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.

No Jews have our own guilt, that's why we have psychiatrists - the Jewish version of a priest.

My desire is to preserve the sense of people’s lives, to endow them with the strength and beauty I see in them. I want the people in my pictures to stare back.

Now what I like is that other artists know my work and are interested in me or want to collaborate.

I also photographed Maggie Cheung - but these didn't develop into a friendship either.

It's so rare to see a woman's sexuality, real female sexuality, either in the shows or in the clothes.

I did [heroin] maybe when I was 18 but I got over that pretty quickly.