Art whore

The Whore of Babylon, Albrecht Dürer

The Urban Dictionary enlightens us:

1. art whore: Someone who paints or creates any artistic work solely to please a Buyer. This term need not be gender specific.

He painted only meaningless Abstracts as such things found ready Buyers. He had become an art whore.

2. art whore: Noun- Someone who specializes in feeling special for maintaining the delusion that art is inherently valuable. This is typically done by selling their artwork, which requires a massively inflated ego and fosters a dependence on the insulated world of art critics. This dependency can be likened to the relationship between a hooker and a pimp.

"John Doe is an art whore. Before that he, like all other artists, was a wanna-be art whore."

The problem with this notion of "art whores" is that it lays culpability at the doors of artists, whereas it is the galleries, auction houses, banks and hedge funds that we ought to be after. Obviously, we hope artists will come round to this way of thinking. So, no names just yet.

Let them decide which side of the fence they prefer.