No one who looks at my paintings can see whether a painting is upside down or not anymore. I've made or developed so many image models that some people have given up trying to keep track of me. But others have only one or two ways of doing things and are successful with that.

Unlike the expressionists, I have never been interested in renewing the world through the vehicle of art.

I have always had the feeling that other people are too stupid to discover interesting things. That's why I do it myself. I think of collecting as a way to show that I understand what's important better than others do.

I love my old paintings as postulates as fresh starting points but I have to destroy them. I have to make a new manifesto.

I paint German artists whom I admire. I paint their pictures, their work as painters, and their portraits too. But oddly enough, each of these portraits ends up as a picture of a woman with blonde hair. I myself have never been able to work out why this happens.

Alfred Schnittke was an important contemporary composer, and he lived in Germany, but no one here has heard of him. Everyone has heard of Mozart, and many believe that he can still be found in that little house in Salzburg, which is why people stand there in line. I think that our music and our art belong to our era. If the public doesn't show up, it must be stupid.

I always feel attacked when I'm asked about my painting.