I always have a very good relationship with galleries, a lot of galleries and artists, so I don't want any conflict situations.

I'm a collector. I think it's great for everybody. Artists like it, they answer positively.

Art is fantastic, but it's also that you come to Paris, you call me, I come to New York, I come to visit you, we hang out together, and that's art.

My business is retrospective = I'm looking at the past, they all passed away - and it's a big pleasure, that's the point of collecting. It's certainly a [better] quality of life you have living with [these] works, but [I] also [value] the relationship we have with the artists.

In my head, my business is architecture and furniture; it's 70 percent Prouvé, and Corbusier, Royer, Jeanneret - they all passed away. So it's retrospective, I'm looking back.

I always have a very good relationship with galleries, a lot of galleries and artists, so I don't want any conflict situations.

I was born in the south of France, I moved to Paris 30 years ago. I was running nightclubs and restaurants, so that was my business - working until six o'clock every morning, and then one day I noticed my wife. We opened the gallery together. She got pregnant, she was 22, I was 35, and it was time for me to change my life, and I decided to wake up early - wake up at the time I used to sleep.