«ART IS WHAT YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH»

Wasn't it Andy Warhol who said, "Art is anything you can get away with"? – and went on to prove his point again and again, without ever being rumbled. It's always been a tricky area: nobody wants to be thought of as an untutored oaf, the kind of person who boldly states, "I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like" or, "I always think that's the sign of a good painting, when the eyes seem to follow you around the room." It makes "art" fruitful soil for the chancer and the charlatan, and those who imagine that they're "artists", because nobody has the confidence to tell them what they're doing is rubbish, just in case it isn't. We've been saddled for years with what we can see is a pile of bricks or a heap of dung, and recognise it for the nonsense it is, but because somebody who is supposed to know a great deal more than we do about "art" says that's what it is, we're schtum. Old art, the stuff that required draughtsmanship, perspective, the sheer blinding talent to portray a subject sensitively and beautifully in paint, stone, bronze or porcelain went out the artist's attic window some time ago. We all know the argument that photography has long since supplanted painting or sculpture as a means of accurately representing a figure or a scene, but at the same time I'm loath to accept anyone who claims to be an artist, when it's painfully obvious that they can't draw for toffee.

-The Telegraph
March 27 2010