The problem of making artists talk about their work is that when they're making their work the left-brain … - Jonathan Santlofer

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In eroticism as dance: one of the partners is always charged with leading the other.

Jonathan Santlofer

The problem of making artists talk about their work is that when they're making their work the left-brain is shut off. So if you talk to an artist about it, you're talking to someone who wasn't there. It's hopeless. And also it's insulting. It's implying that the work is not an adequate account of itself. To me, the greatest artists are almost entirely non-verbal.

Artist, Insulting, Making, Talk, Talking

Same Author Quotes

I have a total responsibility to the reader. The reader has to trust me and never feel betrayed. There's a double standard between writers and readers. Readers can be unfaithful to writers anytime they like, but writers must never ever be unfaithful to the readers. And it's appropriate, because the writer is getting paid and the reader isn't.

Betrayed, Double Standard, Responsibility, Unfaithful, Writer, Writers

A lot of writers and artists are like chefs who eat their own cooking in the kitchen and then deliver an empty plate with assurances that it's great. Whereas the chef makes cake and sometimes tastes it with a finger, but that's it - the rest is for the people.

Artist, Cake, Finger, People, Writers

There is a sensuousness to language, there's a pace to it. There's a deliciousness to it. I do have pleasure when I'm writing. I mean, I'm aware of pleasure. And sometimes I make myself laugh, with a joke or something; or I feel gleeful. But that's just momentary. And then it's about how to make it work. Your medium has to be alive to you, no matter what you do.

Deliciousness, Laughing, Mean, Momentary, Sensuousness, Writing

I found with poetry that I couldn't keep it up. I was too vulnerable. Maybe I was too aware of the audience. And I had impossibly high standards that I could never approach. So there was always a sense of being a failure, and of being vulnerable.

Approach, Audience, Found, High Standards, Impossibly, Vulnerable

The idea of going to school to be an art critic is a very crazy idea. I educated myself in public, which is a very painful way to learn - by writing and then discovering that I don't know what the f**k I'm talking about. But you remember the lessons vividly.

Art, Crazy, Lessons, Painful, Writing