Artists and art institutions have to learn how to play hardball. A democratic society needs a democratic art and we have a right to demand it.

What I'm very upset about is the attempt to dictate to museums what they show, and the statements made by politicians in Washington that have curtailed the freedom of the National Endowment for the Arts. The attention to those issues is deflected by the spin of my supposedly having trivialized the Holocaust.

Art-making is just another part of the consciousness industry.

Art in the art world, and culture in general, are branches of the media, which produces our political and social thinking climate.

In order to gain some insight into the forces that elevate certain products to the level of 'works of art' it is helpful - among other investigations - to look into the economic and political underpinnings of the institutions, individuals and groups who share in the control of power.