“Conceptual Art is a sounding instrument between printed words, luminous writings, and letters scrawled in a hasty nervous instinctive calligraphy.”

—  Mario Merz

Quoted in Kristine Stiles & Peter Howard Selz: Theories and documents of contemporary art (1996), p. 671

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 "Conceptual Art is a sounding instrument between printed words, luminous writings, and letters scrawled in a hasty nervo…" by Mario Merz?
Mario Merz photo
Mario Merz1
Italian artist, painter and sculptor 1925–2003

Related quotes

Kurt Schwitters photo

“It is not the word that is the original material of poetry, rather the letter.
Word is:
1. Composition of letters
2. Sounds
3. Description (meaning)
4. Vehicle for idea associations
Art is uninterpretable, unending; material must be unequivocal in a consistent formation.”

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) German artist

1920s
Source: 'Consistent Poetry Art', Schwitters' contribution to 'Magazine G', No. 3, 1924, ed. Hans Richter.

Isabella Fyvie Mayo photo

“For honesty is before honor; and though man must write his poems in sounding words, God's poems are printed best in the brave and silent duties of common life.”

Isabella Fyvie Mayo (1843–1914) Scottish poet, novelist, reformer

Reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 388.

Quirinus Kuhlmann photo

“First one should write no more or no less letters than the sound of the word requires. Second, one should write as one speaks and not try to pay attention to the style of other writers, particularly academicians.”

Quirinus Kuhlmann (1651–1689) German poet and mystic

Preface to Lehrreicher Geschicht-Herold
Other Quotes

Margaret Atwood photo

“Perhaps I write for no one. Perhaps for the same person children are writing for when they scrawl their names in the snow.”

Margaret Atwood (1939) Canadian writer

P.G. Wodehouse photo

“Every author really wants to have letters printed in the paper. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Jane Austen photo

“I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Letter (1801-01-03) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Cassandra Clare photo

“The girl behind the scrawled letters. I loved you from the moment I read them. I love you still.” - Will Herondale”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Eric Hobsbawm photo

“It is a melancholy illusion of those who write books and articles that the printed word survives. Alas, it rarely does.”

Eric Hobsbawm (1917–2012) British academic historian and Marxist historiographer

Source: How to Change the World: Reflections on Marx and Marxism

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“How lovely it is that there are words and sounds. Are not words and sounds rainbows and illusive bridges between things which are eternally apart?”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Minimal art went nowhere. Conceptual art became the liberating idea that gave the art of the next 40 years its real impetus. All of the significant art of today stems from Conceptual art. This includes the art of installation, political, feminist and socially directed art. The other great development has been in photography, but that too was influenced by Conceptual art.”

Sol LeWitt (1928–2007) American artist

Quotes of Sol Lewitt, "Sol LeWitt by Saul Ostrow," 2003

Related topics