"The people no longer seek consolation in art. But the refined people, the rich, the idlers seek the new, the extraordinary, the extravagant, the scandalous.... I am only a public clown, a mountebank. I have understood my time and exploited the imbecility, the vanity, the greed of my contemporaries. It is a bitter confession, this confession of mine, more painful than it may seem. But, at least, and at last, it does have the merit of being honest." (Pablo Picasso)
This confession could apply to many artists today, but I will concentrate on one: the Welshman Bedwyr Williams. A product of the system of manufactured pseudo-artists, having been formed at St Martin's, his artwork displays a wealth of technical deficiency. The measure of an artist's talent, one remembers, is in his technique. This illustrates his technique:
