you are stuck!
Stuck! Stuck! Stuck!
-Tracey Emin
The Stuckists are a group of anti-conceptual artists set up in 1999. And these people embarrass me.
Here is their original 1999 manifesto (bolds are original):
STUCKISM
Against conceptualism, hedonism and the cult of the ego-artist.
1. Stuckism is the quest for authenticity. By removing the mask of cleverness and admitting where we are, the Stuckist allows him/herself uncensored expression.
2. Painting is the medium of self-discovery. It engages the person fully with a process of action, emotion, thought and vision, revealing all of these with intimate and unforgiving breadth and detail.
3. Stuckism proposes a model of art which is holistic. It is a meeting of the conscious and unconscious, thought and emotion, spiritual and material, private and public. Modernism is a school of fragmentation — one aspect of art is isolated and exaggerated to detriment of the whole. This is a fundamental distortion of the human experience and perpetrates an egocentric lie.
4. Artists who don’t paint aren’t artists.
5. Art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn’t art.
6. The Stuckist paints pictures because painting pictures is what matters.
7. The Stuckist is not mesmerised by the glittering prizes, but is wholeheartedly engaged in the process of painting. Success to the Stuckist is to get out of bed in the morning and paint.
8. It is the Stuckist’s duty to explore his/her neurosis and innocence through the making of paintings and displaying them in public, thereby enriching society by giving shared form to individual experience and an individual form to shared experience.
9. The Stuckist is not a career artist but rather an amateur (amare, Latin, to love) who takes risks on the canvas rather than hiding behind ready-made objects (e.g. a dead sheep). The amateur, far from being second to the professional, is at the forefront of experimentation, unencumbered by the need to be seen as infallible. Leaps of human endeavour are made by the intrepid individual, because he/she does not have to protect their status. Unlike the professional, the Stuckist is not afraid to fail.
10. Painting is mysterious. It creates worlds within worlds, giving access to the unseen psychological realities that we inhabit. The results are radically different from the materials employed. An existing object (e.g. a dead sheep) blocks access to the inner world and can only remain part of the physical world it inhabits, be it moorland or gallery. Ready-made art is a polemic of materialism.
11. Post Modernism, in its adolescent attempt to ape the clever and witty in modern art, has shown itself to be lost in a cul-de-sac of idiocy. What was once a searching and provocative process (as Dadaism) has given way to trite cleverness for commercial exploitation. The Stuckist calls for an art that is alive with all aspects of human experience; dares to communicate its ideas in primeval pigment; and possibly experiences itself as not at all clever!
12. Against the jingoism of Brit Art and the ego-artist. Stuckism is an international non-movement.
13. Stuckism is anti ‘ism’. Stuckism doesn’t become an ‘ism’ because Stuckism is not Stuckism, it is stuck!
14. Brit Art, in being sponsored by Saachis, main stream conservatism and the Labour government, makes a mockery of its claim to be subversive or avant-garde.
15. The ego-artist’s constant striving for public recognition results in a constant fear of failure. The Stuckist risks failure wilfully and mindfully by daring to transmute his/her ideas through the realms of painting. Whereas the ego-artist’s fear of failure inevitably brings about an underlying self-loathing, the failures that the Stuckist encounters engage him/her in a deepening process which leads to the understanding of the futility of all striving. The Stuckist doesn’t strive — which is to avoid who and where you are — the Stuckist engages with the moment.
16. The Stuckist gives up the laborious task of playing games of novelty, shock and gimmick. The Stuckist neither looks backwards nor forwards but is engaged with the study of the human condition. The Stuckists champion process over cleverness, realism over abstraction, content over void, humour over wittiness and painting over smugness.
17. If it is the conceptualist’s wish to always be clever, then it is the Stuckist’s duty to always be wrong.
18. The Stuckist is opposed to the sterility of the white wall gallery system and calls for exhibitions to be held in homes and musty museums, with access to sofas, tables, chairs and cups of tea. The surroundings in which art is experienced (rather than viewed) should not be artificial and vacuous.
19. Crimes of education: instead of promoting the advancement of personal expression through appropriate art processes and thereby enriching society, the art school system has become a slick bureaucracy, whose primary motivation is financial. The Stuckists call for an open policy of admission to all art schools based on the individual’s work regardless of his/her academic record, or so-called lack of it.
We further call for the policy of entrapping rich and untalented students from at home and abroad to be halted forthwith.
We also demand that all college buildings be available for adult education and recreational use of the indigenous population of the respective catchment area. If a school or college is unable to offer benefits to the community it is guesting in, then it has no right to be tolerated.
20. Stuckism embraces all that it denounces. We only denounce that which stops at the starting point — Stuckism starts at the stopping point!
Billy Childish
Charles Thomson
4.8.99
The following have been proposed to the Bureau of Inquiry for possible inclusion as Honorary Stuckists:
Katsushika Hokusai
Utagawa Hiroshige
Vincent van Gogh
Edvard Munch
Karl Schmidt-Rotluff
Max Beckman
Kurt Schwitters
First published by The Hangman Bureau of Enquiry
11 Boundary Road, Chatham, Kent ME4 6TS
Where to begin? I think perhaps with two of their most ludicrous lines: #4 #5. Apparently, sculptors aren't artists, and installation art is a misnomer. I understand where they are coming from, however: an era of skyrocketing art prices, questionable talent and the passing off of what is lazy and boring as insightful. But at the same time, I find the Stuckists to be a remarkably conservative group, and one that seems to deny any existential nature to audienceship. By that I mean they have a rather narrow focus in what can be worthy of thought: the best conceptual artists allow you to look at things in a brand new way, appreciating the beauty of things that we often ignore. I'm thinking of Rachel Whiteread, who according to the Stuckists' manifesto, would be a corporate lackey who makes piles of plaster. The Stuckists, who appear to be a populist group, would probably like to ignore the fact that Whiteread's work is often well loved by the public and her humble nature.
But point #16 strikes me as hugely hypocritical. Simply look at some Stuckist works and you'll see that this point does not apply. Many of their works are shrill, reactionary and eye-rollingly sarcastic. And what of their displays at the Turner awards, dressing up like clowns? That isn't a gimmick?
Charles Thomson, Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision. 2000.
For an art movement that claims to bring back the soul to art, they are doing a very poor job. And for a group that is claiming to be anti-conceptual art, they are doing a very good job at being just that: conceptual art.
See Handy Hints:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.stuckism.com/handyhints.html
"5. Sculptors who don't sculpt aren't sculptors."
Yes, installation art is a misnomer. Well, actually a pile of crap.
Correct. Stuckists aren't existentialists.
"the best conceptual artists allow you to look at things in a brand new way, appreciating the beauty of things that we often ignore." I think you've missed the point of conceptual art. It's not meant to be about the beauty of the object, which is merely there as a manifestation of the supposedly profound ideas which are asserted as the real aspect of the piece. As Hans Richter wrote to Marchel Duchamp:"You threw the bottle-rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty."
You might think Whiteread's piles of plaster and resin plinth inverted on a plinth in Trafalgar Square are popular with the public. My experience tells me otherwise.
"But point #16 strikes me as hugely hypocritical ... Many of their works are shrill, reactionary and eye-rollingly sarcastic. And what of their displays at the Turner awards, dressing up like clowns? That isn't a gimmick?"
I don't see any contradiction between "shrill, reactionary and eye-rollingly sarcastic" (your interpretation) and #16. As for the Turner demos, that is not art. We've never said it was.
You seem to have missed point #20:
"20. Stuckism embraces all that it denounces. We only denounce that which stops at the starting point — Stuckism starts at the stopping point!"
A COMMENT!!! EEEEE!!
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, it's Charles Thomson.
Good evening, fine sir! I see you have come across my off-the-cuff meandering about Stuckism, which now that I have re-read, admit that it comes off as a bit... harsh.
I don't entirely disagree with Stuckism, but I certainly have my problems with it, which boils down to one sentiment: I find that your definition of what is and what is not art to be narrow. Ah, the eternal debate of the modernist period, one that everyone gets into a shouting match at one point in their lives. I think John Carey and his book "What Good Are the Arts?" is a valiant attempt to get to the bottom of this. And his conclusion? Whatever someone says it is.
In a world devoid of authority to declare what is and what isn't art, we have no concrete answer. Only God can provide us with this answer, and he doesn't exist.
I adore some pieces that fall under the umbrella of conceptual art, and I think this is another reason why I am so reactionary to Stuckism. When I speak of "beauty", I am not referring to aesthetic beauty. I am referring to the experience of being alive and conscious; how amazing it is that I can look at three chairs and be looking at three different forms. How amazing that a bunch of shapes called letters can bring into my head the experience of a chair, how it feels, gravity pulling down on me, my grandmother's dinner table. How wonderful and absurd it is that I am alive and able to conceptualize a chair. And this is what conceptual art does: communicates an abstract idea through an visual cue.
And the idea doesn't have to be 'pretty'. Does Duchamp's fountain bring to my mind my grandmother's bathroom? No, it brings to my mind the absurdity of the museum system and the human fetishization of objects. I find the idea of considering the Fountain aesthetically beautiful to be missing the point -- but this gets me back to what I was saying before. Who am I to say that this person is wrong? Did the piece communicate something to them? Then it is art. And that is my personal definition of good art: something that communicates complex abstract idea(s).
The question is not "What is art?", but "What is GOOD art?" And that is entirely based on taste.
So for Stuckism to proclaim that a dead shark is not art is, well, not quite right. You can say it's bad art. You can sing that out loud -- but you can't say it's NOT art. Vito Acconci following someone is art, although maybe a bit thin. Beuys explaining pictures to a dead hare on the other hand is chock-full of ideas waiting to be picked out. It has made me feel something: isn't that the point of art?
ReplyDeleteFor my comment on Whiteread, I base this on the reactions of my peers. When we were shown her Victorian house of plaster, there was an audible gasp of delight from my class of 50-60 people. Afterwards, people were discussing it and gushing over it. I show my boyfriend, who isn't exactly the artistic type (and who rolled his eyes at some of the other pieces I showed), and he liked it, too. I show it to friends at a party, and guess what? Unanimous approval from the cultural neophytes. The same reaction was garnered from her One Hundred Empty Spaces -- sombre gumdrop gemstones that cause pause.
As for point #16, you don't find some of your peers works to be smug attempts at wit? Well, then. We disagree.
And for point #20, perhaps I am misreading it... but to me it reads as "But we're not serious! Everything is art!", which seems to me to be a contradiction of points before. Please correct me on this if I am mistaken... but it comes off as a bit of (I'm sorry!) a cop-out. What is the intended interpretation? (Let's leave Derrida out of this for the sake of our sanity!)
And you know what? There's something else that causes me to have a harsh reaction to Stuckism: I'm a film student. Are you saying that film is not art? That makes me cry on the inside. And what about photographs? Sculpture?!
Respectfully,
Andrew
@Andrew: A dead shark is not a bad art but it's not art at all, because Art is against killing animals or any other living being.
ReplyDeleteA Stuckist,
Hamed Dehnavi
A few responses.
ReplyDelete"I find that your definition of what is and what is not art to be narrow."
So is my definition of food. I exclude bricks, dog droppings, deadly nightshade and plastic buckets, amongst numerous other items.
"I think John Carey and his book "What Good Are the Arts?" is a valiant attempt to get to the bottom of this. And his conclusion? Whatever someone says it is."
OK, that's what I'm doing, saying what it is.
"In a world devoid of authority to declare what is and what isn't art, we have no concrete answer. Only God can provide us with this answer, and he doesn't exist."
You can say exactly the same thing about ethics and morality, i.e. who should say you shouldn't lie, cheat, steal, rape, murder? Maybe he does exist, after all.
"And this is what conceptual art does: communicates an abstract idea through an visual cue."
It fails to communicate an abstract idea, and it it wanted to, there are far more effective ways to do so, as for example telling us what this abstract idea is, whatever an "abstract idea" is to start with, as opposed to an "idea".
"Who am I to say that this person is wrong? Did the piece communicate something to them? Then it is art."
Tabloid newspapers communicate something to a lot of people, but they're not art. Well, I suppose you might think they are.
"And that is my personal definition of good art: something that communicates complex abstract idea(s)."
A treatise on philosophy is presumably the highest form of art, in that case.
"The question is not "What is art?", but "What is GOOD art?" And that is entirely based on taste."
What is good art is one question (as in what is good food?). Another question is what is art ( as in what is food?). Taste. OK, so a Rembrandt painting has no intrinsic worth superior to a matchstick figure doodle, according to you, apart from personal taste.
"So for Stuckism to proclaim that a dead shark is not art is, well, not quite right. You can say it's bad art. You can sing that out loud -- but you can't say it's NOT art."
Not only can you say, "It's NOT art", but I do say it. Is every dead animal art? I passed a dozen on a car journey the other day. If I, as an artist, say they are art, presumably you would not disagree.
"It has made me feel something: isn't that the point of art?"
It is a constituent of art, but not the definition of art. Lots of things make us feel something.
"And for point #20, perhaps I am misreading it... but to me it reads as "But we're not serious! Everything is art!", which seems to me to be a contradiction of points before. Please correct me on this if I am mistaken... but it comes off as a bit of (I'm sorry!) a cop-out. What is the intended interpretation?"
We are serious (just expressed in a humorous way). That is exactly the point of point 20, namely that if something is to be examined or practised, it has to be done so thoroughly, not just superficially. Then things are discovered, which otherwise would not be apparent.
"Are you saying that film is not art? That makes me cry on the inside. And what about photographs? Sculpture?!"
Film it not art; it is film, just as poetry is not art: it is poetry. These things come under the general term of the arts, but have their own unique characteristics. They are not inferior to art; they are just different. Photographs are photography. Art is a useful term to distinguish the hand-made forms of expression - painting, drawing, sculpture - from those employing other means or technologies. That's all.
Hello all -
ReplyDeleteI have stumbled upon your conversation in doing some research on postmodernism and art. I come from a philosophy background (what I consider to be the origins of not only postmodernism, but modernism) and am finding the Stuckism/anti-art debate to be fascinating.
I am inclined to agree mostly with Andrew's reaction to the Stuckist manifesto. It seems to me that most of the grounds for Stuckism's disassociation with conceptual art are based on the conflation of postmodernist thought and theory with capitalism's exploitation thereof.
Again, from an (over-simplified) philosophical perspective, postmodernism ultimately propounds relativity and the dismissal of the binaries of right/wrong, real/unreal, true/false which have plagued our narratives of reality since we have thought about them.
Capitalism has been able to 'capitalize' on our society's reaction to the notion of the dismissal of ultimate and universal truth, etc., but that does not in turn dismiss the worth of the notion. To react against conceptual art on the grounds that it is trying to hard to be 'clever' or 'ironic' is to ultimately react against popular interpretation of the art, made largely by gallery owners and their patrons, not the art itself.
The Stuckist manifesto should not on these grounds be able to take it upon itself to determine that the only creative outlet worthy of the title 'art' is that of painting, drawing and sculpture. Indeed, this determination in and of itself becomes an elitism attempting to counter elitism. While I agree that Rembrandt may have more to offer the human experience than a matchstick figurine, one is not thereby in a position to deny all other creations other than those in Rembrandt's style (namely, painting) the title of art. This is largely because my very view of the worth of Rembrandt is relative to my experience and western values which completely discounts the values of say, a tribe outside of western influence, which may be inclined to value stick figurines to a much greater degree.
At the base of the issue for me is the cordoning off of the human imagination by Stuckism. There is a distinct refusal to acknowledge the fact that art is as much a result of its experience as it is a result in and of itself. The capability of situations constructed by the creativity and imagination of people to evoke reactions, introspection and questions is what constitutes art. A dead shark may not be art by itself, but placed deliberately outside of its natural and expected environment (just forget about art galleries for the time being - they are fueled by money which is always detrimental to creativity, conceptual or otherwise) undoubtedly invites the audience to question circumstances they may not have otherwise. These reactions speak directly to the Stuckist imperatives of art speaking to the "conscious and unconscious, thought and emotion, spiritual and material, private and public." To echo Andrew, once the situation of the dead shark has been manipulated in any sort of creative or imaginative way, a choice has been made by the creator. This choice can be analyzed in the same way one may analyze the evocative qualities of a brush stroke. Indeed, Duchamp's resignation from the Society of Independent Artists after they announced his 'Fountain' was not art should be some indicator as to the artistic qualities intended in conceptual art by its originator.
ReplyDeleteFurther, it seems to me that the topic of the art canon is glaringly absent in this conversation. Who is to say painting should be held on the pedestal you would like it to be? Moreover, from an albeit more abstract perspective, what is painting but the manipulation of things already found in our daily life for the purpose of internalization? Paint was not necessarily created solely to create 'art.' Just because painting utilizes a certain techniques that conceptual art does not does not mean the techniques used by conceptual art are any less 'artful.' There is no reason painting, drawing and sculpture should hold an exclusive title because they have held it for longer over the course of art's historical narrative. Stuckism establishes a feudalism in the art world which can only lead to the stifling of human creativity and imagination.
"postmodernism ultimately propounds relativity"
ReplyDeleteExactly its problem. It negates values.
"To react against conceptual art on the grounds that it is trying to hard to be 'clever' or 'ironic' is to ultimately react against popular interpretation of the art, made largely by gallery owners and their patrons, not the art itself."
Intepretations by the artists. That is the art.
"the only creative outlet worthy of the title 'art' is that of painting, drawing and sculpture."
It doesn't say that anywhere. What it advocates is values of content, meaning and communication.
"the worth of Rembrandt is relative to my experience and western values"
We live in a western culture. We address that culture. We are not speaking for "a tribe outside of western influence".
"a distinct refusal to acknowledge the fact that art is as much a result of its experience"
On the contrary. A key point is that art has to derive from experience, and should not be merely formal and self-referential.
"to evoke reactions, introspection and questions is what constitutes art"
It evokes a state of mind, a reality. Depends what you mean by reactions and questions. The latter is the most dubious. It doesn't have to question anything. It can assert something.
"invites the audience to question circumstances"
This is not a essential part of art. Assertion and exposition is more important and fundamental. Questioning is a sine qua non is a fallacy of contemporary critical thinking.
"Who is to say painting should be held on the pedestal you would like it to be?"
As I've said, the key point is the values. Painting is a sound way to embody those values. Conceptual art has not been able to match that.
"what is painting but the manipulation of things already found in our daily life for the purpose of internalization?"
Reductionism. The whole point of painting is that it is subservient as a medium to its content. Found objects assert themselves for their own inherent quality to the detriment of communication beyond that. And we already have that inherent quality, without the need for artistic intervention. What, e.g. Hirst does with a shark gives us little more than what a dead shark would give us without Hirst. This is not the same as e.g. Rembrandt and coloured pigment.
"hold an exclusive title because they have held it for longer over the course of art's historical narrative"
That's not the reason. The reason is that they are still viable.
"Stuckism establishes a feudalism in the art world which can only lead to the stifling of human creativity and imagination."
Rhetorical, but unsubstantiated. Feudalism? Very strange. It "can only lead to". Really? I see conceptual art as having those features. It is, despite its title, an art of materialism, and also one of the suppression of aesthetics, sense, communication, and emotion.
Erratum:
ReplyDeleteQuestioning as a sine qua non is a fallacy of contemporary critical thinking.