art quote – Le Guin 11.5.2020

Art isn’t explanation. Art is what an artist does, not what an artist explains. (Or so it seems to me, which is why I have a problem with the kind of modern museum art that involves reading what the artist says about a work in order to find out why one should look at it or “how to experience” it.)

I see a potter’s job as making a good pot, not as talking about how and why she made it and what she thinks it’s for and what other pots influenced it and what the pot means or how you should experience the pot. She can do that if she wants to, of course, but should she be expected to? Why? I don’t expect her to, I don’t even want her to. All I expect of a good potter is to go and make another good pot.

from “No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters” by Ursula Le Guin

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