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At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act-rather than as a space in which to reproduce, re-design, analyze or express an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.

Harold Rosenberg

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Harold Rosenberg
Age: 72 †
Born: 1906
Born: February 2
Died: 1978
Died: July 11
Art Critic
Art Historian
Journalist
Philosopher
Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Space
Appear
Reproduce
American
Began
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Rather
Object
Arena
Moment
Express
Imagined
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Canvas
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Events
Painter

More quotes by Harold Rosenberg

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How much the work of an artist owes to an art movement to which he belongs can never be determined exactly, if only because the movement derives its character from the individual creations of its members.
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In reality, however, an artist is a product of art
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Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it.
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Kitsch is art that follows established rules in a time when all rules in art are put into question by each artist.
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Avant-gardism is an addiction that can be appeased only by a revolution in permanence.
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The story of Americans is the story of arrested metamorphoses. Those who achieve success come to a halt and accept themselves as they are. Those who fail become resigned and accept themselves as they are.
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Art has arrived at the paradox that tradition itself requires the occurrence of radical attacks on tradition.
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The aim of every authentic artist is not to conform to the history of art, but to release himself from it in order to replace it with his own history.
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For the artist, fulfillment of self consists not in marching in the ranks of the liberators but in being entered in the roll of the Masters. The artist tends to find himself in the position of a deserter from his social group or, at best, one who collaborates, with secret reservations.
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The big moment came when it was decided to paint...Just To Paint. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation, from Value- political, aesthetic, moral.
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American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history, especially of the history of Europe.
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In the United States, revolts tends to be directed against specific situations, rarely against the social structure as a whole.
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Loiter in the neighborhood of a problem. After a while a solution strolls by.
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Only conservatives believe that subversion is still being carried on in the arts and that society is being shaken by it. Advanced art today is no longer a cause -it contains no moral imperative. There is no virtue in clinging to principles and standards, no vice in selling or in selling out.
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A painter with prestige among painters is bound to be discovered sooner or later.
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No dealer, curator, buyer or critic, or any existing combination of these, can be depended on to produce a reputation that is more than a momentary flurry.
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Only through apprehending, by means of present-day creations, how art is created, can the creations of other periods be genuinely appreciated.
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An artist is a person who has invented an artist.
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The artist does not exist except as a personification, a figure of speech that represents the sum total of art itself. It is painting that is the genius of the painter, poetry of the poet, and a person is a creative artist to the extent that he participates in that genius.
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Kitsch is the daily art of our time, as the vase or the hymn was for earlier generations. For the sensibility it has that arbitrariness and importance which works take on when they are no longer noticeable elements of the environment. In America kitsch is Nature. The Rocky Mountains have resembled fake art for a century.
Harold Rosenberg