Robert Irwin Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“Every situation has qualities. Essentially, we quantify them and that's the practical side of our lives, so the involvement with perception and in acquiring the perception is our ability to understand qualities. They exist only as long as a human being keeps them in play. They're - Therefore they are akin to energy.”

“Every time you do something, make something, it's final in a way, but it's not. It immediately raises a great set of questions. And if you become a question addict, which I am, you immediately have something you need to pursue.”

“When you walk into a room, you assess it instantaneously, habitually, before you're even aware of it. I mean, you make sure there's not a hole you're going to fall into, but mostly you're not even aware of what you're thinking.”

“If I hold up a red square for 30 seconds and take it away, you will see a perfect green square. It's how the eye works. So if you want to paint a really good red painting, you have to strategically place in some green, so the eye is brought back.”

“To be an artist is not a matter of making paintings or objects at all. What we are really dealing with is our state of consciousness and the shape of our perceptions.”

“If you wanted to watch me work, it would be totally boring. It would look like a Warhol film where nothing happens. I sit for 24 hours, then I scratch myself.”

“The whole thrust of modern art, as far as I understand it, is expanding the role of the artist as a kind of esthetician, someone who actually spends his time, is trained in a way to deal with qualities.”

“We actually form the world at every instant, although we're not cognitively aware of that but - and there are people would argue with that to some degree.”