Quotes & Sayings About Controversial Art

What must it be like to live in Rush Limbaughs world? A world where when anyone other than conservative, white men attempts to do anything or enter any profession, be it business, politics, art or sports, the only reason theyre allowed entry or, incredibly, attain excellence is because the standard was lowered. Be they liberals, people of color, women, the poor or anyone with an accent ... Edgy, controversial, brilliant. What a way to shake up intelligent sports commentary. Hitler would have killed in talk radio. He was edgy, too. — Nancy Giles

Flirting is a "controversial art form" that leaves the intended either flattered, infatuated, creeped out or getting a restraining order. — Shannon L. Alder

If art is singular expression, then by nature, the best art is controversial. But when art stirs debate for reasons besides its artistic integrity, that's when things get bent. — John Ridley

In the largest sense, every work of art is protest ... A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it ... A hymn is a controversial song - sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out ... — Pete Seeger

Senator Helms might very well do that. I would point out to him that we in the art world are not necessarily in the business of making controversial art. — Jane Alexander

I really feel that artists or musicians are controversial people. Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity. If people are not doing that, they're not artists - they're artisans. — Yoko Ono

Most people seem to resent the controversial in music; they don't want their listening habits disturbed. They use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be used as a soporific. Contemporary music, especially, is created to wake you up, not put you to sleep. It is meant to stir and excite you, to move you
it may even exhaust you. But isn't that the kind of stimulation you go to the theater for or read a book for? Why make an exception for music? — Aaron Copland

I'm really happy I was kicked out of CalArts (for a controversial art piece I made). — Yony Leyser

I think the point of art is to be controversial in a lot of ways. It's to cause conversations, and it's to get people excited about and talking about the things that the films are about. — Eloise Mumford

I think art should be controversial. I think it should make people think. — Madonna Ciccone

There are issues worth advancing in images worth admiring; and the truth is never "plain," nor appearances ever "sincere." To try to make them so is to neutralize the primary, gorgeous eccentricity of imagery in Western culture since the Reformation: the fact that it cannot be trusted, that imagery is always presumed to be proposing something contestable and controversial. This is the sheer, ebullient, slithering, dangerous fun of it. No image is presumed inviolable in our dance hall of visual politics, and all images are potentially powerful. — Dave Hickey

My art's not safe, I don't want it to be safe, it's not meant to be safe, its controversial, it takes you into deep areas, it's a journey, its starts off in safe areas but it gets into deep waters. — Brian Froud

[Medieval] Art was not just a static element in society, or even one which interacted with the various social groups. It was not simply something which was made to decorate or to instruct - or even to overawe and dominate. Rather, it was that and more. It was potentially controversial in ways both similar and dissimilar to its couterpart today. It was something which could by its force of attraction not only form the basis for the economy of a particular way of life, it could also come to change that way of life in ways counter to the original intent. Along with this and because of this, art carried a host of implications, both social and moral, which had to be justified. Indeed, it is from the two related and basic elements of justification and function - claim and reality - that Bernard approaches the question of art in the Apologia. — Conrad Rudolph

Some people feel that it's controversial if I say that because my dad is known as a political artist. But I don't really believe that he was a political artist. I think some of his songs were political, and I think they were incredible because he was able to make art that was political and that wasn't pedantic. But I think he was unique in being able to do that. — Sean Lennon

It's funny how something so normal and mundane that you see every day-your body-can be controversial. The shock value is intense. It's like carrying an art piece around with you all the time. — Beth Ditto