Eva Hesse

“Mushy novels, pretty pictures, pretty sculpture, decorations on the wall, nice parallel lines - make me sick.”

“I have the most openness about my art... It's total freedom and willingness to work. I'm willing really to walk on the edge, and if I haven't achieved it, that's where I want to go. But in my life - maybe because my life has been so traumatic, so absurd - there hasn't been one normal, happy thing.”

“I should like to achieve free, spontaneous painting delineating a powerful, strong structured image. One must be possible with the other. A difficult problem in itself, but one which I shall achieve.”

“Don't ask what it means or what it refers to. Don't ask what the work is. Rather, see what the work does.”

“If I'm O.K., I will abandon restrictions and curbs imposed on myself. Not physical ones, but those restrictive tabs on my inner being, on solely myself. I will strip me of superficial dishonesties. I will paint against every rule I or others have invisibly placed.”

“Color is whatever comes out of the material and keeps it what it is.”

“There's not been one normal thing in my life.”

“Everything for me has always been opposites; nothing has ever been in the middle... My life never had anything normal or in the center.”

“Art and life are inseparable.”

“Art is the easiest thing in my life, and that's ironic. It doesn't mean I've worked little on it, but it's the only thing I never had to... I have no fear. I could take risks.”

“Artists don't think archivally.”

“Maybe if I really believe in me, trust me without any calculated plan, who knows what will happen?”

“I am not sure what my stand on lasting really is.”

“I am ultimately convinced that people must first be told that so and so is great ,and then, after a period of given time, they come to believe it for themselves.”

“Life doesn't last; art doesn't last. It doesn't matter.”