Art Interviews

“Life is confounding and who knows what’s around the next corner. But in many ways uncertainty can be exhilarating—there’s a lot of freedom in it. It would be a shame to waste our snippet of time on this planet being afraid.”

“I’m doing things more personally than ever before because that’s what my project is based on, that’s who I am and I have never been this happy my whole life — but it was a long road to get here.”

“For me it’s a lot about physicality, about how I feel. When you have these hardships or when you see someone you love in pain or you struggle, all the petty shit goes away. You are like, “I can’t believe I was worried about this other thing,” when you see what really matters.”

“The recognition of luck is extraordinarily important — as well as making the best of it and creating to the best of your capabilities on that one opportunity you’re given so that it doesn’t end up in the museum of errors.”

“I like the accidents, the things that happen by chance. I let the life come to the picture and the creativity flow.”

“Wherever any of us have been wounded, if we dive into what those wounds are, if we go down into and do the hard work within those wounds, we’ll actually find ourselves, we’ll find our real giftedness, a sincere, true giftedness.”

“Risks are very important to me. It’s the only thing that will define the next career move or else I’ll be plateauing. I’ll be completely stale if I don’t take risks. And that’s not just my career.”

“You have to open yourself. Just as in life you have to be open to other people, to other perspectives — it’s the same thing when you write. That’s what religion’s about, that’s what literature’s about, it’s what life’s about: the stories that you build.”

“I used to tease the other kids because I played better than them. Then my father said, ‘Come here. Don’t do this with the kids, because God gave you the gift to play football. You didn’t do anything. You have to respect people, be a good person. From now on, you must be this example.’”

“I always try to concentrate on the process and where the real goal is, which is trying to get up every day and be the best possible version of myself and do the best work I can do.”

“Making something or creating something is about looking and exploring the potential, and I want to do that right up until the day of the performance. And then when we’re performing, I want to do it a bit more. There’s no reason we can’t.”

“Even though I wanted to be minimal, for the first 20 years in my career all I did was add things; more courses, more ingredients. Only three years ago I was confident to start focusing on removing, and this is when I finally created a dish where I felt like I achieved what I tried to do for 23 years.”

“I can’t make people happy if I’m not happy myself. That applies to anyone who tries to achieve something in their life: if you’re not happy, you can’t transfer any happiness to anyone else.”

“Failure is more interesting. Success only comes in one form. It doesn’t teach you anything. Failure kind of comes in all sorts of ways, and teaches you all sorts of things. You learn by failing.”

“I never thought of art as a career. I thought it was more like a monastic practice. It is something that you do – you can't not do it. If I made money doing it, I would do it; if I didn't make any money, I would do it. Obviously I’m not perfect but the thing I am best at is painting.”

“Sometimes when you lose faith and you understand that something will never be possible the way that you dreamed, but you keep trying, suddenly one thing flips and everything re-accommodates. It totally flows. You don’t give up — and suddenly it’s almost a transcendental thing.”

“Architecture is the oddest profession. In the beginning you're very much involved in finding your voice and locating yourself artistically. For 25 years you're working with small projects, domestic projects. And then you mature at 50 and you're given your first projects.”

“My work and my life are the same thing to me. I don’t have a life on one side and work on the other side. My entire life has been my work. I don’t have a family, I am by myself, I have made very strict choices.”

“I have to free myself from my creation, I have to send it off, I have to give it up. And that is also the beauty, that you pass on something, that you let something live, that you allow it to confront. To get in contact with others.”

“If you are ambitious, you are running in a tunnel that never ends. You will always find something new to go after.”

“I think all actors have to be dreamers. I think every citizen of every kind of society has to dream. If you stop dreaming, it’s over.”

“I just keep imagining myself thirty years from now thinking, ‘Why didn’t you take advantage of all the opportunities you had? Look at all the people you could have worked with, the roles you could have done. Go for it.’ And that’s what I am thinking.”

“I think my photographic career has been one of growing, learning, experimenting and trying different things. That was a big journey for me! It’s always a progression, it’s about challenging the idea of what photography is.”

“Everyone’s life comes to an end. We’re all going to come to the same fate. So you just keep going while you can, doing what you like.”

“I think the final circle in being an artist is connecting, making some conversation to the world you’re in. I think if you have that feeling of why you need to do something, you’ll find a way. And I think that really takes you forward! If you’re feeling that, maybe other people need that to.”

“I think when you’re an artist who’s been around for a while like I have you understand that it’s almost impossible to make work that is unanimously loved or understood! You can’t please everyone, and that is a great realization.”

“I think an ambition as a performer, and maybe even in life, is to become less afraid. Some boundaries are necessary of course and some are accepted, but the ones that I don’t want, I want to remove.”

“There is something quite beautiful with the art thing, that you can only hold it back for so long and then you have to do it.”

“If you’re doing one thing, you can burn yourself out. But for me, if ever one of those things burnt out, I would have moved to another one. So it makes it difficult but it makes it possible to keep going.”

“When you are at a crossroads, mistakes can help you decide the right way forward, and I think I really grew when I understood that I need to accept my mistakes.”

“The more experience you have, the more time you’ve spent on this earth, the more regrets you accumulate. It’s normal. You can’t do everything right, nobody’s perfect. But if you think too much about that, you’re not here. You have to make some efforts to stay open-minded.”

“Art is something about everyday life. Art is about finding creativity in the normal gutter next to you. To see the potential in something where there is no potential is often where art or creativity is a great tool. It’s about making the impossible possible.”

“I think that when you’re a creator, you set out to create the perfect thing, but the idea of reaching that kind of creative nirvana — that’s something that you should never quite reach.”

“If you have to defend something that you like, it makes you to like it even more. My parents hated the comic strips, they hated rock ‘n’ roll, and when they found out what movies I was going to they also were against that. So everything I loved I had to defend.”

“I’ve been very lucky — I took the risk to do the things that interested me, so I could have no possible complaints. There’s nothing else I could ask for, really, and if I drop dead tomorrow, I would have had a terrific time.”

“I give my best performances when I am almost snapping. It is like tuning a violin. You want that note from a string so you tune it until it almost breaks – but then you get that note. It is dangerous, but it is also sublime.”

“One of the reasons why I have this much success is because I’m hard on myself. Until now, I never really saw myself as a talented chef! I don’t take the easy way. I put in the time. From the age of 17 until 23, I didn’t take any vacations, I had almost no days off.”

“I have a moral standard of my own. I know the difference between right and wrong, I know what I feel comfortable with. And if you live up to your own moral standard, you’re going to have a more comfortable life.”

“I was always trying to innovate; I don’t like repetition. Time is something that changes every moment, it’s never repetitive — I try to follow this example.”

“It's just so boring listening to false modesty. I've worked for many, many years so I'm really enjoying that my hard work has paid off… I think you should know your worth!”