I think it's probably the Dutch who are to blame for starting the whole 'art business', because before they came along, art was attached to relatively stable structures, and it was everybody's. It was like going to the movies.
I feel terribly misunderstood; I feel terribly misunderstood.
I think critics are very useful. But I think that they, in a way, betray their position when they stop people looking for themselves.
Cities have become places where we are controlled, by CCTV and other means, in the same way as machines are controlled. My works provide an imaginative space in which this can be challenged. It's like opening a window in a closed room.
It's wonderful to see art in a museum, but it is institutionalised. I don't like the idea of the artwork as something that requires special conditions. I would like it to be universal.
It's a wonderful thing to make work that is unadorned either by context, framing or label, that can exist in the changing conditions of light, weather, wind.
I did spend a lot of time as a child very confused about whether I had a devil in me, or whether I was in a state of grace. I mean, these ideas are so potent to anybody with half an imagination.
I would say that the whole way that I have approached the body is as a space, not a thing - not an object to be improved, idealised or whatever, but simply to be dwelt in.
Most big cities like London and Glasgow have great big rivers that are unmissable. What's brilliant about the Water of Leith is that it's so hidden. It's a secret.
'6 Times' is an attempt to reinvestigate the social responsibility of sculpture. The body in question is a particular body, but it doesn't really matter whose it is.
It is a depressing business talking to journalist.
Making beautiful things for everyday use is a wonderful thing to do - making life flow more easily - but art confronts life, allowing it to stop and perhaps change direction - they are completely different.
Art has to change things, and if it was immediately acceptable it would not be doing the job.
The making of a whole person and the creation of true individuals can only happen by singing and dancing and making art.
My best travelling experience lasted several years: between 1971 and 1974 when I bummed around the East. All I had with me was a cooking pot, a stove, a map and blankets and a couple of dhotis.
I always like to look for adventure when I go away. I have gone on several horse adventures with my wife - from Guangxi we went up to the High Tibetan region. We also went along the Hurunui River on horseback in the South Island of New Zealand.
