Dialogue: I'm fed up with spurious 'artists' ripping us off

What constitutes art? Apparently two big spotlights on the backs of trucks are art. Dirty knickers on an unmade bed - that's art. I've well and truly lost the plot here. I always thought that art was a thing of beauty born of a unique creative talent inherent in the artist.

What on earth does Ralph Hotere's little masterpiece have that makes it art? The same trucks and lights set up by a couple of sparkies for, say, the lighting display at a rock concert are not art.

Poor sparkies, missing out on all that money. All they had to do was give their work an enigmatic name. Skylight IV. Heavy, man. Oh wow!

At this rate, we could all be artists. Down on the farm, the boss and I could explore the existentialism of rural life with pieces of No 8 wire and old milking-machine parts. Wire II.

The more expressive yet understated drama of Bucket III would impress the critics, while the raw angst displayed in the moving interactive sculpture Hayfork with Golfball V would form a powerful counterpoint to the rhythmic fluidity of the serene Old Plank and Fertiliser Bag.

The artist's gumboots, complete with original cow poop, would be on display at the Sculpture Walk before being carefully shipped to London to form an integral part of the Tate Gallery of Modern Art's latest exhibition. We'd never have to milk cows again.

Am I the only one who is fed up with spurious "artists" ripping us off with their shonky sculptures, crass ceramics and phony paintings?

It's not just the visual arts. Modern music? Dissonant squawks, squeaks and bing-bongs, isn't it? The kind of stuff your toddler does with the pots and pans and a wooden spoon.

Modern literature? Plotless, rambling, streams of consciousness that indulge in graphic descriptions of bodily functions and show a curious fascination with stains. There's more entertainment in an advert for Spray'n' Wipe.

Who actually likes all this stuff? It's no good asking a critic. Those jokers write about it in language so pretentiously impregnable that we think, oh boy, this is a brainy bloke who uses big words so there must be something in this artwork that only brainy people can see, so I'd better say I like it and everyone will know I'm brainy, too.

Councils swallow this pap hook, line and sinker. They're city councillors, you know. Bigwigs. Hotshots. They mingle with the glitterati, rub shoulders with wealthy sponsors of starving artists.

You can't appear as an untutored oik in front of the arty smarties. It would be like asking how you wash your feet in the bidet. So you admire Skylight IV, say that yes, you can ... um ... see the power and feel the ... ah ... symbolism, then decide to drop $15,500 of ratepayers' money on it.

Ailing sewerage systems, decrepit water reticulation and gridlock traffic are all mere bagatelles. Let's put polystyrene cows in fountains and amuse the frustrated inhabitants of Auckland with our lighthearted fun. It's the scenario of the emperor's new designer clobber again. Where, oh, where is that perspicacious infant who knew the outfit for the naked baloney it was?

Back home in Scotland we have a television character called Rab C. Nesbit. Rab is an unemployed oaf with a unique brand of homespun philosophy. He did a dissertation on art once which summed up the ins and outs of it for people with more sense than money.

He said there were two types of art: punter art and the other stuff. Punter art was that nice picture you buy to hide the mark on the wallpaper above the fireplace. The other stuff is Skylight IV.

Punter art includes most classic paintings. I have a Monet print in my living room and a Rousseau in the hall. They knew how to paint and draw, those blokes. No nonsense about integrated imagery or sinister symbolism.

Don't we all enjoy a real artist's work? Pictures such as Constable's The Haywain, van Gogh's Sunflowers and Monet's Waterlilies have an enduring appeal which can be seen by flicking through the framed prints in the Warehouse.

No dirty knickers or spotlights there. Just reproductions of the great classic works of art which are pleasant on the eye, a nice addition to a room and a source of pleasure to all.

How many people will go to see Skylight IV? How will the buyer of the unmade bed display it in his house? What do you say to your dinner guests? Yes, Trevor, it's a bed. No, we don't sleep on it. My God, Trevor. Don't touch those knickers! No, Alice, it's not fully original any more - the dog ate the condom.

Wouldn't it be easier to just go out and get yourself a nice Vermeer print? He did a wonderful view of Delft. It goes with any decor and costs only $29.99.

* Louisa Herd is a Wellsford writer.