Art Is The Highest Form Of Hope.

The Political Topicality Of My October Paintings Means Almost Nothing To Me, But In Many Reviews It Is The First Or Only Thing That Arouses Interest, And The Response To The Pictures Varies According To Current Political Circumstance. I Find This Rather A Distraction.

With A Brush You Have Control. The Paint Goes On The Brush And You Make The Mark. From Experience You Know Exactly What Will Happen. With The Squeegee You Lose Control.

It Can Be A Work By Mondrian, A Piece Of Music By Schönberg Or Mozart, A Painting By Leonardo, Barnett Newman Or Also Jackson Pollock. That's Beautiful To Me. But Also Nature. A Person Can Be Beautiful As Well. And Beauty Is Also Defined As 'untouched'. Indeed, That's An Ideal: That We Humans Are Untouched And Therefore Beautiful.

How Could One Be In This World Without Feeling Dismayed By It? Even If One Paints Flowers And Gingerbread.

That Was A Piece I Did In 1963 With Konrad Lueg In A Department Store, In The Furniture Department. It Was Announced In Some Papers As An Exhibition Opening, But The People Who Came Didn't Know That It Was To Be A Sort Of Happening. I Don't Think It Is Quite Right That It Has Become So Famous Anyhow. It Was Just A Lot Of Fun, And The Word Itself, Capitalist Realism, Hit Just Right. But It Wasn't Such A Big Deal.