Tim Worstall

On the horrors of having to do a day job while trying to be an artist:
What a day job inevitably means, of course, is spending the majority of your waking hours not doing the thing you love:
Just like everyone else then, eh?

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James Cameron, the director of the 3D blockbuster Avatar, has been accused of ripping off ideas from two popular Soviet Union science fiction writers.
Well, yes, there do seem to be similarities.
But then he’s also ripped off Dances with Wolves, Pocahontas and any number of other trite fables.

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The Times disclosed in April that a sculpture bought by the Royal Festival Hall from the trust had been made by Colin Pitchfork, who was serving life for killing two teenage girls.
The centre withdrew the item, publicly apologised and said that it would “have a conversation with the Koestler Trust about future policy”.
Kath Eastwood, whose [...]

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The chief executive of the Royal Opera House writes….well, don’t bother to read it, I’ll give you a precis.
We’re special, the arts, so we deserve more tax money.
That’s pretty much it. No mention of the way in which the entire State arts budget is simply a subsidy from the non-metropolitan poor to the metropolitan upper [...]

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And once you’ve accepted that Tracey is the art world’s Chantelle or Jade Goody,
Mark Hudson.

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Neither is John Veals, the odious hedge-fund manager created by Sebastian Faulks, who masterminds a cynical short-selling scheme that will make him millions but hasten the ruin of the Allied Royal Bank, a thinly disguised Royal Bank of Scotland.
OK, but could those artists try and find out about the crisis before they start writing? You [...]

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THE artist Grayson Perry has woven the 21st-century answer to the Bayeux Tapestry.
Instead of the Norman invasion, the Walthamstow Tapestry, which is 49ft long, tells the story of modern Britain’s conquest by the ideology of consumerism.
…
Three copies of the Walthamstow Tapestry have been made — one will hang at the Victoria Miro gallery in Islington, [...]

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This is really rather snigger inducing:
Wanamaker, who appeared alongside Simon Russell Beale in Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre last year, said agents and bookers should be “more careful” when negotiating deals for female performers.
“Women are always at the bottom as far as pay is concerned – the equal pay business is a [...]

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Bugger the arties:

Who the hell cares? Art is not about ownership or geography. It is about values greater than time and space. I don’t give a damn where a work of art is. I just care that it is. The Taj Mahal is in India (presumably) and the Mona Lisa in Paris, but I don’t [...]

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Two of the most important paintings in Britain could be lost to the nation unless £100 million is found to keep them.

Let ‘im flog ‘em.

At least one of the greatest of the moderns, Lucian Freud – recently crowned the world’s most expensive living artist – has testified to the impact upon his own life and [...]

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Furthermore, it allows me to mention McCarthy’s great mini-me, Jake Chapman. That’s Jake Chapman as in the Shoreditch-based artist brothers, Dinos and Jake Chapman, whose most famous works have been influenced by McCarthy, although you might know Jake better from Hello!, where he can be seen furthering his artistic principles with his model wife and [...]

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One for the Great Headlines of Our Time Collection, no?
An inflatable dog turd the size of a house has blown away from a modern art exhibition in a Swiss museum before bringing down an electricity line and smashing a greenhouse window.

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The Arts Council has "lost respect" from most of the bodies it helps fund as a result of a botched attempt to "shake-up" England’s cultural institutions, an official report has found.

Wonderful, now we can abolish it, yes?
That’s what, half a billion that we don’t have to tax the dustmen to pay for the pleasures of [...]

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Eh?

Valued at £11 million, it has been offered to Tate Britain for £6 million thanks to special tax concessions.
The Tate has so far secured over £1.56 million towards acquiring the sketch, including a grant of £500,000 from The Art Fund and £300,000 from Tate members.
Urging the [...]

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In the West End. So says the Equity president. I was thinking of a trail of unpaid bills, actors living on crusts as wages were late but no:

Mr Landis said: "Now I’m not backward in mentioning names, some people don’t like to, but I’m going to. Bill Kenwright is the worst payer [...]

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Hmm, well:

An artist who made his name by presenting a real racehorse as a work of art was betting yesterday on his proposal for a giant horse to win a £2 million commission for an “Angel of the South” sculpture.
Mark Wallinger’s standing white stallion will be so huge that a person will be no taller [...]

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This, from here.
No, animals do not have rights: but humans do have duties of care.
Guillermo Habacuc Vargas would really be most unfortunate if he were to meet me in a dark alley: or a well lit room come to that.

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Women in the top posts will have got there on sheer flair, stamina, determination and conscientiousness.

Ms. Kelly is in one of those top posts.
Can’t beat that old English reticence about blowing your own trumpet now, can you?

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I wish we in the arts didn’t have to take a penny from wealthy individuals.

Stop paying yourselves. Do it for the love of it or not at all.

Most donors are more sensitive and more intelligent than this. They are genuine enthusiasts who want to share some of their money with an arts organisation. But in [...]

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Fame brings too many distractions, even the mildest affluence is the implacable enemy of creativity,

So we’ll only actually get any creativity when artists are starving in garrets.
Quick, abolish the Arts Council!

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