The best art is political and you ought to be able to make it unquestionably political and irrevocably beautiful at the same time.
Interpretation
Art should have a strong political voice while also being aesthetically pleasing.
In this quote, Toni Morrison emphasizes that the most powerful art not only addresses social and political issues but also possesses a beauty that captivates and resonates with its audience. This duality enables art to evoke thought and emotion, inviting viewers to engage with important themes while simultaneously appreciating the craft and creativity involved.
In practice
During a gallery exhibition on social justice, you might quote this to emphasize the significance of the artwork.
There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely the absence of war. It is larger than that. The peace I am thinking of is not at the mercy of history's rule, nor is it a passive surrender to the status quo. The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one -- an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in. Accessible as it is, this particular kind of peace warrants vigilance.
You looking good." "Devil's confusion. He lets me look good long as I feel bad.
What do you say? There really are no words for that. There really aren't. Somebody tries to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' People say that to me. There's no language for it. Sorry doesn't do it. I think you should just hug people and mop their floor or something.
An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and therefore untrustworthy. No man should live without absorbing the sins of his kind, the foul air of his innocence, even if it did wilt rows of angel trumpets and cause them to fall from their vines.
Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself
One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to.
A photographer is part pick-pocket and part tightrope dancer.
Art creates an incomparable and unique effect, and, having done so, passes on to other things. Nature, upon the other hand, forgetting that that imitation can be made the sincerest form of insult, keeps on repeating this effect until we all become absolutely wearied of it.
Increasingly, the work I'm doing is in service to an idea rather than just to see what something looks like photographed. I'm trying to explore how I feel about something through photography.
Silence... is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all.
In my writing, I want to be laid bare as a human being.
I loved working when I worked at commercial art and they told you what to do and how to do it and all you had to do was correct it and they'd say yes or no. The hard thing is when you have to dream up the tasteless things to do on your own.
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