Why Your Five‑Year‑Old Could Not Have Done That. Modern Art Explained

Susie Hodge explains how ‘notorious’ works such as Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII (1966) — a rectangular arrangement of fire‑bricks that is admittedly easily copied by a child — occupy unique niches in the history of ideas, both showing influences of past artists and themselves influencing subsequent artists. A five‑year‑old might succeed in executing a spin painting such as those of Damien Hirst without understanding the ideas that lay behind it or its place in the history of artistic endeavour, but it does not follow that this work would be of significance to artists and historians.