This Week... Art - Ransom Note

Commentary

"By the time I was completely stoned I felt utterly bereft." – Jon Snow

"New politics, my arse." – Gerry Adams

"Babestation recognise this as an innocent misunderstanding and they are extremely aware that disappointed callers in Ireland, whose intention it was to speak to one of the Babestation girls, may have inadvertently reached homes on the west coast of Ireland." – Babestation

Y'know, these things are becoming harder and harder. Everybody knows what's going on in the world, and as I'm sat in a pair of shorts on my sofa amongst the red wine gases that are leaving my body you don't need someone like me to tell you what's happening. So instead of giving you a sarcastic reporting on the news of the day I'm going to turn to something I'm equally as unqualified to report on; art. It sounds more impressive to strangers, the pay is probably better and any instances where I act like a wanker are not only excused, they're championed as a form of integrity. Art is great.

In my new role as an arts critic then it is my duty to say that David Hockney's rebranding of The S*n logo us utter shite. A one-day-only redesign that allows "readers their own David Hockney," a flash of positivity before you scrawl the chicken scratches inside and remember that art is for liberal elites and the PC brigade who tell people they can't be racist anymore. Is it satire? Is Hockney taking the piss? Is it an achievement of artistic greatness that is replaced by a pair of boobs as soon as you turn the page? As a critic myself I would say no but that doesn't stop my peers from blindly praising it as a work of greatness while they masturbate into their floral shirts shouting "GRAYSON PERRY IS A MAINSTREAM ABOMINATION."

Take Guardian critic Jonathan Jones who confuses Hockney's drawing as "an optimistic vision of the world’s beauty" and not the front-page polish of a turd-like newspaper which once lied about Liverpool fans robbing corpses at a football match. Later in the piece Jones thinks that to Hockney, The S*n "represents freedom," and I guess in a way he's right. The freedom to point your camera updwards under the skirt of a Hollyoaks actress leaving a taxi in Liverpool? The freedom to stoke the fires of racial tension? The freedom to caption a photo of Hockney's former assistant Dominic Elliott – a gay man – who died in Hockney's home in 2013 with the word 'Bender'? It's all freedom, I guess.

I don't think for a second that The S*n don't believe Hockney's not taking the piss with this one, but to greet it with acclaim as a means of displaying a faked controversial take on the matter? Not from this art critic. So with that, fuck Jonathan Jones and fuck being an art critic. Back to making jokes about Farage I go.