“(A lot of art) I see lacks soul, they might be clever, or well done, but it’s like the difference between listening to Theola Kilgore or one of the great R&B singers then having to listen to Britney Spears. Somebody like Jeff Koons I think is just litter upon the earth, I look at his stuff and I’m appalled, I can’t access where these people are coming from…”

Patti Smith, 1979 by Robert Mapplethorpe. Image: tate.org.uk/robert mapplethorpe foundation

“..Duchamp I can look at and I see poetry and intellect, I don’t see this “cleverness”. I’m not interested in just commentary or humour. For me art isn’t just commentary, maybe I look at art in the old fashioned way, to me art should take us to a place we have never been, to see something we’ve never seen…”

“..I don’t really have the money to collect art, if I did I would like a nice little Lee Krasner painting, a little Yves Klein. I do actually have a few nice photographs, two Brancusi photographs…”

Read the full interview, from the Art Newspaper, HERE.