Does art make a difference?
I'd feel myself a ghost if I were not an art lover. Art shows us reality.
Should politics and art mix?
The task is to form the future from the materials of the past. If you read the newspaper every day, you have a superficial and horizontal view. You need depth to understand the world. We find this in art. Art is a mirror on the past, yet timeless. We are dangerously lacking in culture in the face of today's unprecedented problems.
Is good art a product of inspiration or perspiration?
To quote André Gide: "Art is born with discipline, stays alive by controversy and is killed by freedom."
Does money corrupt an artist?
You can't have art without money. Somebody has to pay for it.
Is your work for the many or for the few?
The many. My advice is: buy less, choose well, DIY.
Which artist do you most admire?
Diaghilev was probably the greatest artist of the 20th century. Such taste and intuition for the alchemy of what would work. He put the world on a stage. There is no progress in art, but in today's art world I would choose Valery Gergiev.
Which artist do you least admire?
Aldous Huxley put his finger on it in the 1940s, writing in Time Must Have a Stop: "One of those painters who could have been a graphic artist then saw the cubists and adopted high art."
What inspires you?
I am a reader, otherwise I couldn't function.
Where do you work best?
Ideas come together when I lie awake at night.
If you weren't an artist, what would you be?
I'd be a freedom fighter. Right now, I'd like a TV programme to try to enlist popular opinion in the fight against climate change.
If you were world leader, what would be your first law?
To provide a proper value for ecosystem services, particularly those provided by the rainforest.
Who would be your top advisers?
James Lovelock, Noreena Hertz, Sarkozy.
What would you censor?
Advertising.
Are we all doomed?
The future depends on us and is an urgent matter concerning the deaths of billions. But what about each precious life now? Get off the treadmill and get a life!
