As so many gifted painters have discovered to their cost, having an unusual talent is not necessarily a passport to a meteoric career. So many whose abilities deserve to be recognised, or at the very least acknowledged, struggle cruelly in obscurity if not in the proverbial garret. Such neglect may drive certain temperaments to desperate measures.The inability of the meritorious to make a living is doubly harsh when the infantile antics and stunts of contemporary art are plastered daily across the newspapers.When only the most strident and outrageous get noticed the world of art becomes a strange and unfair place. An art college lecturer recently advised her imminently graduating painters and sculptors that if they wished for a successful career they should employ with immediate effect the most expensive public relations company they could afford. She was effectively informing her charges of
the unpleasant truth that in contemporary art it’s not the quality of the work produced that will make you famous, but more importantly how shrewdly and relentlessly you are marketed and branded as an individual. In terms of high sales and escalating prices, success in art is unfortunately directly proportionate to the public visibility of the artist. Thus has our age of mindless celebrity worship sullied even the hallowed halls of art. As the last hundred years have proved, dealers in Modern Art can sell any old rubbish against the perception of success and a secure investment. In the world of those collectors desperate to be fashionable it won’t matter what a work looks like, because to them art is like so many shoes, cars, handbags or jewels – they will buy anything if the label is recognisably expensive and their friends are suitably impressed by them having paid so much for so little.These few words tell you most of what you
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