I am an immigrant in a sense. What happened was that my father was stationed in New York when my mother became pregnant, and she said, "I've got to go to Sweden so this child can be born there, because you don't have any idea where you're going to be transferred next."

I am for the art of underwear and the art of taxicabs. I am for the art of ice cream cones dropped on concrete.

They asked me to do a show, and I was planning on showing my figure paintings. But my friends told me I shouldn't - the paintings were good but a little old-fashioned. They said, "Why don't you show the other stuff?" I had also been making rather strange objects, more in the Freudian tradition.

The main reason for the colossal objects is the obvious one, to expand and intensify the presence of the vessel - the object.

I don't do abstract art because I don't find it as interesting as I do subjects and depictions.

There's always been a potential erotic possibility with objects.

In 1958 I finally found a large enough apartment on the Lower East Side, where I reverted to figure painting. I drew and painted quite a lot of figures and nudes. People would come and pose for me.