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John Yau Quotes

Only half the story is true. The rest is necessary.

Only half the story is true. The rest is necessary.

John Yau
Writing, Stories, Half
John Yau (1989). “Radiant Silhouette: New & Selected Work, 1974-1988”, p.81, David R. Godine Publisher

We agree that language functions in a certain way so that we can understand each other; but within that are built all sorts of sentimental codes, codes of authenticity, codes of certain kinds of emotion.

John Yau
Way, Sentimental, Emotion

You think you got something big to say? Something momentous? Or is it what you had to memorize in order to escape the men with lightning in their eyes?

John Yau
Eye, Men, Thinking
John Yau (2002). “Borrowed Love Poems”, p.31, Penguin

What does it mean when you hook up your work to that of a late modernist giant working in a reductive vein - Ad Reinhardt, Agnes Martin, Robert Ryman, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella, or Donald Judd, for example - like a caboose? I am not talking about engaging directly with another artist's work or ideas, but of perpetuating a look or, in the case of Wade Guyton, the various monochromatic, striped and geometric surfaces we associate with Minimalism.

John Yau
Mean, Artist, Talking

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