In my world history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought who won them and who lost them – unless there is a painting a play a song or a poem that speaks of the event.

In my world history comes down to language and art. No one cares much about what battles were fought who won them and who lost them – unless there is a painting a play a song or a poem that speaks of the event.

Book-jacket design may become a lost art like album-cover design without which late-20th-century iconography would have been pauperized.

Book-jacket design may become a lost art like album-cover design without which late-20th-century iconography would have been pauperized.

There was a big drive when I was at art school to make you aware of the economy of meaning – after all this was still during the tail end of minimalism. Being responsible for everything you put in your picture and being able to defend it. Keeping everything clear around you so you know what is operating. To open the wound and keep it clean.

There was a big drive when I was at art school to make you aware of the economy of meaning – after all this was still during the tail end of minimalism. Being responsible for everything you put in your picture and being able to defend it. Keeping everything clear around you so you know what is operating. To open the wound and keep it clean.

I was very much into buying contemporary art but I've just decided I want to get rid of it all. Not that it's not great art but all of a sudden my mood has changed and I want to go back to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century masters.

I was very much into buying contemporary art but I've just decided I want to get rid of it all. Not that it's not great art but all of a sudden my mood has changed and I want to go back to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century masters.

I did this Super-8 film at art school called 'Tissues' this black comedy about a family whose father has been arrested for child molestation. I was absolutely thrilled by every inch of it and would throw my projector in the back of my car and show it to anybody who would watch it.

I did this Super-8 film at art school called 'Tissues' this black comedy about a family whose father has been arrested for child molestation. I was absolutely thrilled by every inch of it and would throw my projector in the back of my car and show it to anybody who would watch it.

The great art of films does not consist of descriptive movement of face and body but in the movements of thought and soul transmitted in a kind of intense isolation.

The great art of films does not consist of descriptive movement of face and body but in the movements of thought and soul transmitted in a kind of intense isolation.