Antony Gormley Quotes

Art is not about understanding, it’s about experience.

Art is the means by which we communicate what it feels like to be alive.

The elemental world we all live in is the darkness of the body.

I want to start where language ends.

We are not moving towards some kind of goal. We are at the goal, and it is changing with us. If art has any purpose, it is to open our eyes to that fact.

Art has to change things, and if it was immediately acceptable it would not be doing the job.

Our appearance belongs to others, we live in the darkness of the body-part of all darkness but felt.

I believe in the city as a natural human environment, but we must humanize it. It's art that will re-define public space in the 21st Century. We can make our cities diverse, inspirational places by putting art, dance and performance in all its forms into the matrix of street life.

Art is not about objects of high monetary exchange. It's about reasserting our firsthand experience in present time.

It is as much the conversations between objects as between us and objects that make museums so valuable.

We're not on a journey to a goal, the goal is with us changing with us.

Making beautiful things for everyday use is a wonderful thing to do.. making life flow more easily.. but art confronts life, allowing it to stop and perhaps change direction.. they are completely different.

Maybe this is a utopian view of art but I do believe that art can function as a vehicle, that it isn't just a cultural pursuit, something that happens in art galleries. Unless art is linked to experience and the fear and joy of that, it becomes mere icing on the cake.

Art is the means by which we communicate what it feels like to be alive - in the past, that was mixed up with other illustrative duties, but that was still its central function that has been liberated in the art called modern.

I have to say that I reject somewhat the distinction between something called art and something called public art. I think all art demands and desires to be seen.

I was educated by monks - I thank them dearly for the education they gave me, but I am no longer a Catholic.

Well, I think critics are very useful. But I think that they, in a way, betray their position when they stop people looking for themselves. Judgment is very easy, but I think, on the whole, professional critics maybe see too much, and compare too much, and forget the joy of actually looking and contemplating for its own sake.

It is a depressing business talking to journalist.

I always like to look for adventure when I go away. I have gone on several horse adventures with my wife - from Guangxi we went up to the High Tibetan region. We also went along the Hurunui River on horseback in the South Island of New Zealand.

I think critics are very useful. But I think that they, in a way, betray their position when they stop people looking for themselves.