...but I believe in art.

Some quotes to ponder from Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton:

"Never go to the wall text. Never ask the artist. Learn to read the work."

Artists often don't fully understand what they've made, so other people's readings can help them "see a conscious level" what the have done.

"It is a bit like yoga. You must empty your mind and be receptive. It's about being open to the possibility of what you could know."

"You have to find something that is true to yourself as a person - some non-negotiable core that will get you through..."

I believe in education for its own sake, because it is deeply humanizing. It is about being a fulfilled human being.

"I'm an atheist, but I believe in art. I go to galleries like my mother went to church. It helps me understand the way I live."

There is a kind of poetry in their impenetrable phrases. Why shouldn't art criticism have that?

"I'm looking for what the artist is trying to say and what he or she is accidentally saying, what the work reveals about society and the timeless conditions of being alive."

An artist is someone who understands the border between this world and that one.

"I love stepping out of the everyday into the space of art. I love to be immersed in an idea or an aesthetic or something phenomenological. Frankly, I get enough of everyday life."

[Anish Kapoor on his Biennale experience] "I remember... It might have been the first day of the previews that year. There were thousands of people. as there always are." He paused. "At lunchtime I went into one of the nicer restaurants near the Giardini and... everybody in the restaurant got up and started clapping." Kapoor looked at me with genuine amazement. "It was completely spontaneous," he said, "I was just a young guy. It was bizarre. It was wonderful."