“If within the last century art conceived as an autonomous activity has come to be invested with an unprecedented stature—the nearest thing to a sacramental human activity acknowledged by secular society—it is because one of the tasks art has assumed is making forays into and taking up positions on the frontiers of consciousness (often very dangerous to the artist as a person) and reporting back what’s there.”

— Susan Sontag, book Styles of Radical Will

“The Pornographic Imagination,” p. 45
Styles of Radical Will (1966)

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Susan Sontag168

American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist 1933–2004

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“If one tries to understand the position of art today, one must also try to understand the conditions that have created the development of our perception of art and our perception of the relation to the individual and to society. The artist takes an active part in the campaign to deepen this our knowledge of the basis of our existence, the basis which, for him, makes possible an artistic creation. The artist's interest cannot be restricted to a single field; he must seek the highest perception of everything, of the whole and its details. Nothing can be sacred to him, because everything has become important to him.”

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“Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one consciously, by means of certain external symbols, conveys to others the feelings one has experienced, whereby people so infected by these feelings, also experience them.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

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“All artistic work, like all human activity, involves the joint activity of a number, often a large number of people. Through their cooperation, the art work we eventually see or hear comes to be and continues to be. The work always shows signs of that cooperation.”

Howard S. Becker (1928) American sociologist

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“My activism is a part of me. If my art has anything to do with me, then my activism is part of my art.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

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“I have come to the conclusion that a work of art restricted to what the artist has put in it is only a part of itself. It only attains full stature with what people and time make of it. It involves the whole complex of human relation to life. It is a mode of thinking, acting, perceiving and living.”

Naum Gabo (1890–1977) Russian sculptor

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“You don't have to make something that people call art. Living is an artistic activity, there is an art to getting through the day.”

Viggo Mortensen (1958) American actor

“Art is the supreme task and the truly metaphysical activity in this life…”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

Diesen Ernsthaften diene zur Belehrung, dass ich von der Kunst als der höchsten Aufgabe und der eigentlich metaphysischen Thätigkeit dieses Lebens im Sinne des Mannes überzeugt bin, dem ich hier, als meinem erhabenen Vorkämpfer auf dieser Bahn, diese Schrift gewidmet haben will.
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“Well, art is not communist -- not bourgeois either
It's no club and has no party line
Not wild nights make an artist -- not drugs or manifestos
It's art -- HA HA -- that's no secret
The one who makes art -- he's the artist..”

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) German artist

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“The word art has in ordinary usage three senses. First, it means the creation of objects or the pursuit of activities called works of art, by people called artists; these works being distinguished from other objects and acts not merely as human products, but as products intended to be beautiful. Secondly, it means the creation of objects or the pursuit of activities called artificial as opposed to natural; that is to say objects created or activities pursued by human beings consciously free to control their natural impulses and to organize their life in a plan. Thirdly, it means that frame of mind which we call artistic, the frame of mind in which we are aware of beauty.”

R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943) British historian and philosopher

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“Mathematical activity has taken the forms of a science, a philosophy and an art.”

George Frederick James Temple (1901–1992) British mathematician

100 Years of Mathematics: a Personal Viewpoint (1981)

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