Audio Arts archive published on Tate website

The entire archive of Audio Arts, the original audio cassette interview magazine has been made digitally available to the public on the Tate website.

Established and edited by artist William (Bill) Furlong, Audio Arts ran from 1972–2004, and comprises over 245 hours of recordings of 1,640 interviews with artists, critics and art world figures.

Adrian Glew, Archivist at Tate said: ‘It represents one of the most important sound archives of artists and their thoughts across four decades, and will be an invaluable resource to researchers for years to come.’

There’s no shortage of extraordinary soundbites in a collection such as this: here are just a few of the memorable quotes we’ve found today.

Tracey Emin – 1997

‘A good painting is one that I would actually hang up in my own flat. It has to be aesthetically pleasing, have a strong meaning and be something I could live with day to day.’

Marcel Duchamp (talking in 1959) – 1975

‘An atheist is just as much of a religious man as the believer is, and the anti-artist is just as much of an artist as the other artist.’

Jeff Koons – 1989

‘There is no salvation or ultimate state of being. It’s about going for it; going for achievements.’

Nancy Spero – 1987

‘What I’m doing is trying to make a symbol, in the sense of women through the ages, and not represent or be didactic about what woman should be.’

Material from the Audio Arts Archive, Tate Archive © William Furlong

Material from the Audio Arts Archive, Tate Archive © William Furlong

Audio Arts is now available to the public at www.tate.org.uk/audio-arts.