"I don't believe in art. I believe in artists."
— Marcel Duchamp
French Artist
1887 - 1968
French Artist
1887 - 1968
What is more important the work of art or the artist? Let me ask that again? Which is more important the creative work that you produce or yourself? For me, this is a difficult question. If I had to choose between the creative work that I have produced over the years or the person I have become, which would I choose. My first reaction would be that I would choose the work. I want it to outlast me. It is my ticket to immortality. It is what reaches far beyond where I can reach. It will touch people I will never meet. It will touch people who will not yet be born when I die. Yet, does the work really exist outside myself? If I had never lived, my work would never have been created.
Do you believe in art? Or do you believe in the artist who produced the work? Can one exist without the other? We know the creative work could never have existed without the artist, but can the artist exist without the creative work? I don't think so. If the art does not exist, then I, who believes he is an artist, does not exist. I and my art am one.
