I can explain my work to the cleaner or the president; it's all the same to me. I am very communist in this way.
We are used to cleaning the outside house, but the most important house to clean is yourself - your own house - which we never do.
I always sent my mother all these huge books I made. When my mother died, I was cleaning her cupboard, and these big books were only 20 pages long.
When Lady Gaga says I am her inspiration, you reach kids between 12 and 18. Now I am like a brand - jeans, Coca-Cola.
You know, art is very emotional business. But mostly it becomes not emotional, the fabric of commodity. It becomes business. It becomes so many different things. Because we forgot there was emotions involved.
It's very important that young artists push boundaries, because sometimes you have this urge to do something - like the impulsive and dangerous urges I had as a child - and if you don't follow through with it you might miss out on a developmental experience.
In real life, you just work for the ordinary self, but in the front of audience you become the superself. That's a completely different thing.
The mind is crazy thing. To be focused is the most difficult thing.
Aborigines are not just the oldest race in Australia; they are the oldest race on the planet. They look like dinosaurs.
I want to dominate the man's world.
Even now, I have traces of the good little girl. When I am not performing, for instance, I am really very quiet and ordinary.
You know how you feel somebody looking at you, and you turn, and somebody actually is? It's the same at an art gallery. You're looking at one portrait, turn around, and there is a work of art directly behind you. Because it's all energy. Every single thing has energy.
I'm interested in utopian communities of the past. Many of them didn't survive and I'm examining closely the reasons they failed.
People ask why there are so few female artists who succeed. It's because women are not ready to sacrifice as much as men. Women want a man, they want a family, they want to have children, they want to be loved, and to be an artist. And they can't; it's impossible.
I notice if I'm too fat or if I'm too ugly or there's skin hanging or whatever. When my clothes start not fitting, I get really self-conscious about what I eat.
I am obsessive always, even as a child. On one side is this strict orthodox religion, on the other is communism, and I am this little girl pulled between the two. It makes me who I am. It turns me into the kind of person that Freud would have a field day with, for sure.
I am thrilled Lady Gaga has helped to teach her audience about long durational work and performance art.
I want people to come to me open and vulnerable. When they come to the gallery, they have to leave their watches, their computers, their Blackberrys, iPads, iPhones, because we are so incredibly used to technology, and I wanted to remove that.
It's so easy to do things you like. But then, the thing is, when you're afraid of something, face it; go for it. You become a better human being.
I really think there's no difference between an art piece made by a man and one made by a woman. Is it a good art piece or a bad art piece? Of course, if you're female, you're maybe dealing with different issues.
