Robert Storr: Advice to Art Students

If you go into it knowing that you will probably not be rewarded lavishly, but you can in fact continue to work, you’re on a much better footing than if you go into it trying to make a huge impact when you’re 23 or 24, and then maintain that for the next 60 years. I’m interested in people who make good art, whenever they make it, and I think a lot of the best artists today are late bloomers.
There isn’t less of a focus yet [on the cult of youth], but it’s going to dawn on people that it’s not working. It’s always nice to be a coming attraction, but it’s murder to be a has-been. If [success] hasn’t happened for you yet, you can at least console yourself with the idea that it might.

It’s a fashionable world and even good artists go out of fashion. If you’ve never really thought about what you’re going to do when you go out of fashion because you’ve never been out of fashion, it’s much harder to take than if you’ve gradually come into your own, gotten through difficult times and know that you can survive.

— From "Robert Storr: Most theory has little bearing on art: The critic and curator speaks to The Art Newspaper," By Helen Stoilas, Frieze daily edition, 16 Oct 09