Once it was explained to me that artists always want to live where other artists have lived and worked before. The footsteps of Rembrandt, Picasso, Joyce, Warhol or John Lennon had pulling power. A curious feeling of historical continuum and radical departure would underlie much of contemporary art making and thus may well constitute an important reason for an artist to choose to live in a certain place. All the same, it seemed to me a conversation with art history is of no consequence if not measured against the present day.