Stuckism
March 27, 2006 10:50 AM   Subscribe

Soft Fury Monsters with Hard Pink Genitals and other oddities of Stuckism.
posted by dios (32 comments total)
 
Stuckism is an anti-conceptual art non-movement. There was a recent showing at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool called The Stuckists Punk Victorian. There is also Stuckism Photography.
posted by dios at 10:51 AM on March 27, 2006


My dream: that one day, long after I'm dead, someone makes a post on MetaFilter about my life, and they use the "hardpinkgenitals" tag.
posted by saladin at 10:54 AM on March 27, 2006


Wow, a rather cool link from dios. Not bad.
posted by JHarris at 10:59 AM on March 27, 2006


[This is good]

Thanks, dios.
posted by loquacious at 10:59 AM on March 27, 2006


very interesting, thanks
posted by nuclear_soup at 11:04 AM on March 27, 2006


Head Stuckist Billy Childish also makes music too, prolifically, some of it rather good bluesy garage punk. He's always going to be best known as Tracey Emin's ex, though - Stuckism can be read as little more than a bitter response to Emin's work/success.
posted by jack_mo at 11:11 AM on March 27, 2006


I wandered into a Stuckist art exhibition once. Unfortunately, I can't say that any of the art stuck with me.

<ducks/>
posted by grimmelm at 11:24 AM on March 27, 2006


What, the word "genitals" didn't tip you off?
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:45 AM on March 27, 2006


Fury?
posted by damnthesehumanhands at 11:51 AM on March 27, 2006


"My dream: that one day, long after I'm dead, someone makes a post on MetaFilter about my life, and they use the 'hardpinkgenitals' tag."

You'd be the first, since this is actually tagged with hardpinkgentials.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:57 AM on March 27, 2006


I prefer mine the natural color, assuming one is caucasian and has been sunbathing naked: hardtangentials.
posted by The Bellman at 12:00 PM on March 27, 2006


hardpinkgentiles?
posted by dios at 12:00 PM on March 27, 2006


"He's always going to be best known as Tracey Emin's ex, though - Stuckism can be read as little more than a bitter response to Emin's work/success."

No, he's always going to be best known for Thee Headcoats.

First off, no one seems to have told them that they can't escape post-modernism. Post-modernism is temporal, not tempermental. Second, a lot of these images have the feeling of modernist backwash (and some of them as post-modernist backwash). One of the reasons why Picasso's cubism was so revered was that it was new and thrilling, a change from previous ways of seeing (even though I tend to chafe at arguments of historicity). Eamon Everall's cubism is to modernism what Thomas Kincade is to impressionism.
Third, beware people with manifestos, especially nostalgiac ones. Manifestos tend to deflect attention from the work (would we have heard of these artists without their rejectionism?) and are best used as rallying cries by people who are already doing something worth drawing people together over. They represent a place and an idea, and like all criticism stand better when not centrally tied to the rejection of an idea. Fourth, what makes conceptual art boring is that so many of the concepts are weak. Rejecting conceptual art on that basis leads to the creation of dumb silent work with no concept behind it. Modernism WAS conceptual, and trying to rebel against post-modernism by removing the concept is like trying to rebel against the breast stroke by drowning. These "stuckists" are boring and they are stuck, and I can say this while also hoping that Koons ends up stabbed in a ditch. The answer is better concepts (such as the movement of "consciousness artists" which also seek to remove post-modernism), not a lack of them.

Something that is interesting is the call for a return to spiritualism, something that's been echoed in several "anti-postmodern" pseudo-movements. Instead of seeing the concept as the spirit of the art, the breath that animates image into something worth contemplating, and instead of seeing much of post-modernism's work as reasonably evocative of the zeitgeist, there's an attempt to reitroduce some sort of airy-fairy post-Christian spirituality as if that's a substitute for good ideas or execution. This leads to vapid and vague conceptions of the spiritual (and, frankly, for a movement that has spirituality as part of its manifesto, plush bunnies with plastic cunts is a fairly weak standard), and more back-patting than action.

This is not bad art, but it's not good art and it has the pretensions of both good art and art with praxis. Give me my comic books and Yoko Ono over this any day.
posted by klangklangston at 12:09 PM on March 27, 2006


I had hard pink genitals, but lately part of them has turned blue and achy.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:22 PM on March 27, 2006


Maybe they can team up with the Randian Romantic Realists as allies in the war on post-modernism.
(talk about your uneasy partnerships...)
posted by maryh at 12:30 PM on March 27, 2006


What must I do to start a non-movement?
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 1:17 PM on March 27, 2006


trying to rebel against post-modernism by removing the concept is like trying to rebel against the breast stroke by drowning.

*dies laughing* Okay, that was clever. Kudos.
posted by jokeefe at 1:24 PM on March 27, 2006


What must I do to start a non-movement?

Mu.
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:33 PM on March 27, 2006


He's always going to be best known as Tracey Emin's ex, though - Stuckism can be read as little more than a bitter response to Emin's work/success.

He's invited this very reading by quoting her at the opening of their manifesto, and naming his "movement" after her criticism. Methinks his name is appropriate.

(And I do get tired of such sort-of punk but still petulantly playing the game gestures like naming a single "We hate The Fuckin' NME".) And the manifesto is sophomoric, and that it's self-consciously so doesn't make it any better.
posted by jokeefe at 1:38 PM on March 27, 2006


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.

I'm all for "removing the mask of cleverness", but "uncensored expression" is often just poo-flinging. And if you have to go on a quest for authenticity, then you are by definition inauthentic.

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.

All painting? Or just Stuckist painting?

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.

A breath-takingly broad agenda instantly negated by actually looking at some of the work which purports to undertake it.

4. Artists who don’t paint aren’t artists.

Sculptors, photographers, poets, film-makers, and novelists will be distressed to hear this.

5. Art that has to be in a gallery to be art isn’t art.

On the whole, true, I think. The whole appropriation of a contemplative space seems more interesting to moderists than the work which occupies the space.

6. The Stuckist paints pictures because painting pictures is what matters.

What matters to Stuckists, that is. Tautology alert.

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.

Argument from earnestness. Emotional appeal, a red herring.

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.

AKA airing one's dirty laundry, a process that modernists have been champs at for decades.

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.

Great. I'm an amateur, too, so my critique is that much more valuable for it.

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.

But a polemic of materialism may be the point. Whether it's a good point or not is arguable (although I tend to agree with the Stuckists' disdain for this sort of simplistic premise). However, ready-made art is easy for amateurs to manipulate (see #9).

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!

No arguments here. Valiant effort. Go for it.

12. Against the jingoism of Brit Art and the ego-artist. Stuckism is an international non-movement.

Saying something doesn't make it so. Especially when your websites are loaded with lists and lists of people who ascribe to your anti-manifesto.

13. Stuckism is anti ‘ism’. Stuckism doesn’t become an ‘ism’ because Stuckism is not Stuckism, it is stuck!

Is not.

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.

Eh. I don't know enough about this topic to even form a coherent opinion.

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.

How very Buddhist. But all artists "strive for public recognition", unless they are hobbyists.

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.

Wresting the tools of irony from the wrong hands, eh?

17. If it is the conceptualist’s wish to always be clever, then it is the Stuckist’s duty to always be wrong.

Hmm. So if it is your duty to always be wrong, then the point of your manifesto is......what?

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.

Good lighting is optional, I guess. And I would opine that good art remains good, even when viewed in an "artifical and vacuous" space.

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.

I'm all for opening up art for the masses. But isn't this one of the few things that modernism was actually good at?

20. Stuckism embraces all that it denounces. We only denounce that which stops at the starting point — Stuckism starts at the stopping point!

Again, tautology.

Am I just hopelessly po-mo to be turned off by all this earnestness?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:39 PM on March 27, 2006


No, BitterOldPunk. You're not.
posted by jokeefe at 1:50 PM on March 27, 2006


Some of the manifestoes sound like the plot of a lost episode of Absolutely Fabulous.

But I do like some of the images. And some of the photography I found following links, too. The art world could use some levellers--good luck to them.
posted by gimonca at 8:02 PM on March 27, 2006


(Actually, that's the same link as in dios' second comment. But it was still fun to find...)
posted by gimonca at 8:06 PM on March 27, 2006


Compare and contrast with some of these folks mentioned earlier this month. How many degrees of separation are we talking about here?
posted by gimonca at 8:34 PM on March 27, 2006


No, he's always going to be best known for Thee Headcoats.

I've never heard of Thee Headcoats. However, I did know that he founded Stuckism in response to Tracy Emin's insults.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:49 AM on March 28, 2006


4. Artists who don’t paint aren’t artists.

Presumably those Stuckist photographers are just craftsmen then? What's more, some of those photographs look pretty damn conceptual to me.

So do the Stuckists recognize Jack Vettriano as their true founding father?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:09 AM on March 28, 2006


No, he's always going to be best known for Thee Headcoats.

I had my art head on when I said that, my music head agrees with you (though even music heads would immediately associate the pair, wouldn't they?).

Am I just hopelessly po-mo to be turned off by all this earnestness?

Nah, you're not being po-mo enough: I seriously doubt the earnestness of their earnestness. Stuckism is clearly a conceptual work itself, and of the worst kind - they're using concept as dressing to provide a post hoc justification of rubbish art, or as a means to pre-empt criticism of the rubbishness of that art (I wouldn't think this if Stuckists made good paintings). And Childish's childish spats with Emin can easily be read as a collaborative performance piece that satirises the current art scene more effectively than Stuckism ever will.
posted by jack_mo at 2:44 AM on March 28, 2006


I read all of the long comments in this thread, and found them very insightful.

I think I can summarize them, though: Stuck sucks.

Interesting post, though, for the commentary it's engendered.
posted by blacklite at 5:35 AM on March 28, 2006


"I've never heard of Thee Headcoats. However, I did know that he founded Stuckism in response to Tracy Emin's insults."

Get thee to a record store. Childish was part of the first big revival of 'garage rock' and has been a famous prick for pretty much my whole lifetime. While I vaguelly knew of Emin, that was much more of a footnote than, say, launching Holly Golightly's career.

As for the photography, there were more good images there, but there was still quite a bit of wankery that should be confined to the first two years of art school. Deformed people in glamour shots? Well, it's certainly less interesting than Diane Arbus's deformed people in snapshots.
posted by klangklangston at 5:58 AM on March 28, 2006


While I vaguelly knew of Emin, that was much more of a footnote than, say, launching Holly Golightly's career.

You're joking, right? I'm pretty sure the man on the Clapham omnibus would be rather more familiar with the best known, most controversial artist of her generation (maybe after Damien Hirst) and incredibly tabloid-friendly Tracey than a relatively obscure indie band. I mean, I can remember reading about Childish v. Emin in the Sun!

I second the get thee (tee hee - thee!) to a record store advice, though - this thread made me dig out some Thee Headcoats, Thee Headcoatees and The Blackhands records, and they were all really bloody good (much better than I remembered, in fact).
posted by jack_mo at 9:59 AM on March 28, 2006


Can't speak to Clapham, but here in the colonies even being the most controversial (British) artist of a generation is worth only slightly more than a Juno award. As for feuds, I guarantee that Childish got more American press over his latest spat with Jack White than he ever did over his girl troubles with Emin. And by the (obviously flawed but always convenient) googlehit metric, 'childish+golightly' outstrips 'childish+emin' by about six to one.
posted by klangklangston at 10:32 AM on March 28, 2006


Ah, sorry, was being dimly parochial and assuming that someone into Billy Childish would be British, which is especially daft when commenting on an American website using the international interweb. (The man on the Clapham omnibus.)
posted by jack_mo at 3:29 AM on March 29, 2006


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