becoming art . . .

“Is painting, in each of its acts of creation, engaged in a becoming as intense as that of music?”

“In no way do we believe in a fine-arts system; we believe in very diverse problems whose solutions are found in heterogeneous arts. To us, Art is a false concept, a solely nominal concept; this does not, however, preclude the possibility of a simultaneous usage of the various arts within a determinable multiplicity.”

“Can it be that literature sometimes catches up with painting, and even music? And that painting catches up with music?”

“No art is imitative, no art can be imitative or figurative. . . . Thus imitation self-destructs, since the imitator unknowingly enters into a becoming that conjugates with the unknowing becoming of that which he or she imitates. One imitates only if one fails, when one fails. . . . Becoming is always double, that which one becomes becomes no less than the one that becomes.”

“Becoming is never imitating. . . . One does not imitate; one constitutes a block of becoming. Imitation enters in only as an adjustment of the block, like a finishing touch, a wink, a signature. But everything of importance happens elsewhere . . .”

(Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian Massumi.)