Will I miss Tracey Emin ?

Apparently the artist (and I use that term loosely) Tracy Emin is considering moving abroad because she does not want to pay 50% tax. She states that "the French appreciate art".

Indeed the French do appreciate art, which makes me wonder what ms Emin will do there ? After all, great art will always have an audience. Whereas her career appears to me to be based around a pompous London based market obsessed with spending large sums of money city bonus money on "installations" which are neither thought provoking or artistic.

Great art needs to make people gasp at the ability of the artist. When I look at the work of Ms Emin I am shocked at just how little artistic ability is required to produce it. To give it some relevance, when I go to watch football I want to see someone produce something on the pitch that I could never do on a Sunday morning playing for the local pub team on the village green. In the same way we want to hear musicians who can play guitar, can hit the notes with their voices, and whose lyrics inspire. We don't want someone tunelessly singing twinkle twinkle little star. And that is what Ms Emin's artwork is, to me. Decidedly average and something that I could produce, had I "the name" and the patronage of lots of rich people with friends to impress and no taste.

I'd love to say I'd miss Ms Emin, but I won't. A selfish millionaire with little discernible talent who is not willing to pay tax is hardly a role model for the youth of today.

I didn't realise the average primary school was full of so many artists

Apparently THIS is art. If it is I would suggest that our primary schools are full of thousands of artists.

Talk about the emperors new clothes, who buys in to this rubbish except Lord Saatchi ?

Proving my point again ?

On Tuesday I wrote scathingly of the load of old shite the Tate Modern sometimes serves up under the title "art", because as an alternative artist you could literally shit yourself and call it "art". And if people don't like it you call them a heathen or uneducated or stupid and simply complain that they don't understand.

Well I then read something like THIS story about some arrogant Cypriot Australian who has had an ear grafted on to his arm in the name of art.

It's a shame it wasn't another penis. If he had done this at least he could have taken the piss twice as much !

Now I await all the criticism from people who tell me that it is because I lack "an inner soul" or a "post ironic understanding" or it is because I am simply thick. If it is because I am ignorant, then at least it is bliss.

Taking the P*ss in Tate Modern

Next year's new installation in Tate Modern should be this.

After all, if they can get away with THIS, and pretend it is all about racism and division, then why not allow people somewhere so that Tate modern can see we can take the piss too ?

A story for all Focus editors

When Conservative blogs like Conservative Home and Iain Dale are agreeing with a Lib Dem blog like Paul Walter, you know that call me "Dave" Cameron and his policy review panels might not be on to a winner.

The Tories have said that they may allow major museums and galleries to charge for visitors, a practise ended by Labour. This opens up the opportunity for the Tories to be shown up as elitists who care little for the ordinary man in the street. The Telegraph headline which says "Tories want to make free museums history", couldn't make it any clearer.

Some Tories clearly despise ordinary people wandering around looking at art in the National Gallery or the Tate Modern. Money, not education or a right to share the culture of your nation is more important to them.

Well done to all those Tories who see that what their party is proposing as wrong. Let us hope though that they see it as wrong because it is the worst kind of snobbery, and not just because it is a vote loser.

To anyone else campaigning against the Tories, take note, put it on a leaflet and let the electorate know exactly what "Dave" and his new Tories are like.