George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
[Writer, b. 1903, Motihari, Bengal, India, d. 1950, London.]

 It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Oglivy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence... Comrade Oglivy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar. 

Craig Owens
[Writer and critic, b. 1950, d. 1990.]

 Representation, then, is not—nor can it be—neutral; it is an act—indeed the founding act—of power in our culture. 

Orlan (Mireille Suzanne Francette Porte)
[Artist, b. 1947, St. Etienne, France, lives in Ivry-sur-Seine, France.]

 I make myself into a new image in order to produce new images. 

Georgia O'Keeffe
[Artist, b. 1887, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, d. 1986, Santa Fe, New Mexico.]

 We’d make love. Afterwards he would take photographs of me. (On modeling for Alfred Stieglitz) 

Paul Outerbridge
[Photographer, b. 1896, New York, d. 1958, Laguna Beach, California.]

 The business of the state trying to legislate modesty is relatively both an infantile and ridiculous procedure. Of course, it is true that the more things are secreted the more intriguing they become, because it is always the forbidden that has the strongest appeal. Nudity is a state of fact—lewdity a state of mind. 

Roman Opalka
[Artist, b. 1931, Hocquincourt, France, d. 2011, Rome.]

 Art has a lot in common with madness. After all, why should one get involved with art? You can live normally like everyone else—which is to say, as stupidly as everyone else. 

Dennis Oppenheim
[Artist, b. 1938, Electric City, Washington, d. 2011, New York.]

 You can’t understand how strange it was to be a sculptor who exhibited photographs. (On exhibitions of his “earthworks” and land art pieces.) 

Ruth Orkin
[Photographer, b. 1921, Boston, Massachusetts, d. 1985, New York.]

 To be a photojournalist takes experience, skill, endurance, energy, salesmanship, organization, wheedling, climbing, gatecrashing, etc. – plus an eye and patience.