Contemporary art will never achieve the audience of football, pop music, or television, so I think we should stop comparing its possible area of influence to that of big mass-media events.
I am fascinated by the idea of employing beautiful images as a device to convey something extremely disturbing in an apparently harmless way.
There are times when being scandalous or provocative can help bring focus to issues of major concern.
I think that laughter and death are closely related: comedy is the quintessential human reaction to the fear of death. It's probably linked with the fact that we are the only animals who know we must die.
I don't like the idea of having a public image. In the end, you have an image of someone, which becomes true whether it is or not.
If you are a plumber, there is an objective way to establish whether you put together a great piping system or not. Art is a bit more slippery than that.
