Why do celebrities keep trying (and failing) to become artists? Gary Grimes wades into the debate

We, as a society, have always been great admirers of those we observe as having mastered ‘the art of celebrity’. Stars like Taylor Swift and Madonna have been the subject of decades of thinkpieces praising their canny knack for controlling their narratives and weaponising criticism for their own artistic and financial gain. It is when the celebrity wishes to master art itself however, that we’re often less forgiving.

Nobody knows this better than Adrian Brody, whose latest foray into the world of visual art, a mixed-media collage entitled Cane’s Anthem unveiled by the actor in New York last month, was met with much derision, with ARTnews labelling the work his “latest art monstrosity”. Granted, neither the actor’s chosen exhibition space (the Times Square branch of fast food joint Raising Cane’s), nor the piece’s inspiration (his friend and Raising Cane’s founder Todd Graves) helped matters. The reception was no warmer than Brody’s previous attempts to establish himself as a legitimate visual artist, which have included shows at New York galleries and Art Basel Miami, as well as offering an original artwork to be auctioned off at an amfAR gala (though critically panned, the collage, we should note, did fetch an impressive $425,000 for the charity).

Though the back streets of the art world may be cold for Brody, they are not lonely. There, roaming the metaphorical alley ways of this fabled town he will find many celebrity peers who have been similarly left outside, for once in their careers seemingly unable to pass by the proverbial velvet rope. Most recently, Jack White found himself lambasted following the first public showing of his art, an exhibition of sculptures currently on view in London which earned him a truly savage one star review from The Guardian. In his takedown, critic Jonathan Jones labelled White “a complete nonstarter” as a visual artist and noted the show’s “vacuum of passion or purpose,” mocking the musician’s “confused and pretentious idea of what contemporary art is”. Ouch.

Ed Sheeran suffered a similar fate when he debuted a collection of Jackson Pollock-aping paintings last year, with Jones suggesting that Sheeran’s work “gives all abstract art a bad name”. Both Ed and Adrian’s exhibitions were held at the Newport Street Gallery owned by Damien Hirst, a noble patron to musically gifted dilettantes who find themselves bored of crafting pop hits and wish instead to try their hand behind the canvas. James Franco, Jim Carrey, Sylvester Stallone and David Bowie have all similarly ventured into the art world only to be met with levels of ridicule far harsher than the furore which surrounds a box office flop. Even the great Sir Paul McCartney’s art was considered dead on arrival, with the legendary art critic Brian Sewell deeming his paintings so bad they were “beneath criticism”.

So what gives? Why do the keys to the castle seem to remain so firmly out of reach for these behemoths of music and film, icons in their own right, whose output in their respective fields has earned them endless plaudits? Amongst the critics, you’ll find those who argue these celebrities are taking up valuable space in galleries and institutions which could otherwise be used to platform important or struggling artists who have dedicated their lives to their practice. Such was the opinion of the Scottish figurative artist Peter Howson, who blasted the disgraced actor Johnny Depp in 2023, after it emerged that the actor had made nearly £4 million by selling prints of his work at £4,000 a pop via London’s Castle Fine Art. Howson argued that the onus is on galleries not to put resources into celeb-fronted vanity projects (although given the struggle for most galleries to keep the lights on these days, it’s hard to argue with the numbers when you consider what they might take in from their cut of Depp’s sales).

Another consideration for why these stars’ currency doesn’t seem to be so readily accepted in the art world undoubtedly comes down to class. Whilst the art world is celebrity obsessed in its own way, it tends to like to anoint its own heroes from within in its own ecosystem, many of whom, like Jeff Koons or the aforementioned Hirst, even employ similar tactics to that of Madonna or Swift to leverage their public perception and controversies to boost their profile. They still however, in the eyes of their peers and art media, maintain a level of class and refinement thanks to their pedigree backgrounds, education and knowledge of art history. Might the kind of in your face, household fame of Ed Sheeran or Jim Carrey be seen as tacky, banal or, in some cases, even vulgar to art folk whose raison d'être hinges on their ‘if you know, you know’ mentality.

Of course, not all stars have had the door slammed in their face. Girls writer and actress Lena Dunham’s dipping of her toe into watercolouring was largely warmly received. The fact she is the daughter of two prominent contemporary artists, Laurie Simmons and Carol Dunham, may have helped, though in the nepo baby-obsessed climate we currently live in, it could just have easily set the polarising star up for guaranteed humiliation. Sharon Stone, Brad Pitt, and Lucy Liu have also been the beneficiaries of press coverage which seemed to seek to legitimise them as credible artists rather than shun them for even trying. Stone received co-sign from the Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Jerry Saltz, whilst Pitt even acquired the unimaginable – he provoked unadulterated praise from the aforementioned celebrity-hating Jonathan Jones who, following Pitt’s 2022 exhibition of his sculptures, wrote that the actor is both “an extremely impressive artist” and “a fine sculptor”.

Could the answer be as reasonable as the work of these stars simply being better? Possibly. In 2023, Artnet News wrote that the reason Stone is “taken seriously as an artist is because she takes her art seriously.” And truthfully, I think even someone who has literally never stepped foot inside a gallery could instantly distinguish that the Basic Instinct actress’s work is not just superior to her celebrity peers, but also clearly the product of someone with a profound dedication to their craft.

In direct contrast is Radical Honesty, a 2025 exhibition by Robbie Williams around which the Take That singer bragged to The Sunday Times about how little time and effort he put into perfecting the works, a series of childlike drawings with naval-gazing slogans about social anxiety, all of which he drew on his iPad. “I have the idea for the speech, I knock up the thing behind it, the thing that takes 20 minutes, 25 minutes to draw, boom, I move on to the next one,” he told the newspaper. In the same interview, he noted that he possesses neither the time nor the inclination to pursue any formal training in art, but he didn’t see this a barrier to pricing his works well into the five figure bracket, noting that the larger scale works in his show “won’t be priced accessibly. They will be accessible to rich people.”

Through this so-called ‘radical honesty’, Williams, perhaps knowingly, added fuel to the fire for those who argue that these celebrities make a mockery of the practice of “true artists”. Truth be told, even the most open-minded and level-headed critic would struggle to write up a show by someone who so brazenly presented their art to be consumed in a museum which also houses works by Warhol, Basquiat and Haring, thus demanding to be taken seriously, but who cannot resist the urge to take the piss out of the whole endeavour by admitting they put so little into their craft. Rest assured Robbie enjoyed an appropriate dressing down, most notably by critic Eddy Frankel who wrote in The Guardian that the Angels singer has produced some “incredibly bad art: so earnest, so superficial, it’s barely even funny”.

A factor which must also be considered is that art critics are not immune to succumbing to the insatiable hunger that exists in all forms of media, and indeed humanity, to knock celebrities off the very pedestals we previously put them on. It’s the critic’s job to meaningfully analyse and review art but they are also responsible for drawing readers to their respective publications, and by feeding the public desire to take the likes of Brody down a peg or two with a snarling headline or a vicious review, they can do just that. Ironically, in doing so, they are utilising the star’s household name-status in precisely the same manner in which they simultaneously criticise the individual for having used to hold such an exhibition in the first place.

This speaks to a truth which most art folk do not want to admit, which is that the worlds of art and celebrity are not as different as they might like to think. Most pertinently, they both, increasingly, rely on the attention economy to sustain themselves, and so it seems likely we will continue to see these worlds overlap as galleries and institutions face the demands to draw people through their doors. Let’s just hope that the next starlet brave enough to step onto the plinth can do so with a touch more integrity than Robbie. If Ed Sheeran can be found guilty of giving all abstract art a bad name, the Rock DJ singer has done far worse for celebrity art.