DAVID BAILEY

Bailey has collected art, especially tribal masks, since the early 60s. He takes me round the art in his house. "Not many photographs here because it's too damp," he says, as we breeze through the living room's display of masks. "You're the first journalist I've let in. That's rubbish. That's rubbish. That's good. I got that from New Guinea when I spent four weeks with some cannibals. That's rubbish. That's rubbish. I've got truth-telling Tourette's, you see. That's a lovely mask from Benin. That's rubbish. That's an Arp, that's Irving Penn. That's by my favourite photographer, [Manuel] Bravo."
We wander into a bedroom. "That's a dead bear," he says pointing to the pelt on the bed. "That's a dead tiger. And that," he says, pointing to a doll from the second Austin Powers film, "is little me." Bailey clearly accepts Mike Myers's back-handed tribute. It's time to go. What will you do if the critics give your sculptures a pasting? "I don't mind if people don't like my things. I do it for myself nowadays. It's only a few nutcases who do art for themselves, like Van Gogh. But I'm not going to cut off my ear."

-The Guardian
August 25 2010