Ben OsborneYorkshire based artist, David Hockney, has ignited a row in the art world by critising fellow artist, Damien Hirst, for what he sees as the lazy use of assistants in creating works of art.
Quoting a Chinese saying, Hockney that to paint “you need the eye, the hand and the heart. Two won’t do.” He went on to add “The other great thing they said – I told this to Lucian Freud – is, ‘painting is an old man’s art’. I like that!”
The comments were made in an interview with the Radio Times where at a clear dig at Hirst, Hockney commented that it was “insulting” for assistants to be used when creating works of art. The poster for his new the Royal Academy show reads: “All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally.”
Asked if he was commenting on Damien Hirst, the Leeds trained artist, famous for shocking the art world with his famous shark in formaldehyde, and recent £50m human skull covered in 8,601 diamonds, Hockney confirmed he was, adding, “It’s a little insulting to craftsmen, skilful craftsmen. I used to point out at art school, you can teach the craft, it’s the poetry you can’t teach. But now they try to teach the poetry and not the craft.”
Hockney was also this week awarded an Order of Merit by the Queen, in her New Year’s Honour List. The honour is presented to individuals of great achievement in arts, learning, literature, science and other areas such as public service.
The row will not harm Hockney’s new Royal Academy show ‘A Bigger Picture’, which is themed on his depiction of landscape spanning a 50-year period set in the countryside here in Yorkshire, but it does raise interesting questions on authenticity in the art world. Hirst is also about to launch a major exhibition, and it awaits to be seen if he responds to the comments.
The criticism is not a new one, and it has been aimed at other artists such as Andy Warhol, who famously used a ‘Factory’ of assistants to help create his visions in New York in the 1960s and ’70s. A recent exhibition at The National Gallery also highlighted Leonardo da Vinci’s use of assistants to create some of his masterworks, so the technique is not a new one.
Let us know what you think. Is Hockney right that artists who use assistants are “insulting’ or do you think it is the concept, inspiration and idea that matters most, rather than who actually creates it? The architect of a beautiful building is still held in high esteem despite not picking up a brick, but does this hold true in the art world?
I thought all the Renaissance artists had teams of people helping them, and were closer to Warhol's factory than the cult of the artist would have us think
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