“One needs a medium. The best is, one is his own medium. But don't be serious because seriousness belongs to a passed time. This medium, called you yourself will tell you to take absolutely the wrong material. That is very good, because only the wrong material used in the wrong way, will give the right picture, when you look at it from the right angle. Or the wrong angle. That leads us to the new ism: Anglism. The first art starting from England [the country of Schwitters' forced stay, when he wrote this quote], except the former shapes of art.”

— Kurt Schwitters

Source: 1940s, I is Style (2000), pp. 100-101 : in: 'That is my confession I have to make MERZ' (1940 – 1946), Kurt Schwitters.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "One needs a medium. The best is, one is his own medium. But don't be serious because seriousness belongs to a passed ti…" by Kurt Schwitters?

Kurt Schwitters 32

German artist 1887–1948

Related quotes

“Looking for Mr. Right leads to desperation, because there is no Mr. Right. There is no Mr. Right, because there is no Mr. Wrong. There is whoever is in front of us and the perfect lessons to be learned from that person.”

Marianne Williamson (1952) American writer

“But it's not enough to know right from wrong. You need the strength to do what's right, even when what you want most in the world is the wrong thing.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Exiled Queen

“Dad, this time you need to order smalls. You're always wrong about ordering. You always say we need mediums and larges, but girls like smalls.”

Rachel Trachtenburg (1993) American musician

Rachel, in disapproval of her father's ordering of TFSP T-shirts.( The New Yorker https://archive.is/20130630000738/www.newyorker.com/printables/talk/020909ta_talk_mnookin September 9, 2002

“Creation is dominated by three absolutely different factors: First, nature, which works upon us by its laws; second, the artist, who creates a spiritual contact with nature and his materials; third, the medium of expression through which the artist translates his inner world. Of those three components only one, the medium, is material.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

As quoted in Hans Hofmann (1963) by William Chapin Seitz, p. 15
1960s

“But the one thing you shd. not do is suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Guide to Kulchur (1938), p. 60

“For words are merely tools and if you use the right ones you can actually put even your life in order, if you don't lie to yourself and use the wrong words.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Letter to Larry Callen (14 July 1958), p. 133
1990s, The Proud Highway : The Fear and Loathing Letters Volume I (1997)
Context: I find that by putting things in writing I can understand them and see them a little more objectively. … For words are merely tools and if you use the right ones you can actually put even your life in order, if you don't lie to yourself and use the wrong words.