Nicholas Serota Quotes

An honest curator will admit that judgement is fallible, especially for art made yesterday.

Nicholas Serota

• Art
• Judgement
• Curator

After thirty years of looking at new work in galleries and even newer work in studios, I am very familiar with the experience of being completely at a loss when confronting a new idea or image.

Nicholas Serota

• Loss
• Image
• New Idea

For the late twentieth-century museum director there is no more certain prospect for audience acclaim and sponsor success than those Impressionist and Post-impressionist artists who were so reviled a century earlier

Nicholas Serota

• Success
• Director
• Museum

We care too much about what happens to be there as a result of history. I worry even more that we care too much for the past and not enough for the present and the near present.

Nicholas Serota

• History
• Present
• Care

Much modern art is, at first sight, unnerving... in the contemporary world, we have come to expect instant response and immediate understanding.

Nicholas Serota

• Understanding
• Response
• Modern Art

I have never really understood the objection to art which is specifically made for a gallery or museum, and so cannot be collected by an individual or taken home. It is rather like saying that all music should be confined to the chamber work or novels to the short story.

Nicholas Serota

• Art
• Understood
• Objection

The argument that new vision becomes the reference point for the future, is a line that I have been driven to use on many occasions.

Nicholas Serota

• Future
• Vision
• Reference

Art should be transgressive. Life is not all sweet.

Nicholas Serota

• Life
• Art
• Sweet

UBS have been important supporters of Tate Modern since 2000 and we are delighted to announce this exciting and unique partnership.

Nicholas Serota

• Unique
• Partnership
• Supporters

The shock, even disgust, provoked by the work is part of its appeal.

Nicholas Serota

• Part
• Shock
• Appeal