Culture & Artsdamien hirstVideoJeffrey Deitch

Worst Art Reviews 2012: Contentious Work Makes For Great Critiques (SLIDESHOW)

The 10 Worst Reviews In Arts&Culture This Year
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LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 13: Artist Damien Hirst stands in The Wallace Collection at his 'No Love Lost, Blue Paintings by Damien Hirst' exhibition on October 13, 2009 in London. The collection comprised of 25 new paintings by British artist Hirst is being shown in the UK for the first time. The new works, created between 2006 and 2008 mark the artist's return to the solitary practice of painting. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

Is there anything more satisfying than a deliciously scathing review? While a negative critique may not affect the artist's success, we can sometimes get pleasure from watching writers take jabs at art world titans, especially when they get all hot-and-bothered about it.

As the year comes to a close we've compiled our ten favorite prickly art reviews. In the slideshow below, see Jonathan Jones' compare Damien Hirst to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and Christopher Knight's gloves-off Deitch-bashing. All in all, these great pieces of writing made some arguably not-so-great exhibitions completely worthwhile.

What do you think of these reviews, readers? Tell us who pushes your buttons in the comments.

Correction: In an earlier version of the slideshow above, we listed Christopher Knight's review from the Los Angeles Times on Jeffrey Deitch's 'Dennis Hopper: Double Standard' at MOCA. This event took place in 2010, not 2012. We apologize for the error.

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