Sandy Skoglund
[Photographer, b. 1946, Quincy, Massachusetts, lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.]
The idea of making [conceptual] art was not a good way to approach things... Instead I saw myself as trying to make something that my relatives could understand.
Shirin Neshat
[Artist, photographer, and filmmaker, b. 1957, Qazvin, Iran, lives in New York.]
Beautiful woman wrapped in chadors, with huge machine guns in their hands. Brilliant, shocking, amazingly contradictory images. They compelled me to deeply investigate these ideas.
Man Ray (Emanuel Radnitsky)
[Artist, b. 1890, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, d. 1976, Paris.]
Speaking of nudes, I have always had a great fondness for this subject, both in my paintings and in my photos, and I must admit, not for purely artistic reasons.
Chuck Close
[Artist, b. 1940, Monroe, Washington, lives in New York.]
I always say that inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.
Ed Ruscha
[Artist, b. 1937, Omaha, Nebraska, lives in Los Angeles.]
The fact that few “painter-fine-artists” used photography in their work made it appealing.
Walter Benjamin
[Philosopher, critic, and theorist, b. 1892, Berlin, d. 1940, Port Bou, France.]
No poem is intended for the reader, no picture for the beholder, no symphony for the listener.
Catherine Opie
[Photographer, b. 1961, Sandusky, Ohio, lives in Los Angeles.]
I wanted to push the whole realm of beauty and elegance, but also to make people scared out of their wits.
Eve Arnold
[Photographer, b. 1913, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, d. 2011, London.]
What drove me and kept me going over the decades? If I had to use a single word, it would be “curiosity.”
