Art & Creativity Quote by Twyla Tharp

Tharp opens with a confession that doubles as a dare: "I don't mean this, but I'm going to say it anyway". It's the verbal equivalent of stepping onto a stage you know might boo you. The line signals self-awareness about cultural gatekeeping: she knows the art world polices taste, and she’s about to violate the dress code. That feint of reluctance also performs a choreographer's instinct for timing. By announcing hesitation, she builds tension, then releases it with the claim that pop art and "serious" art aren’t that far apart.

The subtext is less about pop art than about seriousness as a social costume. "Serious art" is often just art that has been granted institutional protection: museums, grants, critical language that turns pleasure into proof. Tharp, coming from dance - an art form frequently treated as ephemeral, decorative, or entertainment-adjacent - has lived inside that hierarchy. Her point lands because she’s not theorizing from a distance; she’s negotiating survival in a culture that treats popularity as a contaminant.

Context matters: Tharp built her reputation by collapsing categories - ballet and street movement, concert stages and Broadway, virtuosity and accessibility. When she says the distance between pop and serious is small, she’s defending craft and ambition wherever they appear. Pop can be rigorous; seriousness can be a brand. The quote works because it exposes how taste operates: not as a neutral measure of quality, but as a border checkpoint.