Kylie Minogue? Bless her! Pete Doherty, or how about Paris Hilton? Boo, hiss! The mob likes its celebrities to fall into nice, neat categories of saint or sinner. So what could be more easy on the eye than a 21st-century reworking of Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights?

Painted in 1504, with three panels showing the Creation, Earth and finally a tortuous, flesh-rending Hell, it is perhaps one of the most terrifying paintings of all time. At this year’s Art Basel Miami Beach – an art supermarket patronised by millionaires – the Spanish painter Lluis Barba unveiled his version, which features artists, friends and stars alongside Bosch’s original legion of the blessed and the damned. (See it here). It is, apparently, a comment on the art world.

“They all have their place,” he told me, arguing that Kate Moss “is as important to art history as Andy Warhol”. Moss appears (in her hotpants) in the innocent, Paradise section of the painting. At his piano, Elton John fares less well – he is consigned to the earthly sin section of the painting, along with Madonna, Brad Pitt and Luciano Pavarotti. However, the most damning judgments are reserved for key players in the art world.

The White Cube Gallery dealer Jay Jopling (who sold Damien Hirst’s £50 million skull , For the Love of God), is shown in a sharp suit talking on his mobile as he strides cheerfully through Hell, no doubt closing another mega deal. Prints of Barba’s work sold in a flash – at a mere £25,000 they represented pretty good value in Miami, where an Andy Warhol went for £4 million. The writer Tom Wolfe was there, in his familiar cream suit, wondering at what is itself a modern mammon. “This is the end of capitalism as we know it,” he said. My favourite moment came at the airport, when I heard a small, confused child ask: “Daddy, why were there people on our plane?”

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