ART

  
There’s a program here [at the Metropolitan Museum of Art] where we bring small groups of public-school kids to the museum on weekends. We take them through certain exhibitions, give them a lecture, and so forth. A young black student in one of these groups came forward and asked me what the museum was doing to combat elitism. I said to him, "But you’re an elitist yourself! This is Saturday, and you’re not hanging out on some street corner, are you? You’ve come here because you want to learn something, or to better yourself in some way, and I’d say that makes you an elitist." The kids loved it. They applauded. But that is something I believe. My argument is that elitism is not only compatible with democracy, it is the very essence of democracy, in that it seeks to bring as many people as possible to a higher level of understanding and appreciation. When I’m asked, "Well, aren’t you an elitist institution?" my only answer is "That is exactly what we are." this is what art is, and that is what every visitor to the met is -- by crossing the threshold they are joining the elite.

-- Philippe de Montebello, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed, and the truly new is criticized with aversion.

-- Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"


The artist’s responsibility is to reflect the love of the universe back to the audience.

-- Sandra Bernhard