I've painted, but I've also done graphics since as long as I can remember. So even people with little to spend could afford it. But even the graphic works are only bought by those who buy the big, expensive paintings. I think that's troublesome.

I became an artist because of the possibility it gave me to develop in another way, because I didn't want to follow the same lines the others around me did. I was educated in the former German Democratic Republic, which meant that an individual figure had to be... like a soldier in the army.

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.

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.

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

A painter doesn't need any talent. In fact, it's better not to have it.

The reality is the picture, it is most certainly not in the picture.