How much of what you do is business, and how much is art?

I don’t necessarily take art on just for business but you do need to make a business out of the art that you’ve got. I don’t have a rich backer, I don’t get grants from the government, so we have to make it work as a viable business otherwise we wouldn’t be able to do the things we do. The two need each other.

Out of the handful of artists that you’re working with on this four-month venture, whose work do you find the most exciting?

In terms of excitement I think JR and Vhils are two of my favorite artists around. They’re young, they’re innovative, they’re pushing boundaries, they’ve done stuff all over the world, they’re incredibly hard-working, and they’ve already got very established collectors buying their work. Both of them have long careers ahead of them.

Graffiti, street, and urban art are not new, yet the movement is becoming more and more mainstream. Why is it catching on now as opposed to thirty years ago?

I think it did catch on thirty years ago but for a very, very short period of time, when it burnt very bright and very quick. If you think about the ‘80s New York movement, you had Basquait and Haring come out of it, two of the biggest contemporary artists around. It’s not that it didn’t throw out its share of respected artists.