Stuckism: progressive or reactionary?
Here is another rerun from the Socialist Unity Network archives, this time an article by Rupert Mallin from September 2004.
‘Billy, you’re work is Stuck! Stuck! Stuck.’ With these words of Tracey Emin to her former lover Billy Childish (poet and painter) Stuckism was launched in 1999 by a once mutual friend to each, Charles Thomson. Back in the 1980s all three had been friends out of Maidstone School of Art and variously connected to the Medway Poets. Until the late 1990s Thomson was a very amusing poet, who avoided ‘rant’ and ‘rap,’ conveying skip-along, punked up rhyming couplets - a Sir John Betjeman on speed - hilariously accompanied by props, sounds, music.
Emin, one of the newer Brit Pop artists, gained notoriety for her 1999 Turner Prize nomination - her own unmade bed. That Childish’s ex-lover and previous collaborator had gained more notoriety than he was bad enough, but for the two poets, she had crossed over into ‘old and retrogressive’ conceptual art, turning her back on the ‘real’ thing.
Thus Thomson, with Childish’s support, launched Stuckism: “to restore values of authenticity, content, meaning and communication in art.” Press statements, a manifesto and cobbled together amateur exhibitions of Stuckists’ paintings quickly ensued. What began as a reaction to Emin’s insult, quickly became fixed in the notion that a painting should be a painting, a film should be a film, a poem should be a poem, etc. That is, different art forms could co-exist but must not ‘cross-over;’ they must acknowledge the traditions of their forms, be pure to the their medium and unsullied by conceptualism.
Thomson is recently quoted as saying that Stuckist painters “use all different styles, but what we insist on is that the artist is honest about their experiences, themselves, their emotions - and that they paint a picture that is clear to understand. There is so much hype and pretentiousness that real values have been lost from what makes art worthwhile to bother with in the first place.”
Head of Tate Modern, Sir Nicholas Serota, is the Stuckists’ principle target. Yet, the numbers flocking into Tate Modern, where conceptual art is centre stage, calls into question - what are ‘real values’ in art? In society? If the multitude are being denied those ‘real values,’ why not undermine the Establishment through promoting amateurism? Indeed, Childish has claimed that he is an ‘amateur’ and has since left the Stuckists. From the joy of the ‘amateur’ the Stuckists have now made a break through into the Establishment and will take part in the Liverpool Biennial, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, where 280 Stuckist paintings by 37 artists “from across the world” will be exhibited later this year.
As a poet I can understand both the pursuit of the ‘amateur’ and the desire to ‘make it,’ or at least survive through ones practice. However, if Stuckism is about ‘honesty,’ ‘real values’, against ‘hype and pretentiousness,’ what of Stuckist art itself? Many of the paintings are comic strip, copyart, pastiche, busy work - without asides and depth - jokes in place of irony…
Thomson is an excellent self publicist. Back in 1999 he invited me to join a regional group of Stuckists. I was to phone a leading sponsor of the project “but don’t talk politics to him.” The contact in question was the Tory party agent in Ipswich! I didn’t phone. Then I heard Thomson had verbal backing, if not sponsorship, from ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Norman Lamont, met drumming up support in clubs across London. Thomson even stood in the 2001 General Election against the then Culture Minister Chris Smith. Despite a full page article in the Guardian, Thomson received just 125 votes (but for every 25 votes he received a bottle of champagne…)
Emin’s work can be criticised for its trivial yet self-obsessed qualities, but her work is entirely explorative and unashamedly full of contradictions. Some of the Stuckists’ utterances against Postmodernism and the Establishment I can stomach but I feel they fail in their own terms: the language of painting and the artist’s concern to push the exploration further, rather than reworking the past in the present. The Stuckists work and writings are on the web here.
Whether painting or poetry, the rise of Stuckism raises important questions as to progression or regression in art in the new millennium. What do you think?
In the neoliberal era, “progressive/reactionary” is at best, a value judgement, and at worst, a false dichotomy. “The times they are a changin’ back” and all that.
The Stuckists *are* postmodern, creating simulcra of a non-existant ‘authenticity’. You could argue that the Stuckists’ anti-conceptualism is, in itself, a form of conceptualism. The paintings themselves are crap, it’s the fact they exist that’s important.
Comment by McGazz — 5 October, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
The core of the Stuckists started collaborating c. 1979 and were then called The Medway Poets. We’ve been painting pictures, writing poems and books and making music ever since, just doing the work that we want to. Since 1999 we’ve used a different name, Stuckists, but there’s a continuum. The challenge to Serota, Emin et al is an interesting sideline, which gains media exposure. It is not true, for the record, that the Tory agent was a “leading sponsor” (though I wouldn’t have a problem if he were): he was just helping to liaise with a gallery. For the sake of Sir Norman’s good name, I have to state that I am not aware of him backing the Stuckists, but he is welcome to. Stuckism does not have a party political affiliation - not even to the Stuckist Party (now defunct) for that matter - it was an independent project. I promote Stuckist artists’ work, because it’s work I like.
Comment by Charles Thomson — 5 October, 2007 @ 4:29 pm
I don’t understand one bit much of what goes under the title of “modern art”. I think it’s some kind of hoax. Twenty bricks (or whatever number it was) in a row, a white piece of paper on a lerger white piece of paper, an unmade bed, etc, etc. This is complete nonsense.
If Warhol, Emin and all the rest of them aren’t playing some kind of joke, I’d like to know what it is they’re actually doing. I mean, does anyone get moved by an unmade bed? Outside postmodern philosophy (I have no idea what the sentences mean, and I think anyone who says they do is a liar), I’ve seldom come across such gibberish.
Comment by Tawfiq Chahboune — 5 October, 2007 @ 4:40 pm
Capitalism kills your creativity because it needs unthinking drones. But I’ve noticed that there’s a strand of the Left which starfucks established artists (of correct political thinking, natch!) while sucking the life out of those working at it - fucking the artist and fucking up the artisan, if you like.
“You’re petty bourgeoise,” was a charge I often heard from the “comrades” while being presented as their trolley-dolly looking after their guest artists. So much for us all becoming “an Aristotle, a Goethe, a Marx.”
Comment by Madam Miaow — 6 October, 2007 @ 5:28 pm
I think that is correct Madam Miaow, or can I call you Anna?
There is certainly a strand, and I am thinking of particular individuals in the SWP, who are very chuffed with themselves at having been on newsnight, sharing a pltform with Chomsky, etc, and massively overestimate their own individual importance, and at the same time LOVE being associated with famous people - it is like Blair’s Cool-Britannia in sad microcosm. While at the same time they treat people who aren’t “famous” like rubbish.
And this bollocks about people being “petit-bourgeoise”, I mean wake up! Society has changed and the proportion of people who are in traditional working class occupations is much less than it was, and there is much more social mobility.
Comment by Andy — 6 October, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
Maybe I’ve misunderstood, but does the SWP believe in some sort of blank slate garbage such that with the right environmental factors any of us can grow up to be a Goethe, Marx, Shakespeare, Einstein, etc?
Actually, I still hear something familiar to that every now and then. Why has this absurdity not died the death it truly deserves? How much evidence does one require before finally realising that the evidence for it is no stronger than that of a flat earth?
Comment by Tawfiq Chahboune — 8 October, 2007 @ 10:06 pm
does the SWP believe in some sort of blank slate garbage
Not that I’m aware. I think the reference is to Trotsky’s vision of how life would be different after the revolution:
“Man will become immeasurably stronger, wiser, and subtler; his body will become more harmonious, his movements more rhythmic, his voice more musical. The forms of life will become dynamically dramatic. The average human type will rise to the heights of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. And above these heights, new peaks will rise.”
I’ll vote for that.
Comment by Phil — 9 October, 2007 @ 12:20 am