“The one standard in art is oneness and fineness, rightness and purity, abstractness and evanescence. The one thing to say about art is, its breathlessness, lifelessness, deathlessness, contentlessness, formlessness, spacelessness, and timelessness. This is always the end of art.”

—  Ad Reinhardt

Source: 1956 - 1967, Art-as-Art Dogma' part II, (1964), p. 158

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Ad Reinhardt22
American painter 1913–1967

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“The one place for art-as-art is the museum of fine art. The reason of the museum or fine art is the preservation of ancient and modern art that cannot be made again and that does not have to be done again. A museum of fine art should exclude everything but fine art, and be separate of museums of ethnology, geology, archaeology, history... Any disturbance of a true museum's soundlessness, timelessness, airlessness, and lifelessness is a disrespect.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

Source: 1956 - 1967, Art-as-Art Dogma' part II, (1964), p. 155

“The one thing to say about art is that it is one thing. Art is art-as-art and everything else is everything else. Art as art is nothing but art. Art is not what is not art.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

Quote of Ad Reinhardt (1963); as cited in: Joseph Kosuth, (1969), &quot; Art after Philosophy http://www.ubu.com/papers/kosuth_philosophy.html&quot; <br class="br">1956 - 1967 <br class="br">Variant: The one thing to say about art is that it is one thing. Art is art-as-art and everything else is everything else. Art as art is nothing but art. Art is not what is not art.

“The one object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art and as nothing else, to make it into the one thing it is only, separating and defining it more and more, making it purer and emptier, more absolute and exclusive – non-objective, non-representational, non-figurative, non-imagist, non-expressionist, non-subjective. The only and one way to say what abstract art or art-as-art is, is to say what it is not.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

Source: 1956 - 1967, Art-as-Art Dogma' part II, (1964), p. 154

“The one question, the one principle, the one crisis in art of the twentieth century centers in the uncompromising 'purity' of art, and in the consciousness that art comes from art only, not from anything else.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

Source: 1956 - 1967, Art-as-Art Dogma' part II, (1964), p. 155

“The one thing to say about art and life is that art is art and life is life, that art is not life and life is not art. A 'slice-of-life' art is no better or worse than a 'slice-of-art' life. Fine art is not a 'means of making a living' or a 'way of living a life', and a artist who dedicates his life to his art or his art to his life burdens his art with his life and his life with his art. Art that is a matter of life and death is neither fine nor free.”

Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

Source: 1956 - 1967, Art-as-Art Dogma' part II, (1964), p. 155

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“Art in an abstract setting is one thing, but art where you’re actually telling people to do things becomes dangerous…”

Amiri Baraka (1934–2014) African-American writer

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Ad Reinhardt (1913–1967) American painter

Source: 1956 - 1967, Art-as-Art Dogma' part II, (1964), p. 157

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“There is no such thing as abstract art, or else all art is abstract, which amounts to the same thing. Abstract art no more exists than does curved art yellow art or green art.”

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Source: 1960-70's, Prospectus et tous écrits suivants, 1967, p. 206

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“One never finishes learning about art. There are always new things to discover. Great works of art seem to look different every time one stands before them. They seem to be as inexhaustible and unpredictable as real human beings.”

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Source: The Story of Art (1978), p. 33.

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