"Sampling, a key element in hip hop, is subversive. It disrupts the traditional roles of the author and the reader. Sampling is referential at is core, as producers read previously authored musical texts and author new music."
Authorship is inherently connected to power and influence. Just as the act of naming something or naming someone, for that matter, asserts a sort of control over it, we attach our names to art to claim it.
"The presence of Dan Flavin’s light sculptures are difficult to describe; words—and even photographs— do a poor job of capturing the all-consuming effect of his work."
"By placing black male bodies into the classic framework of portraiture, Kehinde Wiley asserts that there is something inherently noteworthy about blackness."
"People have been writing about the same few emotions and scenarios since the beginnings of time, so how can something that has become so cliché be innovated in a way that it strikes us as completely original?"
"The sounds of the city echoed outside, but here inside the West Wing, I found myself confronted by a silent figure: a voiceless thrush in a golden frame." On a relief sculpture by Jean-Antoine Houdon.
"I just discovered Wet. In the few hours since being introduced to the band over a friend’s speakers, I have listened to their song “You’re The Best” an estimated thirty or forty times, and counting."