Hoggan's Run

I hadn’t laughed so much since Watson got sent down. Jack Vettriano: fraud. Great stuff. All the half-wit philistines who put up the flimsy argument in defense of this artporn have been proved to be useless ingrates. Now Vettriano ('I used to be a miner you know!', real name Jack Hoggan) looks a right Charlie.

Why does any of this matter?

It stops the philistine pages of the Torygraph/Scotsman being filled with anti-intellectual drivel from the rich but thick supporters of Hoggan who have used the painter as the battering ram for their own campaign against contemporary art, and by default contemporary thought. Their dreadful campaign to have his works installed in public galleries can now be abandoned. MacDiarmid said: 'The greater the plagiarism the greater the work of art', but in this case the plagiarism is poor.

As Jonathan Jones writes: "Vettriano is not an artist. His textureless, brainless corpses of paintings just happen to be popular." His unveiling is therefore also a blow against the hopelessness of popular culture where the unthinking celebrity drivel dominates.

I normally post an image with each entry but this policy has been resisted on this occasion.