Crumbs, it's another bit of art destruction

This is art – not rubbish

Contemporary art has taken a bit of a bashing this week. First there was the incident of an Ai Waiwai vase being smashed and now it seems that a cleaner at a gallery in Italy has mistaken an exhibit as rubbish and thrown it away.

Works that included pieces of newspaper and cardboard, and biscuit crumbs, as part of the Sala Murat gallery’s display went straight into the bin.

A spokesman for the cleaning firm said that the unnamed cleaner was “just doing her job” and added that his firm’s insurance would cover the costs, which amazingly were cited as being around €10,000 euros (£8,200).

I’d expect an awful lot of paper, cardboard and crumbs for that.

The cleaner had thought that it was rubbish left behind by workers who had been setting up the Mediating Landscape exhibition.

Such has been the cause célèbre that Antonio Maria Vasile, Bari’s ‘marketing commissioner’ felt compelled to comment, apologising and then adding: “But this is all about the artists who have been able to better interpret the meaning of contemporary art, which is to interact with the environment.”

Sniggering is permitted, I think.

Now I know that much contemporary installation art is supposed to act as a form of social comment, but when it’s so esoteric that those not in on the know thinks it’s rubbish – and not just in a critical way – then it begs the question of just who will ‘get it’ and whether it can be said to have a point.

By way of complete contrast, this week has seen the announcement by Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery that more than 123,300 have seen a retrospective of paintings by Jack Vettriano in its 23-week run – making it the museum’s most visited art exhibition there.

Dance Me to the End of Love, Jack Vettriano

Mind, many who would probably enjoy Ai’s vases or an exhibit of paper, cardboard and crumbs would have decidedly snobbish views of Vettriano.

The art establishment really doesn’t like him – probably not helped because he’s popular with the general public and makes a fortune from having his works reproduced on cards and posters.

And of course, that popularity has meant financial success too – although money doesn’t seem to stop the cognoscenti worshipping at the feet of Damien Hirst, which also means that it isn’t a matter of class, since both Hirst and Vettriano are from working-class backgrounds.

Now personally, I think Vettriano is technically excellent, but most of his works do little for me in terms of the subject matter, as they seem locked in a kind of odd, retro fantasy world.

And that’s not just the pictures of pre-1939 scenes.

Olympia, his portrait of Zara Phillips, seems reminiscent of the style of David Hockney’s Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy (1970-71).

Some of his erotic paintings are interesting, but are more than a little clichéd – they have none of the edge, for instance, of Walter Sickert’s Camden Town Nudes.

However, the point is that Vettriano is the opposite of those biscuit crumbs – and those crumbs are the perfect example of what puts people off contemporary art.

With the best will in the world, if you have a comment to make on the nature of the world and you think it’s worth making, why do it in a way that will be understood or appreciated by the smallest number of people possible and, quite possibly with some of them only ‘getting it’ as a pose?

There is a place for installation art – it’s not all bonkers – but why does it seem to have relegated painting, for instance, to the periphery of the contemporary art scene?

Given that art schools have, apparently stopped teaching drawing, perhaps it represents, in general terms, a dumbing down of what might be expected to be high-end art.

Crumbs indeed.

Laughing all the way to the bank

Valium, by Damien Hirst

People seem to have been getting into a grand old funk over Damien Hirst’s claim that he copies his children’s paintings and drawings.

Well, this was certainly the case at the Observer and at the Telegraph, in response to Hirst’s claim in an interview with the former.

At the Obs, the whinging was mostly about his being ‘a corporate whore’, while over at the Telegraph, comments concentrated on most of his own art resembling the contents of used nappies.

Don’t you just lurve reasoned debate?

As Will Gompertz explained at some length in What Are You Looking At? that no, your five-year-old could not have produced even the works of modern art that you find utterly incomprehensible.

You might think that a Mondrian, for instance, is simple or that Pollock simply dripped, but actually executing such a piece is a damned sight harder than many imagine.

Now to be quite clear, I’m not personally a fan of Hirst’s work, but he’s clever – not least in being able to exploit the market for whatever is deemed to be ‘hip’ and ‘trendy’ art among those who have more money than sense.

It was all encouraged in the halcyon days of the 1980s by the dear old Saatchis, who set out to prescribe what was cool – and, most importantly, to profit from it.

These are the same Saatchis who now routinely use Facebook to tell people that they can suggest new artists whose work would be worth investing in.

Buy them and the price will go up, of course, as they then become collectible. And the Saatchis will themselves make plenty of money from you taking their advice.

Oddly, none of the painters currently being touted by them seem to have chosen to represent a man appearing to throttle his wife.

But there’s an element of the emperor’s new clothes in all this: I’ve little doubt that, as he’s laughing all the way to the bank, Hirst is also laughing at those who pay millions for a piece that someone in his studio has produced to his instructions – based on something his children did, if we’re to believe his somewhat faux humility.

Indeed, never mind that fairytale – there’s always the classic modern art story of Marcel Duchamp and his urinal, a piece of ‘made’ art that was used entirely to extract the piss out of a group of self-appointed arbiters of what was and was not art – and in the process, itself became iconic and labelled ‘art’.

This is not a real Lowry

In the past, it would be the patron – often the church – who, in effect, made such decisions, but that has broadened out over the years, helped by, among other things, public galleries and exhibitions and also increasing numbers of people with disposable incomes and a desire to decorate their homes.

Mind, the likes of Hirst are not the only ones taking the proverbial out of people.

In a prime example of fools and cash being easily parted, the Facebook page for LS Lowry warned against a spate of fakes that are being sold on eBay.

They highlighted one in particular, which was secured with a bid of £670. Let’s allow for someone being a bit taken in by the background, but the figure? And just look at that face!

Beyond that, look at the signature – and it’s easy enough to Google the authentic signature. That’s not close.

Away from cyberspace, the Telegraph reported on 82-year-old Bill Harbord, a London man who has been selling fakes for years – although at rather lower prices.

It’s difficult to feel particularly sorry for anyone all those who have bought a picture from Mr Harbord. Honestly – be sensible: it’s really not very unlikely that you'll find a genuine Raoul Dufy painting for £250.

Actually, it’s tempting to laugh in much the same way you’ll possibly laugh at those who spend hundreds of thousands on a Damien Hirst because they’ve been told it’s good.

If you’re going to buy art by a well-known figure, make sure you know who you’re buying it from – a gallery will be a safer bet, for instance – and accustom yourself with the artist in question’s work, signature, any numbering system etc.

It’s not difficult – and it’s not rocket science.

If you do want to feel for someone, though, spare a thought for Martin Lang, who spent £100,000 on what he thought was an original Chagall.

Searching for authentification, it was sent to the Chagall Committee in Paris, which decided it was a fake and that it should thus be destroyed under French law.

Mr Lang wants it back – he’s still waiting to see if they’ll mark at as a forgery and send it back to him.