Arts for art’s sake- At the right price, of course

Sometimes having a press card can be very handy, and not just for waving in officers’ faces when you’re about to get arrested.

The other day it got me into the Frieze Art Fair in Regent’s Park, London, which would otherwise have cost fifty quid just to wander, mesmerised, through the giant white tents gazing in amazement at art so expensive none of it is priced.

“We don’t give out prices to the press,” someone said when I asked about the giant Jeff Koons lobster. I imagine the price range was more Kazakh oligarch than skint freelancer. That ex-Wall Street trader Koons is an artist at all is debatable — it’s not like he actually gets his hands dirty, other than to dream up new ways of making bad art and to count his millions. Which I suppose is an art in itself. Kind of.