Andy Warhol
[Artist, b. 1928, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, d. 1987, New York.]
I just [take pictures] because the camera is something to carry around in my pocket.
Alec Soth
[Photographer, b. 1969, Minneapolis, Minnesota, lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.]
There’s a kind of beautiful loneliness in voyeurism. And that’s why I’m a photographer.
Gilles Peress
[Photographer, b. 1946, Neuilly, France, lives in New York.]
I am bad at memory—this is why I shoot pictures.
Garry Winogrand
[Photographer, b. 1928, New York, d. 1984, Tijuana, Mexico.]
I photograph to see what things look like photographed.
Edward Weston
[Photographer, b. 1886, Highland Park, Illinois, d. 1958, Wildcat Hill, California.]
By all means tell your Board that pubic hair has definitely been part of my development as an artist, tell them it has been the most important part, that I like it black, brown, red or golden, curly or straight, all sizes and shapes.
(To Museum of Modern Art curator Beaumont Newhall, after being told the museum was reluctant to show nudes revealing pubic hair.)
Wolfgang Tillmans
[Photographer, b. 1968, Remscheid, Germany, lives in London.]
My work is aimed at creating a world in which I wish to live. Consequently, it is about creating ideals with the aid of realistic techniques. My most fundamental motivation is a desire for unity, fusion and sense of community.
Joel-Peter Witkin
[Photographer, b. 1939, Brooklyn, New York, lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.]
My first conscious recollection was when I was 6 years old. It happened on a Sunday when my mother was escorting my twin brother and me down the steps of the tenement where we lived. We were going to church. While walking through the hallway to the entrance of the building, we heard an incredible crash mixed with screaming and cries for help. The accident had involved three cars, all with families in them. Somehow, in the confusion, I was no longer holding my mother’s hand. At the place where I stood at the curb, I could see something rolling from one of the overturned cars. It stopped at the curb where I stood. It was the head of a little girl. I bent down to touch the face, to ask it—but before I could touch it—someone carried me away.
Richard Prince
[Artist, b. 1949, Panama Canal Zone, lives in New York.]
We do not make art. We have unnamable motors and dangerous impulses that occupy our thoughts.
