Stuckists Bending The Truth? Surely Not…
In an article in today’s Observer, Lynn Barber tells how she was misrepresented by the Stuckists annual Turner demo as reported here on Artistica *hangs head in shame*
Apparently, whilst nipping outside for a ciggie, Barber was “horrified to be greeted enthusiastically by a crowd of demonstrators on the steps” – she goes on to say they were the Stuckists carrying placards quoting Barber as saying ‘Is it all a fix?’
Her reply was pretty unambiguous, “No! The words were taken completely out of context” – so what exactly is going on here?
Are the Stuckists running out of ammo? Their annual protest got off to a bad start for them this year when Sir Nicholas Serota posed for a photograph with Charles Thomson’s obligatory Emin’s pants picture and asked Thomson “Can’t you make another image?”
Despite being critical of Serota in the past re the Chris Offili scandal, I’m beginning to warm to the man, not so Mr Thomson whose nasty, vicious little put-downs of the Turner finalists work showed the real depth of his mean spiritedness.
I was struggling to find an analogy for the Stuckists role in 21st centurt art when, for some unknown reason, I got the image in my head of those guys that used to patrol the major city centres with a sign saying “The End is Nigh” – wierd…
December 11th, 2006 at 10:24 pm
Lynn Barber was not misrepresented at all. She asked the question unambiguously about the Turner Prize in her article in The Observer http://arts.guardian.co.uk/turnerprize2006/story/0,,1884682,00.html We simply repeated it. The only sense in which it was taken out of context was that the original context was a newspaper column and it was transferred to the context of the Turner Prize at Tate Britain – surely no better context in which to pose such a deliberation. It seems she wasn’t expecting this to happen, but there is no valid reason why it should not. She said it. Maybe you should hang your head in shame for just believing one side of the story without further research.
Why you think the protest got off to a bad start with the photo of Serota holding an image of my painting about him is beyond me. We were highly delighted, especially as someone captured the whole thing on video and it then appeared in The Independent. I would say the best start for the last 6 years (the first clown demo still leads the way).
You accuse me of “nasty vicious little put-downs” but that’s just what you’ve done yourself about me. Your observations are derived from factual inaccuracies. I’m just expressing my opinion, which I trust I am allowed to do, even though it was censored in Artistica, albeit not in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1964185,00.html . Why don’t you let your readers judge for themselves the nature of my comments?
Charles Thomson, co-founder of Stuckism.
December 15th, 2006 at 6:08 pm
Damn, Damn Damn – apology time again…
I am very sorry the above comment did not get published at the time it was written. I found it today in “Comments Awaiting Moderation” in the blog control panel.
BTW Do you have a problem logging in? You appear to be naive john. The software was updated recently and the new interface is a wee bit more complex than the old one.
December 16th, 2006 at 1:45 am
Hello. Charles asked me to post the above response because he could not log on.
January 24th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Jan Theuninck thinks that the triumph of painting is dead by now !
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile/Jan+Theuninck/7433.html