One of the difficulties with assessing contemporary art is that the self-referential nature of much work makes it difficult to distinguish between a banal work of art and one that takes banality as its theme (much like the imitative fallacy described below). Nevertheless, Ben Lewis, Prospect's art critic, makes a valiant attempt at bringing Damien Hirst down a peg or two in the current issue of Prospect. How might we make a case against Hirst, asks Lewis?
One way is to point to the large amount of terrible work that he has produced. All great artists have produced bad works, but surely none have made as many as Hirst.Let us know what you think of Damien "diamond geezer" Hirst below (and check out Tom Chatfield's related post on this blog, "The test of art.")
