Rodchenko Quotes

I've just found some quotes from the Rodchenko exhibition that I jotted down when I was there. Here they are.

Rodchenko's maxim was "Our duty is to experiment". Isn't that cool? Imagine if in your job description it said, "Your duty is to experiment". Rodchenko pushed boundaries precisely because he kept on experimenting.

Here's another one, "Enough depicting, time to build". God, I love this. "Enough depicting, time to build". I feel like getting a tshirt done with this on for meetings. After 20 minutes I could stand up and grandly declare, "Enough depicting, time to build".

How many good ideas die of over "depicting". Too much talking no enough doing. You know that bit in the middle of a conversation when people say, "That's it. Do that." But then they keep on talking for days. Let's just stop at the "That's it. Do that" bit.

As my old boss used to say, "The work doesn't get any better the longer it sits around, old son".

Comments

[Anne]

Brilliant. I'll take a t-shirt if you ever make them. Or perhaps a poster to hang as a permanent reminder.

[Mike Reed]

Slightly tangential, but I read a wonderful story on a TED blog (http://tinyurl.com/2kudcq) about Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. Forgive me for quoting, it's quicker: Zander was helping a musician who was trying for a big job with a a Barcelona orchestra:

'Zander thought the guy was holding back - he kept working with him until the guy was giving it all he had and the guy went away to Spain for the interview. He came back and said he hadn't gotten the job because he played the first way, holding back. But then he said, "oh, fuck it" and went to Madrid, auditioned for 1st chair in their orchestra and got it. So Zander says that you have to get BTFI - Beyond the "fuck it" point.'

'Enough depicting' made me think of this story.

[David Webb]

Yeah "Enough depicting, time to build" is a good one! ;) If you like reading quotes you can hang out on my site, i have big quote database! It's http://quoteshall.com