In conclusion, I hope that this mediocrity conditioned by too many factors foreign to art per se, will this time bring a revolution on the ascetic level, of which the general public will not even be aware and which only a few initiates will develop on the fringe of a world blinded by economic fireworks.

The great artist of tomorrow will go underground.
[Marcel Duchamp, Where do we go from here? 1960]

Let u sconsider two important factors, the two poles of creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity.

To all appearances, the artist acts like a mdiumistic being who ,from the labyrint beyound time and space, seeks his way to a clearing.
[Marcel Duchamp, The Creative Act, 1957]

Thus, a work becomes an apparition, not of reality but of a changing appearance of reality. The creator must always keep hi sdistance and maintain his neutrality, setting aside his specific likes and taste. In this way the work will be generated by desire, but the result i sunlikely to be as specific as that desire.
[Gloria Moure: Marcel Duchamp, works | writings | interviews]

Robert Ryman beweerde dat kunst maken “een mirakel oplevert” – in de kunst van Willy de Sauter is dat niet anders. Willy de Sauter imiteert de natuur niet; het is de natuur die zorgt voor de wispelturige schoonheid van zijn compromisloze kunstproductie die op een weergeloze manier in het licht van de wereld “verschijnt”.
[Luk Lambrecht in willy de sauter, catalogus 2013]

“But after a while, you know, you do that repeatedly, day after day after day, and the world begins to take on a fairly uniform look. So that what the anechoic chamber* was helping us to see was the extreme complexity and richness of our sense mechanism and how little of it we use most of the time. We edit from it severely, in time to see only what we expect to see”
(* a room where no light or sound can enter)
[Robert Irwin in conversation with Lawrence Weschler]

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
[William Blake]

All art is experience, yet all experience is not art. The artist chooses from experience that which he defines out as art, possibly because it has not yet been experienced enough, or because it needs to be experienced more.
[from a report on the Irwin-Turrel-Wortz collaboration]

is de titel van een boek waarin een serie interviews met kunstenaar Robert Irwin door Lawrence Weschler. Oorspronkelijk verschenen in 1982 en in een uitgebreide versie uitgegeven in 2008, want de gesprekken tussen Irwin en Weschler zijn voortgegaan.
Het is een buitengewoon boeiend boek, een van de beste boeken over kunst die ik gelezen heb. Opwindend, leerzaam. Het verbaast me dat ik er niet eerder van gehoord heb. Elke kunstacademie zou het haar studenten moeten aanbieden.
Ik kende zelfs Robert Irwin tot twee weken geleden niet en dat terwijl hij de ontwerper van Dia:Beacon is, mijn favoriete museum.
Kunst, waarneming, ruimte, ervaring, verbeelding, licht.  Lees dat boek.