Now There Are No Priests Or Philosophers

The Urge To Break With A Tradition Is Only Appropriate When You're Dealing With An Outdated, Troublesome Tradition: I Never Really Thought About That Because I Take The Old-fashioned Approach Of Equating Tradition With Value (which May Be A Failing). But Whatever The Case, Positive Tradition Can Also Provoke Opposition If It's Too Powerful, Too Overwhelming, Too Demanding. That Would Basically Be About The Human Side Of Wanting To Hold Your Own.

As Far As The Surface Is Concerned - Oil On Canvas, Conventionally Applied - My Pictures Have Little To Do With The Original Photograph. They Are Totally Painting (whatever That May Mean). On The Other Hand, They Are So Like The Photograph That The Thing That Distinguished The Photograph From All Other Pictures Remains Intact.

But My Motivation Was More A Matter Of Wanting To Create Order - To Keep Track Of Things. All Those Boxes Full Of Photographs And Sketches Weigh You Down, Because They Have Something Unfinished, Incomplete, About Them. So It's Better To Present The Usable Material In An Orderly Fashion And Throw The Other Stuff Away. That's How The Atlas Came To Be, And I Exhibited It A Few Times.

Politicians Are Nauseating By Definition... They Can Produce Nothing, Neither A Loaf Of Bread Nor A Table Nor A Picture; And This Inability To Create Value, This Total Inferiority, Makes Them Jealous, Vengeful, Insolent And A Menace To Life And Limb.

What Counts Isn't Being Able To Do A Thing, It's Seeing What It Is. Seeing Is The Decisive Act, And Ultimately It Places The Maker And The Viewer On The Same Level.