I'm staying in Grand Hôtel and just had a three hour spa session. This is how art stars live.

Stockholm syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which artists express empathy toward the art world, sometimes to the point of defending it and identifying themselves with collectors and museum directors. I don't suffer of that disorder but I'm sometimes afraid of champagne syndrome which refers to the situation of a poor artist kidnapped by the art world luxury. I had once a total nervous breakdown when I was unable to provide for my children but was drinking gallons of champagne. Fortunately, these days I'm doing much better economically.

Today, I drove to Ikea with my wife. Spending a Sunday in between Billies, Lacks and industrial Swedish meat balls is the most ordinary lower middle class state of affairs in the late capitalist world. I felt rabidly common. I tried to concentrate in curtain rods and rails. The canteen was overcrowded and we had lunch at McDonald's. It was just the two of us, the kids stayed with my sister-in-law, and I got for dessert a white chocolate sundae with two plastic spoons. It was as romantic as ordinary mortgaged adult life can get.

On Friday, I enjoyed Leevi's visit at my studio, He is Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art's director but we know each other since the the late 90s when we both were just newbies in the art world. I was surprised that he found a gap to escape from Arco Madrid art fair. The visit was meaningful to me, because it's very rare that I have an opportunity to host people from the art world at the studio. No museum director or institutional curator has ever visited me before. If I don't forget somebody, the only curator coming over has been Raúl when we he curated a group show in Madrid few years ago. I'm not far away from the capital city but those 115km seem to be too much distance for most of the people - or they just don't have enough curiosity to see how I work at the Riiko Sakkinen Headquarters.

BOOKS I'M READING

Muron Xuecun: Leave Me Alone, Umberto Eco: A Paso de Cangrejo, Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park, Hergé: The Adventures of Tintin, Ma Jian: Red Dust, James Church: A Corpse in the Koryo, Domenico Losurdo: The Black Book of Liberalism

RECORDS I'M LISTENING

Lila Downs: Balas y Chocolate, Tender Forever: Wider, Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphonies, M.I.A: Arular, Cornershop: Handcream for a Generation, Anouk Khelifa: Automatik Kalamity, Mashrou Leila: Mashrou Leila.

FILMS I'M WATCHING

Hayao Miyazaki: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Charles Chaplin: Modern Times

Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of my first solo show. In the summer of 1995, I had just been kicked out of military service due to psychological incompatibility. My young life had no course. I was neither working nor studying, but had completed a couple of poppish paintings. I was walking on a street, carrying one of them, when a lady stopped me, asking whose piece it was. I told her it was mine. She asked me who I was. I replied I was nobody. She told me she was Riitta Aalto, the director of Galleria Jangva, and would be interested in exhibiting my works. The next day, I went to her gallery, where she proposed me a solo exhibition, even though I was only 19 and had not completed more than about five paintings in my life. I rented a studio, acquired some old home appliances, and painted on them. The most important Finnish newspaper reviewed my exhibition. I was on TV twice. I sold nothing, but felt famous.