The 8: Maurizio Cattelan

What is your line of work?

I wake up the kids in the morning, bring them to school, come home, prepare lunch and dinner (I try to be in my freaking kitchen once a day), do the laundry (every two days though), clean the house, do the groceries… oops, it's 1 p.m. , sit down and have lunch with hubby (trying to have some useful and insightful conversation)... oops, it's 3 p.m. pick the kids up from school! Then my life gets faster and faster with the "after school activities." I schlep them from here to there, come home at 7 p.m. and serve dinner. Suddenly realize that oops... there is Y!A , serve myself a drink and have some fun. (Btw, kids are fast asleep by 8:30 p.m.)

If you were a work of art, which one would you choose?

I dream a lot. I do more painting when I'm not painting, but I've never wanted to be one of them.

What is your earliest memory of art?

I was in my crib, in my room at night. I looked down and saw a big Picasso painting that stayed underneath it. It was a colorful portrait, asymmetric, and it curled outward slowly so I could see it from the bars of the crib. It startled me at first, but I saw him many times after that and got used to him being there. He didn't scare me. He was like a silent, nighttime friend. I was about two.

Which museum or foundation would you like to be locked in one night?

The other day I was at the MoMA and I saw a coat closet, a trash bin and a fountain. I did not see a dinosaur – how can they call themselves a museum?

Roe Ethridge

Vans and Burton Glove, 2002

30.000 x 20.000 in (76.2 x 50.8 cm)

"A man is something less than a man, like the ivy decays and ruins, but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports. How strange are the tricks of memory I might run from for a thousand years in order to have somewhere to go in the morning. I know not how to know who knows not also how to un-know. We are mostly an angry race. I may be as vicious about Roe as I please. I will only do him justice. Nobody but Roe can do such shitty good shit with found shit. Roe has transformed still life into a shit life."