Photographers usually want to photograph facts and things. But I'm interested in the nature of the thing itself. A photograph of someone sleeping tells me nothing about their dream state; a photograph of a corpse tells me nothing about the nature of death. My work is about my life as an event, and I find myself to be very temporal, transient.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the idea that art, particularly photography, should capture deeper meanings beyond mere appearances or facts.
Duane Michals expresses a profound perspective on photography, advocating that it should go beyond simply documenting what is visible. He reflects on the limitations of traditional photography, arguing that it fails to convey the essence of experiences or emotions—like dreams or the true nature of death. Instead, he believes that art should represent life as a dynamic and transient event, thereby capturing the fleeting essence of existence.
In practice
In a photography exhibit, this quote could be used to introduce a series focused on the emotional depth of human experience.
Flowers construct the most charming geometries: circles like the sun, ovals, cones, curlicues and a variety of triangular eccentricities, which when viewed with the eye of a magnifying glass seem a Lilliputian frieze of psychedelic silhouettes.
I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.
A lot of photographers walk around looking for something 'out there,' but I'm very much interested in what's 'in here.'
There are those photographers who have made a whole career doing commercial work but have never had a museum show, and then there are others who've only had museum shows but couldn't survive for five seconds in the real world of photography. But I've done absolutely everything.
Photography is essentially an act of recognition by street photographers, not an act of invention. Photographers might respond to an old man’s face, or an Arbus freak, or the way light hits a building—and then they move on. Whereas in all the other art forms, take William Blake, everything that came to that paper never existed before. It’s the idea of alchemy, of making something from nothing.
I don't know what it's like for a book writer or a doctor or a teacher as they work to get established in their jobs, but for a singer, you've got to continue to grow or else you're just like last night's cornbread...stale and dry.
Music is spiritual. The music business is not.
My theory on genre is that while there are people out there who believe that genre tells people what to read, actually I believe that genre exists as a marketing tool to tell you what to avoid.
If I'm gonna spend however long it takes to make a movie, give up 14 hours a day for however many weeks or months, then it's very important for me to know that I'm working with people who I respect and enjoy and that we're going for something together.
Writing a new play shouldn't be seen as a mystery belonging to a priesthood, but as a challenge, a technical challenge, just to get into it.
Art is a form of supremely delicate awareness and atonement — meaning atoneness, the state of being at one with the object.
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