Jake Chapman: the artist who thinks kids shouldn't look at art

Age: 47.

Appearance: Vin Diesel's lighting stand-in.

Profession: artist, scourge of the middle classes

How does he inhabit those two roles? In the first instance, as half of the Chapman brothers, along with older sibling Dinos, whose works include Hell (miniature Nazi figurines in swastika-shaped glass cases) and The Rape of Creativity (a pristine set of Goya prints, defaced).

What about those kids with penises for noses? That's them, yeah.

And the middle-class scourge thing? In an interview with the Independent, Chapman said parents shouldn't take their kids to art galleries.

Really? I thought you had to expose your kids to art early, like you do with bad-tasting vegetables and chickenpox. Chapman called parents "arrogant" for believing that children could grasp the meaning of complex works by artists such as Mark Rothko.

I don't care if they understand it, as long as they don't touch it with their sticky hands. He claimed it was insulting to stand a child in front of a Jackson Pollock. "It's like saying … it's as moronic as a child. Children aren't human yet."

Tell me about it. He has kids of his own, I take it. Three.

So what is he saying? That just because my toddler doesn't get De Kooning, now I have to find a babysitter? He's basically accusing middle-class parents of equating the "simplicity" of a work by, say, Picasso or Matisse with children's drawings. "There's no connection," he said. "Anyone who says there is, is less than a village idiot."

I only say that stuff so my kid will stop screaming: "I HATE THIS." According to Chapman, dragging a child round an art gallery is a "total waste of time".

But that's the whole point. A trip to the Tate Modern can use up a whole Saturday. Others disagree. A National Gallery spokesman said: "Children benefit a great deal from visiting art galleries and museums."

Sounds good. Does the restaurant have a kids' menu? It certainly does, but you might need to book a high chair.

Do say: "I'm not sure why he has a penis for a nose, darling. Perhaps he was born like that."

Don't say: "You call that art? My kid could appreciate that."