He dared to speak

The chairman of the so-called hotbed of art radicalism in London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, has been forced to resign - because he voiced his opinion that much conceptual art was "pretentious, self-indulgent, craftless tat" but critics were too scared to say so.

"It is the product of an over-indulged middle-class (barely concealed behind mockney accents), bloated egos who patronise real people with fake understanding," wrote Ivan Massow in the New Statesman. "Thousands of young artists wait in the wings to see whether the taste arbiters will relinquish their exclusive fascination with concept art. It's a crime. We need art lovers to tell artists they're not obliged to reinvent themselves into creators of piles of crap.

"We've now reached a situation where a new generation of art students go to college with the idea of becoming rich and famous like their idol Damien Hirst (pictured left), to act like rock stars instead of aspiring to artistic excellence through a tangible medium."

Massow also angered his opponents at the institute with his blatant use of a "C-word all of my own that no one would dare use ... craft."