stella
#Ideas
#Confusion
#Want
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I like real art. It's difficult to define 'real' but it is the best word for describing what I like to get out of art and what the best art has. It has the ability to convince you that it's present - that it's there. You could say it's authentic... but real is actually a better word, broad as it may be.
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Frank Stella
#Art
#Real
#May
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One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters.
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Frank Stella
#Imitating Others
#Painting
#Imitation
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One learns about painting by looking at and imitating other painters. I can't stress enough how important it is, if you are interested at all in painting, to look and to look a great deal at painting. There is no other way to find out about painting.
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Frank Stella
#Stress
#Important
#Looks
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But, after all, the aim of art is to create space - space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.
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Frank Stella
#Art
#Space
#Illustration
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When I'm painting the picture, I'm really painting a picture. I may have a flat-footed technique, or something like that, but still, to me, the thrill, or the meat of the thing, is the actual painting. I don't get any thrill out of laying it out.
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Frank Stella
#Technique
#Meat
#Thrill
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Abstract paintings must be as real as those created by the 16th century Italians.
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Frank Stella
#Real
#Painting
#Abstract
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I don't like a lot of the stuff that goes on in the art world, but it's hard to be old and like what goes on around you.
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Frank Stella
#Art
#Goes On
#World
