All art is self-portraiture.

I think that an obsession with art history gave rise to the work.

So sometimes you have to play your hand and sort of push in a direction. And I think that masculinity is the driving point for a lot of the way that people, like, posture in the work.

Mel [Bochner] sets a very high standard. He expects only the best and most thoughtful and rigorous examinations, not only of the history of art but your own practice.

Whereas I remember being in Dakar, in Senegal, where I have my third studio, and street casting, and I remember looking at the faces of the young men that we were speaking to through translators and so on, showing them the books. Complete - completely different response.

How does the artist function as poet-slash-witness-slash-trickster?

I think what we should concentrate on is what it feels like to be a working artist in the day to day. One doesn't imagine what comes down the line.