That's how I am and how I've always looked at the world. I understood what the pavilions were before I came to Venice, and I knew that wasn't going to be enough for me. I wanted to extend this conversation into something I call urgency. There is urgency with people in crisis. Some communities - often the black community - just live in this urgency.

For me, the '80s were like the drawing by Botticelli of the nine rings of hell.

I always made stuff but never thought, I'm going to be an artist.

I never have a problem with being black. I have a problem with the easy association of what that means to some people.

The most important imperative to be questioned is the one that tells you to go the the art supply store to be a painter.

When I was 18 years old, there was no internet and no gay teen nights. Instead, you went to the clubs and talked to grown men and did grown-up things.

My art practice is very detail-, labor- intensive and I think that that's a way of slowing myself down so that I can hear myself think. That quieter voice has sometimes the more interesting idea, if I can get to it.