I don't know who I am or who I was. I know it less than ever. I do and I don't identify myself with myself. Everything is totally contradictory, but maybe I have remained exactly as I was as a small boy of twelve.
Alberto GiacomettiRead
I paint and sculpt to get a grip on reality... to protect myself.
Interpretation
Art is a means for the artist to understand and cope with reality.
In this quote, Alberto Giacometti expresses the idea that his artistic creations serve a dual purpose: they are not only a form of expression but also a tool for him to navigate and comprehend the complexities of reality. By painting and sculpting, he seeks to establish a connection with the world around him, using art as a protective shield against the challenges he faces.
In practice
During an art exhibition, this quote could be shared to highlight the purpose behind artistic creation.
I don't know who I am or who I was. I know it less than ever. I do and I don't identify myself with myself. Everything is totally contradictory, but maybe I have remained exactly as I was as a small boy of twelve.
Artistically I am still a child with a whole life ahead of me to discover and create. I want something, but I won't know what it is until I succeed in doing it.
In the past I have never thought about loneliness when working, and I don't think about it now. Yet there must be a reason for the fact that so many people talk about it.
When I see a head from a great distance, it ceases to be a sphere and becomes an extreme confusion falling down into the abyss.
If only someone else could paint what I see, it would be marvellous, because then I wouldnt have to paint at all.
All I can do will only ever be a faint image of what I see and my success will always be less than my failure or perhaps equal to the failure.
Film is truth 24 times a second, and every cut is a lie.
For the nature of women is closely allied to art
To me, the great joy of writing is discovering. Most writers are told to write about what they know, but I still love the adventure of going out and reporting on things I don't know about.
My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.
I'm interested in all kinds of pictures, however they are made, with cameras, with paint brushes, with computers, with anything.
In the 1960s when the recording studio suddenly really took off as a tool, it was the kids from art school who knew how to use it, not the kids from music school. Music students were all stuck in the notion of music as performance, ephemeral. Whereas for art students, music as painting? They knew how to do that.
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