Ulay (Frank Uwe Laysiepen)
[Performance artist, b. 1943, Solingen, Germany, lives in Amsterdam.]
I didn’t care about the light conditions or formal aspects. I was never busy with the truth; I was always busy with reality. It is a big difference.
Thomas Ruff
[Photographer, b. 1958, Zell, Germany, lives in Dusseldorf, Germany.]
If things are the way they are, why should I try to make them look different?
Frederick Sommer
[Photographer, b. 1905, Angri, Italy, d. 1999, Prescott, Arizona.]
Art is the splendor of reality before everything has become meaning.
Michelangelo Antonioni
[Filmmaker, b. 1912, Ferrara, Italy, d. 2007, Rome.]
We know that under the revealed image there is another one which is more faithful to reality, and under this one is yet another, and again another under this last one, down to the true image of that absolute, mysterious reality that nobody will ever see. Or perhaps, not until the decomposition of every image, of every reality.
Duane Michals
[Photographer, b. 1932, McKeesport, Pennsylvania, lives in New York.]
People believe in the reality of photographs, but not in the reality of paintings. That gives photographers an enormous advantage. Unfortunately, photographers also believe in the reality of photographs.
Michael Spano
[Photographer, b. 1949, Bronx, New York, lives in Brooklyn, New York.]
All photographs are manipulated—reality doesn’t look like a photograph anyway.
Anders Petersen
[Photographer, b. 1944, Solna, Sweden, lives in Stockholm.]
I can’t describe reality; at the most, I can try to capture things that seem to be valid, the way I see them.
Jerry Uelsmann
[Photographer, b. 1934, Detroit, Michigan, lives in Gainesville, Florida.]
I am drawn to art that challenges one’s sense of reality.
