Hans Arp Quotes

Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother's womb.

Often the hands grasp more quickly than the head.

Dada aimed to destroy the reasonable deceptions of man and recover the natural and unreasonable order.

The essence of a sculpture must enter on tip-toe, as light as animal footprints on snow.

I use very little red. I use blue, yellow, a little green, but especially... black, white and grey. There is a certain need in me for communication with human beings. Black and white is writing.

I allow myself to be guided by the work which is in the process of being born. I have confidence in it. I do not think about it.

All things, and man as well, should be like nature, without measure.

To be full of joy when looking at an oeuvre is not a little thing.

Any work that is not rooted in myth and poetry or that does not partake of the depth and essence of the universe is merely a ghost.

The vertical and the horizontal are the extreme signs available to man for touching the beyond and his inwardness.

DaDa is beautiful like the night, who cradles the young day in her arms.

The important thing about Dada, it seems to me, is that Dadaists despised what is commonly regarded as art, but put the whole universe on the lofty throne of art.

Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his [mankind's] ego. His anxiety subsides. His inhuman void spreads monstrously like a gray vegetation.

I like nature but not its substitutes... Mondrian opposed art to nature saying that art is artificial and nature is natural. I do not share this opinion... Art's origins are natural.

In recent times, Surrealist painters have used descriptive illusionistic academic methods.

Ever since my childhood, I was haunted by the search for perfection. An imperfectly cut paper literally made me ill. I would guillotine it.

Each one of these bodies (art-works Arp made) certainly signifies something, but it is only once there is nothing left for me to change that I begin to look for its meaning, that I give it a name.

I did exhibitions with the Surrealists (in Paris, in 1929) because their attitude revolted against 'art' and their attitude toward life itself was wise, as was Dada's.

Artists should work together like the artists of the Middle Ages.

In the good times of Dada, we detested polished works, the distracted air of spiritual struggle, the titans, and we rejected them with all out being.

As the thought comes to me to exorcise and transform this black with a white drawing, it has already become a surface.. .Now I have lost all fear, and begin to draw on the black surface.