On Pop Art

"The whole movement toward a so-called pop art, in the visual arts as well as in music, I see as a disaster, really shameful for mankind, once oriented toward the highest, whose only goal in art was to glorify the divine and the cosmic spirit, and for whom everything in the human world was related to these invisible worlds. That this is now replaced, generally speaking, by garbage art, which celebrates material impermanence and decay, is a disgrace. It needs a tremendous mysticism to adore God through garbage; it is possible, but when you reach a point where images of a lipstick or hotdog have the same significance as the crucifix or Madonna in earlier cultures, it shows where a country is heading spiritually."

Who do you think said that? I will give you a hint: he is German.

No, not the Holy Father.

This is from an interview with Karlheinz Stockhausen by Robin Maconie in August of 1981. You can find it, along with many other gems in Stockhausen on Music, which rates among the top five of works most influential works most influential to me on art and music theory.