When I was a very young student I loved and admired the work of Sam Beckett, who is famously pessimistic, and whose writing is an extraordinary examination of emptiness. I wanted to be like Beckett. I don't have the same attitude toward the world, I'm naturally optimistic, and so of course I could never be like Beckett. You can't force yourself to become like someone you admire.

You can't force yourself to be something you are not.

Sometimes we look at a work of art and we immediately think that it is German art, but with some we don't, it's not so obvious.

You can take things from the past, from the culture, from the immediate past and things that have not yet entered the culture, so they have no history yet. You can create your own context.

At the Summer Exhibition, I didn't really change anything; it's the same exhibition. All I changed is the presentation. I didn't really change the rules.

The first exhibition that I used bright colours in painting the room was at a gallery in Paris, and there were seven rooms in the gallery. It was very nice gallery, not very big rooms, around the courtyard, it was a very French space. So I painted each room in different colour. When people came to the exhibition, I saw they came with a smile. Everybody smiles - this is something I never saw in my work before.

Usually people start with painting and then go on to make installations; my painting came from installation.