Contemporary art often plays to the part of us that is very uncomfortable with not being sure, that cannot maintain a state of 'don't know'. The over-prioritising of meaning gets in the way of just experiencing the art in a more sensual way. Judging quality purely from an intuitive emotional response needs more confidence and experience than just working it out like a crossword clue.

Desmond Morris says that men make better artists because they are greater risk-takers; on the other hand, he thinks that women are better organisers and diplomats and more suited to become politicians.

The basic premise of taste, as Stephen Bayley, the cultural critic, said, is that taste is that which does not alienate your peers. Most people want to fit in with their tribe in some way or another, so they give off signals, whether it's with their clothes, their behavior, their car, their whatever, and gain status. Every tribe has a hierarchy, and that's what taste is: it's an unconscious display of who you are, and where you want to be.

Taste is a phenomenon. Most of taste is unconscious - it comes from your upbringing, from your family, from your society, your gender, your race; it's a melange of all those things.

I always say to people if you want to see what Britain looks like, watch Gogglebox. It's brilliant and funny and warm and clever.

Beauty and seriousness are perhaps the most shocking tactics left to artists these days.

Art is not some fun add-on to life.