It's a hideous feeling to go round shopping and even feel like you are a freak.

In '83 I started travelling round Europe with my slide show. It wasn't until I moved to Europe and got accepted in a big way in Berlin in the '90s that I got acceptance by the big art world in New York. I didn't really get to be known, or in the market, til '93 in New York.

One of the major things I really want to work on now is female rage because that's not dealt with at all - and I have a lot of it.

One of my assistants, a British man, says I should find a platform for [cosmetic industry]. Meanwhile I wear make-up.

I've got really prolific since I moved to Paris where I am living permanently, for the rest of my life, until I find another idea. I have really close women friends here: Valerie, Raymonde, not Joana so much, Maria Schneider, who was always a real heroine of mine who and has now become a close friend.

I'm not ashamed of my body and you know everything in the fashion world, if I was vulnerable to it, could drive me crazy. I think it produces so much self-hatred.

Some people have become [in U.S] a lot more conservative but I can't really speak about that because I wasn't there. I feel compassion for their pain but it distresses me to see them all become more patriotic.