Guardian vid of Chris Ofili studio
Feb 4th, 2010 | By Chris | Category: Random Shanghai stuff...Also a piece on UK artists here.
Quote:
So here’s a paradox. Constantly, the media tell us that London is this century’s Manhattan or Paris, that Britain is the world’s leading art capital. Yet I believe that in Manhattan in the 1960s you would actually have found artists living and working – and if Picasso had fled back to Barcelona, the Musée Picasso wouldn’t have been in Paris. Art capitals are traditionally places where artists thrive. But what kind of artist really thrives on our brand of instant celebrity?
As a critic, you forget what celebrity means. It’s seeing people coo over someone who seems very ordinary to me, such as Grayson Perry – someone I’ve sometimes been rude about, sometimes praised, but certainly never mistaken for the kind of artist I, personally, would go weak at the knees to meet.
