Dave The Chimp wades into the art debate with this exemplary summary:

‘no, really, it is.

does nobody have anything interesting to say any more?

If I see one more mash-up of comic books with company logos and distorted comic book characters I’ll puke
I’m so clever - I put three eyes on Mickey Mouse and made Snow White look like a porn star!
yawn
Q: so, why do you attack Disney characters Mr. Artist?
A: Don’t you know Walt Disney supported the Nazi party???
and? so what? he also created joy for millions of children and inspired hundreds of thousands to draw comics, create movies, make art. so what if his political leanings were dubious. Do you know how many writers and artists and directors and inventors and doctors and scientists, people that have done great things, have supported political parties that later turned out to be shit? most of them. because ALL political parties end up being shit, that’s the nature of power - it corrupts. get over it.
pictured above is the only thing that ever needs to be said about Disney. end of story.
NEXT
If I see one more painting of your two dimensional character that has nothing to say and doesn’t actually do anything I’ll pour bleach in my eyes.
I picked up a Calvin and Hobbes comic earlier at a friends place. man, each frame has so much life - the characters have movement and expression, they explode out of the page, reflect the crazy, creative world of children, of fantasies, of dreams. pour out emotions and feelings.
And it’s just a dumb cartoon that’s in the newspaper, tomorrows trash.
So why the fuck do I need to see 50 different versions of your character in different colour combinations, when there’s more expression of human emotion in one dumb throw-away comic strip?
Fucking step up! SAY something! damn…
NEXT
If I see one more sub-standard Banksy style ‘political’ stencil which actually has nothing to say, or stencil of a persons face, I will throw myself under a train.
Anyone with a computer can print out a photo and make it into a stencil. You wanna make a portrait? then sit down with a model and draw a picture of them. better still, paint it in oils, make it feel alive, show emotion, show the spark that makes humans what we are - then I’ll be impressed.
You wanna be political? then fucking DO something. stand up and say something. if you’re anti the war in Iraq then camp outside Parliament for a year in the freezing wind and pissing rain. don’t stencil up a soldier with a Ford logo on his helmet and expect to change the world. how is that gonna change things when the tv shows children with their limbs blown off, kids ripped in two, and nothing changes. you really think your screen print of a gun with a flower in the end is gonna change things when the sobbing face of a human who just lost everyone he loves doesn’t touch a single one of us?
fuck

I’m really happy that the world is in a recession. you wanna know why?
I’m happy because people won’t have money to spend on your screen print of George W Bush wearing a clowns nose
or your canvas of Donald Duck shitting a Coca Cola logo
or your sculpture of Captain America dressed as a suicide bomber

maybe artists will have to struggle again, and the ones that survive will actually have something to say
and all the ones just feeding off the past, off the work of others, recreating a lesser version of work that has an idea or goal, will have to quit playing this game and will go back to being graphic designers making cereal packets and pizza flyers to pay the rent

imagine if every artist actually had something to say
or had an idea
or could at least draw
wow. that would really be something…

me, I’m not interested in art right now, have no plans to exhibit before Spring next year
last night I lay awake for an hour wondering whether I should self-publish the book I wrote
just because it seemed like something new for me to do. because it presents some ideas and theories, takes you on a journey, is deeply personal
maybe I will, maybe I won’t
maybe I’ll just take photos of tangled wires because I find them interesting
or build temples for insects in the woods where no one will see them
or maybe I’ll do nothing at all
doing nothing seems just as good a use of my time as making boring screen prints of Superman wearing lipstick, or stenciling another picture of a childs face in the streets
and at least doing nothing doesn’t damage the ozone layer or cause any trees to be chopped down…’

More from Dave here.

A better executed summary of the current scene I can’t imagine. Hit’s you where it’s supposed to. Let’s move this debate on to the second wave of street inspired art, as art, and not mere icon bashing.