Grafitti not art shock

“BUT is it art?” bleated Charles Purcell in cliched reference to the work of conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp. Actually, he was less open-minded than that, proclaiming, through the froth that was doubtless gathering at the corners of his mouth, it was not art.

“That wasn’t in 1917 when Duchamp’s famous ”found object” work Fountain was first exhibited. No. Disturbingly, Purcell’s comments were made just days ago in his article ”Hey Banksy, Graffiti is Vandalism not Art”, on The Age website.

“His point, essentially, was that art that ”no longer resembled the subject it was supposed to depict” – lovely still-life paintings of fruit and English lords with their hunting dogs – has led to the decay of modern culture. Or, as many of us have read it: ”Art that Purcell Doesn’t Like”. Some of it in public places. The horror!

“Purcell’s hook for his anti-modern art rant is the rumoured visit to Australia by acclaimed British stencil artist Banksy, whose film Exit Through the Gift Shop opens here next month.

“Banksy, he declared, is not an artist, but a vandal. For ”the average person”, Purcell says, Banksy’s art offers ”nothing arty or glamorous”…”

Read More: Graffiti is enough to give a critic an art attack, Kylie Northover, The Age