How would you define your taste?
I wouldn’t define it.
Who or what taught you what “good” means?
Let’s say that susceptibility and taste are the same thing. My father had the draggy flea market, maybe that’s sort of my morning daydream.
Do you feel energy from things?
Yeah. Everything. Yeah. Right now I’m overwhelmed.
What’s underrated in culture and art today?
I think that Northern Renaissance painting is underrated. I think that 16th-century painting in general is underrated. I think that Cycladic sculptures are underrated, and I think that Egyptian sculptures are underrated. I think antiquity is underrated. I think history is underrated.
“The past and the future are inside.”
If someone needed help finding their taste, what would you tell them?
To learn about history and to look at everything that was ever made. Look at things 10,000 years before you were even photographed. Look at meteorites that are four and a half billion years old. Look at opals. Go back in time and discover everything that came before you were born.
On creativity and consciousness
There’s a thin line between the subconscious, the subcortex, and what’s not conscious. Depending on your mind state, that membrane can open and expand, knitting together reality.
How did you get your first break in the art world?
When I was younger I’d be like, ‘Yo, yo, yo, buy this painting for $5,000.’ She’d be like, ‘F*** you, I don’t want that painting.’ I’d be like, ‘How about $1,000? You want my painting for $1,000?’ She’d be like, ‘I don’t want it.’ I’d be like, ‘How about $50? You can take my painting.’ She’d be like, ‘I don’t want your painting.’ Then I’d be like, ‘Okay, I’ll f***ing give it to you. Just take it.’
Then she takes it and she puts it on a wall in a house, and nine people walk in the house and they’re like, ‘This is a f***ing piece of s***. Why is it on your wall?’ But one walks in and goes, ‘What is that? I mean, I love that. That’s incredible. What is that?’ And you do that 10,000 times and you’ll be taking your girlfriend to pizza.
What would you tell someone who wants to break into the art world?
Just be persistent. Just work and just work and just work. You make, you make, you make. People tell you that you suck, and then you’re like a duck and the water goes off your back. You just keep doing this forever, and then you might get lucky.