Joey Skaggs Quotes (43 Quotes)

Sensationalism gets them every time.

You go to school. You stay out of trouble. You get a job. You get married. You have a family. You pay taxes. You pray to the right god. You get old (if you're lucky). And you die.

Any deviation is looked upon as a perversion, is feared, and is usually a target of hatred and prejudice.

When something seemingly adverse happens, I use it as an opportunity. Controversies help to distract reporters from questioning the original premise.

There were many social issues that offended me and provoked a burning passion in me to speak out. Civil rights, the war in Vietnam, culture intolerance, the environment, abuses of power... I came of age in the sixties.

They don't want the public to question their credibility as an investigative news source.

I realized early on that the business of art was the antithesis to the creative process and I decided to circumvent the traditional art market.

The media is not just the message. The media is a massage. We're constantly being stroked, manipulated, adjusted, realigned, and maneuvered.

Technology and consciousness are evolutionary and co-dependant. Change is inevitable. Where it leads will always be a great curiosity.

But my favorite work is always my next piece.

I look at past work as completed, although I'm pleased that each of the pieces seems to have a life of its own and that the issues are still relevant.

If I'm successful in fooling a wire service, I don't really have to do anything else to promote the story.

It is the fool who thinks he cannot be fooled.

Any journalist worth his or her salt wouldn't trust me.

When I create a false reality, I always try to create a plausible structure to help convince people.

Most reporters who come to me get their stories directly from press releases. Very few do what one would consider to be their professional duty.

So the fact that the media all jump on a story in a similar fashion is not surprising. The opposite, when a voice cuts through to say something different or original, is surprising.

As a news story, I'm just a subject, not a person. My early performances were provocative, so I was stereotypically portrayed as a counter-cultural figure by the mainstream media.

The media's job is to question a premise.

If government and big business could access the media to get their messages out, I figured I could too.

Celebrations of anniversaries of disasters, such as nuclear power plant meltdowns or political assassinations, provide opportunities, as do holidays.

My challenge as a satirical artist is how to present ideas to people to enable them to question and reexamine their beliefs. My hope is, that my work provokes people to look at things in a new way.

In 1966, I built a crucifix and dragged it down the street on four consecutive Easters to protest man's inhumanity to man and to comment on the hypocrisy of the church.

How the media interpreted (they got it wrong), editorialized (they condescended) and criticized (they attacked) these performances inspired me to actually use the media more directly, to make my point.

Satire and believability are irresistible to the news media.

We function in a pack mentality. This is our tribe. And this is how we are exploited - sold a bill of goods and a household of products.

What do we believe? Why do we believe it?

Other times you can use a calendar to predict the kinds of stories the media is looking for.

But I learned first-hand how the news media operates by watching how they interpreted, changed, and misrepresented my intentions.

Most important to any fake story is a plausible, realistic edge with a satirical twist that is topical.

It would make life much easier if I could have total faith and not question everything all the time, but I can't do it and I won't do it.

My art became very public.

But I'm as susceptible as anyone else. At the same time, I'm highly skeptical.

In 1969 I hung a Fifty Foot Brassiere on the US Treasury Building to poke fun at leering Wall Street workers and placed grotesque Statues of Liberty in Astor Place in the East Village as a war protest.

I predict a revolution in media delivery.

We're pulling something together that you definitely don't want to miss. Be there.

King of the world wouldn't be enough. I'd have to be god of the universe (the Wizard of Oz would suffice).

I created hoaxes. I confronted and challenged the majority opinion. I attacked, humiliated, and criticized the voice of the corporate mainstream media.

I learned more complex ways to manipulate the manipulators, to bring attention to issues about which I felt passionate.

The media became not just a vehicle to get attention about an event, but a medium in itself, to be shaped and molded and instilled with my social-political agenda.

They, the governmentchurchcorporation, give out a daily news pill. Everything you want or need to know, you ingest and digest. As a result, you buy the products, share the beliefs, and vote the right way.

After years of people sitting on their butts in front one screen or another, looking at or reading about other people's lives and events, a multi-national corporation connected to a global political party manipulates everyone into believing that information derived this way is unhealthy.

I've always been a fine artist.