Clash of art's titans as David Hockney attacks Damien Hirst
Hirst's use of assistants – including taxidermists and jewellers – is 'insulting' to other artists
DAVID HOCKNEY, recently voted Britain's most influential painter and just invited by the Queen to join the prestigious Order of Merit, has attacked Damien Hirst, thought to be the world's richest living artist, for his over-use of assistants to create his artworks.
On the poster for his upcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy, Hockney has written pointedly: "All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally." Asked what he was getting at, 74-year-old Hockney admitted he had Hirst in mind.
Hirst has used taxidermists to create his famous shark in formaldehyde, a jeweller to make a platinum and diamond encrusted human skull (valued at more than £50m) and has even employed assistants to complete his spot paintings because, he said, he "couldn't be fucking arsed" to do it himself.
In Hockney's view, all of this is an insult to artists who create their own work.
"It's a little insulting to craftsmen, skilful craftsmen," he told the Radio Times. "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."
He also quoted a Chinese proverb that to be a painter "you need the eye, the hand and the heart. Two won't do."
Hockney's argument carries extra weight because no one can accuse him of being a fuddy-duddy. His show at the RA - David Hockney: A Bigger Picture – will include drawings made on his iPad and films produced using 18 cameras, as well as vast landscape paintings.
Yet Hirst has classical tradition on his side. Leonardo da Vinci used many assistants and Michelangelo could never have painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling without help.
That said, neither of those Renaissance men ever got a review like the one Hirst received from The Guardian in October 2009 for an exhibition of paintings put on by the Wallace Collection: his drawing looked "amateurish and adolescent" said art critic Adrian Searle, and his brushwork lacked panache.
None of those paintings are included in Hirst's big show at the Tate Modern, which opens just as Hockney's exhibition closes in April. Though the shark and the skull will be there.
- David Hockney – A Bigger Picture runs from 21 January to 9 April at the Royal Academy.
- Damien Hirst runs from 4 April to 9 September at the Tate Modern.
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