So what do you think about those people who stand in front of your work and try to intellectualize it?
As an artist you’re looking for universal triggers. You want it both ways. You want it to have an immediate impact, and you want it to have deep meanings as well. I’m striving for both. But I hate it when people write things that sound like they’ve swallowed a fucking dictionary. When I make the artwork, anything I say, I try to deny it as well at the same time, so you make viewers responsible for interpretation. I think that’s good. I want to make artwork that makes people question their own lives, rather than give them any answers. Because answers always turn out to be wrong further down the line, but questions are exciting forever.
And what is the main question in your artwork?
There’s that great Gauguin picture, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? I think that’s the big question of art. I think a lot of artists are asking that question and producing artworks that offer some semblance of an answer or some hint as to how you can get answers from the question. That’s what I always get from art. (…)
But at the end of the day, art can also just say, “Isn’t life great?!” That’s the greatest thing you can get from art. A great reaction to an artwork for me is when somebody walks in and says “Wow! That’s brilliant!” When kids do that, you know you’re on to a winner, but a lot of people would say that’s a bit shallow.

(Damien Hirst intervistato da Robert Ayers)