(Silencio durante unos segundos) Se dice el pecado pero no el pecador. No lo sé seguro, pero matemáticamente podría nombrarle algún museo. No lo haré porque tocar los cojones a alguien no es ético. No quiero implicar a terceros en todo esto. Pero, déjeme que le diga una cosa: lo de los museos es un timo, es un cuento. ¿Me entiende? El 40 por ciento de lo que hay en estos grandes museos son atribuciones. La mayoría de la obra fue destruida y lo que queda son los intereses creados por cuatro. Don Dinero mueve montañas. Es algo que vemos en política, farmacéuticas…

De usted se ha dicho que tiene la capacidad de crear a cualquier artista. ¿Alguno se le ha resistido?

Hay artistas que son difíciles, como Gustav Klimt. Puede que alguno pueda ser complicado, pero la mayoría de los contemporáneos son fáciles. Solamente hace falta un poco de técnica para poder hacer esto. Eso sí, si me nombra a Caravaggio le diré que eso ya son palabras mayores, porque no encontraremos soporte o pigmentos para poder hacer una obra original suya. En esos casos es mejor atribuir. Verá, no es que tengan Tiépolos los museos sino que tienen obra de un tío que copió el estilo del maestro. Hay toneladas de atribuciones de este tipo.

Dalí used to say that the 20th century was when painting was worst and, for this, he cited Modrian or Miró as examples. You who have studied them in detail, do you agree?

I agree. On a technical level, I agree with Dalí. But creation during the 20th century has been extraordinary in cinema or literature… Before, you had to be by the side of a teacher if you wanted to dedicate yourself to art. Now it seems that it is not necessary.

When you picked up the brushes and put yourself in the shoes of another artist, did you also feel like him?

Feeling like him are big words. In any case, what I can say is that he assumed the responsibility of being him.

So, for example, he assumed he was Picasso?

Screw Picasso and I mean that in the best sense. It’s all really a matter of perspective. For example, before I was motivated by drugs, women, the night… Now I am in another era and with other interests.

For assuming that responsibility he was in prison in the United States. What memories do you keep of your days behind bars?
The best thing that has happened to me is being in prison. Those nine months were the best because I went in as sand and came out as if I were a rock. I understood that we have to settle you because you never know where the bad luck is. In the days in jail the air never caressed me. They were almost four months locked up, without giving me the air. That made me hard and strong.

But now he is a painter recognized for his own work that has even sold his paintings to Al Pacino or Madonna. They may even fake it.

They already fake me! Everything that makes money is counterfeited, be it Louis Vuitton bags or Rolex watches… Or my paintings.

If he is now the fake, that will mean that he is a recognized artist.

I don’t want to wear medals, but I don’t like to say that I’m a poor wretch. I want to live the day, something that others who are asleep do not do. I have lived intensely. I did what came out of the lining. If I have copied the greats, it was to have a good life. Knows? Everything I did was for money, so I could have drugs and women.

Who was the painter who cost you the most?

Everything that is more or less figurative, such as Marc Chagall. Those who least are those like Klee, Stella, Pollock, Tàpies, the gestural… A De Chirico was difficult, but it was a matter of time. For a Miró I could spend a morning. With a De Chirico, not even in a morning could he make heaven.

If you were commissioned to make a museum with paintings by great creators, would you dare to accept the challenge?

No, not now because that is something that no longer fills me.

So there’s nothing left of the pirate he was?

The pirate’s perfume has remained. It is not like before. Women don’t say anything to me anymore. The drugs left me. Politics disgusts me. I only ask that they let me live life. All that shit they write about me saying I’m Al Capone… Well, I say yes. It’s not my problem what they write about me. I was a pirate, but not one of those who raided ships but galleons full of gold.