Mike Hawkman

I’m beginning to get a little bit tired of my job. The reason is probably the routine, after all, creating a piece of art involves a lot of work that remains unrevealed to the eyes of the beholder.

When I’m standing upstairs in the office and watching the customers with an eagle eye, I often hear things like: ‘Oh, come on, school kids could have done better!’ And I always get this urge to turn around and say: ‘Here, go give it to a school kid, let him do it better’.

However bad the recession, but lately people haven’t been having problems with birthday presents. They go for art. Nowadays they’re starting to think about investments, instead of just splurging money recklessly on women and clubs.

Vogue Magazine is not just fashion Mecca, like people imagine it is. It’s toilsome work. I almost died on my first day in their office from the filing-cabinet falling on me while I was trying to climb it.

Models look pretty on the photos, but not in real life. When you see her on a catwalk, she’s dashing, graceful, but the moment you get to undress her, all you see is mere skin and bones. It’s not what you would call something aesthetically pleasing. I always feel sympathetic towards them. I just want to come up to her and say: ‘Honey, should I, maybe, get you some food?’ And what if you put her on the bed, and one of her bones decides to break…
I’m sociophobic. As soon as I enter some club, I can feel the tension beginning to distort my face. I notice every little detail, every person, every object. The only thing I really enjoy is music, but I might as well listen to it at home.

I’d rather have a bottle of tequila at home than go to a club, but it is far less pleasant to wake up to.

I’m always happy to see people coming to exhibitions dressed as if for a fashion ball at the Guggenheim Museum.

Men sell to women, and women sell to men. This tends to create a certain type of emotional atmosphere.

I always scrutinize people closely, their ways, their moves, which altogether comprises a certain image of a person. I’m selective and extremely fussy.

I could be running all over the asphalt around the Winzavod barefoot, like I have been throughout last summer, but at same time I’d be wearing the limited edition watch by Patek Philippe. I can wear Castro slops with a suit from Ralph Laurent or Alexander McQueen.

I always pay attention to the shoes. If there’s anything wrong with it — that’s it. I’d never come up to this person, come hell or high water.

Sales aren’t something I’m always willing to do, as I’m a very tender-hearted person, who’s ready to give anyone a discount almost straight away. If someone says to me: ‘I would like a painting by Dou’, it would melt my heart and I’d give them a discount for their smile alone.

When being scrutinized , I freak out: I try to hide away, I blush, start doing weird things, talking loudly, dancing wildly.

My current job was pure fate. Coming to the Aidan Gallery was an absolutely illogical move: I was supposed to be working at the Bokov Factory. By that time I knew nothing about Aidan, but spent an hour and a half talking to her in person at the first interview. It felt as if there was some invisible bond between us from the very start.

Misery makes up a significant part of my life (laughs). It’s something that starts at midnight and doesn’t end till I go to sleep. I sit on the balcony, drink coffee, feel miserable, think about bad things, indulge in retrospection about my unrequited love.

A lot of people want to meet Aidan Salakhova, and many of them get offended when I refuse to help them with it.
I’m not the type of person who phones people ten times a day to find out how they’re doing.

I’m the winner of Saint Martin’s Awards: the fifth prize out of ten for Video Design.

In the ear of local public, here in Moscow, Saint Martin’s sounds almost like Buckingham Palace. But when you walk inside it, you see tatty walls, the toilets with scribbles and, pardon me, shit all over them… But those are still ingenious people who study there.

It’s a shameless thing to say, but I’m the only one to take credit for everything I’ve achieved.

I’ve got two wonderful tops that used to be shirts. I bought them from Prada for 48 000 rubles each. People normally take such things to dry cleaners, but I just threw them into the washing machine. So now I’m thinking who I should give these two tops to, a brown one and a black one (laughs).

Dry cleaners? Never. I wash my suits in the washing machine! I throw my coat into the washing machine! I simply don’t have time to go to dry cleaners. It’s a waste of time.

I can’t hire a maid, I’m a very contained person when it comes to such things.

When I want to relax I drink.

London is my city. It’s the place where I feel at home. It’s the place where people are endowed with their own very peculiar mindset, freedom of choice, freedom of mind and ideas.

How often does it happen that someone comes to you at three in the morning and says: ‘I want to go have a cup of coffee at a place where I could get a magnificent view on Moscow. Should we go have a look?’ I do that quite often, but people usually start mumbling things like: ‘Well, you know, it’s so late already, I’m too tired, I need to put make-up on, I’ve got to get ready’.