“There are two things that go on in art. There's getting to the essential material and a design that's inherent in the use of material, and also an essential level of expressiveness, a precise way of saying something rather than a complicated way.”

— Kenneth Noland

Source: Color, Format and Abstract Art' (1977), pp. 99 – 105

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Kenneth Noland 28

American artist 1924–2010

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

The World As Revelation: Names of Gods (1980)

“But there was something else that the Abstract Expressionists taught us: they began to use something besides the conventional means of art; to want other kinds of paint, or kinds of canvas, or ways of making pictures that weren't the usual ways. Some of the next generation, the Pop Art artists [like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, picked up this attitude and began to put actual things into art. We [=w:Morris Louis and Noland] were making abstract art, but we wanted to simplify the selection of materials, and to use them in a very economical way. To get to raw canvas, to use the canvas un-stretched – to use it in more basic or fundamental ways, to use it as fabric rather than as a stretched surface.”

Kenneth Noland (1924–2010) American artist

Source: Color, Format and Abstract Art' (1977), pp. 99 – 105

“Craft, I would argue, is not an essential part of art, though skill is. That skill may indeed find its expression in draughtsmanship or carving, realised through the hand of the artist, but it may also be directed towards the selection of material or the choice of an expert fabricator.”

Nicholas Serota (1946) British curator

The Dimbleby Lecture 2000

“Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

" Artist Ai Weiwei: China Crushes Dissenting Voices http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/11/artist-ai-weiwei-china-crushes-dissenting-voices/.," in: Fox News, June 11, 2012.
2010-, 2012

“The work of art that says something confronts us itself. That is, it expresses something in such a way that what is said is like a discovery, a disclosure of something previously concealed.”

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) German philosopher

Source: Aesthetics and Hermeneutics (1964), p. 101 http://books.google.com/books?id=7RP-TggufEEC&pg=PA101 (quotation is from Goethe)
Context: The work of art that says something confronts us itself. That is, it expresses something in such a way that what is said is like a discovery, a disclosure of something previously concealed. The element of surprise is based on this. "So true, so filled with being" [So wahr, so seiend] is not something one knows any other way. Everything familiar is eclipsed. To understand what the work of art says to us is therefore a self-encounter.

“Up to a certain time I was cutting into things. Then I realized that the thing I was cutting was the cut. Rather than cut into the material, I now use the material as the cut in space.”

Carl Andre (1935) American artist

Source: Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology', 1995, p. 104; from original source: a quote by David Bourdon, in A Redefinition of Sculpture, in 'Carl Andre: Sculpture 1959–1977', New York 1978, pp.19

“We have two essential strategies for coping: the way of avoidance or the way of attention.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Three, Brains Changing, Minds Changing

“Merz paintings are abstract works of art. The word 'Merz' essentially means the totality of all imaginable materials that can be used for artistic purposes and technically the principle that all of these individual materials have equal value. Merz art makes use not just of paint and canvas, brush and palette, but all the materials visible to the eye and all tools needed.... the wheel off a pram, wire mesh, string and cotton balls – these are factors of equal value to paints. The artist creates by choosing, distributing and reshaping the materials.”

Kurt Schwitters (1887–1948) German artist

1910s
Source: 'Merz Painting' (1919); as quoted in I is Style, ed. Siegfried Gohr & Gunda Luyken, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam 2000, p. 91.

“We have always thought about design as being so much more than just the way something looks. It's the whole thing: the way something works on so many different levels. Ultimately, of course, design defines so much of our experience.”

Jonathan Ive (1967) English designer and VP of Design at Apple

Ive explaining his view on Apple's use of design in the product video shown at WWDC 2013 for iOS 7.

“In my productive activity, every time a type grows beyond the stage of its genesis, and I have about reached the goal, the intensity gets lost very quickly, and I have to look for new ways. It is precisely the way which is productive - this is the essential thing: becoming is more important than being.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1912), # 928, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1911 - 1914

“There are two things that go on in art. There's getting to the essential material and a design that's inherent in the use of material, and also an essential level of expressiveness, a precise way of saying something rather than a complicated way.”

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