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  • I noticed that you wrote about Andy Warhol,

  • saying you felt little for the can and didn't like the soup.

  • (Laughter)

  • That you preferred an artist not mirroring the world, but transforming it.

  • Yes. Well, when I was young, I truthfully didn't have an affection for Andy Warhol.

  • As a human being I thought that he was not a very generous or kind person,

  • his work really didn't speak to me.

  • Robert loved Andy Warhol though, and Robert believed he was a genius,

  • and so I didn't dismiss him because I knew Robert knew things,

  • you know I trusted in Robert's instinct.

  • And, when I was young, his work didn't speak to me.

  • At this time of my life, I've really gotten to appreciate what a genius he was.

  • And, I find, if I'm in a museum, and looking at contemporary art,

  • I'm not so drawn to contemporary art, and I suddenly see something across the room,

  • and I think "That's strong", and I go over and it's Andy's.

  • And the last works he did, or some of the last works he did before he died,

  • his last supper, body of work, I thought was genius, was quite moving.

  • But what I think is important in the quotation about an artist, either mirroring or transforming,

  • I think what you do is transforming, instead of mirroring what you see,

  • it's two different conceptions of how to be an artist.

  • Well, I feel more drawn to the transformative in art itself.

  • I'm not so drawn to non-fiction, but you know I also appreciate more and more

  • someone that has the ability to mirror our times.

  • I think that it's important that people do that, it's just I'm not really that style of person.

  • I learned this lesson when 9/11 happened.

  • Where I live in New-York City, I could see the towers from my stoop,

  • and I watched them come down, and I didn't live far from there

  • so I went and looked at the remains of one of the towers, the South Tower.

  • And it was an extraordinary...

  • it was like a piece of sculpture, it looked like the Tower of Babel.

  • And I started thinking a lot about Andy, then.

  • I really missed Andy as an artist then, because he would have known what to do

  • as an artist, not to transform, but to document this extraordinary thing that happened.

  • So, even though I'm not that style of artist,

  • I recognized the importance of that type of artist.

  • But when I was young, I was really judgmental.

  • (Laughter)

  • (Applause)

I noticed that you wrote about Andy Warhol,

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