France has lived a long time - eight or nine centuries - and yet art in France, too, was derivative up until the 19th Century.
I came up, I suppose, a fairly traditional way. I went to art college. I always wanted to be a stills photographer, really, when I was younger, and I briefly worked as a stills photographer.
I'm the classic example of alienation: I grew up in a middle-class household without art or books. I was going to be a chemical engineer until I went to the theatre for the first time at 16 and was blown away by it.
I think we're much smarter than we were. Everybody knows that abstract art can be art, and most people know that they may not like it, even if they understand there's another purpose to it.
But what does interest me is the notion that if you do a lot of work it means there's a potential for other people to understand that a lot of things are possible with a sustained effort and that the broadening of experiences is possible and I think ...
I am always rethinking how art is perceived and received, questioning our relationship to art. That's always been a constant.
The system is the work of art; the visual work of art is the proof of the System. The visual aspect can't be understood without understanding the system. It isn't what it looks like but what it is that is of basic importance.
Just as the development of earth art and installation art stemmed from the idea of taking art out of the galleries, the basis of my involvement with public art is a continuation of wall drawings.
I began drawing as a very young child and had a grandfather who experimented with photography, so those things constituted my first exposure to art.
When I got into art school, I thought it was paradise. I wanted to be an artist so much that I was really driven and nothing could stop me.
I think the art world... is a very small pond, and it's a very inbred pond. They rely on information from an elect elite sect of galleries, primarily in New York.
In Japan, I am famous in certain special circles - mainly as someone who is trying to break down and enlighten the conventions of Japanese art.
I know as a director I hit it out of the park sometimes, and sometimes we haven't, and that's kind of the way art goes. You just have to be willing to take the 'failures' and learn from them, make the best of them.
When I was at college, the idea of fashion was more immediate to me, whereas art photography, the depth of it, was a different thing. Storytelling - fanciful storytelling - can only be told through fashion photography. It's the perfect way to play wi...
Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.
I would love to say that you make me weak in the knees but to be quite upfront and completely truthful you make my body forget it has knees at all.
It was actually the movie 'Rushmore' that made me first realize that I could try writing, but 'Cheers' is the best show ever. The writers on that show created a relationship that writers today still fail to rip off successfully: the Sam and Diane.
I discovered Los Angeles in the late '90s. The city was not at its best at the time, but I fell for it right away. There is something almost haunted about it, a vibrant mythology I find rather inspiring.
The best value for money in cooking equipment, in my mind, is first a digital scale and digital thermometer. They're both about $20. They help you cook so much more accurately that they're both enormously valuable.
I know when I wear a Led Zeppelin shirt, I am happy to put that Led Zeppelin shirt on. It's not, 'Well, they kind of suck.'
There's a sound with Motley Crue, and it comes with Vince's voice, which is such an important part of the show, and Mick's guitar. And the way Tommy and me play together is an important part of it.
