Stuckism
'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 poets we 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 at www.stuckism.com/
Whether painting or poetry, the rise of Stuckism raises
important questions as to progression and regression in art in the new
millennium. What do you think?
Best wishes, Rupert Mallin