In every field, every profession there are many steps one needs to take in order to get better at the craft. In painting we may start with drawing boxes with charcoal and master perspective, eventually getting to drawing portraits and the human figure. Anatomy, facial expressions, emotions, each step along the way towards mastering our craft, in this example lets say painting figures.

Well after some time has passed and we find our style, our colour pallet and begin producing exceptional work and find some form of success with it, what happens if we chose to delegate portions of it to somebody else. Maybe even somebody, who is better at those parts of our process than we are? If we were a business owner others might see this as a strength; only a good business person knows that there is always somebody better at what they do and gets exactly that person to do the job for them. Well is a painter a confident and genuine creative person if she chooses to get another painter to grind her pigments and mix the colours? I think so.

And is she still genuine if she then asks another person to stretch the canvas and prime it. Probably. But what if yet another person takes the colours and applies them to the canvas under the instructions of the painter? Is she still genuine and original, if she delegates this part of her process? Maybe is what the art world would say, considering what Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Ai Wei Wei are doing with their assistants all around the world. And sure the lawyers would say, especially those who are fans of Richard Prince.

But would other artists agree? Can you?

And how does this ambivalence that I feel towards work delegation in fine art impact the artist profession? Because while Koons and Hirst are big players in the world of art and there are mechanisms in place to keep them there even if they decide that none of their works will be touched by them ever again and that they will merely give orders on how to produce them, we can’t just decide that after getting to the point where collectors are interested in our art, that now we want to expand and double down on production and hire some assistants to do the work for us? Or can we?