Two worlds met in Paris last week. Thanks to the presence of Art Basel, some of the world’s most valuable art that wasn’t already in the city was shipped there. It arrived just in time for Paris to go up in flames. Most of the art fair went ahead as planned at the Grand Palais, but the final weekend was cancelled.

Parisian friends and those who were visiting the city described scenes of Dada-esque absurdity. They navigated streets filled with burning bins and rioting ‘youths’ in balaclavas, before slipping into champagne receptions. Some who attempted to get out of the city spoke of Mogadishu-like scenes at Gare du Nord, where the country’s newest net-contributors were busily assaulting any available police and stealing the luggage of any tourist they could find.

You have to have thought and read an awful lot to be as wicked as some of France’s philosophers and writers

You have to have thought and read an awful lot to be as wicked as some of France’s philosophers and writers

Unfortunately reports from the front line all confirm a pre-existing prejudice of my own – which is that almost no group is more detached from society than those who call themselves ‘artists’. A particularly fine example came courtesy of a woman called Louisa Buck, who writes for the Art Newspaper. Reviewing the carnage in the city, as well as the contents of Art Basel, Buck (the daughter of the late Conservative MP Sir Antony Buck) twittered admiration not for the art but for the vandalism.

Taking to Instagram, she wrote: ‘For me the most powerful artwork encountered in the last 48 hours........

© The Spectator