“You should be aggressive with your beauty, and with your art. There are lots of things in the world that are neither artistic or beautiful, and I think that they are endangering and harming our lives on this planet. So, for artists, I think it is your duty, with your art, with your writing, with your music, with your filmmaking, with whatever – now is the moment. Go on the attack. Don’t hold anything back. Be as wonderful and beautiful and artistic as you possibly can, because nothing else is good enough.
Always do your very, very, very best. Try to use your art to do something about the world that you’re in, because that is what art is for. Art of any sort is to modify the human condition. It’s a way of critiquing ourselves. It’s a way of reminding ourselves what the possibilities are. Reminding ourselves what we should be reaching for.
I was reading a quote the other day from somebody…I forget who, but they were saying that it is a big misconception to think that humans invented art. Whereas the truth of it is, art invented humans. We weren’t human before we had art. Art is at the beginning of everything. And I would like to think that it’s still our best way out of these current circumstances. So, artists out there: pull yourselves together, smarten yourselves up, and get to doing the job that you’re meant to be doing.
We’re not simply here to entertain the crowd as they’re being led into the slaughterhouse. That is not what art is for. Art is to wake people up, not to sedate them. So, let that be every artist’s mission.”
— Alan Moore