Mr. Hockney (L) and Mr. Hirst (R) (Photo courtesy of Getty Images)

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal's Scene Asia blog, Damien Hirst responded to recent remarks from David Hockney prodding Mr. Hirst's usage of assistants in the creation of his work.

His remarks, written as part of an e-mail interview about his upcoming 11-gallery Gagosian show, were as follows:

“I read that, it made me laugh,” he said. “David is a friend and emailed me to say it was a light-hearted comment that was taken out of context.”

Mr. Hockney, you'll recall, noted, "All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally," on the posters for his upcoming retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts, and went on to say in an interview that the phrase was indeed directed at Mr. Hirst.