February 1, 2019April 4, 2019 - Art, Birthday, Nonfiction, Quotes

“I express hopelessness.”

Happy birthday, Takashi Murakami! 57, today!

“I really love American culture. That’s why I come here—I’m always looking for ways to connect myself with American people and that American feeling.”

“I think there should be a strong dark emotion within an artist in order to continuously create powerful works.”

“First of all, distinctively situate [your] position in art history. Second, articulate what the beauty of [your] art is. Next, sexuality. Then, death. Present what [you] finds in death. If an artist aptly rotates this cycle, he/she can survive.”

“I think we are thinking about making history—history related to birth and death. That is history.”

“What I don’t like is that America’s reality is built upon the theory that it must always be at war.”

“So in the near future, people will probably get fed up with going to museums and looking at art. The moment will come, and I can see that coming in the near future. When people move on to a new type of entertainment or other creative activities, then the art world will essentially be filled with, basically, dead bodies. In anticipation of that right now, the art world is filled with people who are not yet dead, but almost dead.”

John Madera is the author of Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024) and Nomad Science (Spuyten Duyvil Press, forthcoming in 2026). His fiction is also published in Conjunctions, Salt Hill, Hobart, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His poetry is also published in elimae, Sixth Finch, Contrapuntos, and elsewhere. His criticism is published in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, two-time New York State Council on the Arts awardee John Madera lives in New York City, where he runs Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.

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