In My Day Artists Wanted To Be

Destruction Is Also Creation.

The Life Of A Chess Master Is Much More Difficult Than That Of An Artist - Much More Depressing. An Artist Knows That Someday There'll Be Recognition And Monetary Reward, But For The Chess Master There Is Little Public Recognition And Absolutely No Hope Of Supporting Himself By His Endeavors. If Bobby Fischer Came To Me For Advice, I Certainly Would Not Discourage Him - As If Anyone Could - But I Would Try To Make It Positively Clear That He Will Never Have Any Money From Chess, Live A Monk-like Existence And Know More Rejection Than Any Artist Ever Has, Struggling To Be Known And Accepted.

I Thought To Discourage Aesthetics... I Threw The Bottlerack And The Urinal In Their Faces And Now They Admire Them For Their Aesthetic Beauty.

I Have Drawn People's Attention To The Fact That Art Is A Mirage. A Mirage, Just Like The Oasis That Appears In The Desert. It Is Very Beautiful, Until The Moment When You Die Of Thirst, Obviously. But We Do Not Die Of Thirst In The Field Of Art. The Mirage Has Substance.

The Individual, Man As A Man, Man As A Brain, If You Like, Interests Me More Than What He Makes, Because I've Noticed That Most Artists Only Repeat Themselves.