Apperently artists can contract out their work and still be the artist.

I was reading through this article I grabbed from Fark and this caught my eye.

The new exhibition -- 29 photorealist oil paintings based on photographs of hospital scenes, drug addicts, suicide bombers and his own artwork -- has been fuel for the fire for those who question whether he is an artist or a conman.

The paintings, which have sold for $200,000 to $2 million each, were largely executed by assistants with Hirst stepping in only to add a touch of blood or do the eyes.

"I don't like the idea that it has to be done by the artist, I think it's quite an old fashioned thing," he said.

"Architects don't build their own houses," he said, adding that his assistants are better painters than him anyway. "You'd get an inferior painting if it's done by the artist."

Let me get this straight. You don't actually need to do any work to be an artist. You can pay people to create for you and you can still take the credit. This man is expecting to be praised for work he didn't even do. This is insane. He is using contract workers to do his work for him.

The architect analogy is hardly fair as an architect has an entire building completely planned before construction begins. He has designed everything. When you are paying someone to paint for you you don't have the same complete control that the architect has. Unless the workers are simply doing paint by numbers and every color is prepicked, the actual painters are going to add some amount of personal style to the work. Construction workers building a house don't have that. They are constructing, these painters are creating. There is a difference.

Madness.

-Brandon