Melvyn Bragg slips into the great Damien Hirst debate

 
27 January 2014

It’s shark-eat-shark in the art scene. Melvyn Bragg has got himself in hot water for defending Damien Hirst against persistent plagiarism claims. “Artists always imitate artists,” said Bragg on BBC 1’s The One Show last week. “They call it homage. The only thing that matters is that it’s good. Art is an investment. You don’t buy shares in BP. You buy them in Damien Hirst. And they’ve done an awful lot better.”

But the Stuckist artist Charles Thomson, a long- time provocateur against the contemporary art scene, has said Bragg’s defence is “contemptible”. “I doubt if he’d be so smug about it if one of his novels was ripped off and made into a bestseller by someone else before his version got published,” said Thomson. More damning yet, he says Hirsts aren’t always a particularly wise investment: “There’s a glut of his work so it doesn’t all fetch a good price.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in