"What is it about art anyway, that we give it so much importance? Artists are respected by the poor, because what they do is an honest way to get out of the slum using one's sheer self as the medium. The money earned is proof pure and simple of the value of that individual... the artist. The picture a mother's son does in jail hangs on her wall is proof that beauty is possible even in the most wretched. And this is a much different idea than the fancier notion that art is a scam and a ripoff. But you could never explain to someone who uses God's gift to enslave that you have used God's gift to be free."
-Basquiat (1994).