On Front Row today, I heard Andy Goldsworthy today described as "the Jack Vettriano of conceptualism", which I thought was rather good. Goldsworthy is a publishing phenomenon, with glossy books of photographs of his giant snowballs and arrangements of twigs and stones selling in large numbers, edition after edition, yet London's art establishment appears to ignore him just about completely. The Tate has none of his work. Explanations offered by the discussants included that to see most of Goldsworthy's work, one has to go out into the countryside, that his work concerns the pastoral, which is of scant interest to our modern, very metropolitan, art establishment, and that his work is pretty, or even beautiful, much unlike the austere product of Richard Long, who is covered in official praise and honour. All very plausible.
The narrow metropolitanism of our art establishment is certainly a failing, but the rejection of beauty is more fundamental, and needs to be explained.
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